deimos3428 wrote:Ok, I'm going to assume you're making those numbers up.  (The numbers I'm using are definitely made up.)

If the same company invested the same amount of money in aggressively promoting and supporting version A, they could easily have 2-3 times as many new customers as they would with version B.  Version B is an unknown commodity.  It's generally also far cheaper to reprint the existing version than to start an entirely new publishing process.  Add perhaps another 20k or so existing customers who might need to replace their books, as well.  Not to mention any new Version A supplements, which your now much larger fanbase will also likely buy.  

The current WotC strategy is a "grab and dump" approach.  (Grab the money, dump the customers.)  That's very short-term thinking.  If I were a holder of WotC's stock, I'd be outraged.  Granted, they're being propped up by their parent corporation, so the affect on Hasbro shareholders is negligible.

Games like Monopoly have managed to survive for decades based on one age old concept: marketing.  Except for a few brief periods (early 80s, early 90s, 3rd edition) the D&D brand has ben woefully undermarketed, or not marketed correctly.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that through most of it's history, and probably even after purchased by Hasbro, the D&D brand has been marketed "in house" and has never benefited from a slick, intelligent campaign that would both keep the older gamers and bring in the new guys.  I have to feel there really have been a lot of lost opportunities throughout the history of D&D.

Mike B.

Xaxaxe wrote:If I'm understanding it correctly, there seems to be some sort of argument that WotC and/or other gaming companies must constantly "evolve or die." But, even if I were to completely buy into that theory, wouldn't it mean that WotC would be releasing an entirely new RPG system now instead of just adding another refinement to an overly-refined system?

I do believe every company must evolve or die.  Evolving to meet customer need.   Lets face it the market is constantly changing and we are old farts stuck in our ways.   

The question is whether the 4ed actually meets customer need.  I am not sure that it does but then only time will tell.

The online gaming table, hmmm.. i'm in two minds about it. IN one respect it's a cool visual but in another, it shoves the table top game more and more into the world of online computer game. Which I suppose I disapprove of in a way. If I want to play a video game i'll play a video game, but if I want to use my imagination, i'll rp. I suppose it's a personal preference, I like to keep computers out of table top, i'm old fashioned like that.

I agree, 99%. However, I'm in an "online" campaign right now that Badmike is running and having a blast. There is still role-playing, and it doesn't feel at all like a computer game. Thanks to Smarmy1, we're also set up on Skype so that the three of us can actually "talk through" encounters instead of typing into a chat window.

The virtual table would allow us to use miniatures and provide a visual to our role-playing game, a virtual table top shared by three individuals who live in Ohio, Texas and Alabama. How cool is that? The ability to use a PC as a "gaming table" around which traditional RPGs can be played. My only hope (and prayer) is that WoTC doesn't tie the virtual table into exclusively 4E rules.

(fingers crossed)

improvstone wrote:Is gleemax actually a word?  

It's a Magic: The Gathering in-joke; that their marketing(:?:) department is really run by a brain-in-a-jar called Gleemax.

deimos3428 wrote:Ok, I'm going to assume you're making those numbers up.  (The numbers I'm using are definitely made up.)

Mordrin's numbers are hypothetical...but his basic premise is not.

1)  Dungeons and Dragons is a distinctly different sort of game than Monopoly.  The marketing goal with Monopoly is to sell one copy to each household.

2)  Monopoly is a game with general appeal...and one that will be played once every few years in a household that likes the game.  It is a one-shot sale for which new editions are not necessary.  The only new editions of Monopoly are novelty versions of the game.  Consider the meaning of the word "novelty."

3)  Monopoly alone will not support a boardgame company.  Game companies who sell one boardgame immediately set out to sell additional boardgames in order to stay in business.  

4)  Dungeons and Dragons occupies the pinnacle of a sub-culture market that must be continually renewed.  A huge percentage of D&D gamers stop playing the game every year.  These losses must be replaced.

5)  It is extremely difficult to draw a new customer into a game that consists of dozens of hardback books.  The re-incarnation of Dungeons and Dragons becomes necessary every 8-10 years or so if only for that reason.

6)  The quality of supporting game products is irrelevant to their sales value.  Customers buy game products either on impulse, based upon the cover, or because they are collecting everything.  (And, to be honest, low quality is not limited to 3.0/3.5.  Lots of D&D stuff has sucked over the years...yet still sold.)  Gamers who are finished with a game do not care about quality...even if the quality impovement is extreme.  

7)  Game companies do not exist as charitable organizations.  Their purpose is to make money.  The disagreements between the Gygax Gamers and the New Money people in TSR were not disagreements over whether to make money so much as how to make money.  The New Money people were business people...which is why they won.  Had the Gygax Gamers won, there would still have been a slump in game sales in the early 80's...one that would probably have been fatal to TSR.

 The proven model for revitalizing D&D and making loads of cash is to re-invent the game in a new edition.  Even with that model, the market bulges slightly, but also shrinks at every new edition.  

9)  Supporting an existing game with module and supplement sales is a model that specifically does not work after a certain point.

10)  Because the market is shrinking, WOTC must come up with a way to expand that market.  Gleemax and online tabletops are a means to that end.  There is also an excellent possibility that it will draw in the 30-something gamers who played 2nd Edition...lured by the chance to renew their old gaming groups.

11)  The release of an entirely different game is unlikely to have any real financial value for WOTC.  In fact, would likely be a money loser.  Oldtime gamers, who love some of the old niche market games, might not like to hear it, but there is D&D and then there are parasitic RPG's that briefly latch on to small portions of the market.  D&D created the market.  D&D is the market.  

12)  There are a few exceptions to the total dominance of D&D.  A few games have managed to grasp and hold niche markets within the RPG sub-culture.  These games issue new editions every few years.

13)  Customers in every market always express outrage at a price increase or having to purchase upgraded products.  Then they pay anyway.  This is particularly true in the world of computer games, where expanded and updated games replace the old game at regular intervals.  The only exception to this rule is a market where consumers have options which the seller cannot match...like what is happening in the music industry.

14)  Ergo...If anyone is still reading...WOTC has put out 4.0.  If 4.0 sustains the company they are sure to put out 5.0.  

15)  One can only hope  there will not be a cruel backstab that creates 4.5.  In fact, I think everyone should write letters to WOTC letting them know that they do not intend to purchase 4.0...choosing instead to wait for 4.5.  Maybe they'll get that message.

Mark  

FormCritic wrote:There is also an excellent possibility that it will draw in the 30-something gamers who played 2nd Edition

OD&D/AD&D appeared simultaneously with the animated Tolkien films & fantasy-themed heavy metal music. Likewise, 3e was accompanied by the Jackson Lord of the Rings series & a revival of metal.

What is it that will have similar nostalgic associations for 2e fans? High fantasy like 1987's Willow was a major disappointment. Probably goth will be the thing, along with heavy doses of Masqueradean Vampirism. Warhammer illustration had a sort of gothish feel in this era with volumes like Rouge Trader & the Chaos hardbacks.

I'm not even sure what goth culture was like in this period. Just as I had an older generation's disdain for the little-brother 2e crowd, I didn't pay much heed to the late 80s/early 90s swarms of black-clad youngsters.

The short film Fear of Girls depicts the characters as Vampire players in their high-school days [despite showing them playing with 1970s stuff], & Knights of the Dinner Table often shows Bob & Dave as Vampire players in the Retro-KODT storyline.

That is, both of these nostalgia-heavy works show Vampire/Ravenloft gothyness as something the characters played in the past, intended to trigger associations of that past in the audience. Marketing departments will want to press the same buttons.

Badmike wrote:
Uh, Mark, you just contradicted yourself...you just spent a very well thought out post telling us that the Gaming Company goal is money at all costs...then in the last point fervently hope WOTC doesn't try to make money in three years by offering an update?  How many editions of 3.5 did WOTC sell?  Better yet, did YOU buy it Mark?

You can bet money on 4.5 in a few years....

Mike B.

I can dream that they won't put out 4.5, can't I?  

My point was that new editions of D&D are inevitable...wise business practice for a gaming company...potentially vital for the whole market.

I thought that the 3.0 to 3.5 switcheroo was unwise...bad business practice...damaging to the industry...a mistake that I hope they won't repeat.  It was too early and it was a betrayal of everyone in the market.

Actually, I didn't buy 3.0 or 3.5....my gamers gave me the books.  

Mark

The estimate about the loss of active gamers switching between editions was made by Gary Gygax in an online interview.

Gygax said in the interview that he told TSR they would lose 50% of their gamers by going to 2nd Edition...and that he turned out to be right.

Gygax himself, however, stated most the points I have been making in a Dragon magazine editorial...specifically in defense of the move to 2nd Edition AD&D.

Gygax pointed out in Dragon that the growth to 15 or so game books in AD&D was preventing new gamers from jumping in...and that a new edition was required in order to recruit them.

Cattledog...you would not represent the bulk of game purchasers in your search for quality.  Also, remember that most of the crap modules put out for AD&D were shrinkwrapped, so you couldn't thumb through them.  Also, remember that an increase in quality will not attract former gamers because they no longer engage in the game in any quality at all.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p ... ost2992120

Scroll up to post #407 on this EN World link from a year ago.  I believe the poster Mystaros is Steve Marsh.  Anyway...read his comments about the game market.

It was James Mishler and he sounds extremely cynical about this thing we're calling 4e D&D. Actually he illustrates my points pretty well. The difference between 1 & 2 are miniscule and seemed to be a natural evolution while 3/3.5 is another species althogether. I won't argue about the economics because that certainly isn't my field. It seems the poster has nothing but disdain for the WOTC but regardless it still comes down to intent an quality. I think it was Sean Reynolds who wrote the "Crunchy" essay who probably said it best. It won't be the lack of new material it will be the poor quality of new material that will ultimately.

If they are targeting only the ADD generation then they probably won't make it to a 5.0 because it will be dead before then.

Also, remember that an increase in quality will not attract former gamers because they no longer engage in the game in any quality at all.

Now they won't, that's true. But if they considered that the market is larger than just the new players and attempt to cultivate the older players by producing quality in older formats as I've mentioned before they game will live, I believe. Regardless, It won't make any difference to my group since we won't touch a WOTC produced item now, but it just seems to be a same that this too must pass away due to greed.