The problem is that Wizards of the Coast’s support of D&D is the worst that it’s ever been, except during the days when D&D 4e (2008-2012) was dead on the vine… All told, D&D saw a scant five releases in 2015…
This definition of “support” was one of the issues I had with the otherwise awesome Designers & Dragons. Does anyone really care that WotC hasn’t released slabs of splats for 5e? Do 5e players feel “unsupported”?
I dunno. I’m not really focused on 5e, but the lack of splats and focus on adventures feels refreshing.
(I owned almost everything WotC produced for 3e. What little I used generally didn’t work that well, and I ended up selling almost all of it.)
http://www.rpg.net/columns/advanced-designers-and-dragons/advanced-designers-and-dragons8.phtml
“support” is what killed most rpg companies (including TSR, as chronicled in the very Designers and Dragons you mention).
Count me down for being against the supplement treadmill.
Applecline does mention WotC using outside design teams, and mentions the forum shutdown, which are both things I am more curious about.
Frankly I find it a relief that the three core books represent the lions share of the rules content around the game.
Based on the pull-quote I really expected it to be preceded by some sort of case that there was a problem in need of explanation, not “Based on social measurements, D&D seems to be doing well”.
Fewer splats and more focused support is a good thing, IMO. Just flooding the sales channel isn’t “support,” it’s bloat.
WOTC’s bad decisions around D&D usually revolve around community (open/closed sourcing, shutting down Dragon/Dungeon w/o warning, shutting down forums, “Oh gee we have no clue why people aren’t happy with Gamergate types” etc.) and missed opportunities (“Is it too hard to get a 2D flash/HTML5 tabletop app?”).
I dunno, I feel like WOTC would be better served by a) hiring a few community managers, b) setting up some webpages/forums where you coordinate/collect fan works (“Here’s the Planescape Community. We’re converting monsters, spells, etc. to 4E and putting up your fan made adventures!”) than simply shoveling out more product.
I will say, in this age of social media, I can understand wanting to get out of the forum-hosting business. I just have no idea how well they are managing their social media presence (since I don’t really pay attention to them).