# Is it WotC’s responsibility to bring people to the hobby?



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

*Is it WotC’s responsibility to bring people to the hobby?*

My friend Richard Whipple is not one for keeping his opinions to himself. He is a bit of a thinker and very passionate about role playing games, so hearing or reading his musings is always very enjoyable.

Today, though, I had to disagree with him, which is very unusual.

Richard’s opinion (more or less): the hobby is shrinking and it is because of the attitude of WotC towards the game industry and the edition wars that ensue every time there is a new D&D edition release. Dungeons & Dragons is still the flagship and gateway game by default and people recognize the brand, whereas other games are not recognised, thus if you try to use another game to introduce people to the hobby, people won’t be interested since there won’t be any familiarity. WotC doesn’t do enough to bring people into the hobby – instead, it’s just trying to bring players back and not expanding the demographics of the hobby.

The conversation is now in my podcast and you can listen to it by clicking here:
http://www.gmsmagazine.com/articles/is-it-wotcs-responsibility-to-bring-people-to-the-hobby

I have to say I can see where he’s coming from, but I can’t agree with him.

First of all I don’t believe the hobby is shrinking. It certainly is not growing at the rate I’d like it to, but it hardly getting smaller. The number of companies being created at the moment is unprecedented, not in a small measure thanks to Kickstarter and other crowd-funding websites. Judging by the number of projects being successfully funded (and I don’t have a precise number), there is still plenty of interest in the hobby.

However this is not to say that enough new people are coming into the hobby. Unless the responsible for the project are doing a lot of marketing, or the project is featured by Kickstarter itself, the game will be publicised around gamers’ environments and not outside the usual websites. Therefore the word doesn’t spread as quickly as it would be desirable. I know this is not always the case, but it is safe to say it's pretty common.

The image of D&D being the flagship amongst non-gamers is also one that’s diluting rapidly. Although D&D still carries a lot of weight as a brand, it has been away from the public eye with the intensity of a few years ago for a long time now. D&D has been very well known by the general public because of videogames and books - and a bit the movies, though we better not mention those - as well as the games. We haven’t had a proper D&D video game in years (no, DDO is not a proper game; is a proper shambles). I know plenty of people at work who’ve never heard of Dungeons & Dragons. I know at least one who didn’t know about it outside videogames.

Also, that image is there because we as players have put it there. It is us who decide to use D&D as an archetype of role playhing game. We could use any other, or any other setting to describe what an RPG is. We don’t. Let’s not blame that on the fact that D&D was the first RPG and the first one to become a mass phenomenon.

I will agree with Richard’s third point to certain extent. WotC marketing is appalling. I don’t know what they do in the USA apart from the “Encounters” scheme, but here in the UK and the rest of Europe, their presence is pretty much non-existent. There are some Magic: The Gathering adverts here and there, and from time to time, but nothing aggressive and long lasting enough to make a difference. They don't even come to large trade shows like Spiel in Essen. However, I don’t feel it is WotC responsibility to bring people to the role playing games scene. It is their responsibility to bring people to D&D. And they fail.

The main thing WotC hasn’t done until the start of the D&DNext beta campaign is to involve the community, both players and publishers. If anything, the licence that came with 4th Ed. is draconian and plenty of people went to OGL instead – to Paizo’s advantage, needless to say. Secondly their litigation culture that has brought them to threaten fans for having content in websites and blogs has left a lot of people with a bitter taste. If we add to that that the editions war wasn’t managed at all, and people took issue with the changes to the game, you have a recipe for disaster.

However, as much as I dislike the position of ignorance WotC’s executives run the business from (and they are ignorant of the hobby. They may know about business, but about the game and the hobby? Not a thing), I think that to place the weight of the whole hobby on the shoulders of that one company, just because they happen to own the game that started it all, is unfair.

I'm adding an addendum here as I have been corrected in the following statements with facts I wasn't aware of. I feel is more honest to just admit I made a mistake there than to edit the original post and delete it. _[True is that no other update of a game has created an editions war. You won’t hear people moaning about 6 – soon to be 7 – editions of Call of Cthulhu. You won’t hear people fall out because of the new edition of Traveller; or the third edition of Mutants & Masterminds. Or pretty much any other game. However we are so close to D&D somehow, that whenever they’ve updated the game, there’s been a divide in the player-base.]_

For some reason, when is about our beloved D&D, we (and I will put everyone in the same bag for once, even though I know it’s an unfair generalisation) become petty and pathetic and fight over unimportant issues that can be resolved by using what RPGs promote so well: a bit of imagination.

And as for the market not expanding; that is everyone’s fault.

Publishers are horrendous at taking marketing risks to promote the games. When was the last time that you saw an RPG advertised, full page and full colour, in a high-street magazine? When was the last time you saw an RPG advertised in a video-games magazine? When was the last time you saw a publisher having a booth in a non-game related tradeshow?

Most publisher’s websites are, simply put, badly designed. Most of them look amateurish. Sorry guys, but that is not acceptable.

But then, we players have become very, very bad at marketing. We used to bring new people to games 20 years ago. We would talk to people, we’d try new games and get together and play. We’d publish our own fanzines and write our own materials to give to other people (at least we did in Spain). Today a few talk in forums, fewer write blogs and tweet. But the majority don’t get involved to the level they used to. The majority is happy to play in their little groups and never expand.

And then we complain that the hobby is shrinking.

Well, it is not up to Wizards of the Coast to fly the flag that will encompass the whole hobby. Coca-Cola doesn’t fly the flag of all carbonated drinks, why should WotC help people get into other games?

It is up to everyone. It’s up to publishers to become professionals, not just in the books they publish, but in the way they present themselves to the world and the way they operate. Do you want to be one of the big boys? Then start by behaving like one. And I am not saying most publishers aren't professionals, at all.

And it is up to us, the players, to get out there and talk to each other. Not just online, but in real life. And to people who are unaware of what we do. And to challenge the preconceptions that gamer-geeks are a bunch of socially impaired, sun-fearing hermits with a hygiene problem. We are better than that.

So, to end this this article/rant with a cheesy quote: Your hobby needs you!

What are you going to do about it?


G*M*S Magazine (Is it WotC’s responsibility to bring people to the hobby? »)


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## delericho (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Secondly their litigation culture that has brought them to threaten fans for having content in websites and blogs has left a lot of people with a bitter taste.




I assume by that you mean the incident with Ema's website? In which case, WotC were absolutely right to send that C&D - the site was giving out protected rules material in quantity (and way beyond fair use) without permission.



> True is that no other update of a game has created an editions war. You won’t hear people moaning about... the new edition of Traveller




You sure about that?



> But then, we players have become very, very bad at marketing. We used to bring new people to games 20 years ago. We would talk to people, we’d try new games and get together and play. We’d publish our own fanzines and write our own materials to give to other people (at least we did in Spain). Today a few talk in forums, fewer write blogs and tweet. But the majority don’t get involved to the level they used to. The majority is happy to play in their little groups and never expand.




Couple of things:

1) It's actually very unusual for people to make new friends beyond their mid-twenties. Most people (not just most gamers) exist in their own little groups and never expand. If you feel like being really depressed some time, consider just how many of our old folks now feel terribly alone, as their circles of friends have gradually broken up due to sheer age.

2) "We'd publish our own fanzines and write our own materials..." Like those Kickstarter projects? The OGL/third-party materials? The OSR? There's no shortage of material being produced, and although most of these are produced by 'companies', they're frequently companies with a staff of one.



> Well, it is not up to Wizards of the Coast to fly the flag that will encompass the whole hobby. Coca-Cola doesn’t fly the flag of all carbonated drinks, why should WotC help people get into other games?




It's up to WotC, or rather the D&D group within WotC, because if they don't then the game will die. It is as simple, and as unfair, as that.


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## tomBitonti (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Well, it is not up to Wizards of the Coast to fly the flag that will encompass the whole hobby. Coca-Cola doesn’t fly the flag of all carbonated drinks, why should WotC help people get into other games?




Well, I don't think that there is a responsibility, in a sense of being responsible for one's children, or for driving safely.

But, failing to promote the hobby has consequences, the main one being to cease to be the flagship company in the product space.  Another is falling sales.

I'd say, if the holder of a key brand wants to keep their brand relevant, they must manage it well.  That includes creating quality, good value, sufficiently niche filling products and services and that includes promoting those products and services well.  If these are not done, the key brand will cease to be a key brand.

I'd say, too, that promoting RPGs in a general sense is unavoidable, and a positive action.  Could an auto manufacturer not promote driving in general?  "RPGs are a fun time to spend with your friends and family.  We make the best RPGs.  Come play our game."

TomB


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## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

delericho said:


> I assume by that you mean the incident with Ema's website? In which case, WotC were absolutely right to send that C&D - the site was giving out protected rules material in quantity (and way beyond fair use) without permission.




Nop. I didn't really know of that incident. I am aware of some people who, after publishing some 4th Edition home brewed material, received legal letters from WtoC for using a few lines of text from the books.

Even if technically it shouldn't be done, common sense didn't prevail.




delericho said:


> You sure about that?




To the same level and extent? Pretty much.

I'd be prepared to be put right if I am wrong, though.





delericho said:


> Couple of things:
> 
> 1) It's actually very unusual for people to make new friends beyond their mid-twenties. Most people (not just most gamers) exist in their own little groups and never expand. If you feel like being really depressed some time, consider just how many of our old folks now feel terribly alone, as their circles of friends have gradually broken up due to sheer age.




Uhmm... you sure about that? It might be a cultural thing, but I keep making friends and I am nearly 40. But then, I am from Spain, and from the South, no less, and we have a massive social culture there, so it could be down to that.



delericho said:


> 2) "We'd publish our own fanzines and write our own materials..." Like those Kickstarter projects? The OGL/third-party materials? The OSR? There's no shortage of material being produced, and although most of these are produced by 'companies', they're frequently companies with a staff of one.




And yet, none of that is helping the hobby grow. However, it did help, massively, in the 70's, 80's and 90's. I can only talk of the late 80's and 90's because that's when I got into the games. The rest, I've just read about.





delericho said:


> It's up to WotC, or rather the D&D group within WotC, because if they don't then the game will die. It is as simple, and as unfair, as that.




So you really expect WotC to promote the hobby so people can go and buy other games and not D&D...


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## El Mahdi (Jul 31, 2012)

*Is it WotC’s responsibility to bring people to the hobby?*

Short answer: In my opinion, YES.


Longer answer: WotC publishes D&D. It is the original, and most popularly played RPG in the history of RPG's, and I believe it still is. That position means by default, they have a large amount of power over the RPG industry (by direct and indirect influence - not dictatorial). And with Power comes Responsibility...Period. So Yes, I believe that WotC has a larger responsibility to the health of the hobby than any other single entity, and that includes facilitating bringing people into the hobby.


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## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

tomBitonti said:


> Well, I don't think that there is a responsibility, in a sense of being responsible for one's children, or for driving safely.
> 
> But, failing to promote the hobby has consequences, the main one being to cease to be the flagship company in the product space.  Another is falling sales.




But to generate sales (their duty) they only need to promote D&D, not any other game, and not the hobby as a whole.



tomBitonti said:


> I'd say, if the holder of a key brand wants to keep their brand relevant, they must manage it well.  That includes creating quality, good value, sufficiently niche filling products and services and that includes promoting those products and services well.  If these are not done, the key brand will cease to be a key brand.




Totally agree with that and, as stated in my original post, I believe WotC are terrible at doing just that.



tomBitonti said:


> I'd say, too, that promoting RPGs in a general sense is unavoidable, and a positive action.  Could an auto manufacturer not promote driving in general?  "RPGs are a fun time to spend with your friends and family.  We make the best RPGs.  Come play our game."
> 
> TomB




Possibly, but promoting Audi won't lead you to buy Daewoo.

Is the expectation that is up to WotC to promote the hobby that I feel is unfair. I would be happy if they just did what they should properly without having to promote anyone else's games, really.


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## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> Short answer: In my opinion, YES.
> 
> 
> Longer answer: WotC publishes D&D. It is the original, and most popularly played RPG in the history of RPG's, and I believe it still is. That position means by default, they have a large amount of power over the RPG industry (by direct and indirect influence - not dictatorial). And with Power comes Responsibility...Period. So Yes, I believe that WotC has a larger responsibility to the health of the hobby than any other single entity, and that includes facilitating bringing people into the hobby.




So, to repeat a previous question, you really expect that WotC will, or would, spend money in marketing initiatives that will benefit other companies and not themselves?


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## Crothian (Jul 31, 2012)

No, it is not their responsibility to make the hobby grow.  It is their responsibility to make their brand grow and to grow their own games and the people that play them.  D&D might be the most popular RPG out there but it is not the whole hobby.  Just like it's Paizo's job to make Pathfinder grow but not the hobby.  These companies only need to be responsible for themselves and their own games.


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## Perram (Jul 31, 2012)

The flag-ship title in the hobby absolutely DOES have a responsibility to bring people into the hobby.  IT is in their own best interest to do so!  Not that other companies are completely absent of this responsibility...

But simply put, if WotC doesn't recruit new players, they simply will keep losing business until such time as another company steps up to take their place as the flagship.  Right now is the closest that has happened, though I'm not sure it is quite there yet.


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## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Perram said:


> The flag-ship title in the hobby absolutely DOES have a responsibility to bring people into the hobby.  IT is in their own best interest to do so!  Not that other companies are completely absent of this responsibility...
> 
> But simply put, if WotC doesn't recruit new players, they simply will keep losing business until such time as another company steps up to take their place as the flagship.  Right now is the closest that has happened, though I'm not sure it is quite there yet.




Even though I don't completely agree with that (I still think WotC are responsible for bringing people to D&D and not the hobby as a whole), that also doesn't answer any of the other points I have made in my article.

What are players, or what should players do to promote the hobby?


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## delericho (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> To the same level and extent? Pretty much.




Well, fair enough. But the sheer size of D&D relative to any other game basically precludes that. But "Megatraveller" and the "New Imperium" were pretty damn divisive relative to the size of Traveller.



> Uhmm... you sure about that? It might be a cultural thing, but I keep making friends and I am nearly 40. But then, I am from Spain, and from the South, no less, and we have a massive social culture there, so it could be down to that.




It may be cultural, or it may be anecdotal. It's _also_ worth noting that people with specific niche hobbies (in my case, both piping and RPGs) are more likely to find new friends in the related areas than those who don't - I've made several new friends over the past decade as well, but I don't recall the last one who wasn't either a gamer or a member of a pipe band.



> And yet, none of that is helping the hobby grow. However, it did help, massively, in the 70's, 80's and 90's.




Well, leaving aside that your OP says otherwise, there's a reason it worked then but not now: unmet demand.

Back when gaming was huge, there were only a few companies producing materials, every release from TSR was a huge thing, and it just wasn't enough. And so, when fans produced and shared material, that was meeting a demand that wasn't being met through 'official' channels.

Meeting this demand meant that people stayed in the hobby, and kept the hobby vibrant, and so attractive to new people.

The picture now is quite different. There are now plenty of companies producing materials, but relatively fewer gamers. As a result, even successful products sell in the low-hundreds of copies. Anyone who is interested can find a product on virtually any topic he wants, and thanks to eBay and file-sharing, nothing ever really becomes unavailable. Any demand is almost entirely satisfied.

Meanwhile, gaming has, as you noted, shrunk to little clusters of people. This means that unless those clusters actively recruit, or unless someone actively searches, it's really quite difficult for people to find groups to join. And, of course, unless someone is already a gamer, they're hardly going to actively search very hard to find a group, for a game they _might_ like.

Blunlty, it's much easier for a hobby to grow when it's already popular. And, sadly, those days have passed for D&D, and will never return.



> So you really expect WotC to promote the hobby so people can go and buy other games and not D&D...




If they want to survive, yes.

Ryan Dancey wrote long essays on "network externalities" back in the early days of 3e. He noted that if the market expands generally, the market leader gains disproportionately from that, because the most commonly-played game serves as a least common denominator for groups (one guy might like Traveller, another M&M, another WFRP... but they'll probably all play some D&D at some point). Dancey was absolutely right about that.

But a further corollary to his "network externalities" is this: the larger the network is to start with, the easier it is to grow. Because 100 people spread out across a population of 1,000,000 may well never come into contact with one another, but 100,000 people spread out across that same population most certainly _will_ - and the easier it is to link to the existing network, the more the network will grow.


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## Perram (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Even though I don't completely agree with that (I still think WotC are responsible for bringing people to D&D and not the hobby as a whole), that also doesn't answer any of the other points I have made in my article.
> 
> What are players, or what should players do to promote the hobby?




That is a fairly specific distinction you're trying to make here.  Bringing players to D&D /is/ bringing them to the hobby.  Simply getting a person used to the idea of an RPG, meeting regularly, reading books, buying dice, minis... THAT is the hurdle.

Once they've broken that initial barrier, it is a lot easier to try out a game when all you have to say is: "Well, it's kinda like D&D, but you play space pirates trying to build an empire."

All WotC, or any flagship, has to do is keep bringing new players into playing D&D.  The rest is easy.

As for the rest of your points?

I think you make an appeal too often to your own experiences.  Some of your points may be valid in your areas, but the first thing I've learned is that every area is different.

A lot of game shops have a vested interest in building the hobby, for instance, and people like myself very actively build groups, and encourage new players to join them.  I think this ground level activity is more important at this time than major magazine advertisements which numbers are proving work less and less. (The whole print magazine / newspaper business is in much more of a panic than we are, after all.)

You mention making friends as a pre-requisit to getting new players.  This is not my experience at all.  I get new players, and then, often, those new players become new friends.

And that is what I think honestly needs to happen here, and I'm not sure it isn't happening!  But organized local efforts are what will regrow the hobby.  Paying for an advertisement in PCGamer might help, but I think that buying up some radio time that tells people where they can go THIS WEEK in their city to play a game does a lot better.

I've managed a game store for several years, and it is infinitely easier to get someone to buy into a game if you can assure them they'll get to play it.  A box of Warhammer minis in their closet does them no good if they never have a reason to take them out.


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## tomBitonti (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Possibly, but promoting Audi won't lead you to buy Daewoo.
> 
> Is the expectation that is up to WotC to promote the hobby that I feel is unfair. I would be happy if they just did what they should properly without having to promote anyone else's games, really.




I agree that a company cannot be held to promoting competing products.

But, promoting a product seems to promote the product segment in which that product resides.  While I'd say that WotC doesn't _directly_ promote Paizo, and ought not to be forced to do so, I'd say that, _indirectly_, WotC will inevitably promote Paizo.  Certain promotional activities, for example, being a part of a trade show, are synergistic with the efforts of the other companies at the trade show.

TomB


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## tomBitonti (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Even though I don't completely agree with that (I still think WotC are responsible for bringing people to D&D and not the hobby as a whole), that also doesn't answer any of the other points I have made in my article.
> 
> What are players, or what should players do to promote the hobby?




What any hobbiest does: Take part in events.  Help to run non-commercial activity.  All to the degree of interest and availability of the player/hobbiest.

Here is an example: Astronomy buffs have viewing events.  Those are run by various clubs and local organizations, to my knowledge.  I can very well see a telescope manufacturer attending or sponsoring a viewing event, even though there are lots of different model telescopes being used.

TomB


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## DaveMage (Jul 31, 2012)

No, they don't have any responsibility for anything.

Their goal seems to be to maximize profits, and they take steps they believe will do so.  That *may* include growing the game or it may not.  It's their choice (not their responsibility).

I do think the OGL grew the hobby, but since they botched how they handled it, it didn't help them as much as it could have.


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## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

delericho said:


> Well, fair enough. But the sheer size of D&D relative to any other game basically precludes that. But "Megatraveller" and the "New Imperium" were pretty damn divisive relative to the size of Traveller.




Can't really talk about that. I haven't paid Traveller much attention since I left Spain and that is 15 years ago. Only know there was a Kickstarter about it now and, although I didn't find the levels of reward enticing, it was pretty successful.




delericho said:


> It may be cultural, or it may be anecdotal. It's _also_ worth noting that people with specific niche hobbies (in my case, both piping and RPGs) are more likely to find new friends in the related areas than those who don't - I've made several new friends over the past decade as well, but I don't recall the last one who wasn't either a gamer or a member of a pipe band.




OK, the point is, have you brought any of your piper friends into the hobby? Or at work? Have you started a group in your local game store? Or in your library?





delericho said:


> Well, leaving aside that your OP says otherwise




It does? Where?



delericho said:


> there's a reason it worked then but not now: unmet demand.
> 
> Back when gaming was huge, there were only a few companies producing materials, every release from TSR was a huge thing, and it just wasn't enough. And so, when fans produced and shared material, that was meeting a demand that wasn't being met through 'official' channels.
> 
> Meeting this demand meant that people stayed in the hobby, and kept the hobby vibrant, and so attractive to new people.




Demand can only exist from existing customers, people who already know the hobby. I am not talking about those. I am talking about people who do not know the hobby, or have never been interested in it, giving it a go because the opportunity presents itself.



delericho said:


> The picture now is quite different. There are now plenty of companies producing materials, but relatively fewer gamers. As a result, even successful products sell in the low-hundreds of copies. Anyone who is interested can find a product on virtually any topic he wants, and thanks to eBay and file-sharing, nothing ever really becomes unavailable. Any demand is almost entirely satisfied.
> 
> Meanwhile, gaming has, as you noted, shrunk to little clusters of people. This means that unless those clusters actively recruit, or unless someone actively searches, it's really quite difficult for people to find groups to join. And, of course, unless someone is already a gamer, they're hardly going to actively search very hard to find a group, for a game they _might_ like.
> 
> Blunlty, it's much easier for a hobby to grow when it's already popular. And, sadly, those days have passed for D&D, and will never return.




And part of the point of my OP is that the hobby is not popular because we are not making it popular. And neither are publishing companies.



delericho said:


> If they want to survive, yes.
> 
> Ryan Dancey wrote long essays on "network externalities" back in the early days of 3e. He noted that if the market expands generally, the market leader gains disproportionately from that, because the most commonly-played game serves as a least common denominator for groups (one guy might like Traveller, another M&M, another WFRP... but they'll probably all play some D&D at some point). Dancey was absolutely right about that.
> 
> But a further corollary to his "network externalities" is this: the larger the network is to start with, the easier it is to grow. Because 100 people spread out across a population of 1,000,000 may well never come into contact with one another, but 100,000 people spread out across that same population most certainly _will_ - and the easier it is to link to the existing network, the more the network will grow.




If they want to survive they want to sell D&D, not any other game. Promoting D&D promotes the hobby as a by product and that will give them money and benefit the hobby.

To expect any company will pay to promote something that is not their product is naive.

To leave it sort of on topic, would you really expect Games Workshop to promote wargames so people can buy Malifaux?


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## El Mahdi (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> So, to repeat a previous question, you really expect that WotC will, or would, spend money in marketing initiatives that will benefit other companies and not themselves?




I don't accept the premise of your question.

I believe that WotC doing things that benefit the industry and hobby as a whole, even and especially if it benefits other companies, also benefits themselves.

I believe it's a win-win or lose-lose situation.  If WotC promotes an environment where everybody wins, they win.  If WotC focuses only on what is good for WotC, and considers anything good for other gaming companies as counterproductive to their success, then they will lose along with everybody else.

WotC benefits the most from promoting a robust and expanding industry and hobby...even more than any other RPG company, and even if those other companies benefit also (and more likely because those other companies benefit also).

They can be the king of a weak and anemic industry and hobby, and have their bottom line be just as small (though still larger than any other game company)...or they can be the king of a large and robust industry and hobby, and increase the size of their bottom line as well (and still have the largest precentage of the market).

It is entirely up to them, and completely within their own control.  And they are the only ones who are in this position.


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## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Perram said:


> That is a fairly specific distinction you're trying to make here.  Bringing players to D&D /is/ bringing them to the hobby.  Simply getting a person used to the idea of an RPG, meeting regularly, reading books, buying dice, minis... THAT is the hurdle.




And is a hurdle we expect WotC to overcome, but do we do enough to overcome that?

Once they've broken that initial barrier, it is a lot easier to try out a game when all you have to say is: "Well, it's kinda like D&D, but you play space pirates trying to build an empire."



Perram said:


> All WotC, or any flagship, has to do is keep bringing new players into playing D&D.  The rest is easy.




And that is something they do atrociously!



Perram said:


> As for the rest of your points?
> 
> I think you make an appeal too often to your own experiences.  Some of your points may be valid in your areas, but the first thing I've learned is that every area is different.




Which why I asked at the end of my post "What are you going to do about it?". I know what to do in my area, how about in yours? And how about you?



Perram said:


> A lot of game shops have a vested interest in building the hobby, for instance, and people like myself very actively build groups, and encourage new players to join them.  I think this ground level activity is more important at this time than major magazine advertisements which numbers are proving work less and less. (The whole print magazine / newspaper business is in much more of a panic than we are, after all.)




Indeed. Regardless of that, though, that is the publishers responsibility to use that media, not the gamers. I am certainly not going to spend £1000 promoting D&D in a magazine! 



Perram said:


> You mention making friends as a pre-requisit to getting new players. This is not my experience at all.  I get new players, and then, often, those new players become new friends.




Err... where do I say that?




Perram said:


> And that is what I think honestly needs to happen here, and I'm not sure it isn't happening!  But organized local efforts are what will regrow the hobby.  Paying for an advertisement in PCGamer might help, but I think that buying up some radio time that tells people where they can go THIS WEEK in their city to play a game does a lot better.




And that was precisely my point.



Perram said:


> I've managed a game store for several years, and it is infinitely easier to get someone to buy into a game if you can assure them they'll get to play it.  A box of Warhammer minis in their closet does them no good if they never have a reason to take them out.




Yep, but if you don't have a game store nearby (and plenty don't), it is down to the players to promote and find new players.

To expect that from the big boys, just because they are the big boys, is both naive and lazy.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

tomBitonti said:


> I agree that a company cannot be held to promoting competing products.
> 
> But, promoting a product seems to promote the product segment in which that product resides.  While I'd say that WotC doesn't _directly_ promote Paizo, and ought not to be forced to do so, I'd say that, _indirectly_, WotC will inevitably promote Paizo.  Certain promotional activities, for example, being a part of a trade show, are synergistic with the efforts of the other companies at the trade show.
> 
> TomB




With that I agree. And again, I feel WotC makes an appalling job of promoting D&D, at a small, large or worldwide level.

And so do an appalling job most of the publishing companies I know.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> I don't accept the premise of your question.
> 
> I believe that WotC doing things that benefit the industry and hobby as a whole, even and especially if it benefits other companies, also benefits themselves.




For someone who's not accepted the premise of a question, you've responded to it rather eloquently.



El Mahdi said:


> I believe it's a win-win or lose-lose situation.  If WotC promotes an environment where everybody wins, they win.  If WotC focuses only on what is good for WotC, and considers anything good for other gaming companies as counterproductive to their success, then they will lose along with everybody else.




I would love to see the face of one of WotC execs if you told them that.

No company sees work, or sales, gone to a competing product as a "win-win situation". Whether they are or not is a different matter, but they will do their level best to attract people to their product, not to any other. Why should Hasbro see as a triumph for the toy industry when Barbie outsells them?



El Mahdi said:


> WotC benefits the most from promoting a robust and expanding industry and hobby...even more than any other RPG company, and even if those other companies benefit also (and more likely because those other companies benefit also).




That is unproven and because of the risk, unlikely to be undertaken. Safer (and wiser) is to make campaigns to promote their own products.



El Mahdi said:


> They can be the king of a weak and anemic industry and hobby, and have their bottom line be just as small (though still larger than any other game company)...or they can be the king of a large and robust industry and hobby, and increase the size of their bottom line as well (and still have the largest precentage of the market).
> 
> It is entirely up to them, and completely within their own control.  And they are the only ones who are in this position.




And again that's where we disagree. I believe it is also down to us players to promote and enlarge the hobby as a whole, with or without D&D.


----------



## Jester David (Jul 31, 2012)

WotC does have a responsibility to get new people into the game, but I think they've proven over the last 4-8 years that they have _no idea_ how to get new people into the game.

I adore 3e. It's my edition of choice. I loved 2e for a long, long time and played many a game, but eventually I left they hobby and it was 3e that brought me back. 
How? 
I walked into my local comic store (looking for comics). They also sold RPGs and had a BIG cardboard display with 3e. So I bought them. Yay early 20s and disposable income.
I had no idea 3e existed until then. 
Because I was not a part of the hobby I was completely out of the loop.

Late 3e and the miniatures game had comic ads. Not a bad idea, but not exactly reaching an uninformed mass. 
Nothing for 4e.
The only place I've ever seen ads for 4e D&D was web ads on Penny Arcade.

Likewise, the big initiatives for getting new players into D&D are Essentials (how will new payers know about it?) The centerpiece was the gift-ready Red Box that let you game for a long weekend for just a few dollars less that one of the player books. (The Pathfinder box is far superior and shows HOW to make starter set.) And Encounters; again, how do people know it exists?

The WotC marketing department needs to step up. New ways of getting the message "play D&D" out to the masses. New programs and a focus on the core rules. Really get those books continually available on book store shelves instead of just the newest accessory.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Jester Canuck said:


> WotC does have a responsibility to get new people into the game, but I think they've proven over the last 4-8 years that they have _no idea_ how to get new people into the game.
> 
> I adore 3e. It's my edition of choice. I loved 2e for a long, long time and played many a game, but eventually I left they hobby and it was 3e that brought me back.
> How?
> ...




I sure agree with that!

My OP though, related to my belief that it's not down to WotC to promote any other game than D&D and that it is down to us players to promote the hobby as a whole.


----------



## delericho (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> OK, the point is, have you brought any of your piper friends into the hobby? Or at work? Have you started a group in your local game store? Or in your library?




Actually, yes. I started up the Falkirk RPG Meetup, which attracted a bunch of new gamers, and also served to unify three of the existing RPG groups in the area - groups that had, until then, been largely unaware of one another.

And what we found was the success bred success - once you got 30 people signed up, it was _much_ easier to get together a group for any game you wanted to play than it was when we were struggling along at 10 members. And group retention was a lot easier as well, because people could play whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, and didn't have to sit out for months waiting for a spot to open up in an ongoing campaign.



> It does? Where?




From your OP (emphasis mine):



Leviatham said:


> First of all I don’t believe the hobby is shrinking. It certainly is not growing *at the rate I’d like it to*, but it hardly getting smaller. The number of companies being created at the moment is unprecedented, not in a small measure thanks to Kickstarter and other crowd-funding websites. Judging by the number of projects being successfully funded (and I don’t have a precise number), there is still plenty of interest in the hobby.
> 
> However this is not to say that *enough new people* are coming into the hobby.




"Not growing at the rate I'd like" and "not enough new people" imply that it is growing, and that there are some new people.



> Demand can only exist from existing customers, people who already know the hobby. I am not talking about those. I am talking about people who do not know the hobby, or have never been interested in it, giving it a go because the opportunity presents itself.




It's a chicken-and-egg situation. You need the existing customers to attract new customers. The more existing customers you have, the more of a 'buzz' you have around the industry, the easier it is to attract new people.

Consider: how many people have read "Fifty Shades of Gray" or "The Da Vinci Code" because someone told them they simply _had_ to read it? And how many read them because of the outstanding quality of the books themselves?



> If they want to survive they want to sell D&D, not any other game. Promoting D&D promotes the hobby as a by product and that will give them money and benefit the hobby.
> 
> To expect any company will pay to promote something that is not their product is naive.




I'm not actually asking WotC to do anything. Honestly, I don't care - they're a large company, they've long-since lost me as a customer, so while I don't wish them any harm neither will I go out of my way to assist them.

But what I'm saying is that WotC would be _better off_ if they stopped fighting against other companies and instead worked with them to grow the overall hobby, so they could _all_ benefit. And they should do that even if it meant accepting a smaller percentage share of a larger market. Because 40% of 2,000,000 customers is more than 75% of 1,000,000.

To that end, they really should reinstate the OGL for 5e. And they should probably open up 4e via the OGL as well. Plus, they really should arrange some sort of licensing agreement, to get 'official' 5e conversions of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths out there in some form (whether from Paizo.com, Wizards.com, or some third-party source).

Stop fighting over the scraps (a route that is leading to the death of D&D), and instead work together so all can survive.



> To leave it sort of on topic, would you really expect Games Workshop to promote wargames so people can buy Malifaux?




If it was a matter of survival? Yes.


----------



## Mark CMG (Jul 31, 2012)

If hobby gaming is to grow, it is the responsibility of everyone, publishers and players alike, to bring new blood into the fold.  WotC does a really good job of diversifying their game lines and making sure to reach out to potential gamers of all stripes.  I think the crossover effect of having boardgames and miniatures games that lead to RPG play has been touted more by WotC than most if not all other companies.  The amount of product placement I see from WotC and other large companies in the last decade has been tremendous and I don't doubt it helps draw attention to hobby gaming.  I guess someone could claim that more can be done but I think those that are already making the effort, including WotC, do a pretty good job overall.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

delericho said:


> Actually, yes. I started up the Falkirk RPG Meetup, which attracted a bunch of new gamers, and also served to unify three of the existing RPG groups in the area - groups that had, until then, been largely unaware of one another.
> 
> And what we found was the success bred success - once you got 30 people signed up, it was _much_ easier to get together a group for any game you wanted to play than it was when we were struggling along at 10 members. And group retention was a lot easier as well, because people could play whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, and didn't have to sit out for months waiting for a spot to open up in an ongoing campaign.




That answers the question I asked in my OP. Don't you think the hobby would be much bigger if everyone did the same?





delericho said:


> From your OP (emphasis mine):
> 
> 
> 
> "Not growing at the rate I'd like" and "not enough new people" imply that it is growing, and that there are some new people.




OK, I take the semantic point. I should have said that not enough new people are coming into the hobby.




delericho said:


> It's a chicken-and-egg situation. You need the existing customers to attract new customers. The more existing customers you have, the more of a 'buzz' you have around the industry, the easier it is to attract new people.
> 
> Consider: how many people have read "Fifty Shades of Gray" or "The Da Vinci Code" because someone told them they simply _had_ to read it? And how many read them because of the outstanding quality of the books themselves?




And insist that we don't use word mouth outside the gaming circles often enough. You might, I certainly do, but the average? I doubt it.




delericho said:


> I'm not actually asking WotC to do anything. Honestly, I don't care - they're a large company, they've long-since lost me as a customer, so while I don't wish them any harm neither will I go out of my way to assist them.
> 
> But what I'm saying is that WotC would be _better off_ if they stopped fighting against other companies and instead worked with them to grow the overall hobby, so they could _all_ benefit. And they should do that even if it meant accepting a smaller percentage share of a larger market. Because 40% of 2,000,000 customers is more than 75% of 1,000,000.




That is a different scenario. If the biggest companies (and small ones too) got organised and resurrected the RPGA, I'd be happy as pie. However it'd have to be a common project, not by just one company. It is a completely utopian idea that will never happen (and if it did it'd be short lived because I can't imagine how those companies fighting for attention would be able to work together).



delericho said:


> To that end, they really should reinstate the OGL for 5e. And they should probably open up 4e via the OGL as well. Plus, they really should arrange some sort of licensing agreement, to get 'official' 5e conversions of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths out there in some form (whether from Paizo.com, Wizards.com, or some third-party source).
> 
> Stop fighting over the scraps (a route that is leading to the death of D&D), and instead work together so all can survive.




So that would benefit them. That would help people get into, or back to, D&D.





delericho said:


> If it was a matter of survival? Yes.




That would be a nail in their coffin.  Haven't researched it, but I'd love to hear a similar situation in which a company promoting its market and not just its services has gone from rags to riches.


----------



## delericho (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> That answers the question I asked in my OP. Don't you think the hobby would be much bigger if everyone did the same?




Bigger? Yes. _Much_ bigger? I don't know. Honestly, I think RPGs have had their day, at least in tabletop form.


----------



## BobROE (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> That answers the question I asked in my OP. Don't you think the hobby would be much bigger if everyone did the same?




But why is it my "responsiblity" to grow the hobby?  I have a group that I play with, I'm not looking for new players, so why should I start going around looking for more people to play with?  Or to get to play?

Now, if one is looking for other people to player then sure you can/should be reaching out to people you think would be interested.


----------



## gamerprinter (Jul 31, 2012)

I think it's the responsibility of every company to bring new customers to them, whatever it is: RPGs, automobilies, services, etc. Despite WotC being the industry leader, at least in the past, and to some degree today, they are only responsible for bringing new customers to their game - not the industry as a whole. Not only do not have the responsibility, they completely lack the acumen to accomplish such a thing.

I know that Paizo, as the number 2 company (#1 right now) has worked hard to expand their market in many innovative ways to bring new customers to their game. And to some extent they are succeeding.

Not that any RPG company has the qualities that will attract any large number of new players, but I have far more faith in Paizo than WotC.

Most non-gamers that I mention D&D too, say "Isn't that a video game?" or "They still do that?" - so for the vast majority of those who don't know, RPGs don't even exist anymore, except as MMOs.


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## Argyle King (Jul 31, 2012)

I am not sure if I agree that D&D is still the flagship product when it comes to rpgs in general.  Is it the biggest brand name?  Yes, I would say so -in spite of several competitors making a lot of progress.  However, I am not sure that I would say it is currently the best product, and I am also not sure that I would currently say it _should_ be the product in the lead.  When I first learned to play rpgs, RPG was more-or-less synonymous with D&D; I no longer feel that is the case.

I believe the hobby would be far healthier if players, GMs, and the gamer community as a whole chose to support games based on quality and what they like to play rather than buying out of name recognition.  I feel that this whole idea that D&D needs to be healthy is something of a self-defeating problem.  If another game (and company) were supported, they would rise to take the place of WoTC when it comes to rpgs, and there would be a 'gateway game' and all of those other things.

Some people argue that D&D is necessary because that is the easiest game to find players for.  However, part of the reason it is easy to find players for it is because there are (or at least appear to be) so many voices advocating buying the game just to buy the game.  It seems logical to me that other games would be easier to find players for if the community would advocate buying (or at least trying) those games rather than being stuck on the idea that we have to buy a certain product from a certain company if we want our hobby to be healthy.

There are plenty of good companies and products out there.  Why not support some of them?  In recent years, Paizo has done very well, and I think that is just a small glimpse of what kind of power consumers have.  Even if you don't like their product, the fact is that they showed it is possible for the hobby to survive without WoTC.  

Look at the Ennie nominations for some ideas if you are unfamiliar with some of the other companies which are producing rpgs.  There are a few companies other than Paizo and WoTC who have been nominated for multiple categories.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> If hobby gaming is to grow, it is the responsibility of everyone, publishers and players alike, to bring new blood into the fold.  WotC does a really good job of diversifying their game lines and making sure to reach out to potential gamers of all stripes.  I think the crossover effect of having boardgames and miniatures games that lead to RPG play has been touted more by WotC than most if not all other companies.  The amount of product placement I see from WotC and other large companies in the last decade has been tremendous and I don't doubt it helps draw attention to hobby gaming.  I guess someone could claim that more can be done but I think those that are already making the effort, including WotC, do a pretty good job overall.




I can't disagree more.

Although is true that they have diversified well into boardgames (and they will probably continue to do so. They certainly should) that is not their core product. Unless they're trying to make it. I don't know that.

Also, I would argue that, at least around me, I have seen role playing gamers getting into boardgames because of D&D boardgames. I haven't seen any boardgamers getting into D&D RPG because of the same boardgames. If they did, it would benefit WotC, not any other company.

Could you give a couple of examples of product placement? I can see none in Europe.

If they're doing such a good job, why isn't the hobby bigger?

I would also like to get back to my initial question, why aren't gamers doing more? Why should it all be down to the publishers?


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

delericho said:


> Bigger? Yes. _Much_ bigger? I don't know. Honestly, I think RPGs have had their day, at least in tabletop form.




And that way of thinking is part of what's driving the decline of the hobby.


----------



## the Jester (Jul 31, 2012)

First of all, no, it isn't WotC's responsibility to bring new people into the hobby.

However, it's nothing but good for them to do so, and it's stupid of them to pass up the opportunity to do so if it takes minimal or only a reasonable amount of investment.

But really, I replied because I felt it was important to address this comment:



Leviatham said:


> Nop. I didn't really know of that incident. I am aware of some people who, after publishing some 4th Edition home brewed material, received legal letters from WtoC for using a few lines of text from the books.
> 
> Even if technically it shouldn't be done, common sense didn't prevail.




Sorry, dude, you're completely wrong here.

If WotC doesn't work to guard their intellectual property when they know of a violation, they give up their right to guard it later. Anyone who cuts and pastes text from the books into their own stuff is not just asking for a cease and desist letter, they are OBLIGATING WotC to send them one. 

Note, too, that a c&d letter is the nice way of handling these things- it's WotC saying, "Look, we can go to court over this, but wouldn't it be easier if you just stopped violating our IP?"

Now, that doesn't speak to the overall issue of intellectual property rights and how screwed up our approach to them is in the current era, but the fact is, as long as the laws concerning IP are what they are, WotC MUST take steps to guard their IP.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

BobROE said:


> But why is it my "responsiblity" to grow the hobby?  I have a group that I play with, I'm not looking for new players, so why should I start going around looking for more people to play with?  Or to get to play?
> 
> Now, if one is looking for other people to player then sure you can/should be reaching out to people you think would be interested.




Because if you're not prepared to help the hobby expand and grow, you shouldn't be prepared to complain when games you like are no longer produced. And they won't be produced much longer.

This apathy you display is exactly the attitude I mentioned in my OP and the attitude that's so pernicious to the hobby.


----------



## delericho (Jul 31, 2012)

BobROE said:


> But why is it my "responsiblity" to grow the hobby?




For the same reason as it is WotC's - if you want to continue playing then, eventually, you will need to recruit new people for your group.

I know, I know - I didn't believe it either. When I left university, I had more players than I could handle, I had a wider circle of gamers I could call on, and it looked like things would never change.

But then a few guys drifted away. Another had kids, and suddenly couldn't commit. Two left the country. And suddenly that dozen players had dropped to three, the minimum that felt comfortable for a good game... and most weeks there was at least one guy who couldn't make it.

Ten years from now, it's likely that half of your existing group will no longer be there. Sure, you _might_ be an exception... but don't count on it. Now, do you really have enough players that you can cut by half and still go on? What if you don't get to choose which players, so are just as likely to lose your most reliable player, the one who leads the group, and the best-liked player?


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

the Jester said:


> First of all, no, it isn't WotC's responsibility to bring new people into the hobby.
> 
> However, it's nothing but good for them to do so, and it's stupid of them to pass up the opportunity to do so if it takes minimal or only a reasonable amount of investment.
> 
> ...




And don't you think that a letter saying "Hey, please only use *this* and *this* from the books. Anything else shouldn't be used. If you want to use it, please ask and we'll discuss it".

As someone who's given massive bollockings to my friends for copying games or downloading illegal PDFs, I am very much up for copy-rights and IP protection.

As a blogger about games I love, I am also very much up for dialogue and common sense rather than the corporate approach. One thing is to use material in commercial products - a big no-no - and another is to use two lines of text in a fan create website with no commercial interests.

By doing that so over-zealously, WotC are shooting themselves in the foot because that guy will go to another game, thus promoting something of no benefit to WotC.


----------



## Serendipity (Jul 31, 2012)

Is WotC responsible for bringing people into the hobby?  Of course not.  But in the long term, it's good business.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Serendipity said:


> Is WotC responsible for bringing people into the hobby?  Of course not.  But in the long term, it's good business.




Well, it certainly is convenient. I totally agree with you there.


----------



## Elf Witch (Jul 31, 2012)

You are wrong in thinking edition wars only happen in DnD. Shadowrun had a huge edition war when its 4E came out. It fragmented the fans. 

I have seen the same thing with the new editions of Vampire from White Wolf. 

I do think that helping grow the hobby is part of WOTC responsibility. They can do this my spending their advertising dollars wisely. 

I think what they are doing right now with the playtests for the new edition is an excellent example of reaching out to the gaming community in the hopes of getting more people to play the current DnD.


----------



## El Mahdi (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> For someone who's not accepted the premise of a question, you've responded to it rather eloquently.




Thank You.  I feel I have the ability to turn a phrase or two also.

However, responding to a question and not accepting the premise are not the same thing, nor mutually exclusive.  



Leviatham said:


> I would love to see the face of one of WotC execs if you told them that.




I think you'd be surprised by the lack of a reaction.  I'm certain they already accept this as an immutable truth.



Leviatham said:


> No company sees work, or sales, gone to a competing product as a "win-win situation". Whether they are or not is a different matter, but they will do their level best to attract people to their product, not to any other. Why should Hasbro see as a triumph for the toy industry when Barbie outsells them?




To use your hypothetical: I think Hasbro would be more than happy to extend the right to make accessories for Barbie, especially if making such accessories was economically unfeasable for themselves, but would significantly increase sales of Barbie.

Expanding the Market does not exclusively mean "Expanding your _own_ Market".  Especially when one's own revenue stream may have reached it's limit with current offerings (again, hypothetically...I'm not making the case that this is currently so for WotC or our hobby/market).  Expanding the Market for everybody is sometimes the only way to increase one's own potential revenue.  Conversely, making choices that keeps the market small in order to restrict competitors, also restricts the potential of your own revenue. 



Leviatham said:


> That is unproven and because of the risk, unlikely to be undertaken. Safer (and wiser) is to make campaigns to promote their own products.




Of course it's wise to support your own products and market.  I haven't said otherwise.  Business however is not a single aspect endeavor.  Can one expand their revenue even when ignoring some aspects of their business environment...?  Sure.  But one is never going to _maximize_ one's potential without remaining aware of and adressing all aspects of one's business.  Ignoring an aspect that could significantly expand one's profits is foolish.  If one does that, then they'd have no business being in business.  



Leviatham said:


> And again that's where we disagree. I believe it is also down to us players to promote and enlarge the hobby as a whole, with or without D&D.




I don't disagree that we players are also one of the best means of expanding our hobby.  I just disagree with you that it isn't WotC's responsibility too.

Your OP didn't posit the question: "_Is it *exclusively* WotC's responsibility to bring people into the hobby?"_  All you asked was whether it was WotC's responsibility...or ours.  I don't believe it's either/or...it's both.

However, I do disagree with some of your assertions, and I agree completely with what you mentioned of your friends beliefs.

I don't agree with your statement that the image of D&D as the flagship of RPG's is dilluting.  I'm seeing more and more references to D&D in popular culture than I've ever seen before, including placement and actual play on many popular TV shows (_Eureka_, _Supernatural_, and _The Big Bang Theory_ to name a few).  And I've seen casual references (including the name _Dungeons & Dragons_) on many large prime-time network programs (_West Wing_, _Fringe_, _Castle_, etc.).  This may not be noticable in Europe, but here in the States it's becoming more and more common.  I'd be willing to bet everything I have and everything I ever will have, that the number of non-gamers that have heard of _Dungeons & Dragons_, and have never heard of _RPG's_, _Role-Playing_ (in reference to our hobby), or any other such word describing our hobby, are the vast majority.

I also know that your belief that games other than D&D have not suffered edition wars is incorrect.  Less vocal or less prominent does not mean non-existant.  You may not have noticed them, but they do exist.

As for this: 



> For some reason, when [it's] about our beloved D&D, we (and I will put everyone in the same bag for once, even though I know it’s an unfair generalisation) become petty and pathetic and fight over unimportant issues that can be resolved by using what RPGs promote so well: a bit of imagination.




...I think the above is an overly narrow vision.  A more accurate statement is: _"For some reason, when it comes to anything, people...*all people*, will at one time or another become petty and pathetic and fight over unimportant issues that can be resolved by understanding and incusiveness."_

This above all else is why I _*know*_, even if I hadn't seen them myself, that edition wars have occured with games other than D&D.


I also find it interesting that you believe our hobby/market/industry is not shrinking (though I have no concrete information if it is or not), while also going on to say that you believe our hobby/market/industry is not expanding...  Your position seems inconsistent.



> First of all I don’t believe the hobby is shrinking. It certainly is not growing at the rate I’d like it to, but it hardly getting smaller...
> 
> The number of companies being created at the moment is unprecedented...
> 
> ...




You seem to contradict yourself to the point I'm not really sure if you think the game is shrinking, expanding, or remaining static...as you seemed to imply all three at different times in your OP.  Like how can there be an unprecedented amount of new companies, yet the market is not expanding...?  If that was true, wouldn't the market collapse...?  Wouldn't it be impossible for new companies to make money if the market is not expanding...?  Or do you feel that new companies are simply dividing up a static pie into more and more pieces, and dilluting revenues for everybody...?

Your statements seem to me to display a lack of understanding in how businesses and markets work.

Personally, I think our hobby is expanding, though not expanding strongly at the moment.   However, I believe that will significantly change once 5E is released...or at least I hope it will.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> You are wrong in thinking edition wars only happen in DnD. Shadowrun had a huge edition war when its 4E came out. It fragmented the fans.
> 
> I have seen the same thing with the new editions of Vampire from White Wolf.




I stand corrected on that one. I haven't seen the Shadowrun or Vampire edition wars rage.



Elf Witch said:


> I do think that helping grow the hobby is part of WOTC responsibility. They can do this my spending their advertising dollars wisely.
> 
> I think what they are doing right now with the playtests for the new edition is an excellent example of reaching out to the gaming community in the hopes of getting more people to play the current DnD.




You do illustrate my point there. More people to play the current DnD, not any other game.

Their responsibility is to their product, not to any other, even if it'd be convenient for them to do so.


----------



## delericho (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> And that way of thinking is part of what's driving the decline of the hobby.




Maybe a part, but a pretty small one.

A rather larger issue would be that WoW and other video games are now "close enough" at providing the core experience for most people, not to mention better in some other ways.


----------



## Mark CMG (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Although is true that they have diversified well into boardgames (and they will probably continue to do so. They certainly should) that is not their core product. Unless they're trying to make it. I don't know that.
> 
> Also, I would argue that, at least around me, I have seen role playing gamers getting into boardgames because of D&D boardgames. I haven't seen any boardgamers getting into D&D RPG because of the same boardgames. If they did, it would benefit WotC, not any other company.





It's about making the brand more ubiquitous.  RPGers who play the boardgames and manage to get others to play the boardgames plant the seeds of the brand and perhaps those new players find their way to the RPG.




Leviatham said:


> Could you give a couple of examples of product placement? I can see none in Europe.




A couple of examples are -

‘Big Bang Theory’ Has The Most Remembered Product Placement Among Dramas/Sitcoms; ‘American Idol’ Had Most Placement Overall - Ratings | TVbytheNumbers

http://cliqueclack.com/tv/2011/02/03/community-dungeons-dragons-episode/

And I believe there was a commercial where a nerd meets a girl who happens to have a PH in a paundry basket, though that was some time ago.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> Thank You.  I feel I have the ability to turn a phrase or two also.
> 
> However, responding to a question and not accepting the premise are not the same thing, nor mutually exclusive.




Oh dear... let's not get into semantics please... It can make the conversation go on for too long. 





El Mahdi said:


> I think you'd be surprised by the lack of a reaction.  I'm certain they already accept this as an immutable truth.




Uhmm.. I need more than your reassurances, I'm afraid. 




El Mahdi said:


> To use your hypothetical: I think Hasbro would be more than happy to extend the right to make accessories for Barbie, especially if making such accessories was economically unfeasable for themselves, but would significantly increase sales of Barbie.
> 
> Expanding the Market does not exclusively mean "Expanding your _own_ Market".  Especially when one's own revenue stream may have reached it's limit with current offerings (again, hypothetically...I'm not making the case that this is currently so for WotC or our hobby/market).  Expanding the Market for everybody is sometimes the only way to increase one's own potential revenue.  Conversely, making choices that keeps the market small in order to restrict competitors, also restricts the potential of your own revenue.
> 
> ...


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> It's about making the brand more ubiquitous.  RPGers who play the boardgames and manage to get others to play the boardgames plant the seeds of the brand and perhaps those new players find their way to the RPG.




Perhaps, but I haven't seen that happen yet. Until I see it happening, I would believe to be a marginal benefit to D&D, and no benefit to the hobby as a whole.



Mark CMG said:


> A couple of examples are -
> 
> ‘Big Bang Theory’ Has The Most Remembered Product Placement Among Dramas/Sitcoms; ‘American Idol’ Had Most Placement Overall - Ratings | TVbytheNumbers
> 
> ...




And you think that is enough?

Also, and to get back to my OP, that's placing D&D on the map. RPGs by association. If someone who's never, ever heard of RPGs before that episode, watches it, that person will know about D&D, not about RPGs or the choices out there.

That is looking after the interests of D&D, which is what WotC should do, not the hobby.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

delericho said:


> Maybe a part, but a pretty small one.
> 
> A rather larger issue would be that WoW and other video games are now "close enough" at providing the core experience for most people, not to mention better in some other ways.




That is a completely different conversation, but I will also say it's our fault as players.

We are the one who choose videogames over tabletop RPGs. The video games have offered an experience that, without having the human interaction or flexibility of tabletop RPGs, is more immediate and convenient in how it circumvents distances than a tabletop.

But let's not blame videogames. We are the ones who stopped playing tabletops and went into videogames. And I use "we" loosely here.


----------



## kitsune9 (Jul 31, 2012)

I think it's WotC's sole responsibility for bringing people into its brand, but not necessarily the hobby as a whole. It's a business and like any business, you want to attract customers and expand. It's not my job to go around and spread the Gospel according to D&D and preach it on the mountain. 

WotC should have advertising budgets, should be in communities and schools, should have marketing agreements with video game companies and mainstream retail brick and mortal stores. They should be sponsoring events, kids TV shows, and should be on Cartoon Network and Nickelodean or whatever kids watch these days.

However, I'm a realist and I know that WotC doesn't have this budget, so of course, they are going to rely on word of mouth to be their advertising and marketing. So if a player feels that they need to go out and get the word out, go for it.


----------



## GSHamster (Jul 31, 2012)

I think "responsibility" is the wrong word. "Self-interest" would be a better one.

On the topic of methods, it seems to me that WotC has been severely hampered by the current situation with the computer game licences. We all remember SSI's gold box games, and Bioware/Interplay's Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment at the end of the 90s.

One of the great failures of 3E and 4E, imo, is the failure to produce computer games of that quality (or at all, even).


----------



## Mark CMG (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Perhaps, but I haven't seen that happen yet. Until I see it happening, I would believe to be a marginal benefit to D&D, and no benefit to the hobby as a whole.





It all adds up.




Leviatham said:


> And you think that is enough?





Maybe you should check around a bit and see what else is out there.  I understand everyone forms their own impressions but your opinion about this subject seems to lack even basic research.


----------



## Herschel (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Richard’s opinion: the hobby is shrinking and it is because of the attitude of WotC towards the game industry and the edition wars that ensue every time there is a new D&D edition release. Dungeons & Dragons is still the flagship and gateway game by default and people recognize the brand, whereas other games are not recognised, thus if you try to use another game to introduce people to the hobby, people won’t be interested since there won’t be any familiarity. WotC doesn’t do enough to bring people into the hobby – instead, it’s just trying to bring players back and not expanding the demographics of the hobby.



He's right, to a point.

1. Back in OD&D and AD&D days it was much more of a "big tent" because the games were so similar. Moving from 1E to 2E was a breeze, for example. 

2. Anyone looking from the outside saw the "Dungeons & Dragons" logo, with or without the "Advanced" prefix and similar looking books even (at least through early 2E). WotC owns teh right to the easily and most recognizable brand in the industry. 

3. There also wasn't the internet forum issue and every schmuck with a keyboard blogging like the wind. Back then, you moreso had to sit down and check out the game to see if you'd like it. There are edition warriors on this site who deride 4E, for example, who admit they've never played it nor even really read it, just read some blog posts yet claim to be experts on why it's a bad game. When you sit down and experience things first hand you're more likely to accept things or look at things without the outlet of anaymous internet rancor, which turns people off in-general. People on the outside of the fanbase have Google too.



> First of all I don’t believe the hobby is shrinking. It certainly is not growing at the rate I’d like it to, but it hardly getting smaller. The number of companies being created at the moment is unprecedented, not in a small measure thanks to Kickstarter and other crowd-funding websites. Judging by the number of projects being successfully funded (and I don’t have a precise number), there is still plenty of interest in the hobby.



"Shrinking" is kind of a loaded term, but 'the number of companies being created' is no measure, especially today. You can now self-publish and go all pdf with a laptop. That's a huge change in teh industry and a lot of these new "companies" are just that, one guy with a laptop. 


> The image of D&D being the flagship amongst non-gamers is also one that’s diluting rapidly.



This is flat-out false. WotC's marketing may leave a lot to be desired but D&D is still the name people from the outside know. More licensed products would be a boon though and WotC lagging means the industry lags. 


> I don’t feel it is WotC responsibility to bring people to the role playing games scene. It is their responsibility to bring people to D&D.



 Which is one-and-the-same. Every other RPG (and WotC themselves, with purchasing the IP) have leached from D&D because it was the first, the biggest and the most recognized. 



> The main thing WotC hasn’t done until the start of the D&DNext beta campaign is to involve the community, both players and publishers.



 This really means nothing outside of to those already in the hobby. 







> If anything, the licence that came with 4th Ed. is draconian and plenty of people went to OGL instead – to Paizo’s advantage, needless to say.



 The OGL was a major mistake from a business standpoint, period. Fanboys love it but at the end of the day it was a horrible decision. 


> Secondly their litigation culture that has brought them to threaten fans for having content in websites and blogs has left a lot of people with a bitter taste.



 Protecting your IP is serious business and a lot of people have done things they shouldn't have with it. Just because it's "only a game" does not change the fact its production is peoples' livelihood. 



> However, as much as I dislike the position of ignorance WotC’s executives run the business from (and they are ignorant of the hobby. They may know about business, but about the game and the hobby? Not a thing), I think that to place the weight of the whole hobby on the shoulders of that one company, just because they happen to own the game that started it all, is unfair.



The hobby is a very minute portion of their overall business, and they are a business. They know plenty about the hobby, they allocate the resources they deem profitable to placate a bunch of irrational fanboys 



> True is that no other update of a game has created an editions war.



So wrong it's painful. Try talking to WoD fans and see how wrong you are, or Shadowrun, or.....



> For some reason, when is about our beloved D&D, we (and I will put everyone in the same bag for once, even though I know it’s an unfair generalisation) become petty and pathetic and fight over unimportant issues that can be resolved by using what RPGs promote so well: a bit of imagination.



 That's everyone everywhere. Look at any comment section on any internet story.


> And as for the market not expanding; that is everyone’s fault.



 Yes it is, but then the entire industry relies on the D&D name to bring it recognition. 


> Publishers are horrendous at taking marketing risks to promote the games. When was the last time that you saw an RPG advertised, full page and full colour, in a high-street magazine? When was the last time you saw an RPG advertised in a video-games magazine? When was the last time you saw a publisher having a booth in a non-game related tradeshow?



 True, but with the size of the hobby, how many resources will a business want to commit to such a niche market? they want to make profitable moves. 


> But then, we players have become very, very bad at marketing. We used to bring new people to games 20 years ago. We would talk to people, we’d try new games and get together and play. We’d publish our own fanzines and write our own materials to give to other people (at least we did in Spain). Today a few talk in forums, fewer write blogs and tweet. But the majority don’t get involved to the level they used to. The majority is happy to play in their little groups and never expand.



 Part of this is we've gotten to be a lazy, disassociated culture. The electronic age brings easy access to words from around the world, but they're more impersonal. Anonymity and distance are not good for creating true bonds among people. Facebook and WoW "friends" are not real friends, they're electronic aquaintances. People like the convenience of online gaming, but that's not the strength of this hobby. 


> Well, it is not up to Wizards of the Coast to fly the flag that will encompass the whole hobby. Coca-Cola doesn’t fly the flag of all carbonated drinks, why should WotC help people get into other games?



 It's in their interest to draw people to teh hobby and every member of the hobby knows (or should know) that. Coke & Pepsi do fly the flag for carbonated drinks, their marketing brings industry recognition. 


> It is up to everyone. It’s up to publishers to become professionals, not just in the books they publish, but in the way they present themselves to the world and the way they operate. Do you want to be one of the big boys? Then start by behaving like one. And I am not saying most publishers aren't professionals, at all.



Agreed. 


> And it is up to us, the players, to get out there and talk to each other. Not just online, but in real life. And to people who are unaware of what we do. And to challenge the preconceptions that gamer-geeks are a bunch of socially impaired, sun-fearing hermits with a hygiene problem. We are better than that.3



Very much agreed.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Mark CMG said:


> It all adds up.
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe you should check around a bit and see what else is out there.  I understand everyone forms their own impressions but your opinion about this subject seems to lack even basic research.




That is a cheap way to dismiss someone's opinion. Have you really done much research to reply to my post or just used your knowledge?

I could just as easily say you lack an understanding of marketing based on your previous post.

Also, you're not addressing my questions. If they do well, why aren't they any bigger or selling more? Why isn't the hobby bigger?

And why aren't gamers doing more?


----------



## Mark CMG (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> That is a cheap way to dismiss someone's opinion. Have you really done much research to reply to my post or just used your knowledge?





Dude, you've been dismissing people left and right for pointing out things to you by then implying that whatever they show you is all there is and that it isn't enough for you.  For anyone who wasn't previously aware of the two links I gave you, they werent hard to find.  Again, I suggest you take a little time to get more familiar with the subject.  In the meantime, I'm going to bow out of this thread.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Herschel said:


> He's right, to a point.
> 
> 1. Back in OD&D and AD&D days it was much more of a "big tent" because the games were so similar. Moving from 1E to 2E was a breeze, for example.
> 
> ...




So far agreed.




Herschel said:


> "Shrinking" is kind of a loaded term, but 'the number of companies being created' is no measure, especially today. You can now self-publish and go all pdf with a laptop. That's a huge change in teh industry and a lot of these new "companies" are just that, one guy with a laptop.




Agreed too. 



Herschel said:


> This is flat-out false. WotC's marketing may leave a lot to be desired but D&D is still the name people from the outside know. More licensed products would be a boon though and WotC lagging means the industry lags.




I haven't said it is not. I have said it is diluting rapidly. That is based on people I have heard say they knew D&D as videogames but not tabletops, and the number of people I see at conventions starting with other games.

Yes it is the flagship... for now.



Herschel said:


> Which is one-and-the-same. Every other RPG (and WotC themselves, with purchasing the IP) have leached from D&D because it was the first, the biggest and the most recognized.




For a company is not the same. Or at least shouldn't. For a company it should be about their product, regardless of the wider scene. If it isn't, they either have a LOT of money or very little sense.



Herschel said:


> This really means nothing outside of to those already in the hobby.




If you make your community excited about your product, that community will thrive and grow. It might not mean much outside of those already in the hobby, but enhances the chances of people in the community talking to outsiders.




Herschel said:


> The OGL was a major mistake from a business standpoint, period. Fanboys love it but at the end of the day it was a horrible decision.




Can't agree more.




Herschel said:


> Protecting your IP is serious business and a lot of people have done things they shouldn't have with it. Just because it's "only a game" does not change the fact its production is peoples' livelihood.




I have already expanded in a previous post about this point. I agree that they have to protect their IP. Whether the use of the IP that some of the fans made and who were threatened with legal action is a threat to the commercial success of such IP is a different matter altogether.




Herschel said:


> The hobby is a very minute portion of their overall business, and they are a business. They know plenty about the hobby, they allocate the resources they deem profitable to placate a bunch of irrational fanboys




Forgive me, but if they truly knew about the hobby they wouldn't have applied their resources the  way they have.

As for calling the D&D fanbase "A bunch of irrational fanboys"... I think I'll leave that one there hanging.



Herschel said:


> So wrong it's painful. Try talking to WoD fans and see how wrong you are, or Shadowrun, or.....




As stated on a previous post, I have been corrected on that one.



Herschel said:


> That's everyone everywhere. Look at any comment section on any internet story.




But we are talking about gamers and about games, not about everyone everywhere.

Also, just because it happens everywhere, it doesn't mean is justified.




Herschel said:


> Yes it is, but then the entire industry relies on the D&D name to bring it recognition.




Then the entire industry has attachment issues and need to either wake up, or grow up.



Herschel said:


> True, but with the size of the hobby, how many resources will a business want to commit to such a niche market? they want to make profitable moves.




And not doing the advertising is not proving profitable either.

In any event, I used advertising as an example. There are loads of marketing and publicity initiatives that could be undertaken and aren't. 

Good publicity doesn't have to be expensive.



Herschel said:


> Part of this is we've gotten to be a lazy, disassociated culture. The electronic age brings easy access to words from around the world, but they're more impersonal. Anonymity and distance are not good for creating true bonds among people. Facebook and WoW "friends" are not real friends, they're electronic aquaintances. People like the convenience of online gaming, but that's not the strength of this hobby.




Agreed



Herschel said:


> It's in their interest to draw people to teh hobby and every member of the hobby knows (or should know) that. Coke & Pepsi do fly the flag for carbonated drinks, their marketing brings industry recognition.




And yet you don't see them promoting any other drink than theirs. Industry recognition is a byproduct of their presence, side and reputation. 



Herschel said:


> Agreed.
> 
> Very much agreed.




We agree! Yayy!!!


----------



## BobROE (Jul 31, 2012)

delericho said:


> For the same reason as it is WotC's - if you want to continue playing then, eventually, you will need to recruit new people for your group.




And I when I need to I will (as I have in the past), but I don't see why I should be selling the game on a "day to day" basis.

I don't have the time to run additional games, or space to have more players, and it seems rude to me to tell people they should play a game and then say "but not with me".

(also most of the people I know who would be interested have actually played before but that's more a function of the industry I work in, than the reach of D&D).


----------



## Desdichado (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> To the same level and extent? Pretty much.
> 
> I'd be prepared to be put right if I am wrong, though.



I think you're wrong.  The bitter tears shed over the changes to MegaTraveller, the changes to TNE Traveller, and the debacle of Marc Millar's Traveller were only somewhat eased by the release of GURPS Traveller--which purposefully ignored most anything that post-dated Classic Traveller.  And heck; there's been FIVE subsequent versions since then; I've lost track of the current state of Traveller discussion.  But holy cow, do I remember tons of bitterness between Classic fans, MT fans and ... well, come to think of it, I don't remember any TNE fans.  Pretty much everyone seemed to hate that version.


----------



## El Mahdi (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> That is a cheap way to dismiss someone's opinion. Have you really done much research to reply to my post or just used your knowledge?
> 
> I could just as easily say you lack an understanding of marketing based on your previous post.
> 
> ...




What's the point of starting a thread about one's personal opinion, and then disregarding or responding defensively when someone else responds to your posts, politely, and with opinions of their own...?

If all you want is a public forum where you can state your opinion without it being challenged, then you've chosen the wrong forum in which to do so.


----------



## Desdichado (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> What are players, or what should players do to promote the hobby?



Nothing.  The players are, presumably, playing the game with their groups.  About the only thing I'd expect players to do to promote the hobby, and even then only indirectly in the sense that they could be recruiting potential players if they don't have them.  Other than keeping their own games going, I don't see that players have any community obligation to the hobby or some other abstract construct of any kind.


----------



## renau1g (Jul 31, 2012)

Hobo said:


> Nothing.  The players are, presumably, playing the game with their groups.  About the only thing I'd expect players to do to promote the hobby, and even then only indirectly in the sense that they could be recruiting potential players if they don't have them.  Other than keeping their own games going, I don't see that players have any community obligation to the hobby or some other abstract construct of any kind.




Agreed. WoTC has a benefit to increasing the hobby, while I don't outside of maintaining my own game. If I recruit 20 new players to the hobby, I don't "get" anything out of it, so I'd much rather use that time to do other things, like play the game, or work extra hours to bring in new clients (and I do get something out of that ).


----------



## Desdichado (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Because if you're not prepared to help the hobby expand and grow, you shouldn't be prepared to complain when games you like are no longer produced. And they won't be produced much longer.



Luckily for me... I don't.


			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> This apathy you display is exactly the attitude I mentioned in my OP and the attitude that's so pernicious to the hobby.



No it's not.

Maybe there's some confusion here about what exactly a "hobby" means.  A hobby is something that I do for fun.  I enjoy it.  Once it becomes sufficient work that I'm not enjoying it, it ceases to become my hobby and I quit doing it at all.

Very few people enjoy someone telling them that they need to be ambassadors to the hobby.  By implying that, I believe that you're accelerating the demise of the hobby.  Well, not really--because folks would just ignore you and do what they do anyway.  But if they took that sentiment seriously, most of them would find a more laid-back hobby that they could enjoy more.


----------



## Herschel (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> And yet you don't see them promoting any other drink than theirs. Industry recognition is a byproduct of their presence, side and reputation.




It's akin to gaming though from that standpoint. Sections in stores stock all sorts of brands along side the big ones. I like root beer, but Barq's is really terrible. But next to all the Coke products I also find Sprecher and Point, two really good ones from small, actual breweries. But without Coke & Pepsi products the stores won't have a prominant beverage section.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> What's the point of starting a thread about one's personal opinion, and then disregarding or responding defensively when someone else responds to your posts, politely, and with opinions of their own...?
> 
> If all you want is a public forum where you can state your opinion without it being challenged, then you've chosen the wrong forum in which to do so.




There is a difference between challenging and dismissing.

You've been challenging my opinions all the way and I haven't had an issue.

However if someone, who's not really participated with any noticeable reasoning just turns to me and says "you don't know what you're talking about" (which what his statement amounts to), I think I have all the right to challenge that too.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Herschel said:


> It's akin to gaming though from that standpoint. Sections in stores stock all sorts of brands along side the big ones. I like root beer, but Barq's is really terrible. But next to all the Coke products I also find Sprecher and Point, two really good ones from small, actual breweries. But without Coke & Pepsi products the stores won't have a prominant beverage section.




We are not really talking about stores, though. We're talking about one company with one IP.

If we were talking about FLGS I'd agree with you there.


----------



## Li Shenron (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> And then we complain that the hobby is shrinking.
> 
> ...
> 
> What are you going to do about it?




I am going to be frank, even tho it means I am also going to be bitter and depressive, and potentially even odious.

I don't care if the hobby is shrinking (but I don't believe it is, or at least not dramatically).

All I care is if _my_ gaming hobby is shrinking, but I can assure it that it has in fact shrunk to zero (posting on ENW doesn't count), but that's not because of WotC, D&D or the gaming community, that was just because many of us who played together reached the life stage of mating and multiplication, and we just didn't have nearly the same amount of time and energy to regularly play anything.

Now after a few years of retirement, children are getting more manageable and we're once again thinking of gaming, but my intention is the same as it has always been: to play with some of the friends I played before + adding more from my entourage of friends (old and new). I've always preferred converting my friends to players rather than converting players to friends. But I don't expect them to become geeks of RPG and start collecting books, I'm just fine that they play with us, and actually I prefer them to remain casual players since this means that as a DM I will have less problems (e.g. less rules lawyers and powergamers).


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Hobo said:


> Luckily for me... I don't.




Unlikely for us, you're the minority.




Hobo said:


> No it's not.




I disagree there. For me to have an attitude of "I don't really care what the hobby does, just want I need at the time" is bad for the hobby.

We can probably argue that point until the cows come home and not be able to convince each other of the opposite, though.



Hobo said:


> Maybe there's some confusion here about what exactly a "hobby" means.  A hobby is something that I do for fun.  I enjoy it.  Once it becomes sufficient work that I'm not enjoying it, it ceases to become my hobby and I quit doing it at all.




I am not sure what you have in mind when I say "promote the game", but it doesn't have to be that.

As you've pointed out, finding new players is a way of promoting the game.

Admittedly my involvement with the hobby and my efforts to promote it are well above the average, but is talking with your colleagues and friends (assuming you have friends outside gaming circles. Many people don't. And I mean "you" as a generic you, not you personally) to make the game known to them that hard or time consuming?



Hobo said:


> Very few people enjoy someone telling them that they need to be ambassadors to the hobby.  By implying that, I believe that you're accelerating the demise of the hobby.  Well, not really--because folks would just ignore you and do what they do anyway.  But if they took that sentiment seriously, most of them would find a more laid-back hobby that they could enjoy more.




Well, when I hear someone telling me "I'm leaving the hobby because you're telling me I should promote it" I will believe that.

Until then, I will believe that a pretty exaggerated response to the thread.


----------



## El Mahdi (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> There is a difference between challenging and dismissing.




What he posted wasn't dismissive.  He was challenging the validity and basis of the process you used to come to your conclusions.



Leviatham said:


> You've been challenging my opinions all the way and I haven't had an issue.




Cool.



Leviatham said:


> However if someone, who's not really participated with any noticeable reasoning just turns to me and says "you don't know what you're talking about" (which what his statement amounts to), I think I have all the right to challenge that too.




That's not what his statement amounted to unless one is trying to read into or divine his intention.  And accusations of being cheap and dismissive aren't an example of "challenging", they're just being rude, defensive, and derogatory.  Being rude is something that's considered quite uncool just about anywhere, and quite specifically here at ENWorld.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Li Shenron said:


> I am going to be frank, even tho it means I am also going to be bitter and depressive, and potentially even odious.




Dude, relax. You sound far from any of that! 

I don't care if the hobby is shrinking (but I don't believe it is, or at least not dramatically).



Li Shenron said:


> All I care is if _my_ gaming hobby is shrinking, but I can assure it that it has in fact shrunk to zero (posting on ENW doesn't count), but that's not because of WotC, D&D or the gaming community, that was just because many of us who played together reached the life stage of mating and multiplication, and we just didn't have nearly the same amount of time and energy to regularly play anything.




That has happened to most of my friends too. Heck, I don't think I know anyone my age who has as much time to play today, as he/she had 15 years ago. Life does get in the say much too often.



Li Shenron said:


> Now after a few years of retirement, children are getting more manageable and we're once again thinking of gaming, but my intention is the same as it has always been: to play with some of the friends I played before + adding more from my entourage of friends (old and new). I've always preferred converting my friends to players rather than converting players to friends. But I don't expect them to become geeks of RPG and start collecting books, I'm just fine that they play with us, and actually I prefer them to remain casual players since this means that as a DM I will have less problems (e.g. less rules lawyers and powergamers).




OK, what you're doing, converting friends into gamers, is indeed promoting the game. Specially because they might have children and might decide to start playing with them.

Or maybe they'll talk to other people about it and spark another flame somewhere else.

Or maybe your kids will enjoy it so much that they'll want to have their friends around to play...

Anything and everything counts. I don't mean for people to give up on anything and start a blog, or start writing adventures, or running groups when they have no time.

It sounds like people in this forum are taking to heart and assuming I am suggesting a massive effort and I'm not. The likelihood is that if you're in a forum like this, you're already doing your bit. 

Would a bit more help? Sure! But I'm not asking for anything out of the ordinary here.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> What he posted wasn't dismissive.  He was challenging the validity and basis of the process you used to come to your conclusions.




To be told "your opinion about this subject seems to lack even basic research." sounds pretty dismissive to me.



El Mahdi said:


> That's not what his statement amounted to unless one is trying to read into or divine his intention.  And accusations of being cheap and dismissive aren't an example of "challenging", they're just being rude, defensive, and derogatory.  Being rude is something that's considered quite uncool just about anywhere, and quite specifically here at ENWorld.




It is what amounted to me, and I also found it to be rude and derogatory.

I have responded quite politely to any and every post I have written in this thread and this has been the only one that's made me feel I had to be defensive, and I think I am entitled to defend myself if I feel that way.

If he had a problem with my response (he obviously did) he could have told me about it and discuss it rather than just leave the conversation. 

I have no problems apologising if someone tells me I have offend them.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Just in case anyone is interested in hearing the original conversation I had that sparked my thoughts on this, the link to the podcast is:

Is it WotC’s responsibility to bring people to the hobby? »

I have also added it to the body of the original post, but just in case that's not conspicuous enough and people miss it, here it is too.


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## Ahnehnois (Jul 31, 2012)

People have responsibilities. WotC is not a person.

So I think "responsible for bringing people to the hobby" is something of an overstep.

Should WotC be trying to grow the hobby? Of course. Are they doing a good job at it? No. Are people mad at them because of it (and for many other reasons)? Yes. Do those people have a right to be? Yes.

But ultimately, people are responsible for things. In this case, any number of people may take it upon themselves to grow the hobby.


----------



## Elf Witch (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> U
> 
> 
> I am not sure what you have in mind when I say "promote the game", but it doesn't have to be that.
> ...




Now you are getting into the realm of driving your non playing friends and co workers nuts. 

It is one thing to let it be known you game. I share funny things on my Facebook page as well as news.  I don't keep it a secret. I often work on my campaign in public places like the book store and I have answered questions when people ask about it.

But nothing is more obnoxious then trying to convince them to play. Think about it do you want to hear endless stories about my Barbie collecting? Nothing is more a turn off then someone being in your face.

Back in the old days I promoted gaming at conventions not gaming conventions but literary, media, comic and even Mediawest the big Fanzine con. I don't do this anymore because my health is not up to traveling and I don't have the finances to attend many cons.


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 31, 2012)

I think encouraging people outside the hobby to give it a try is perfectly fine. So long as you are not pressuring people to play who have no real interest. But at some point we were all non-gamers and had to be introduced to the hobby somehow.


----------



## Desdichado (Jul 31, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Unlikely for us, you're the minority.



Maybe.  But maybe not.  Lots of people play without really buying new stuff.  Heck, I've seen handwavey estimates from WotC that up to 1 in 6-7 or so gamers are really purchasers of new material in significant numbers--basically 1 or 2 per group, mostly.


			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> I disagree there. For me to have an attitude of "I don't really care what the hobby does, just want I need at the time" is bad for the hobby.
> 
> We can probably argue that point until the cows come home and not be able to convince each other of the opposite, though.



I don't necessarily disagree with you.  I just don't care.  I don't have any responsibility to the hobby. 


			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> I am not sure what you have in mind when I say "promote the game", but it doesn't have to be that.
> 
> As you've pointed out, finding new players is a way of promoting the game.
> 
> Admittedly my involvement with the hobby and my efforts to promote it are well above the average, but is talking with your colleagues and friends (assuming you have friends outside gaming circles. Many people don't. And I mean "you" as a generic you, not you personally) to make the game known to them that hard or time consuming?



I think it's obnoxious and in most cases socially unacceptable--maybe not to the level of rude, but certainly to the point of being highly annoying--to talk about your hobbies with people with whom you don't share them.  Doesn't mean I hide the fact that I'm a gamer (heck, I've got a baseball sized d20 on my desk at work, which invariably susses out gamers when they see it), but I don't do anything else to promote the hobby either.

And frankly, I don't think I should feel any obligation to. 


			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> Well, when I hear someone telling me "I'm leaving the hobby because you're telling me I should promote it" I will believe that.
> 
> Until then, I will believe that a pretty exaggerated response to the thread.



You believe that when a hobby isn't fun anymore, people leaving the hobby is an exaggerated response?  

See, I think the main problem with this entire premise is that it assumes _a priori_ that the hobby should be promoted, or that any given individual should do stuff merely because it's "good for the hobby."  There's an easy response to that: why?  I don't think that's really been adequately answered except in specious and vague ways.  I have no incentive to do anything "for the good of the hobby."  As long as I have a solid gaming group that I like playing with and adequate material to play with, why should I care at all what happens to the hobby overall?  And I have a great gaming group that I really enjoy playing with, I know many other players waiting in the wings that I could recruit with little effort if I needed to, I know how to find new players if I move, or whatever, and I have more material than I can reasonably use in a lifetime.

_And even if I didn't_, there's so much fan based stuff out there that I don't see any sign of that drying up anytime soon.  _And_ even if I move, there are getting to be some pretty good options for playing non-face-to-face (Google+ hang-outs, etc.) that folks have had good success with.  Not that it's exactly the same, but still.  _And_ I still have many other hobbies that--to some degree--have suffered because of time spent on roleplaying that I'd be happy to slot into place and devote some time to if my roleplaying ever falls apart.  

I just really see no reason to be concerned about the good of the hobby.  At all.  I have zero motivation whatsoever.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> Now you are getting into the realm of driving your non playing friends and co workers nuts.
> 
> It is one thing to let it be known you game. I share funny things on my Facebook page as well as news.  I don't keep it a secret. I often work on my campaign in public places like the book store and I have answered questions when people ask about it.
> 
> ...




Driving friends and co-workers nuts? Convince them to play?

Not sure how "talk to your colleagues about it" has, all of a sudden, "drive them nuts and be in their face".

Isn't there a middle point in which you can just talk about it without doing any of that?


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 31, 2012)

If we really want to promote rpgs on a larger scale as a community, i think high profile media exposure is the way to go. When I was a kid I knew about gaming because it appeared in the media and in toy stores. I dont know that you can repeat that early excitement when D&D was first emerging, but trying to get a major celebrity like Steven Colbert to host a televised game for charity (or perhaps a gaming event) would be top on my list. Companies have done similar things to target gamers at cons (though I dont think any have used someone as big as colbert). Why not take that approach and use it to grow the hobby rather than promote a single RPG among folks who already game?


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## Bedrockgames (Jul 31, 2012)

Hobo said:


> See, I think the main problem with this entire premise is that it assumes _a priori_ that the hobby should be promoted, or that any given individual should do stuff merely because it's "good for the hobby."  There's an easy response to that: why?  I don't think that's really been adequately answered except in specious and vague ways.  I have no incentive to do anything "for the good of the hobby."  As long as I have a solid gaming group that I like playing with and adequate material to play with, why should I care at all what happens to the hobby overall?  And I have a great gaming group that I really enjoy playing with, I know many other players waiting in the wings that I could recruit with little effort if I needed to, I know how to find new players if I move, or whatever, and I have more material than I can reasonably use in a lifetime.
> .




First, congrats on having a great gaming group. Nice to see someone praising the peope he games with. I too have a group that works well together and is always a blast.

Second, if you don't wish to promote the hobby or feel it is to your advantage, then I think not promoting the hobby is a perfectly acceptible course of action. 

Personally I have an interest is promoting the hobby. Not only do I publish rpgs but as a GM and player I want to be surrounded by a growing and vibrant gaming culture so there are always people to play with and new perspectives coming to the table. There is also the joy of showing someone rpgs for the first time. Not only to teach tem about the hobby but talking and expaining things to someone with no experiences leads you to rediscover many of the fundamentals.


----------



## Leviatham (Jul 31, 2012)

Hobo said:


> Maybe.  But maybe not.  Lots of people play without really buying new stuff.  Heck, I've seen handwavey estimates from WotC that up to 1 in 6-7 or so gamers are really purchasers of new material in significant numbers--basically 1 or 2 per group, mostly.
> 
> I don't necessarily disagree with you.  I just don't care.  I don't have any responsibility to the hobby.
> 
> ...




Maybe for me is that I know a lot of the amazing people who make a living out of writing, editing, illustrating and publising games and I don't want that to end.

Still, you obviously don't care, and I obviously am not going to try to make you care, so we've reached a stale mate.


----------



## BobROE (Aug 1, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Personally I have an interest is promoting the hobby. Not only do I publish rpgs but as a GM and player I want to be surrounded by a growing and vibrant gaming culture so there are always people to play with and new perspectives coming to the table. There is also the joy of showing someone rpgs for the first time. Not only to teach tem about the hobby but talking and expaining things to someone with no experiences leads you to rediscover many of the fundamentals.




And that's cool, if you enjoy doing it, power to you.  But I'm a socialy awkward introvert who doesn't really like people, so trying to "grow the hobby" (whatever that actually means) seems like a unfun use of my time.  

And as such I don't see it as any of our "responsibilities" to grow the hobby.

The responsibility has to lie with the product holders, not to spend time 
"growing the RPG hobby" but to grow the portion of the hobbiest community that uses/enjoys/buys their products.  And as a by-product of that the hobby as a whole would grow (where the hobby is made up the collection of groups of people who play each individual product).


----------



## enrious (Aug 1, 2012)

Responsibility to bring people into the hobby?  No.

But it is in their business interests to do so.


----------



## Elf Witch (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Driving friends and co-workers nuts? Convince them to play?
> 
> Not sure how "talk to your colleagues about it" has, all of a sudden, "drive them nuts and be in their face".
> 
> Isn't there a middle point in which you can just talk about it without doing any of that?




I am just saying I have seen people drive other people crazy with endless stories about their hobbies, pets and children. 

You used the word promote that has a very different meaning than casually mentioning that you game.


----------



## Leviatham (Aug 1, 2012)

Elf Witch said:


> I am just saying I have seen people drive other people crazy with endless stories about their hobbies, pets and children.
> 
> You used the word promote that has a very different meaning than casually mentioning that you game.




The meaning I gave to promote is the meaning in the dictionary:

To help or encourage to exist or flourish.

The extent of the application of the promotion is a different thing altogether. If it is becomes annoying is because the person is annoying, not because promoting something has to be.


----------



## Elf Witch (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> The meaning I gave to promote is the meaning in the dictionary:
> 
> To help or encourage to exist or flourish.
> 
> The extent of the application of the promotion is a different thing altogether. If it is becomes annoying is because the person is annoying, not because promoting something has to be.




All I am saying that you need to make sure your promoting your hobby does not turn you into a bore.


----------



## Nytmare (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> That would be a nail in their coffin.  Haven't researched it, but I'd love to hear a similar situation in which a company promoting its market and not just its services has gone from rags to riches.




The Selfish Gene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


----------



## El Mahdi (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> To be told "your opinion about this subject seems to lack even basic research." sounds pretty dismissive to me.




It may have sounded that way to you, but I don't believe it was. 



Leviatham said:


> It is what amounted to me, and I also found it to be rude and derogatory.




Fair enough.



Leviatham said:


> I have responded quite politely to any and every post I have written in this thread...




I don't feel that's true.  Many of your posts in this thread have seemed to me to be dismissive, defensive, and containing a lot of "absolute" statements.  However, with lack of clear cut proof that such was occuring, I chose instead to ignore those aspects, and just concentrate on the subject of the conversation.



Leviatham said:


> ...and this has been the only one that's made me feel I had to be defensive, and I think I am entitled to defend myself if I feel that way.




No, I don't believe one is.  Just because one _feels_ defensive, is not proof that something wrong was done to you.  And if you really felt his posts rose to that level, then at ENWorld, one is only allowed to report it, ignore it, or politely _respond_ to it.  I've learned the hard way here that taking it into one's own hands is not accepted here at ENWorld.



Leviatham said:


> If he had a problem with my response (he obviously did) he could have told me about it and discuss it rather than just leave the conversation.




He could have, but leaving the conversation is not only an accepted way of dealing with this, but one that's encouraged by the moderation.  He didn't do anything wrong by leaving the conversation, and in the eyes of this sites moderation, he did the right thing.



Leviatham said:


> I have no problems apologising if someone tells me I have offend them.




Well, there's always PM'ing.


----------



## Warbringer (Aug 1, 2012)

Yes... Brand marketing .. Key tenant for a category leader


"Educate the market. A category leader is responsible for setting the market trends and helping the consumer make informed decisions. Your brand should not only be number one in terms of sales but also the most respected brand in terms of knowledge and leadership."


----------



## Herschel (Aug 1, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think encouraging people outside the hobby to give it a try is perfectly fine. So long as you are not pressuring people to play who have no real interest.




(Herschel whispering from the shadowed alleyway at passersby): "Psst, hey you, yeah, you. Come over here. I've got this Elf you know you wanna try. Come on, it'll be easy. Just take this. It's just a d20, what can it hurt? Let it roll around your hand, yeah, like that, feel its grooves, yeah, now let it roll. Oh look, it's a 17, you just killed a goblin. Can you feel it? Can you feel the power? The glory? You're a hero, man, a hero. That's what this stuff can do for you, make you feel like a hero...."


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Maybe for me is that I know a lot of the amazing people who make a living out of writing, editing, illustrating and publising games and I don't want that to end.



If they're that good, then things tend to take care of themselves.  Heck; most of the best, tend to get out of RPGs and go into computer game design, or some other creative endeavor before too long anyway.  Where they tend to flourish even more.  I think that there's a fundamental disconnect with the notion that talented people are involved in the RPG industry therefore I should assume responsibility for promoting the hobby so that they can remain employed.  Or that for any other reason, me talking about RPGs with co-workers, or neighbors, or people at church, or whatever, is going to make a significant impact on anything, other than to turn me into an even more annoying person than I already am.  Even in the aggregate, if gamers all over attempted that.

Like I said, whenever these "call to action" type discussions come up, it seems like a compelling reason for "why?" never seems to really get articulated.


----------



## Li Shenron (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Dude, relax. You sound far from any of that!




That's because while writing I have been self-editing and self-moderating so the final result was much more harmless than I originally planned


----------



## Leviatham (Aug 1, 2012)

Warbringer said:


> Yes... Brand marketing .. Key tenant for a category leader
> 
> 
> "Educate the market. A category leader is responsible for setting the market trends and helping the consumer make informed decisions. Your brand should not only be number one in terms of sales but also the most respected brand in terms of knowledge and leadership."




Looking at it that way, I'd say Paizo has positioned itself to become the category leader for a while now, probably even become so. DnDNext feels like WotC attempt to regain that position.


----------



## Leviatham (Aug 1, 2012)

Nytmare said:


> The Selfish Gene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




I'm not familiar with the book. Could you give some insight as to how it relates to the thread? (It'd be quicker than me reading the book when I've finished with the queue of books I currently have...).

Thank you.


----------



## Leviatham (Aug 1, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> It may have sounded that way to you, but I don't believe it was.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




This is a bit too off topic for the thread I feel. 

I'll keep what you say in mind, even though I don't agree with all of it.


----------



## El Mahdi (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> I'm not familiar with the book. Could you give some insight as to how it relates to the thread? (It'd be quicker than me reading the book when I've finished with the queue of books I currently have...).
> 
> Thank you.




The basic idea is that individual competition, and altruistic cooperation, are both hard-coded into our genetic structure.  It's a concept in evolutionary biology that has also been applied to economics.

The idea is that if an economic market is based on purely individual competition (each company for itself), then the market cannot reach it's true potential.

But, if the companies involved in a specific market, also cooperatively work together to expand the entire market, while also competing individually (by trying to make better and cheaper products than the other companies), then everyone benefits from a larger market (there's more pie to be shared).


----------



## Leviatham (Aug 1, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> The basic idea is that individual competition, and altruistic cooperation, are both hard-coded into our genetic structure.  It's a concept in evolutionary biology that has also been applied to economics.
> 
> The idea is that if an economic market is based on purely individual competition (each company for itself), then the market cannot reach it's true potential.
> 
> But, if the companies involved in a specific market, also cooperatively work together to expand the entire market, while also competing individually (by trying to make better and cheaper products than the other companies), then everyone benefits from a larger market (there's more pie to be shared).




As much as I agree with that principle, I can't see WotC (or many other companies) implementing it. I'd love them to, but I somewhat just can't see that happen. Must be the cynic in me.

From where I'm standing, corporations tend to get greedy and selfish and cooperation is not something they do well.


----------



## gamerprinter (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> As much as I agree with that principle, I can't see WotC (or many other companies) implementing it. I'd love them to, but I somewhat just can't see that happen. Must be the cynic in me.
> 
> From where I'm standing, corporations tend to get greedy and selfish and cooperation is not something they do well.




Got to remember that while WotC is certainly a corporation, and so is Paizo, in most cases RPG companies are sole proprietorships - one man operations.

95% of all businesses are small business and most are not corporations. What may be a truism in the corporate environment does not necessarily apply to non-corporate entities.

Shareholders aside, most of the creatives in WotC are actual friends with the creatives at Paizo - and most of Paizo are or were creatives, even if they hold a different position today.

The only truly 'corporate' RPG entitiy is WotC, so in most cases your 'corporate' cynicism in regards to the RPG industry does not apply.


----------



## Leviatham (Aug 1, 2012)

gamerprinter said:


> Got to remember that while WotC is certainly a corporation, and so is Paizo, in most cases RPG companies are sole proprietorships - one man operations.




True that.



gamerprinter said:


> 95% of all businesses are small business and most are not corporations. What may be a truism in the corporate environment does not necessarily apply to non-corporate entities.




Very true, and yet you hardly see them joining forces to grow the hobby. At least in Europe. I don't know if they do in the USA. If they do, I'd be very interested in hearing what sort of initiatives they go for.



gamerprinter said:


> Shareholders aside, most of the creatives in WotC are actual friends with the creatives at Paizo - and most of Paizo are or were creatives, even if they hold a different position today.
> 
> The only truly 'corporate' RPG entitiy is WotC, so in most cases your 'corporate' cynicism in regards to the RPG industry does not apply.




Oh, I am well aware of how close workers from a company are to workers of another. This is too small an industry for that not to happen.

Since I doubt WotC is the only one with the corporate attitude, I think I'll let my cynicism stand.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 1, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> The basic idea is that individual competition, and altruistic cooperation, are both hard-coded into our genetic structure.  It's a concept in evolutionary biology that has also been applied to economics.
> 
> The idea is that if an economic market is based on purely individual competition (each company for itself), then the market cannot reach it's true potential.
> 
> But, if the companies involved in a specific market, also cooperatively work together to expand the entire market, while also competing individually (by trying to make better and cheaper products than the other companies), then everyone benefits from a larger market (there's more pie to be shared).



Except in the case of the specific and classic "prisoner's gambit" scenario, however, I'd argue that that's not a position that I've ever seen _actual economists_ favor.  Just like I would be averse to turning my degree in economics to the explanation of forces in evolutionary biology, economists tend to turn a jaundiced eye to the application of a theory from evolutionary biology to their own field.

And even within the field of evolutionary biology, it's not like the premise of that book hasn't been controversial.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Aug 1, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> True that.
> 
> 
> 
> Very true, and yet you hardly see them joining forces to grow the hobby. At least in Europe. I don't know if they do in the USA. If they do, I'd be very interested in hearing what sort of initiatives they go for.




Small companies in the US do work together or at least have friendly relationships. I know a number of people from other small rpg companies and we work together in a variety of ways. One thing I have seen is booth sharing at cons. 

I think one reason you dont see a lot of small companies out promoing the hobby is they are one or two man operations and they are spending most of their time and money producing content (if I don't write, we don't have product). So it can be a challenge to focus on other things. 

Money is another big consideration. Most small companies barely have enough to make and market their products. It is a bit of a cottage industry (unless you are thinking about bigger fish like Green Ronin). Holding events, taking out ads, etc can all cost money. But there are cost effective ways to promote gaming. 

That said I think small companies banding together to grow the hobby is a great idea. I would be eager to hear any suggestions you have (as well as any venues you have in mind). My health has put some limits on attending actual events but I am interested in participating in other ways.


----------



## Ulrick (Aug 1, 2012)

I don't want WotC promoting _my hobby_ or influencing what happens at my gaming table, because WotC doesn't really encourage players to become imaginative anymore. Instead, players are supposed to follow the game rules as written without much deviance or risk to their characters, all in the name of fun and, for WotC, profit.

Does that sound bitter? Sure. But hear me out.

1. 4e certainly was the turning point for my opinion, but I had been wary of WotC for sometime before that. See, under TSR, D&D had core rules, but at the beginning of every rule book there was a caveat that said that most of the rules were guidelines, play and adjust the rules to taste. With 3e, this changed to "here's you must play the game." It was a subtle change. I didn't notice it for sometime until I realized how bloated the rules were or when I tried to change something. 4e is even worse in this regard. 

4e geared all of its powers and abilities around combat, combat, combat. 

2. Before, the rules supplemented your imagination. Now the rules supersede your imagination in order for games everywhere to be standardized--like a video game. Yes, I know that's a trite criticism to 4e, but at least earlier editions encouraged people to read the books that inspired the game (long live Appendix N!). 

You see this in the evolution (de-evolution?) of the character sheet. Back in the day an entire character could be written easily on an index card. Over the decades the sheet became more complicated, but in 2e actually had a layered system to ease players into the game. Don't want to use Non-Weapon Proficiencies?--fine, use that extra-space for notes. 

4e character sheets resemble a strange mathematical flow chart to me.

3. With 4e, WotC made it clear that I am not their target demographic. Others have stated similar views elsewhere. Now, I do realize that they are trying to amends with my age group, but it'll be really hard to earn my goodwill back if its remotely possible, especially when they release stuff like the Red Box--but instead of actually having Basic D&D inside, its 4e lite.

Furthermore, while at first it seems admirable that the books will generate some money for the Gygax Memorial Fund, in the back of my mind I think WotC is just selling the books so they can limp along until 5e comes out. I already own multiple copies of the originals. 

So lemme get this straight: _WotC initially made it clear with their advertising campaign for 4e that I was fool for even wanting to play earlier editions, and now that their bottom line for D&D 4e is hurting they are using the memory of Gary Gygax to generate revenue?!?_) 

That's just despicable. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but so far haven't seen an actual percentage (5%? 10%, 20%???) of what WotC will donate from profits to the fund. But for now, I say if you want to donate money to the fund, donate it directly, don't let WotC act like a filter. 

Heaven forbid if a company wants to make money. I'm not upset with WotC about that. I strongly disagree with their methods (the "ends justify the means" and all that.)

For me, WotC has blown it. They are done. While certainly they have led the way for years now in getting people into the hobby, I don't want them doing that anymore. But I know that they're going to continue anyway, despite my viewpoints above. They promote rules before imagination and profit over being decent to their customer base. They've used up their goodwill with me.

Finally, we all need to stop wondering what WotC will do next for/to the D&D and take a more active role in recruiting for the hobby. I'll recruit for Paizo/Pathfinder. I'll recruit for the Old School Renaissance. I'll recruit for other RPG systems/companies. But I'm done recruiting players for WotC.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 1, 2012)

Ulrick said:


> 1. 4e certainly was the turning point for my opinion, but I had been wary of WotC for sometime before that. See, under TSR, D&D had core rules, but at the beginning of every rule book there was a caveat that said that most of the rules were guidelines, play and adjust the rules to taste. With 3e, this changed to "here's you must play the game." It was a subtle change. I didn't notice it for sometime until I realized how bloated the rules were or when I tried to change something. 4e is even worse in this regard.
> 
> 4e geared all of its powers and abilities around combat, combat, combat.



That's my impression of 4e as well, which is why I remain disinterested, and haven't really spent much time looking at it, and absolutely none playing it.  However, it is patently untrue for 3e.  3e prominantly described "rule 0" at the beginning of the first book released, and then they even gave some samples for hapless would-be DMs who couldn't figure out how to modify the rules to taste, in the form of the witch sample character in the DMG.  And although there were a lot of rules, the prominent and oft-repeated motto of WotC in the 3e era was "tools, not rules" and like any toolkit, you used what you needed for your game and left the rest in your toolbox.  Vast swaths of rules never saw any use in any of my games.  Encumbrance was a notable example.  And heck, if I even actually ever read the entire section on dungeon door and wall materials and strength, then I don't really remember any of it.  More likely, I skimmed or skipped most of that entire chapter.

Now, with _3.5_, some of that language was toned down or removed.  But does it actually need to be explicitly stated to be true?  Especially to someone who's background is, as you claim, in earlier editions of D&D?  I certainly don't need a rulebook to explicitly grant me permission to come up with houserules--it's a given that of course I can do that as I please.  And I have.  My 3.5 houserule set is so dramatically different from "standard" that I've been validly described as no longer even playing D&D at all.  And heck, I embrace that paradigm.  And heck; frankly, I think my setting and preferred style is better suited to a d20 Modern, or Savage Worlds or houseruled Old School Hack or something anyway.


			
				Ulrick said:
			
		

> 2. Before, the rules supplemented your imagination. Now the rules supersede your imagination in order for games everywhere to be standardized--like a video game. Yes, I know that's a trite criticism to 4e, but at least earlier editions encouraged people to read the books that inspired the game (long live Appendix N!).



Since the mid-80s or so, TSR and WotC have even been _providing_ the books that inspired the game!  

Granted, there's some really valid criticism of D&D fiction vs. "regular" fantasy fiction.  But good D&D fiction is out there, and there sure is plenty of bad regular fiction.  Including much of the stuff on Appendix N.


			
				Ulrick said:
			
		

> You see this in the evolution (de-evolution?) of the character sheet. Back in the day an entire character could be written easily on an index card. Over the decades the sheet became more complicated, but in 2e actually had a layered system to ease players into the game. Don't want to use Non-Weapon Proficiencies?--fine, use that extra-space for notes.



Again; I'm not familiar with 4e enough to comment, but with 3e and 3.5 that was true as well.  The _official_ character sheet was front and back of one page.  But at least half--if not more--of that real estate was optional.  I rarely play spellcasters, and most of the back page was for listing spells (and equipment.  I _do_ use those boxes!)  Much of the front half is for putting your attack bonuses for various weapons--and they give you many more than you're actually likely to use.  If I wanted to write a typical non-spellcasting character on an index card instead of use the sheet--I'm confident I could pull it off.  Although one sheet front and back, with plenty of room for stuff that I'm not actually using doesn't seem to be very burdensome to me.


			
				Ulrick said:
			
		

> Furthermore, while at first it seems admirable that the books will generate some money for the Gygax Memorial Fund, in the back of my mind I think WotC is just selling the books so they can limp along until 5e comes out. I already own multiple copies of the originals. [...] That's just despicable. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but so far haven't seen an actual percentage (5%? 10%, 20%???) of what WotC will donate from profits to the fund. But for now, I say if you want to donate money to the fund, donate it directly, don't let WotC act like a filter.
> 
> Heaven forbid if a company wants to make money. I'm not upset with WotC about that. I strongly disagree with their methods (the "ends justify the means" and all that.)



So you don't need them.  Shrug.  Don't buy them.  No big deal.  I think your implications and labels aren't really very fair, though.  It's dispicable to put popular older books back into print and donate a chunk of the profit margin (which is likely not very high anyway) to charity? And with that, you _still_ can't find enough goodwill to do other than to question their motives and hint at them being somehow "ulterior?"  I think that says a great deal more about you than it does about WotC.  


			
				Ulrick said:
			
		

> For me, WotC has blown it. They are done. While certainly they have led the way for years now in getting people into the hobby, I don't want them doing that anymore. But I know that they're going to continue anyway, despite my viewpoints above. They promote rules before imagination and profit over being decent to their customer base. They've used up their goodwill with me.



Y'know, if the direction of D&D is no longer to your taste, it's _perfectly acceptable_ to just go do something else on your own without having to plant a big stinking turd of a ranting manifesto of all the things you think they did wrong to _you personally._  If you like Pathfinder, just go play Pathfinder.  It's heavily supported, it seems to have a strong and enthusiastic player base, and its easily accessible.  The same is true for the OSR "family" of games.  You've got everything you want.  Let it go.  WotC didn't do anything to you personally you need to be bitter about.

Slightly off topic, neither did George Lucas.  Just in case you lean that direction too.


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## Argyle King (Aug 1, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> The basic idea is that individual competition, and altruistic cooperation, are both hard-coded into our genetic structure.  It's a concept in evolutionary biology that has also been applied to economics.
> 
> The idea is that if an economic market is based on purely individual competition (each company for itself), then the market cannot reach it's true potential.
> 
> But, if the companies involved in a specific market, also cooperatively work together to expand the entire market, while also competing individually (by trying to make better and cheaper products than the other companies), then everyone benefits from a larger market (there's more pie to be shared).





I think the situation is similar to how 'professional wrestling' was in the 90s.  There were two large companies - WCW and WWF (which is now WWE.)  They did not cooperate, and -in fact- were actively trying to put each other out of business.  In my humble opinion, that level of competition between the two companies caused both of them to up their game and provide a more compelling product. (Even if you're not a fan, you've probably heard of Stone Cold and The Rock.) Storylines became better; the in-ring product became better; everything was required to be better because one slip up could be the death knell for one company or the other.  Today, only one of those two companies remain, and -again, in my humble opinion- the product has suffered because of the lack of competition.  

(Though, as a fan, I would also say that this year has been fairly good so far.  I've seen what I feel is an attempt to recover quality from a previous era.)


Personally, I feel that has a lot of parallels with what is going on in regards to rpgs now.  I often feel as though WoTC comes across as WCW at times.  They have loads of talent, but the corporate management is somewhat unskilled at knowing how to use it.  While the creative team does a really good job at coming up with ideas, those ideas are not always well suited to the product they are trying to produce nor the fanbase they are trying to please.  

It seems to be that WoTC is searching for an answer to these problems.  Perhaps what I listed aren't even the actual problems, but my perception as a fan is there are some problems within the company in the product.  I am glad they are searching for answers, but I am not currently convinced they are finding the right answers.  I would compare that to WCW trying to hire Vince Russo (who was part of the WWF creative team.)  They thought he would update their product and make it better, but -by most accounts- he ran it into the ground.  

I do not have a desire for WoTC or D&D to fail.  As a fan of rpgs, my only desire is that my wallet reward products for being (what I feel) are good products.  To some minor extent, I understand the idea of brand loyalty.  I buy a lot of SJ Games products because I have become a fan of the company's work, and I trust that the brand produces things I will enjoy.  Likewise, I bought Elder Scrolls: Skyrim without much question.  At one point in time, I had no qualms about buying D&D products based on name.

That being said, a company needs to earn loyalty from customers.  I became loyal to the brands I mentioned because they produced products I wanted.  Even the ones which were maybe a little under par were still enjoyable.  If a company starts to repeatedly violate my trust, and I feel that I am spending money on things I do not want nor enjoy on a regular basis, my loyalty can be lost. 

 I do not feel it helps me as a customer wanting a product I enjoy nor do I feel it helps the hobby as a whole to get better if I continue to buy products based on name while ignoring quality.  I feel it is far healthier to support brands which (I feel) are moving in a direction I generally feel is the right direction and brands which (I feel) are producing products of quality.  I'm ok with buying the occasional lemon now and then, but it shouldn't be a regular thing.  

Don't place a bunch of banana stickers on a pound of lemons and expect me to continue making banana splits with your product.  Instead, I'll start buying my fruit somewhere else.


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## El Mahdi (Aug 1, 2012)

Johnny3D3D said:


> I think the situation is similar to how 'professional wrestling' was in the 90s. There were two large companies - WCW and WWF (which is now WWE.) They did not cooperate, and -in fact- were actively trying to put each other out of business. In my humble opinion, that level of competition between the two companies caused both of them to up their game and provide a more compelling product...




I don't deny that competition can do exactly that, but the situation is not the same.

In that situation you had two fairly equal sized entities competing against eachother.

With RPG's you have one behemoth entity (relatively), a few substantial entities, and a multitude of very small entities.

It's not the same at all.

There's no doubt that during the height of the D20 era, it was working exactly as it was intended. Expanding the market for everyone (a free, standardized system everyone could use), made all of the smaller entities much more successful than they ever had been; and in turn, that got people to buy more of the base D20 products, expanding that revenue stream beyond what it had been, and increasing the amount of products and the amount of variety of products for customers.

Now I won't deny that it eventually fell apart and ended up hurting everybody, but I think that was a result of unchecked expansion.

What works best for the individual entities and all of the entities as a whole, is not unchecked expansion, nor is it ultraconservative (me only) approaches...it's a middle road that works best. Yes, compete against eachother...but also work together for the health of the overall market.

It's like a small lake. If everybody fishes with no limits, the lake will soon be depleted. If one entity fishes with no limits, it likely will soon be depleted. If everyone works together to maintain the health of the lake even while trying to maximize their own catches, a middle course can be found that is the most beneficial to the individual and the group as a whole.

Now imagine that one of those entities fishing that lake, the biggest entity, and only that entity; also has the ability of increasing the overall yeild of the lake. It will result in larger yields for both the big entity and all the little entities, benefitting everybody.

It's a win-win situation.

So yeah, I feel that for their own benefit, the benefit of the whole market, and the benefit of their customers, it is WotC's responsibility to bring people into the hobby...especially as they are the ones best poised for and most able to do so.

A larger market means more money overall. More money overall means more, and more varied, products. That benefits the big company, the little companies, and customers equally.

No other course fulfills all of those.


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## Argyle King (Aug 2, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> I don't deny that competition can do exactly that, but the situation is not the same.
> 
> In that situation you had two fairly equal sized entities competing against eachother.
> 
> With RPG's you have one behemoth entity (relatively), a few substantial entities, and a multitude of very small entities.




I think the situation is more similar than that.  In the beginning, WCW was backed by Turner Broadcasting.  Ted Turner owned the company which owned WCW.  

WWF -at the time- was running some of their programming out of venues which were not much bigger than bingo halls.  In time, the two grew to be more equal, but they were not always so.   

Bringing up Ted Turning in my comparison is important because there was vastly more money going into the WCW product; yet, in the end, they were producing a product which was inferior to their competitor.  It is the company which had the most monetary backing at the time which ended up going out of business.  I would never suggest the WoTC situation is anywhere near that dire (I do not believe it is,) but there certainly are some parallels to the state of the rpg industry.


edit: I suppose my point is this... If there is a different company which is producing a better product, why not support them?  D&D is as big as it is because of support.  Would it not benefit the hobby to have a stronger/better product gain more support and up the bar?  In that case, perhaps a different company could grow to take WoTC's place.  I feel that would be healthier than continuing to support a product for no other reason than to support the name; I feel that is similar to the situation which lead to some American car companies needing to be bailed out.


----------



## GX.Sigma (Aug 2, 2012)

El Mahdi said:


> I don't deny that competition can do exactly that, but the situation is not the same.
> 
> In that situation you had two fairly equal sized entities competing against eachother.
> 
> With RPG's you have one behemoth entity (relatively), a few substantial entities, and a multitude of very small entities.



Isn't Pathfinder outselling D&D? I think they're in neck-and-neck competition. Paizo tried to make a better game than D&D4e, and now WotC is trying to make a better game than Pathfinder. When 5e comes out, Paizo will have to do something else to improve the quality of their product/service. I think the analogy is pretty good.

On-topic, I do believe WotC has a responsibility to bring people to the hobby, and it's a responsibility they have been neglecting for a very long time. 

4e was my first RPG, and it did a terrible job introducing me to RPGs. I don't want to insult 4e here, but frankly when I was first tried to play it, I thought "why do I have to learn about defenses and healing surges and power cards and action points and second winds? I thought this was a game about imagination!" My little group of friends, who were slightly interested in pretending to be Elves, became very uninterested when the first event of the starter adventure ("you're on your way somewhere and kobolds attack") turned into a grueling ordeal that took way longer than anyone wanted, and didn't involve anyone pretending to be anything. I convinced them to play a few more times, but they never enjoyed it; it was supposed to be a game about imagination and adventure, but all that ever seemed to happen were excruciating tactical grinds.

There isn't anything wrong with an RPG that has hardcore tactical gameplay, but none of my group were hardcore tactical gamers (I don't think anyone is, outside a small niche within the niche of gaming), so the game just didn't work for us.

Thankfully 5e's goals include simplicity and accessibility, and they say they want to make a good intro product (and I'll do my part regardless). I'm optimistic for the future; I think they'll do alright. If I'd had 5e when I was a teenager, I'm sure I would have loved it. I was born 4 years too early! (or 34 years too late)


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## Console Cowboy (Aug 2, 2012)

*Me? Worry?!*



Hobo said:


> Nothing. The players are, presumably, playing the game with their groups. About the only thing I'd expect players to do to promote the hobby, and even then only indirectly in the sense that they could be recruiting potential players if they don't have them. Other than keeping their own games going, I don't see that players have any community obligation to the hobby or some other abstract construct of any kind.




This is exactly the thing. Number ONE reason people leave the hobby? Lack of time. (2, lack of group.) 

How to promote the hobby? Put more pressure on player time.... 
What benefits of an escapist hobby do I forget to make players work?

Slapping together a forum and calling it a "community" is not making a community. It is PR spin.


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## Elf Witch (Aug 2, 2012)

Johnny3D3D said:


> I think the situation is similar to how 'professional wrestling' was in the 90s.  There were two large companies - WCW and WWF (which is now WWE.)  They did not cooperate, and -in fact- were actively trying to put each other out of business.  In my humble opinion, that level of competition between the two companies caused both of them to up their game and provide a more compelling product. (Even if you're not a fan, you've probably heard of Stone Cold and The Rock.) Storylines became better; the in-ring product became better; everything was required to be better because one slip up could be the death knell for one company or the other.  Today, only one of those two companies remain, and -again, in my humble opinion- the product has suffered because of the lack of competition.
> 
> (Though, as a fan, I would also say that this year has been fairly good so far.  I've seen what I feel is an attempt to recover quality from a previous era.)
> 
> ...




There is another side to this though. You see it all the time on TV, networks schedule two shows of the same type against each other this forces people to choose one or the other to watch live which is very important to the Nielsen ratings the end result is one show gets canceled it is rare to see both thrive. This happens because the viewing base is being diluted. 

Competition can be good but cooperation can as well. Look at how having OGL allowed gaming to thrive. WOTC admitted they didn't do modules well but there were smaller companies that did. So game companies wrote modules and settings that used the 3E rules instead of diluting the market and making a different rule system for every setting. 

Of course seeing Pazio success on the OGL may feel like it was a big mistake to to ever do.


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## Console Cowboy (Aug 2, 2012)

*Leviatham wrote:_____________________*

Demand can only exist from existing customers, people who already know the hobby. I am not talking about those. I am talking about people who do not know the hobby, or have never been interested in it, giving it a go because the opportunity presents itself.

<gulp>

That would be a nail in their coffin. Haven't researched it, but I'd love to hear a similar situation in which a company promoting its market and not just its services has gone from rags to riches.
_______________________________________  [/quote]

Demand is created where it was not before. And sales (is what you’re referring to) only exists from existing consumers turned customers. Neither immediately addresses market size or potential.

Case Study: 
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" – attributed to Thomas J. Watson Chairman, International Business Machines, 1943 but now in dispute.

versus

Apple the first Personal Computer, for which no market previously existed. 


You mean apart from Gary Gygax at TSR...


In line skates, Roller Blades a company and a generic term for the industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerblade
Great case study for WotC. 

Any travel destination in tourism. 

If you’re going to be a leader, and, moreover be perceived by others as The RPG hobby leader, you have to act like a leader. WotC believes it is in competition with everyone when really they should have the point of view that everyone is competing against them. 

In the Pepsi Challenge, Paizo wins. Flawless Victory! 

A marketing strategy of entrenchment for a mature or plateau market can be a self-fulfilling prophesy we are seeing with D&D. 

I would like to throw out this idea for people to mull over. Tabletop role-playing games are in the publishing industry not the toy industry. Form not function. Hasbro industries and WotC are toy makers. Form not function.


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## Hand of Evil (Aug 2, 2012)

To live or to let die - it is all of our responsbilites, from the industry to the players.


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## Arcona (Aug 2, 2012)

Howdy...

Long time lurker, first time poster... was directed to this thread from RA (the guy with whom Leviathan had the original discussion.

Lets start with a few basic premises... some have been mentioned already but I am putting them down to have the concrete 'basis'.

A) "Is it WOTCs responsibility?".

WOTC (i.e. Hasbro) has one responsibility. To maximise shareholder revenue.

They are not doing this to promote good family values or give us gamers fun. Much like EA they try to make what sells and not what people might want. 

Our genre in particular is pretty darn niche as it is... hence WOTC tries many different recipes to get those precious USD/EUR/PLN from our pockets. The end result is ALWAYS to go back to investors and present good results. 

That might mean they are increasing costs on focusing on a minority of gamers or trying to expand their market (4E did just that by trying to get on the hype of MMORPG based games and their style).

Whatever the results its WOTC that decides if their recipe succeeded or failed and not us in our small closet communities.

b) The hobby is shrinking.

Not where I have been its not. When I started gaming (15 years ago) there were -2- RPG stores (the same chain) in Athens (Greece). Now there are 2 chains with more than a dozen stores in Athens and stores all over Greece. One of the chains sells primarily RPG (and DND at that) products while the other is focused on Wargames with half the store dedicated to RPGS (and again 1/2 of that for DnD).

Similarly when I started playing I could count the people I knew playing RPGs in my fingers and toes. Now I know maybe a hundred people (personally know them) playing and know that there hundreds more. 

The hobby has increased very much. Same applies from my 4 years in the UK and some applies from my limited experience in Poland.

Generally... the hobby is niche and will always be niche. The comparison with video games is a mistake as many more were playing video games from when they first appeared and until now. Video games are more popular but also have their own share of controversy associated with them and are also considered a 'geeky' past time. 

On the other hand depending on where I go I see recognition when I mention RPGs more and more. From WHFBRPG in Poland, to Pendragon in the UK and other more osbscure RPGs accross the world (Dogs in the Vinyard, My life with Master, Paranoia, Fiasco, Exalted and others). 

Furthermore I now very often see tournaments, game days and the like and with 2-3 times a year frequency where those used to be a once a year event and not that great either.

So generally when I compare today with 15 or even 10 or 5 years ago the hobby is more widespread and more 'mainstream' than it used to be. From gaming into one's mothers basement we now have DEDICATED CAFFEES where people go to play RPGs.

c) Edition wars not seen elsewhere.

Already been accepted as a mistake from the OP but given that I lived through the WoD vs nWoD era and was an avid White Wolf fan I can indeed confirm that edition wars exist everywhere.

In the case of Old WoD and New WoD it went as far as to almost obliterate what White Wolf had created over the years. Overnight hundreds stopped playing and supporting WW and though to this day I prefer the d10 system I blame them for their error in finishing 'the metaplot' and restarting everything.

WOTC on the other hand at least advances the plot of their settings on an edition change. Whether that advancement is good or bad is up to the people to decide.

As a side note even in wargaming you have edition wars... There are large WH40k communities still stuck to 3rd edition despite the fact that there is 6th just out.

Same applies for WHFBRPG where the change in style of the current edition (to include markers and other doodas) meant significant amount of the player core stayed with the old groups.

d) DnD the Flagship

Sorry but no. Sure its a recognisable name but I do not consider DnD the Flagship of my Hobby.

When asked what I play I dont say DnD... I say RPGs... I actually AVOID saying DnD cause I do feel kinda lame to explain that I am playing Dwarves and Elves saving princesses and no you cant relay the epicness or the other things you do in a five minute discussion.

Preferably I explain RPGs as doing 'improvisation' combined with being the heroes of ones favorite movie and not stuck in a set script.

Whats more there are so many SIMPLER, BETTER and NICER systems and game worlds out there that to introduce new players to DnD just feels wrong. 

A few years ago (and just this year my brother) we introduced new players via Warhammer Fantasy RPG since the rules are much easier to follow for someone completely new. Whats more with other systems you can focus on what a new guy/gal wants and not on DnD...

DnD has many positive characteristics but is at the same time followed by so many negatives and so much past that having it as a Flagship maybe even HURTS the hobby... 

e) Is it our responsibility?

Well this is a tough one. 

Personally I agree, though not due to lazyness, that I am happy to play with my group and dont really care to add new people. It causes frustration when I have to deal with 10 different players in 1 session meaning we have maybe 1 hour of progress in a 6-7 hour session.

One thing to consider is that you dont have to be friends with people to roleplay with them. As such you can meet and game and that is all... this means that when a community gets going it doesnt need to recruit or increase the size... once 1-2 games get going those who want to stay, stay and those who dont like it move on...

Not only is it time consuming to get new players in but given that they rarely stick to it (due to the time investment required or preferences) it actually frustrates your older, more experienced players that also have the time investment but end up having to babysit instead of playing. Sure teaching new people may mean that eventually you get some to stick but then you end up with a big unmanageble group until someone starts another game...

(By the way I realise this last part (the whole e section) is a bit all over the place but what can you do, its a complex point)

But, I hear you say, this means that companies will stop producing games for us to play if you dont ensure they get people playing and buying their stuff.

Really? I thought imagination was the number 1 thing of RPGs. I honestly believe that if TODAY all RPG companies closed, I would still have enough material to roleplay for the rest of my life... 

We have so much material already and so little time that even if I were in 3 sessions a week I wouldnt have the pleasure to explore all the GOOD games out there, all the GOOD pre-written plots and all the AMAZING plots and campaigns people made up! 

Seriously there are so many things out there already that I WANT to play and I cant that with my old group we cant wait (so to speak) to be pensioners... 

We reason that our parents generation had 1 vital problem... they are pensioners now and all they can do is watch sports, play cards and maybe critisize young people...

When we are old we will be able to play from morning to evening ALL these things we cant play now! It will be magic... well until we start dieing off that is but what can you do!

PS>

I do think online communities are great as opposed to Console Cowboy. I am currently in a couple of RPG online communities and I am actively DMing 4-5 Play by Posts and playing in another 3... sure the pace is slow and they are not 'face to face' but they are still fun and interesting.

Same applies for the good old White Wolf chatrooms (Bremen and New Bremen) I still recall moments from my roleplaying there that will never leave me although they were done via a computer... wish they were still running.


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## pming (Aug 2, 2012)

Hiya.

Responsability? *shrug* Maybe a bit, but as others have said, they should focus on their game first.

Their biggest downfall? Thinking that more options/rulebooks will give them new players.  IMHO, one of the *biggest* things that rocketed AD&D 1e into popularity was the amount of modules produced and a dedicated magazine to RPGs (with AD&D an 'obvious focus'; re: Dragon Magazine).

Adventure modules gave the DM something to buy and run. It allowed players to collectively talk to other players about their characters exploits in those 'same' situations. Non-RPGers would hear these and become interested because it sounds like a story or movie and ask questions; possibly asking to give it a shot. Two or three players talking about rules minutia has onlookers thinking _O-o-o-kaaay....I have no idea what those geeks are talking about..._ as it doesn't sound like a story or movie, or interesting in any non-rpg'er way. Also, each DM ran it differently because the modules in those days focused on a basic story to roughly outline the premiss for the module locations...random encounter tables, some maps with *lots* of simply-detailed rooms/area. The last few pages may see a couple of new monsters, magic items and perhaps a spell or two. Due to that widely-roughed-out scope, an adventure could take up anywhere from 10 to 20 hours, all the way up to 30, 50, or 100 hours of actual play time...and all in the space of 28 to 34 pages.

But I digress. The bottom line...WotC needs to get away from trying to make money based on selling "hardcover rules supplements" and get back to shooting to "break even or make a couple bucks with adventures".

Alas, I don't think they *can* do that now that they are owned by Hasbro. Thus...they're screwed. Paizo's Pathfinder has, IMHO, started to suck by seemingly focusing on the WotC model of "splatbooks first, modules second".

*How* can WotC possibly succeed with the module/adventurs? Get back to basics...writing a few plots and a background for an adventure takes little time for most DM's in my experience (and is typically revised or mangled to fit into individual campaigns anyway). However, drawing 3 dungeon levels with 20 rooms each, filling them with interesting stuff, and figuring out a couple fun wandering monster/encounter charts...*that* takes time. *That* is where DM's need help...not in plot/story. The DM can do plot/story additions on his own in order to suit his campaign needs. Oh, and get the hell away from "expert cartography artists" spending days and days making a map all colorful, 3d-ish and pretty. Seriously. I don't care how pretty the colors are. When I describe a "30' x 40' room with a 10' diameter fountain in the middle", what the players draw is four connecting lines and a circle in the middle on their graph paper. "Pro" cartographers are, IMHO, a total waste of time and money (sorry to all the pro cartographers out there...really...). Same goes for inside color-art. Stop the madness! Greyscale or b/w interior art is all you need. Next. Black and white, non-glossy pages. In other words...go look at 1e/BECMI modules. Do it that way.

  Anyway...I'm rambling now. So...adventure modules, adventur modules and adventure modules. A 'splat book' that covers multiple things maybe once per year. Reduce the $$$ spent on art and cartography. Hell, if they really want to try it, start a seperate line for 5e modules called "Bare-Bones Adventures" that are done in basically the same way 1e modules were done...along with their 'fancy schmancy' full-color-glossy-page ones and see which sell better. I dare 'em... 

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Herschel (Aug 2, 2012)

pming said:


> But I digress. The bottom line...WotC needs to get away from trying to make money based on selling "hardcover rules supplements" and get back to shooting to "break even or make a couple bucks with adventures".




So committing business suicide is the solution?


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## Nytmare (Aug 2, 2012)

I still think that one of the best answers I had heard, prior to the 5e announcement was some kind of collaborative effort where WOTC basically gave the D&D license to Paizo.


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## Bedrockgames (Aug 2, 2012)

Herschel said:


> So committing business suicide is the solution?




If they only aim to break even through modules and similar support.

I can only comment from my limited point of view, but our modules make about 50-65% of what our core books do, but they are also much cheaper to produce (as well as less time consuming). I think a robust line of good modules, mixed with setting material and the occassional light supp, could be a winning angle for WOTC. Also because they are ging modular, they can release a ton of rules variations in ard cover without busting the core game. For example they could release a cinematic D&D book, a gritty old school book, a tactical war rule book, etc. I am sure there are endless varieties. What is great about this approach is the rules supplements they release intrude lesss into the core game. What is bad about it is the books are tailored to segments of the player base. 

As a customer i am just not interested in the kind of spat line they had for 3E (not familiar enough with 4E to know if they went in that same direction). To attract me as a customer I will need more of a focus on setting, modules, etc. And any support books (say the complete book of elves) would need to be much more like the 2e books which did have mechanics but were primarily of interest because they provided info on elven culture and characters. So they were in my mind very much setting oriented books. The easiest way for them to lose me after the core is released is to churn out must-have splats loaded with prestige classes, powers/feats, spells and sprinkles of incidental flavor text. I want more substance in terms of setting and flavor.


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## Herschel (Aug 2, 2012)

4E tried to be a bit of middle ground between 2E and 3E splats, but ended up closer to 3E. The racial supplements never took off, even though a Dragonborn and Tiefling hit the market but the individual _x _Power books were an interesting idea where all the Martial classes had a book (then a second), Arcane, Primal and Psionic, etc. But they were still really crunchy. 

I LOVED the 2E handbooks (mechanical horrors that they were) but honestly, as far as "racial" handbooks there's human/elf/dwarf/halfling stuff already to teh saturation point and I want to see them for Genasi, Deva/Aasimar, Eladrin, Shardminds, etc. However, those are also more niche.


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## Bedrockgames (Aug 2, 2012)

Herschel said:


> I LOVED the 2E handbooks (mechanical horrors that they were) but honestly, as far as "racial" handbooks there's human/elf/dwarf/halfling stuff already to teh saturation point and I want to see them for Genasi, Deva/Aasimar, Eladrin, Shardminds, etc. However, those are also more niche.




i rather liked the mechanics  (except a couple of the broken kits). For the most part they served the flavor well without overwhelming the game.

I was thinking more in terms of scope and style than specifics. I imagine whatever races they offer will get some books if they go that direction.


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## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2012)

Arcona said:


> So generally when I compare today with 15 or even 10 or 5 years ago the hobby is more widespread and more 'mainstream' than it used to be. From gaming into one's mothers basement we now have DEDICATED CAFFEES where people go to play RPGs.



But if you go back to the early 80s, you'll see a different pattern.  You'll have seen a HUGE spike in mainstream recognition, ubiquitousness and whatnot.  You could see RPGs in department stores.  Everyone had heard of D&D.

It might be improved in some regions, and growing even from a trough of earlier, but it's still a far cry from what it was during the glory days.

I don't know that I believe that the hobby is actively shrinking, though.  I think that those glory days are best explained by being temporarily faddish, and we've now settled into a more stable-sized, mature industry.  A greater problem than shrinking is the graying and aging of the fanbase, I suspect.  


			
				Arcona said:
			
		

> As a side note even in wargaming you have edition wars... There are large WH40k communities still stuck to 3rd edition despite the fact that there is 6th just out.



Blood Bowl Third edition, with the houserules Jervis Johnson posted on the old bbowl-l listserve is still by far superior to anything that's come out since!  

Er... yeah.


			
				Arcona said:
			
		

> Sorry but no. Sure its a recognisable name but I do not consider DnD the Flagship of my Hobby.



Sorry, but yeah.  At least in North America, you can't even talk about RPGs with non-gamers without mentioning D&D.  To most people, D&D _is_ the hobby.  If you try to describe it, you'll get, "you mean like D&D?"  If you can't relate it to D&D, all you get are blank stares.

DnD might not even be the best selling game anymore; certainly there's some evidence to suggest that maybe Pathfinder has passed it up.  D&D might not be the game you play anymore (if it were up to me, Call of Cthulhu would probably be our flagship game.)  But D&D is essentially equivalent to the hobby of playing RPGs to anyone who's not already a gamer.  And to most of those who are.


			
				Arcona said:
			
		

> I do think online communities are great as opposed to Console Cowboy. I am currently in a couple of RPG online communities and I am actively DMing 4-5 Play by Posts and playing in another 3... sure the pace is slow and they are not 'face to face' but they are still fun and interesting.



I think that they've got a ways to go before it really is the same in terms of a quality gaming experience as playing face to face.  But it's a promising development.  And heck, one of the best games I ever ran was play-by-post.  I wish I could play face-to-face with those guys all the time!


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## Greg K (Aug 2, 2012)

I liked most of the 2e Complete class handbooks (mostly for fluff and ideas. I still use the Thief and Druid book for inspiration) and preferred the format to both the 3e Complete books and 4e Power books . The majority of my issues with the 2e Complete Handbooks, in my opinion, were rooted in the patchwork mechanics of AD&D.


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## Greg K (Aug 2, 2012)

delericho said:


> The picture now is quite different. There are now plenty of companies producing materials, but relatively fewer gamers. As a result, even successful products sell in the low-hundreds of copies. .




And some third party companies sell a thousand or more depending upon the system.


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## Argyle King (Aug 3, 2012)

Hobo said:


> Sorry, but yeah.  At least in North America, you can't even talk about RPGs with non-gamers without mentioning D&D.  To most people, D&D _is_ the hobby.  If you try to describe it, you'll get, "you mean like D&D?"  If you can't relate it to D&D, all you get are blank stares.
> 
> DnD might not even be the best selling game anymore; certainly there's some evidence to suggest that maybe Pathfinder has passed it up.  D&D might not be the game you play anymore (if it were up to me, Call of Cthulhu would probably be our flagship game.)  But D&D is essentially equivalent to the hobby of playing RPGs to anyone who's not already a gamer.  And to most of those who are.




Perhaps where I live is an exception to the rule, but that is not the case at all here.  I do not believe D&D has been synonymous with RPG around here in 4 (maybe 5) years.


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## pming (Aug 3, 2012)

Hiya



Herschel said:


> So committing business suicide is the solution?




  Umm...yes?  WotC needs to stop trying to rely on high-priced art, cartography, advertising and materials and start relying on crafting stuff that cators to the core of RPGs: DM's and players using their imaginations to create their own stories and campaigns.

 Reduce the $$$ wasted on eye-candy will free up time and $$$ to put out more "easily purchasable" stuff for their customers. Give me a 24 page 1e-style adventure module for $15 every other week and I'd be giving them $30/mo for YEARS. Try giving me a 128 page hard back, glossy page, high-color art-stuffed _Book of (insert race/class)_ for $50 every other week and they'll pretty much get nothing. Paying $15 out of every pay check isn't painful at all...paying $50 per pay check means I give up food, bills, etc.  That may be fine for the 'younger crowd', but, again, IMHO, WotC shouldn't be trying to get the 12 to 20 year olds $$$ at the expense of the 30 to 50 year olds $$$. Youngsters are more unpredicable and chaotic...it's the old farts like me that are stable and consistent with our $$$. They need to strike a balance between both demographics if they want 5e to have any chance in hell of making an impact.

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## delericho (Aug 3, 2012)

pming said:


> Umm...yes?  WotC needs to stop trying to rely on high-priced art, cartography, advertising and materials and start relying on crafting stuff that cators to the core of RPGs: DM's and players using their imaginations to create their own stories and campaigns.




I would certainly like WotC to do more by way of "DM support" and "toolkit" products. But...



> Reduce the $$$ wasted on eye-candy will free up time and $$$ to put out more "easily purchasable" stuff for their customers. Give me a 24 page 1e-style adventure module for $15 every other week and I'd be giving them $30/mo for YEARS.




Unfortunately, while _you_ will give them that, not a lot of players will. Adventures have always been low-margin products, and every D&D product needs to justify its existence against the very significant demands of Hasbro. We'll never see more than a trickle of them from WotC because they just don't raise enough money to justify the expense of creating them.



> Try giving me a 128 page hard back, glossy page, high-color art-stuffed _Book of (insert race/class)_ for $50 every other week and they'll pretty much get nothing.




Problem is that splatbooks _sell_. Okay, they can't put one out every couple of weeks, but then they haven't attempted that in some years (indeed, not since WotC bought TSR). But the reason they produce splatbooks early in the edition is because _players buy them_.

(And it's worth noting that even splatbooks are marginal products - there's an anecdote from just after Hasbro bought WotC where the team were celebrating the relatively huge pre-orders for the "Psionics Handbook", or perhaps the "Expanded Psionics Handbook", I forget which. Anyway, the Hasbro rep present, having heard the numbers, proceeded to ask why they were producing that book at all. And that's one of the biggest sellers in the entire supplement line!)



pming said:


> Alas, I don't think they *can* do that now that they are owned by Hasbro.




I think you're right about this. The best thing for D&D as an RPG would be to be spun out to a smaller company. I don't ever expect that to happen, though - the other parts of the D&D license are too valuable for Hasbro to give up, barring an eccentric billionaire gamer willing to pay well over the odds.



> Thus...they're screwed. Paizo's Pathfinder has, IMHO, started to suck by seemingly focusing on the WotC model of "splatbooks first, modules second".




Paizo have said that adventures (and especially Adventure Paths) remain the core of their business. And 2-3 hardbacks per year (versus 12 AP volumes) is hardly focussing on splatbooks!

(But, despite that, I do have some sympathy for your position. I'm finding that as they go the APs are becoming less and less relevant to me, because they keep referencing materials I not only don't possess, but don't really want to introduce to the game even though they're available for free on the PSRD.)


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## Bedrockgames (Aug 3, 2012)

I think it is shortsighted to focus on player heavy products like splat books. I my experience it takes energized GMs to attract new players, grow and sustain the hobby. Nothing drained my energy more than the 3E splat book line. Not only did it expand the system to the point of making it harder to run, but the books had very little in them to inspire my work behind the GM screen. Modules, setting books, gm books (such as the ad&d blue book line) and well crafted handbooks serve to inspire. If you want to make player books then take a page from the Van Richten guides. These were written for players and GMs. They were not just a bunch of must have mechanics wrapped in uninsipred flavor text, they were the kind of product that charged up the GM and gave him all kinds of ideas.


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## Arcona (Aug 6, 2012)

I largely disagree with this...

Though splatbooks are okay (in my book... heh) and give many options I rarely buy them.

What I NEVER buy is published adventures... because with the exception of 2 maybe 3 throughout my gaming history they all share one common thing... THEY SUCK.

From the 1st/2nd edition -crappy- dungeon crawlers to the 3rd/3.5/pathfinder uninspired plotlines.

Seriously I have not ONCE run a pregenerated campaign and not thought I could have done it so much better... I do not need pre-drawn maps and random rooms filled with monsters, crazy loot and random traps... 

The 2 shining exceptions (there to confirm the rule) are the Crown of Shadows (for Midnight campaign setting) and the Red Hand of Doom. 

Sure, I hear you preparing to say 'but adventure books can just serve to give you ideas, you dont have to follow all the adventure it describes or you can make it better yourself. Sure, but the same then applies for splatbooks! I once run an epic game solely focused on the entry of the super secret society on the Epic level handbook... we had a 6 month campaign inspired from 1 thing in a single -splatbook-. Same applies for other books... the 'Completes' and 'Races of' series had alot of info at the end of the books with ideas of how to use them and how to structure plots based on that!

Often enough I introduced a plotline via an NPC having a fancy class or prestige class given that in my group we were mostly doing core.

There is ONE category that I would like companies to make more off...

CAMPAIGN SETTINGs and Material. 

The one thing I do buy is stuff like Forgotten Realms campaign setting stuff for example. Because I like to have a fully developed world in which to put my adventures... so I have bought quite a few of the setting books (and had done so also in 2nd where the boxed sets were really cool) set in different areas of Faerun.

I would do the same if they did a 3.5 Birthright and 3.5 Planescape for example but NOT that horrible Manual of Planes stuff...

So yea, campaign settings = yes, splatbooks = maybe, published adventures = never!

PS>

To those that have not tried it, seek out Midnight Campaign Setting... its truly a revolutionary concept (imagine a Lord of The Ring World if Sauron had won!)


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## Leviatham (Aug 6, 2012)

Arcona said:


> I largely disagree with this...
> 
> Though splatbooks are okay (in my book... heh) and give many options I rarely buy them.
> 
> ...




Have you considered submitting your adventures for publication?

If there is such amount of crappy material out there, surely we could do with them to keep things fresh!


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## Desdichado (Aug 6, 2012)

Arcona said:


> To those that have not tried it, seek out Midnight Campaign Setting... its truly a revolutionary concept (imagine a Lord of The Ring World if Sauron had won!)



I like Midnight well enough, but that's not really revolutionary.  In point of fact, for Tolkien geeks like me, I think it better encapsulates the period of the First Age after Nírnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, when Morgoth's forces completely defeated the combined might of Elves and Men, and started a period of brutal occupation of Beleriand.  Possibly, it allows the notion of the PCs taking on the role of Eärendil--certainly that's the only forseeable way to dramatically change the situation of the setting; somehow get outside and make a plea to the rest of the gods in behalf of the lands that are suffocating under the influence of Izrador.

Anyway...

I kinda agree with your main premise, though.  I _always_ homebrew, but in general, I find campaign setting and splatbooks more useful, because they give me tons of items that I can "borrow" and adapt into my homebrewing.  I _never_ run modules--with the exception of a handful that I like doing for one-shots from time to time--and don't see much use in owning more than I already do.  I probably own more splatbooks than any other type of game material, but the majority of what I buy now are setting related books--mostly by Paizo these days, but that's only because most of the rest of the companies who produced stuff I liked for d20/D&D no longer do so.

And although I almost never really run games in Golarion (or the Iron Kingdoms, or Midnight, or Freeport, or whatever) I find that setting books are still the most useful to me over all.  As well as being the most fun to read in their own right.


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## Console Cowboy (Aug 25, 2012)

*Whose Responsibility For Bringing New People To The Hobby?*

See, this is the sort of thing Dungeons & Dragons: A Documentary by Iconoscope Films/Westpaw Films — Kickstarter 

that WotC should bankroll without question. The responsibility for this lies on the shoulders of the industry, and I mean WotC. 

Maybe because Paizo will be mentioned, WotC does not want to fund this PR. Maybe they cannot justify their P&L if just one Pathfinder book, or free OSRIC PDF gets distributed from the effort of this film. Sort of like closing a business because the business does not like to pay taxes.... 

Should this sort of thing rely on crowd funding? *Absolutely not.* 

Does it? The answer has been obvious for years. 

But the responsibility still remains with the industry. 

And here is my message to the industry: The hobby does not exist to serve the interest of the business. The paradigm is exactly the opposite. When the industry groks that, and takes responsibility like even small children eventually do, the market size will increase rather than shrink and profits will improve. Just try not to expand too soon and stunt the growth by blocking out the sun... if they taught you MBAs anything about controlled growth.

Individuals within the hobby are actually sensitized NOT to expand their hobby beyond their table numbers - which WOTC suggests the limit should be 4.  Hobo covered that explanation in an earlier post.


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## Rogue Agent (Aug 27, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> _[True is that no other update of a game has created an editions war.  You won’t hear people moaning about 6 – soon to be 7 – editions of Call  of Cthulhu. You won’t hear people fall out because of the new edition of  Traveller; or the third edition of Mutants & Masterminds. Or pretty  much any other game. However we are so close to D&D somehow, that  whenever they’ve updated the game, there’s been a divide in the  player-base.]_



This isn't true. The _Traveller_ fanbase, for example, is badly fractured and if you go to the places where _Traveller_ players hang out you can hear some pretty hot conversations about it. It's just that there aren't enough _Traveller_ players to form a critical mass in most places.

Historically speaking, there are two ways to have a successful new edition to an RPG:

First, don't change much and maintain virtually complete compatibility. (This is the method _Call of Cthulhu_ has historically used.)

Second, only release a new edition when there is clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction with the current edition (which is then addressed in the new edition). No reboot edition of an RPG has ever succeeded unless there is clear,  deep, and widespread dissatisfaction in the existing customer base. (AD&D 1E and D&D 3E both achieved this at the time of their release.)



> Publishers are horrendous at taking marketing risks to promote the  games. When was the last time that you saw an RPG advertised, full page  and full colour, in a high-street magazine? When was the last time you  saw an RPG advertised in a video-games magazine?




You understand that this takes money, right? In order for these kinds of advertising campaigns to work, you have to be able to afford pervasive advertising in the long-term.

Outside of Wizards and Paizo, I don't think there's an RPG company that could afford that kind of risky expenditure. (And I'm not even sure that WotC and Paizo qualify.)



> However, I don’t feel it is WotC responsibility to bring people to the role playing games scene.



I don't know if it's their responsibility, but it's certainly the only way I can think of for them to find a path forward: There is no realistic method for them to recover a significant percentage of 3.5/PF gamers without simultaneously losing a large chunk of 4E gamers. So the only way they can recover from the disastrous business decisions of the last 5-10 years is to replenish their player base with brand new players.



> So, to end this this article/rant with a cheesy quote: Your hobby needs you!



Justin Alexander made the case in "Opening Your Gaming Table" that a major part of the problem is that the default method of roleplaying is no longer memetically viral: It requires too large a commitment from new players.

And in his series on game structures he discusses how the industry's movement away from clear game structures have made it more difficult for new players to pick up and play the games.

I'd start there.


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## Jupp (Aug 27, 2012)

In my view WotC should not really concern themselves with other publishers too much. The wizards should recognize their competition and calculate them into their business plans and that's it. In fact they should concentrate on their products only and spend the money they have on them as dedicated and targeted as they can. With that they can reach the goals they have with the highest efficiency and will make them stay alive and healthy as a company. 

It always was the case that WotC was the big train steaming forward in terms of financial power and brand recognition. Everyone else was following in the shadow of the train and did prosper, or falter, in the niches that were not covered by WotC. I know some people might not like this picture but so far it has allowed others to profit from the success of WotC and the D&D brand. And i think that in the foreseeable future this setup will remain true. Actually I do not want to picture the scenario where WotC goes the way of the dodo. I think the fallout from that would break quite a few glasses.

At the moment WotC is supporting and bringing new people to the hobby because they build and concentrate on D&D. The rest is being fetched up by the competition with their alternative solutions to D&D. And aside from companies spending money in advertising and creating new products it is also the responsibility of the player base to promote the product of their choice. Because there is no better way of advertising than positive mouth to mouth propaganda. A company can spend millions in ads but if your best friend say that something is cool then the chances for a new customer are 1000% higher than with any kind of fancy ad campaign.


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## ShadowDenizen (Aug 27, 2012)

> Paying $15 out of every pay check isn't painful at all...paying $50 per pay check means I give up food, bills, etc.




I am very much an impulse buyer when it comes to RPG’s.

BUT I am forced to (for the most part) put a “ceiling” on the items I buy.  I’m MUCH more likely to buy something that’s reasonably priced than I am something that doesn’t give me as much enjoyment. (And WotC’s rising prices/decreased page counts is definitely swaying me AWAY from their corner.)



> There is ONE category that I would like companies to make more off...
> 
> CAMPAIGN SETTINGs and Material.




I’d like to see this as well, though not as TSR did during 2E, where they had TOO MANY cool seeting to keep up with!!

To discuss the main point of this thread..
Yes, I think it is a mixed reposinsibility of both players AND publishers to bring new people to the hobby! (It is a symbiotic hobby; without players, the companies would fold, and without the companies, thered’ be no further new products!)

The publishers [and not just WotC!!] need to put out materials that whet the fans’ appetites and fulfills their demands, and not just pointless splatbook after splatbook that no-one seems to want.

The players, on the other hand, need to spread the word about cool new producets to their friends, and get them to (legally) purchase items that show support for what the companies are trying to do.


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## Leviatham (Aug 27, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> Historically speaking, there are two ways to have a successful new edition to an RPG:
> 
> First, don't change much and maintain virtually complete compatibility. (This is the method _Call of Cthulhu_ has historically used.)
> 
> Second, only release a new edition when there is clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction with the current edition (which is then addressed in the new edition). No reboot edition of an RPG has ever succeeded unless there is clear,  deep, and widespread dissatisfaction in the existing customer base. (AD&D 1E and D&D 3E both achieved this at the time of their release.)




Agree with both points. Trying to impose a game design on a fanbase just because you (the company) have invested in it, even if the fans don't like it, it's a monumental mistake.



Rogue Agent said:


> You understand that this takes money, right?




Ooohhhh.... sarcasm!

No comment.



Rogue Agent said:


> In order for these kinds of advertising campaigns to work, you have to be able to afford pervasive advertising in the long-term.
> 
> Outside of Wizards and Paizo, I don't think there's an RPG company that could afford that kind of risky expenditure. (And I'm not even sure that WotC and Paizo qualify.)




Having worked in marketing and advertising, I am aware of the need for a constant advertising presence for the campaign to work. And I understand the costs that come with it. Only so well.

Both Paizo and WotC would qualify, easily. WotC because they have adversised MtG in, at least, one video games magazine in the UK. I can't tell you if they still do or if there were more magazines, but I do remember seeing that advert in the magazine I consume (Games TM).

Even if it is expensive, adversiting Dragon Age RPG in a videogames magazine would make sense, and likely render good results. Advertising GoT game in SFX would also make sense. Adversiting M&M, DC or Marvel RPGs in comics magazines would make sense.

Alas, to make money you have to spend money. I haven't done much research about it in this industry, but I would say that, if it works in other industries, targeted advertising for RPGs should work as well.

Or that's the theory!




Rogue Agent said:


> I don't know if it's their responsibility, but it's certainly the only way I can think of for them to find a path forward: There is no realistic method for them to recover a significant percentage of 3.5/PF gamers without simultaneously losing a large chunk of 4E gamers. So the only way they can recover from the disastrous business decisions of the last 5-10 years is to replenish their player base with brand new players.




Agreed. I am not confident they have the plans to achieve that, though. I hope I'll be proven wrong.




Rogue Agent said:


> Justin Alexander made the case in "Opening Your Gaming Table" that a major part of the problem is that the default method of roleplaying is no longer memetically viral: It requires too large a commitment from new players.
> 
> And in his series on game structures he discusses how the industry's movement away from clear game structures have made it more difficult for new players to pick up and play the games.
> 
> I'd start there.




Thanks for the references. I'll take a look at those articles. Your one-sentence summary certainly makes sense!


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## Rogue Agent (Aug 27, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Even if it is expensive, adversiting Dragon Age RPG in a videogames magazine would make sense, and likely render good results. Advertising GoT game in SFX would also make sense. Adversiting M&M, DC or Marvel RPGs in comics magazines would make sense.




But, again, where's the money coming from for this? In an era where selling 15,000 copies of an RPG over its lifetime makes you a massive success story in the industry, these companies simply have no cash flow for what you're suggesting.

For example, here's the ad rate sheet for Game Informer. Let's go crazy and say that a company is making $5 of pure profit on every copy of the game they sell. (They probably aren't making that, but let's go crazy.) So they take all their profits from their insanely unusual success story with 15,000 copies sold and they spend that $75,000 on... a 1/3rd page B&W ad that runs once.

And it is extremely unlikely that such an ad would give you 15,000 new customers so that it would pay for itself. It would have to be one of the most amazing ads in the history of advertising. Direct return rates on print ads are incredibly minuscule. (On the order of 2% if you're giving something away for free.)

These companies simply don't have the capital to fund the kind of advertising campaigns you're talking about. WotC as a company probably does (although it's not clear if the D&D division does). Paizo as a company might, but probably doesn't.

Even if these companies did have, say, the $1.2 million lying around that would be necessary to run a year long campaign of 1/2 page full color ads in Game Informer, they'd almost certainly see better returns and better results by investing that money into establishing an organization for organized play.

(To put that in a different perspective: $1.2 million would mean selling 200,000+ books to recoup your costs. Although sales numbers are kept close to the vest, I'm very comfortable saying that Green Ronin isn't selling 200,000 books every year. So you're talking about 12 print ads at least more than doubling Green Ronin's sales. That's absurdly implausible.)


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## Leviatham (Aug 28, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> But, again, where's the money coming from for this? In an era where selling 15,000 copies of an RPG over its lifetime makes you a massive success story in the industry, these companies simply have no cash flow for what you're suggesting.
> 
> For example, here's the ad rate sheet for Game Informer. Let's go crazy and say that a company is making $5 of pure profit on every copy of the game they sell. (They probably aren't making that, but let's go crazy.) So they take all their profits from their insanely unusual success story with 15,000 copies sold and they spend that $75,000 on... a 1/3rd page B&W ad that runs once.
> 
> ...




OK, granted, those rates are pretty crazy. I have no idea how much any other magazines charge for their advertising in the USA, but here in the UK the average is £200 per 5000 readers for a full page ad. Way more affordable (unless you're a newspaper, though. Those are also petty insane).

My last experience advertising in an UK magazine was when I was starting in photography and wanted to do photographic trips to Spain. I spent £1000 in a three months campaign going between March and May (time when people prepare their holidays). It was in a magazine with 79.000 readers and I only had 1/4 of a page. I got around 5000 inquiries and had to turn down people because I couldn't organise enough trips.

I am no-one in the world of photography and still managed to sell enough to keep me going and repeat the experience the following year.

If GameInformer truly puts you in front of 3.5 million people and just 1% (I believe returns estimates on advertising is 2%, but that's from the top of my head and thus not too reliable) come back to buy, we're talking 35.000 people. Pretty good odds!

I understand the RPG is different and all that, but adversiting pays off. It is there for a reason.

Spending millions in advertising is pretty crazy unless you are in a prime market. RPGs are far from it. Spending a moderate and targeted amount of money in relevant media and cheaper advertising could render good results.


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## Bedrockgames (Aug 28, 2012)

Kickstarter adds something interesting to this conversation because a small company can experiment more by baking advertising costs into the kickstart fundraiser. They can even be explicit about it what magazines they will be able to place ads in when they reach different benchmarks as part of a strategy to reach a broader audience. 

While I do think this is a big risk for companies, and I myself would be very cautious about spending money on such an unkown, it would be interesting to see if anyone can attract a larger audience by taking these kinds of risks. On the one hand you have the realities of the market and the existing experiences of rpg publishers, which naturally leads folks to be more prudent (and I undertsand this first hand). On the other hand aiming high and taking risks can be a recipe for success in the right circumstances (and in those circumstances optimism usually beats pessimism.


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## jasper (Aug 28, 2012)

holy D20s Leviatham I DID NOT know I had a RESPONSIBILTY TO GROW THE HOBBY. I guess I going to get my shot gun (skeet hobby) go to local RC airfield (rc plane hobby) and start making them use my Exercise bike (Health hobby), while is sit back and drink my mead (home brew hobby) at gun pt. BUT who do I draft off the street for:
Xbox 360 (video game hobby) you forgot the console wars
Star Trek collection ( Star trek fandom hobby)
Working in the flower garden ( gardening hobby)
Etc Etc
Question to all those who think they have the responsibility to grow the hobby.
How many other hobby items are gather dust in your house or that you just sold off?


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## ggroy (Aug 28, 2012)

Hobo said:


> I kinda agree with your main premise, though.  I _always_ homebrew, but in general, I find campaign setting and splatbooks more useful, because they give me tons of items that I can "borrow" and adapt into my homebrewing.  I _never_ run modules--with the exception of a handful that I like doing for one-shots from time to time--and don't see much use in owning more than I already do.  I probably own more splatbooks than any other type of game material, but the majority of what I buy now are setting related books--mostly by Paizo these days, but that's only because most of the rest of the companies who produced stuff I liked for d20/D&D no longer do so.




Same here.  I was mostly buying setting type books for many years until recently.

Over the years I went scavenging through bargain bins searching for setting type books, especially after the d20 glut hit rock bottom.  At the time, there was lots of good stuff for really dirt cheap.

I too was regularly picking up Pathfinder setting type books for several years.  But over the last two years or so, I came to the realization that I was just buying the same style of setting content over and over again, with Paizo pumping out the latest iterations.  (I stopped buying Pathfinder books altogether, just before the second edition of the Golarion Inner Sea  campaign setting book was released).  Besides the cool artwork, it seemed like a waste of money buying setting books which covered topics I've already seen numerous times before, and/or can homebrew very easily.


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## Console Cowboy (Aug 28, 2012)

jasper said:


> How many other hobby items are gather dust in your house or that you just sold off?



You made me cry.


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## Leviatham (Aug 28, 2012)

jasper said:


> holy D20s Leviatham I DID NOT know I had a RESPONSIBILTY TO GROW THE HOBBY. I guess I going to get my shot gun (skeet hobby) go to local RC airfield (rc plane hobby) and start making them use my Exercise bike (Health hobby), while is sit back and drink my mead (home brew hobby) at gun pt. BUT who do I draft off the street for:
> Xbox 360 (video game hobby) you forgot the console wars
> Star Trek collection ( Star trek fandom hobby)
> Working in the flower garden ( gardening hobby)
> ...




Since I doubt I could possibly sound any more obnoxious than you, I won't bother to reply to the dribble you just wasted time typing.


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## Desdichado (Aug 28, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> Since I doubt I could possibly sound any more obnoxious than you, I won't bother to reply to the dribble you just wasted time typing.



If you blow off a valid point because you don't like the tone, well... you'll miss an awful lot of valid points.  This, IMO, was one.


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## Leviatham (Aug 28, 2012)

Hobo said:


> If you blow off a valid point because you don't like the tone, well... you'll miss an awful lot of valid points.  This, IMO, was one.




I don't feel he was making a point. He was taking the piss as far as I am concerned.

You made a similar point a while ago and, although I disagree with it, I replied a couple of times. I rather miss points than engage with people who get into a conversation in that manner.

Also, I didn't miss his point, I got it perfectly (if he thinks he knows sarcasm, he's got no idea how many lessons I have to teach him). I just won't bother replying to someone who behaves like that.


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## Umbran (Aug 28, 2012)

jasper said:


> holy D20s Leviatham I DID NOT know I had a RESPONSIBILTY TO GROW THE HOBBY.





If you overdo it, you look like a bit of a jerk, you know.




Leviatham said:


> Since I doubt I could possibly sound any more obnoxious than you, I won't bother to reply to the dribble you just wasted time typing.




And, if you call a valid point, however it is couched, "dribble", you aren't being much better.  You;'d be much better served to *actually* not dignify it with a response, rather than get into the nonsense of responding that you won't respond. 


So, everyone, how about we try to conduct this like a civil conversation, between people who have a modicum of respect for each other, and who want to discuss (as opposed as people who want to be "Right").  Or don't, and allow us to ban your behinds from the discussion.

Is that easy enough to understand?  If not, please PM or e-mail a moderator.  Thanks.


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## WizarDru (Aug 28, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> II understand the RPG is different and all that, but adversiting pays off. It is there for a reason.
> 
> Spending millions in advertising is pretty crazy unless you are in a prime market. RPGs are far from it. Spending a moderate and targeted amount of money in relevant media and cheaper advertising could render good results.




I think you underestimate how small RPGs are in the market.  Let's start with this essay by Ryan Dancey.  Regardless of whether or not I agree with all of his conclusions, he brings some relevant data to the conversation.  WotC has spent years trying to find marketing that works and that is market efficient.  One thing Dancey highlights, which should be obvious, is that D&D has a much tougher market to work with; expecting D&D to expand it's audience as easily and dramatically now as it did in the 1970s and early 1980s simply isn't realistic in a world with so many choices, when I can play an RPG on my phone or run a WoW raid with 60 other people.  Further, the market has radically changed: fewer distributors, fewer stores and now online vendors who offer deeper discounts but with no network externalities that Dancey mentions.  

D&D remains the flagship product of the RPG industry.  Pathfinder is currently beating it in sales from quarter-to-quarter, but I believe that it's never enjoyed positions on the NYT bestseller lists, while 4E has.  The problem here is not advertising for brand awareness.  D&D HAS that.  Here's a demonstration for you.  If I go to Toys 'R' Us, with 1500 stores globally and more than 14 Billion US dollars in revenue and enter the following terms:

Dungeons and Dragons
Pathfinder
Cthulhu

TL;DR version:  D&D has several hits, Pathfinder has non-RPG hits for some baby equipment and Cthulhu has two hits, one for a cell-phone holder and another for Cthulhu Munchkin.  You may notice that for D&D, THE ACTUAL RPG IS NOT LISTED THERE.  Instead they list Ravenloft, an anthology of the old 'Gold Box' games and the D&D-themed Heroscape supplement.  Again, because the D&D brand is stronger than the actual game.  Cthulhu has more recognition by this metric, which honesty isn't a great one, but it's illustrative for our purposes here.

Here's another point for you:  what happens when we enter Role-Playing Game?  We find where all those potential players have gone, perhaps.  Who do you think has a bigger advertising budget in the Seattle-Tacoma game area?  WotC or Nintendo?  [quick hint: the one of them was bought in the last decade by a large toy company has the smaller one]  The problem here is that D&D has competition from a lot of other venues for gamers and is no longer winning that fight.

WotC has spent advertising on their products before: to little benefit in terms of sales.  Conventional advertising doesn't push sales in many cases, because most of the potential customers KNOW about D&D.  They simply don't choose to play it based on the advertising.  I've seen ads in comic books, gaming magazines and even on television.  None of these generated an ROI that was worth the tiny margins that D&D operates under.  From what some WotC employees have posted here on ENW, it's clear that M:tG has always been the big cash cow for the company...and traditional advertising had only marginal games for that.  The problem is not reaching their intended audience, perhaps, but convincing that audience that D&D is a game they should spend time and money on in favor of other, often more convenient choices.

Understand I think that WotC NEEDS to grow the hobby, for reasons Hobo already explained up-thread.  The market leader benefits the most...and getting more D&D players helps the hobby.  Most gamers I know started with D&D and moved outwards to smaller games...or were brought into the hobby by those who had.  But I have no great ideas how WotC can do that, short of releasing a good game and promoting it through a variety of specialized channels.  I'd wager that the Pax Prime Penny-Arcade gaming podcast sessions probably did more to sell D&D 4E than the sum total of their print advertising, though I have no way to gauge that.

The long and short of it is that D&D and Pathfinder together don't sell huge numbers in the grand scheme of things.  They have dedicated customers, but they are a niche market like comic books.  Take a look at some of these numbers from Acaeum.  D&D, at its height, was never clearing huge numbers of books and certainly aren't doing so now.

I think a large misunderstanding from many fans is overestimating the size of the RPG market and WotC's budget to increase it.


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## jasper (Aug 28, 2012)

Bedrockgames said:


> Small companies in the US do work together or at least have friendly relationships. I know a number of people from other small rpg companies and we work together in a variety of ways. One thing I have seen is booth sharing at cons.
> 
> I........
> That said I think small companies banding together to grow the hobby is a great idea. I would be eager to hear any suggestions you have (as well as any venues you have in mind). My health has put some limits on attending actual events but I am interested in participating in other ways.



The farmers around here have a farmer's co-op store which sell farm equipment to both farmers and non farmers alike. But since their produce disappears when you use it, a co-op may not be the answer.
Edit to add.
To clarify. Perhaps a gamer's co-op needs to be started in each state. The bigger ones can break down in two or three regional co-ops. And then a national non for profit co-op could be started to promote tabletop rpgs.


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## Leviatham (Aug 28, 2012)

WizarDru said:


> I think you underestimate how small RPGs are in the market.  Let's start with this essay by Ryan Dancey.  Regardless of whether or not I agree with all of his conclusions, he brings some relevant data to the conversation.  WotC has spent years trying to find marketing that works and that is market efficient.  One thing Dancey highlights, which should be obvious, is that D&D has a much tougher market to work with;....
> 
> I think a large misunderstanding from many fans is overestimating the size of the RPG market and WotC's budget to increase it.




That is a terrific post! I won't reply to it in detail mainly doe to lack of time, but I will say I agree with a lot you've said.

Let's forget for a bit about magazine advertising. Although I think it would make sense, I also agree that it is unlikely to be the best use of the money with the market the size it is. Probably advertising in tradeshows and convention programmes (Sci-Fi and fantasy shows, comic conventions... that sort of thing) would have a much better chance to raise awareness than an advert in Cosmopolitan.

The issue I see with most (if not all) marketing schemes that games companies put into place is that they're terribly inneficient. I am also talking from the point of view of the UK, btw. I don't have enough information about what marketing happens in the USA (and I am not including mentions in series like A Town Called Eureka and the like. Although they're handy, they're far from sufficient).

WotC is the one who's best poised to enhance brand awareness and they're doing very little about it. D&D has been a very strong videogames brand until relatively recently. I think the shambles that was DDO hurt the tabletop game quite a lot. Alas, when a brand loses credibility (like D&D lost with DDO) the loss spreads around and people who went from tabletop to videogame for convenience, didn't have the slightest incentive to go back to tabletop (they still probably don't in their majority).

I am not sure there are many plans to bring more D&D videogames to the shelves. I know there is a game called Neverwinter coming out next year, but I don't know if it is D&D related.

If there were another Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate (and I don't mean the relaunch) or Planescape: Torment, we'd probably see an increase in tabletop sales. At least that'd be my prediction.

Probably Paizo hopes the same will be true with the Pathfinder MMO.

Of course not many other companies can do that. Having said that, I spoke to Chris Birch recently (Modiphius) who will be bringing out a tabletop RPG based on a Facebook game. Both prodcuts will come out at the same time and will be related. I am *very* curious to find out if that'll work. Certainly hope it will. But I am also very curious to learn the buyers demogrpahics.

Companies that can't do that need to become marketing savvy. The hobby has way too many products out there and too few outlets to be able to survive in its current shape. Now, I know some people don't care what happens to the hobby, but I also feel that is a terribly short-sighted way to look at things. I for one care a lot.

Companies need to increase outlets. There are few shops out there and they keep closing. There are few distributors and they find it difficult to compete and distribute for various reasons. However there are ways of doing it and some retailers are becoming more gaming aware.

Talking with the CEO of Cubicle 7 just a couple of days ago he mentioned how Barnes & Noble has bought some 7000 of the Dr. Who card game. Perfect opportunity to include a leaflet inside that game for the Dr. Who RPG and some other C7 material!

Oh my god I am rambling... sorry about that!

Even if companies can't/don't want to take risks (my initial point that brought up the advertising bit) they need to become better at marketing and encouraging the customers to do some of the leg work for them, a.k.a. word of mouth.

The bottom line is that things need to improve if we want to see a healthy RPG industry (at least I want to, other don't care) and I think that's something everyone has the power to help with (and to some degree the responsibility, though I don't want to open that debate again... it became a bit tiresome).

Ok.. I'm stopping now!


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## Console Cowboy (Aug 28, 2012)

WizarDru said:


> I think you underestimate how small RPGs are in the market. Let's start with this essay by Ryan Dancey. Regardless of whether or not I agree with all of his conclusions, he brings some relevant data to the conversation. WotC has spent years trying to find marketing that works and that is market efficient. One thing Dancey highlights, which should be obvious, is that D&D has a much tougher market to work with; expecting D&D to expand it's audience as easily and dramatically now as it did in the 1970s and early 1980s simply isn't realistic in a world with so many choices, when I can play an RPG on my phone or run a WoW raid with 60 other people. Further, the market has radically changed: fewer distributors, fewer stores and now online vendors who offer deeper discounts but with no network externalities that Dancey mentions.
> 
> D&D remains the flagship product of the RPG industry. Pathfinder is currently beating it in sales from quarter-to-quarter, but I believe that it's never enjoyed positions on the NYT bestseller lists, while 4E has. The problem here is not advertising for brand awareness. D&D HAS that. Here's a demonstration for you. If I go to Toys 'R' Us, with 1500 stores globally and more than 14 Billion US dollars in revenue and enter the following terms:
> 
> ...




When you hit this situation it is time to redraw or redefine your market – and, subsequently, your marketing budget focus. It is not merely a semantics thing. It is sea change. It is about vision. It is about the kind of leadership D&D has not seen since the mid-80s.

It was a death-stroke level mistake for WotC to try to compete with video games. When they did that they disowned the strongest unique selling proposition (USP) of tabletop games that Gygax-era TSR had developed. Gygax knew it. 
And he was outspoken about it. 

I will take one ailing and aging Gygax over the whole bunch of young MBAs at WotC any day.

Consequently, this vision leads to WotC’s marketing calculation that the market is mature and the comparison to the declining model train market is concluded. There once were three blind men who stood touching an elephant along three different parts of its body, and it became an often quoted parable. What it means is: what you perceive can lockstep you into a very different vision than possible reality. 

How far back does this perception go? Two words: Lorraine Williams.*see my comment below* (This speaks to Acaeum’s numbers and timeline you provide because nothing results in a vacuum.) This well predates Ryan Dancey and will have shaped his views and the understandings of his colleagues. His words serve to echo the foreshadowing TSR’s bankrupt had on the industry.

Psychological Operations in PR, my field, does this stuff all the time and is often called perception management. But what we can do for the benefit of the company can also negatively affect it. 

I do not buy-in to the paradigm that the disappearance of so many traditional distributors is the death knell. I do see WotC’s contribution here through its stranglehold policies and practices euthanizing marketing partners.But WotC is into toys not publishing like TSR was back in the day. This is the very elephant in the room I am talking about, is it not? A company that does not understand the RPGs hobby and subsumes, in that lack of understanding, the hobby exists to serve the industry. 

Whose responsibility is it indeed!

D&D does continue to enjoy great brand recognition, and that is the whole equity in the product. D&D Next is attempting to own the news cycle for the next year in preparation for a big launch, but that alone will not turn around the brand’s misfortune. I have seen things first hand in Europe, when I was pitching PR for the brand, and watched the relationship between Hasbro Be and the franchise D&D holder in amazed horror. 

That is the tip of the iceberg and informs me why talent does not stay. But correct me if I am wrong, Monte.

This post is going long past my bedtime here but I had to speak out because my passion for both my hobby and my profession has me neck deep in this quagmire. 

I agree with *Rogue Agent*’s observation about advertising R.O.I.. at this stage of the game and the fact that any reasonable media buying is not going to be profitable. I am not stuck to an advertising paradigm for communications, however. WotC would better serve itself by hiring a senior PR person for $75,000 with the sole specific objective to grow the hobby and steer well clear of gamers. WotC should also redefine its market.

In my own efforts to attracted new-to-the-hobby players, I have successfully accumulated English-speaking, first time D&D players who are expatriates in a non-English speaking country. But this has been accomplished outside of all the industry fairs and trade shows; far, far away from gaming magazines; and solely by selling the experience of the USP through the appropriate channels. 

I am not the only person to notice the missed opportunities here. Again, I throw the ball at Monte Cook for commentary on his Kickstarter. 

But what I have yet to see is WotC acknowledge, let alone imagine, a bright future for its product. I only see a marketing culture of fear, of circling the wagons and of new iterations that resemble a fish flailing for breath on the beach.


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## technoextreme (Aug 29, 2012)

WizarDru said:


> I think you underestimate how small RPGs are in the market.  Let's start with this essay by Ryan Dancey.  Regardless of whether or not I agree with all of his conclusions, he brings some relevant data to the conversation.  WotC has spent years trying to find marketing that works and that is market efficient.  One thing Dancey highlights, which should be obvious, is that D&D has a much tougher market to work with; expecting D&D to expand it's audience as easily and dramatically now as it did in the 1970s and early 1980s simply isn't realistic in a world with so many choices, when I can play an RPG on my phone or run a WoW raid with 60 other people.  Further, the market has radically changed: fewer distributors, fewer stores and now online vendors who offer deeper discounts but with no network externalities that Dancey mentions.



Dancy is a bit out of the loop is he. I've seen tougher markets gain far more traction and popularity than D&D in the 1980s present day.  Markets that have an initial investment of 100s to 1000s of dollars ,have little to no retail stores, and due to the nature of the hobby no distributors.  And I have no clue how the hell it happened because common sense would dictate that the electronics/DIY market should not have blown up as much as it did.


> I will take one ailing and aging Gygax over the whole bunch of young MBAs at WotC any day.




Gygax worked to make the hobby as inaccessible as one could possibly do for something as simple as a game.  I have seen information that is college level material written in a manner easier to understand than some of the stuff attributed to his name.


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## Console Cowboy (Aug 29, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> Gygax worked to make the hobby as inaccessible as one could possibly do for something as simple as a game. I have seen information that is college level material written in a manner easier to understand than some of the stuff attributed to his name.



 Probably because you are reading a _rulebook_ whereas Gygax wrote a Guide book. There is a different reading approach between the two types of writing contained within. One has a bunch of 0s & 1s and the other has florid rhetoric, using complex sentences. One tells you what to do with its system and the other offers tools for the reader to build his own system. When you read college material, especially for an exam, you are reading a _rule_ book. And the better of _those_ allows you to skim.

"Core" (_rule_) books are easier properties to manage. The "DRM" is planted and propagated into the mindset of its reader.

Also, as a member of the industry that shoots for news to be released at a grade 4 reading level we call dumbing down, I apologize to you. 

PS.
I am also going to edit this [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0Kkd4DKbdc"]link[/ame] into my above post as reference to Lorraine Williams' TSR but, otherwise not change my post. (Frank, if you're around here, PoG does need to be remembered as a counterweight to the reason Gary is remembered.) Remember the old Jimmy Cliff hit?
I can see clearly now, Lorraine is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day


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## S'mon (Aug 29, 2012)

I think the main thing for the hobby would be to have a decent D&D-brand box set similar to 1983 Red Box Basic or the Pathfinder Beginner Box on sale as an evergreen product in the same places where Monopoly and other board games are sold.  I was going to say 'in toy stores', but frankly I'm not sure my local toy store even sells board games; it seems to be all plastic figurines and videogames -so that may be an issue, if even family board games as a whole are a declining market, what chance for RPGs?

Still, IME from what I've seen in my FLGSes, even when newbies come in the door looking for this strange thing called D&D, they can leave empty handed and bewildered. A good starter set that's always available is vital. Paizo do it, and kudos to them, but Pathfinder does not have the D&D brand recognition outside the hobby, and it can sound a bit off telling people "Yes, this thing called the _Pathfinder Beginner Box _is the D&D you're looking for!".


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## Neonchameleon (Aug 29, 2012)

Ulrick said:


> Does that sound bitter? Sure. But hear me out.
> 
> 1. 4e certainly was the turning point for my opinion, but I had been wary of WotC for sometime before that. See, under TSR, D&D had core rules, but at the beginning of every rule book there was a caveat that said that most of the rules were guidelines, play and adjust the rules to taste. With 3e, this changed to "here's you must play the game." It was a subtle change. I didn't notice it for sometime until I realized how bloated the rules were or when I tried to change something. 4e is even worse in this regard.




How many ways is this false?

1: Rule Zero is in 3.X just as much as it is in any other edition.  Although there is a slight difference.  The difference is that the rules supplements in 3.X are marketed towards players rather than DMs.  This is further disguised by the apparent ease of tinkering, especially with 4e.  The AD&D rules out of the box need fiddling with (does anyone ever use the weapon vs armour type table?) whereas 3e and especially 4e can be run straight out of the box.

2: Calling D&D 4e bloated is strictly false.  The engine running 4e is smoother, smaller, and cleaner than the one running 2e.  Compare the skill system for one - 2e NWPs and Rogue Skills vs 4e skills.  This is concealed by the power structure - only the powers people choose impact the game, but the 4e presentation of them is intimidating.  And 4e very definitely does have option bloat but this is a different issue from rules bloat.



> 4e geared all of its powers and abilities around combat, combat, combat.




This is again strictly not true.  The 4e power structure is AED*U -* with the utility powers often but not always being used for combat; you might as well say that NWPs are about combat because they include blind fighting and fletching.  Even if you have no non-combat utilities, a 4e character has more competence outside combat and more relationship to the rules than either a 3.X or AD&D character (a rogue with NWPs might come close in 2e).  3.X has one emergent significant problem outside combat - the nature of the skill point system makes you effectively incompetent.  But other than for the rogue, AD&D is almost all combat and spell.

4e actually has non-rogues who can have specialties that others can't match outside combat without casting spells.



> 2. Before, the rules supplemented your imagination. Now the rules supersede your imagination in order for games everywhere to be standardized--like a video game.




This is not only not true, it's also actively insulting.  



> Yes, I know that's a trite criticism to 4e, but at least earlier editions encouraged people to read the books that inspired the game (long live Appendix N!).




Ironically if you want to replicate Appendix N, the game that works best is 4e.  The Grey Mouser simply doesn't work in AD&D (he started out as a mage but doesn't cast spells) and the Gygaxo-Vancian casting on a daily cycle doesn't even work anything like Jack Vance - whereas the 4e AEDU fits quite a lot of fiction.



> You see this in the evolution (de-evolution?) of the character sheet. Back in the day an entire character could be written easily on an index card. Over the decades the sheet became more complicated, but in 2e actually had a layered system to ease players into the game. Don't want to use Non-Weapon Proficiencies?--fine, use that extra-space for notes.
> 
> 4e character sheets resemble a strange mathematical flow chart to me.




In which case you are not comparing like with like.  You don't get to write a 2e caster on an index card.  You get to write a 2e caster on an index card _plus all the books actually containing the spells that you have to lug to the table_.  4e pre-essentials makes everyone about as complex as a third level caster, then the "flow chart" nature is equivalent to having the spells all printed out for you so you don't actually have to lug the PHB, the Spell Compendium, and whatever else around with you.  Post essentials I can and have written fighters out on an index card.  (And if a character can be written out on an index card IME it works better to do that than go with the unnecessarily bloated sheet).

The problem isn't the character sheets - it's that they are badly presented, take up a vast amount of unnecessary space, and that you don't know how to read them.

I hope some of the above helps correct a few misconceptions.



GX.Sigma said:


> Isn't Pathfinder outselling D&D? I think they're in neck-and-neck competition.




Yes.  Mostly because WotC have brought out three books so far this year (unless Mezzobarranan's out - and that's fluff only).  Paizo have routinely brought out three books in a month.



> aizo tried to make a better game than D&D4e,




No they didn't.  They tried to keep 3.5 in print.  Now it's possible that they considered 3.5 to be a better game than 4e but Paizo were explicitely motivated by the GSL and keeping a version close to WotC's old game in print.  3.5 was, of course made by WotC and the differences with Pathfinder are only some very minor house rules.



Rogue Agent said:


> Second, only release a new edition when there is clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction with the current edition (which is then addressed in the new edition). No reboot edition of an RPG has ever succeeded unless there is clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction in the existing customer base. (AD&D 1E and D&D 3E both achieved this at the time of their release.)




And there was with 3.5.  It had been falling apart for some time.  But the release of 4e was botched in oh so many ways including throwing Orcus out, the Gleemax tragedy, the marketers who should be ashamed of themselves (especially Gamer Zero).

Also Justin Alexander is a regular edition warrior - he writes interesting things on the way he plays, but outside that should probably be ignored - especially on the subject of 4e.



> And in his series on game structures he discusses how the industry's movement away from clear game structures have made it more difficult for new players to pick up and play the games.




This is a place where 4e blows anything D&D has produced since Lorraine Williams took over out of the water.  It has combat scene structures, non-combat scene structures (the skill challenge, and yes the guidance could use work), and quest structures (as for an Adventure Path) complete with guidance on how much treasure to give and the sort of quests to write.  (Gygaxian D&D had the dungeon of course).  Yes, the dungeon structure is a tight one and the quest is a loose one - but it's there.  And dealt with in great detail in the 4e DMGs.


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## technoextreme (Aug 29, 2012)

Console Cowboy said:


> Probably because you are reading a _rulebook_ whereas Gygax wrote a Guide book. There is a different reading approach between the two types of writing contained within. One has a bunch of 0s & 1s and the other has florid rhetoric, using complex sentences. One tells you what to do with its system and the other offers tools for the reader to build his own system. When you read college material, especially for an exam, you are reading a _rule_ book. And the better of _those_ allows you to skim.



No. All of my engineering textbooks are guide books because I wouldn't be a good engineer if all I did was regurgitate facts. On top of that using pretentious language results in poor communication like you so amply provided me. I seriously doubt you actually wanted to call Gygax's writing crappy but through your choice of words you actually did.


> Also, as a member of the industry that shoots for news to be released at  a grade 4 reading level we call dumbing down, I apologize to you.



Ironically, I'm a member of an industry that makes fun of people who uses florid rhetoric and complex sentence structure because of its ability to mystify, obscure, and misdirect.  Its one of the two reasons why Gygaxian prose makes me want to twitch.


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## Desdichado (Aug 29, 2012)

I don't think Gygax's writing really qualifies as rhetoric, but it's awfully hard to not call it florid.


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## technoextreme (Aug 29, 2012)

Hobo said:


> I don't think Gygax's writing really qualifies as rhetoric, but it's awfully hard to not call it florid.



Yeah but generally florid has negative connotations because it generally means overly ornate.


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## ShadowDenizen (Aug 29, 2012)

I’ll try not to veer into Edition Wars in this thread. (Not hard, since I’m actively playing in a PF/4E and 5E Playtest game currently!!)  

And I still stand by my thought from some time ago that it’s a collaborative responsibility of both the Publishing Companies AND the player base to bring new people into the RPG fold.

But there were some interesting points brought up I wanted to reply to.



> This is further disguised by the apparent ease of tinkering, especially with 4e. The AD&D rules out of the box need fiddling with (does anyone ever use the weapon vs armour type table?) whereas 3e and especially 4e can be run straight out of the box.




The difference being that it’s considerably easier to “tinker” with AD+D.  Taking out the “weapon vs. Armour” rules wholesale doesn’t substansially change anything, while taking something out of 4E inevitably leads to conflicts since everything it largely “linked together” by the rules. (Though not nearly as bad as 3.5, I will concede.)



> This is again strictly not true. The 4e power structure is AEDU - with the utility powers often but not always being used for combat; you might as well say that NWPs are about combat because they include blind fighting and fletching.




_Strictly_ speaking? No.  But _practically_ speaking? The ratio of Combat Powers to Non-Combat powers is staggering.  Indeed, by couching “Utility Powers” within the context of a primarily combat-based component of the games causes more confusion than anything else. (“When can I use this power?” kinda questions abound, in my experience.)



> This is a place where 4e blows anything D&D has produced since Lorraine Williams took over out of the water. It has combat scene structures, non-combat scene structures (the skill challenge, and yes the guidance could use work), and quest structures (as for an Adventure Path) complete with guidance on how much treasure to give and the sort of quests to write.




But it’s all “by the numbers”.  I think, to grow the player base, we need to emphasize the DIFFERENCES that make D+D (and other RPG’s) stand out over board-games, computer games, etc.

And that primary difference is _imagination_!  By putting forth rulebooks that number HUNDREDS of pages, it’s quite alienating to a large majoirity of the potential new players.  (Yes, I’m generalzing, and I’m sure there’s siazable exceptions), but what pre-teen/teen wants to read the Pathfinder book cover-to-cover?  

The hobby also needs a good entry point. The Pathfinder Beginner box was a GREAT product, but Pathfinder (while large and growing larger still) doesn’t command the “respect/authority” that D+D does.  IMO, while [as I said] growing the player base is a communal goal, it WOULD behoove the hobby to have a quality D+D Starter set/jump-on point.  Is it WotC’s *responsibility*? No. But it certainly does seem to make sense to my [admittedly non-business person] mind.


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## technoextreme (Aug 29, 2012)

ShadowDenizen said:


> The difference being that it’s considerably easier to “tinker” with AD+D.  Taking out the “weapon vs. Armour” rules wholesale doesn’t substansially change anything, while taking something out of 4E inevitably leads to conflicts since everything it largely “linked together” by the rules. (Though not nearly as bad as 3.5, I will concede.)



No.  Its worst in AD&D because the rules are obscured through flowery ornate language that shouldn't be there in the first place.   In order to first be able to tinker with something one really must have a clear understanding of the rules which of course the way Gygax wrote wasn't entirely clear at all.


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## Console Cowboy (Aug 29, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> No. Its worst in AD&D because the rules are obscured through flowery ornate language that shouldn't be there in the first place. In order to first be able to tinker with something one really must have a clear understanding of the rules which of course the way Gygax wrote wasn't entirely clear at all.




Admittedly, for you. 

I would point out that after TSR, Gygax had the ever present threat of legal lawsuits pressuring and compromising his writing unlike any other game writer before or after.


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## technoextreme (Aug 29, 2012)

Console Cowboy said:


> Admittedly, for you.



No for pretty much anyone who is an avid reader will probably agree.    RPGs are the only area where I have seen Gygax's writing style get praise instead of being slammed as being ostentatious drivel.


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## Desdichado (Aug 29, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> Yeah but generally florid has negative connotations because it generally means overly ornate.



Yes, I know.  I don't believe Gary Gygax to be a good writer.


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## Desdichado (Aug 29, 2012)

ShadowDenizen said:


> The difference being that it’s considerably easier to “tinker” with AD+D.  Taking out the “weapon vs. Armour” rules wholesale doesn’t substansially change anything, while taking something out of 4E inevitably leads to conflicts since everything it largely “linked together” by the rules. (Though not nearly as bad as 3.5, I will concede.)



If I'm understanding you correctly, I have to absolutely disagree.  I know from a great deal of personal experience that the myth of the interlinkages in 3.5 making it hard to houserule is just that: a myth, with no basis whatsoever in fact.


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## S'mon (Aug 29, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Ironically if you want to replicate Appendix N, the game that works best is 4e.




I definitely agree with that; IME 4e is a great game for creating an experience reminiscent of fantasy fiction; whether literary or cinematic. It's not so good for world-simulation-oriented play I find; arguably this makes it a more limited game than 0e-3e, but it's great at what it does.


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## S'mon (Aug 29, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> Also Justin Alexander is a regular edition warrior - he writes interesting things on the way he plays, but outside that should probably be ignored - especially on the subject of 4e.
> 
> This is a place where 4e blows anything D&D has produced since Lorraine Williams took over out of the water.  It has combat scene structures, non-combat scene structures (the skill challenge, and yes the guidance could use work), and quest structures (as for an Adventure Path) complete with guidance on how much treasure to give and the sort of quests to write.  (Gygaxian D&D had the dungeon of course).  Yes, the dungeon structure is a tight one and the quest is a loose one - but it's there.  And dealt with in great detail in the 4e DMGs.




Hopefully even Justin Alexander would accept that 4e D&D is still a 'complete structure' game, although it lacks some of the content-generation tools of earlier editions.  I do think it's amazing how many RPGs are put out incomplete-structure, expecting the GM to basically create his own game with just some PC-side rules to get him started.


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## thewok (Aug 29, 2012)

WotC does have a responsibility, yes.  I think, though, that WotC is actually stepping up and taking care of it.  The problem is us, the players, as a whole.

WotC has a special program designed to attract new gamers: Encounters.  Its entire purpose is to draw new players to the hobby, while at the same time introducing them to a source for the game materials.  The problem comes when the grognards show up and start disparaging the game.  "Fourth Edition isn't D&D."  "Fourth Edition sucks."  "You should be playing Pathfinder."  "Play a real RPG."

For some reason, it's not enough that people are in the hobby enjoying themselves, but they must also play the right game, even if they, for whatever reason, don't like it.  And if they don't like it, they're worthless people, their opinions don't matter, and whatever other denigrating thing these people believe.

It doesn't matter if people play Fourth Edition, Second edition, Third edition, Pathfinder, Vampire the Masquerade, Vampire the Requiem, Champions, Mutants and Masterminds, Gamma World, Shadowrun, Traveler, Star Wars D6, Star Wars D20, Star Wars Revised, Star Wars Saga, whatever the FFG Star Wars game will be called, or whatever.  The important thing is to get people playing.  Then, we can introduce them to other things.

"You like elves and stuff?  Ever think about what the world might be like if elves, dwarves, orks and trolls were real?  What if magic was real?  And what if this all happened in a near-future world where large corporations are run like their own countries, the Internet has evolved into an all-encompassing Matrix, and people enhance themselves with cybernetics?  Sounds awesome, right?  Let me tell you about this game I like.  I think you'll enjoy it, too ...."


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## S'mon (Aug 29, 2012)

Hobo said:


> If I'm understanding you correctly, I have to absolutely disagree.  I know from a great deal of personal experience that the myth of the interlinkages in 3.5 making it hard to houserule is just that: a myth, with no basis whatsoever in fact.




I found the opposite - I had such a terrible time house-ruling 3.0 D&D that I started referring to it as a 'house of cards' game - change one thing and it all comes tumbling down. I still think it's a very brittle system. Obviously YMMV.


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## Umbran (Aug 29, 2012)

Hobo said:


> Yes, I know.  I don't believe Gary Gygax to be a good writer.




Gygax was, in his way, a colorful writer.  Whether colorful is good depends upon the reader.


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## WizarDru (Aug 29, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> The issue I see with most (if not all) marketing schemes that games companies put into place is that they're terribly inneficient. I am also talking from the point of view of the UK, btw. I don't have enough information about what marketing happens in the USA (and I am not including mentions in series like A Town Called Eureka and the like. Although they're handy, they're far from sufficient).




Well, that's the problem, isn't it?  Effective marketing has always been the problem.  The D&D brand, in North America at the very least, is well established and a household name.  But far fewer people have ever actually played the game than are aware of it.  Mentions in stuff like Warehouse 13 or Eureka unfortunately are preaching to the converted.  I would be very surprised if anyone watching those shows (and similar material) wouldn't be at least tangentially aware of what D&D is and what it is vaguely like.

The problem for WotC is the same one faced by many brands and items...getting individuals aware of their brand to actually purchase their product.  And the problem here is that we don't really any good dependable way to do that.  Selling an RPG to a person who is only vaguely interested is far, far harder than selling a specific brand of food or drink to someone who was already inclined to try that type of food or drink.  Selling Jameson's Whiskey to a beer drinker is like selling tabletop D&D to someone who enjoys Wow.  It's possible, but not easy.  One could argue that 4E was exactly how WotC was attempting to enact that strategy (their success in that endeavour is another discussion entirely).



			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> I think the shambles that was DDO hurt the tabletop game quite a lot. Alas, when a brand loses credibility (like D&D lost with DDO) the loss spreads around and people who went from tabletop to videogame for convenience, didn't have the slightest incentive to go back to tabletop (they still probably don't in their majority).




Well, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the shambles that was DDO'.  Are you discussing that it was unsuccessful as a game or unsuccessful financially?  If the former, that's a valid opinion.  For myself and my friends, we enjoyed the game...but not enough to spend $15/month with it.  When it went Free-to-Play, however, it was a substantial financial success.  They were the first MMO to adopt that model and tripled their membership virtually overnight.  It wasn't just a success, it was a smash hit for Turbine, with revenue increasing by 5 times.  Regardless, I don't think there's a lot of evidence that DDO's execution helped or hindered the success of D&D as a tabletop game.  The actual subscriber numbers have only ever reached about 2 million (and we don't know how many are duplicate accounts, gold farmers or what have you).  When you consider WoW has had over 12 million active subscribers at it's peak, it's clear the DDO probably has hurt the tabletop game far less than Blizzard, IMHO.




			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> If there were another Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate (and I don't mean the relaunch) or Planescape: Torment, we'd probably see an increase in tabletop sales. At least that'd be my prediction.




I tend to doubt that, honestly.  Follow-on sales like that rarely actually materialize.  Ask most comic book shop owners how much of a bump a superhero movie gives to the actual comics upon the movie is based, for example.  You'll find that other than a mild bump for one issue (with the exception of the Watchmen graphic novel, which has been in print for 25 years), most comics see no carry-on effects or new readers. It's likely, for example, that more people watched the D&D cartoon as kids (or now on syndication on basic cable) than have ever played the game.

I think that RPGs in general need to emphasize their strengths against their various competitors...the things that make tabletop RPGs a superior experience to other forms of entertainment to their fans.  WotC has tried marketing like this in the past but often failed (I recall a print-ad campaign that appeared to disparage MMORPGs that ended up irritating more than enticing...when a large number of your customers enjoy BOTH things, insulting them about one of them is not a great idea, IMHO).


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## Desdichado (Aug 29, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I found the opposite - I had such a terrible time house-ruling 3.0 D&D that I started referring to it as a 'house of cards' game - change one thing and it all comes tumbling down. I still think it's a very brittle system. Obviously YMMV.



I'm sure it's beyond the scope of this thread, but I'm curious nonetheless wwhat you changed and what that in turn broke.


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## Gryph (Aug 29, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> With that I agree. And again, I feel WotC makes an appalling job of promoting D&D, at a small, large or worldwide level.
> 
> And so do an appalling job most of the publishing companies I know.




And I think this is the heart of the marketing disconnect at WoTC. I don't believe that Wizards considers themselves to be a publishing company. I believe they consider themselves to be a toy and game manufacturer and as such a lot closer to their parent company in business model than not.

I don't expect to see Bruce Cordell and Rob Schwalb on a national book tour after Next is released.

More to the point of the OP. I don't think WoTC has a responsibility to promote the hobby. I think they have a very pragmatic business incentive (more sales) to do so. This is a good thing, a business is much more likely to respond to the profit motive than to an ill-defined expectation from the customer base.


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## S'mon (Aug 29, 2012)

Hobo said:


> I'm sure it's beyond the scope of this thread, but I'm curious nonetheless wwhat you changed and what that in turn broke.




I mostly don't even remember now - it was over ten years ago, ca 2000-2001.  I do recall issues with Mongoose's _Quintessential Fighter_ - feats, equipment et al. Changing a Quint feat 'Reckless Attack' from AC penalty/damage bonus to AC penalty/attack bonus interacted with Power Atack to work fine at 6th level but broke combat pretty decisively by ca 12th.

I think over the past few years I have learned how to tinker with 3e/Pathfinder without breaking it - level caps, E6, the Pathfinder Beginner Box, for instance. But back in 2000 I had no frame of reference for what worked.

Edit: By contrast I've recently been giving AD&D Fighters a damage bonus = to Level, replacing their  attacks = level vs 0th-levellers power, and there have been no problems.


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## Virel (Aug 30, 2012)

Marketing WotC product is 150% WotC's problem.

Pathfinder is the Premier RPG thanks to WotC.

WotC created the current mess & it is irrelevant because...

I still play AD&D, I have no problems finding players.

The best thing WotC could do is sell the brand name D&D to Pazio, then get out of RPG business and focus on WotC's card game.


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## Gryph (Aug 30, 2012)

Hobo said:


> I don't think Gygax's writing really qualifies as rhetoric, but it's awfully hard to not call it florid.




His writing style was as much influenced by the works in appendix N as the rules of the game. The, largely, pulp writing in that bibliography was pretty florid as most of the writers were paid by the word and they tended to write as many words as they could get paid for.


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## Ulrick (Aug 30, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> How many ways is this false?




It isn't.



Neonchameleon said:


> 1: Rule Zero is in 3.X just as much as it is in any other edition.  Although there is a slight difference.  The difference is that the rules supplements in 3.X are marketed towards players rather than DMs.  This is further disguised by the apparent ease of tinkering, especially with 4e.  The AD&D rules out of the box need fiddling with (does anyone ever use the weapon vs armour type table?) whereas 3e and especially 4e can be run straight out of the box.




Then I'll just play any other edition besides 3.5e or 4e where I don't have to Rule Zero as much.




Neonchameleon said:


> 2: Calling D&D 4e bloated is strictly false.  The engine running 4e is smoother, smaller, and cleaner than the one running 2e.  Compare the skill system for one - 2e NWPs and Rogue Skills vs 4e skills.  This is concealed by the power structure - only the powers people choose impact the game, but the 4e presentation of them is intimidating.  And 4e very definitely does have option bloat but this is a different issue from rules bloat.




It is unstrictly true. It takes an hour to finish an average encounter. They planned it that way. Both rules and options have lengthened the average encounter--which is usually combat. 



Neonchameleon said:


> This is again strictly not true.  The 4e power structure is AED*U -* with the utility powers often but not always being used for combat; you might as well say that NWPs are about combat because they include blind fighting and fletching.  Even if you have no non-combat utilities, a 4e character has more competence outside combat and more relationship to the rules than either a 3.X or AD&D character (a rogue with NWPs might come close in 2e).  3.X has one emergent significant problem outside combat - the nature of the skill point system makes you effectively incompetent.  But other than for the rogue, AD&D is almost all combat and spell.
> 
> 4e actually has non-rogues who can have specialties that others can't match outside combat without casting spells.





Most of the "U"s in 4e PHB, from what I've seen, are geared for combat or they're not effective outside of combat. 



Neonchameleon said:


> This is not only not true, it's also actively insulting.




Then that's not a problem with my argument. 




Neonchameleon said:


> Ironically if you want to replicate Appendix N, the game that works best is 4e.  The Grey Mouser simply doesn't work in AD&D (he started out as a mage but doesn't cast spells) and the Gygaxo-Vancian casting on a daily cycle doesn't even work anything like Jack Vance - whereas the 4e AEDU fits quite a lot of fiction.




Like what fiction? Are you simulating fiction? or emulating fiction? 




Neonchameleon said:


> In which case you are not comparing like with like.  You don't get to write a 2e caster on an index card.  You get to write a 2e caster on an index card _plus all the books actually containing the spells that you have to lug to the table_.  4e pre-essentials makes everyone about as complex as a third level caster, then the "flow chart" nature is equivalent to having the spells all printed out for you so you don't actually have to lug the PHB, the Spell Compendium, and whatever else around with you.  Post essentials I can and have written fighters out on an index card.  (And if a character can be written out on an index card IME it works better to do that than go with the unnecessarily bloated sheet).
> 
> The problem isn't the character sheets - it's that they are badly presented, take up a vast amount of unnecessary space, and that you don't know how to read them.
> 
> I hope some of the above helps correct a few misconceptions.




It didn't. Because I didn't state any misconceptions. Nor was I speaking in absolutes.

But you're right, the problem isn't the 4e character sheets. But they are badly presented. And I do know how to read them, I just don't want to because stopped playing 4e in 2009. 




Neonchameleon said:


> Yes.  Mostly because WotC have brought out three books so far this year (unless Mezzobarranan's out - and that's fluff only).  Paizo have routinely brought out three books in a month.




Okay.



Neonchameleon said:


> No they didn't.  They tried to keep 3.5 in print.  Now it's possible that they considered 3.5 to be a better game than 4e but Paizo were explicitely motivated by the GSL and keeping a version close to WotC's old game in print.  3.5 was, of course made by WotC and the differences with Pathfinder are only some very minor house rules.




Interesting. 




Neonchameleon said:


> And there was with 3.5.  It had been falling apart for some time.  But the release of 4e was botched in oh so many ways including throwing Orcus out, the Gleemax tragedy, the marketers who should be ashamed of themselves (especially Gamer Zero).
> 
> Also Justin Alexander is a regular edition warrior - he writes interesting things on the way he plays, but outside that should probably be ignored - especially on the subject of 4e.




He certainly is an Eternal Champion. 



Neonchameleon said:


> This is a place where 4e blows anything D&D has produced since Lorraine Williams took over out of the water.  It has combat scene structures, non-combat scene structures (the skill challenge, and yes the guidance could use work), and quest structures (as for an Adventure Path) complete with guidance on how much treasure to give and the sort of quests to write.  (Gygaxian D&D had the dungeon of course).  Yes, the dungeon structure is a tight one and the quest is a loose one - but it's there.  And dealt with in great detail in the 4e DMGs.




Well, Lorraine took over around 1986. So I guess that means anything before that year still surpasses 4e. This includes iterations of D&D where characters could be written on index cards. 

Which is fine by me.


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## Leviatham (Aug 30, 2012)

WizarDru said:


> Well, that's the problem, isn't it?  Effective marketing has always been the problem.  The D&D brand, in North America at the very least, is well established and a household name.  But far fewer people have ever actually played the game than are aware of it.  Mentions in stuff like Warehouse 13 or Eureka unfortunately are preaching to the converted.  I would be very surprised if anyone watching those shows (and similar material) wouldn't be at least tangentially aware of what D&D is and what it is vaguely like.
> 
> The problem for WotC is the same one faced by many brands and items...getting individuals aware of their brand to actually purchase their product.  And the problem here is that we don't really any good dependable way to do that.  Selling an RPG to a person who is only vaguely interested is far, far harder than selling a specific brand of food or drink to someone who was already inclined to try that type of food or drink.  Selling Jameson's Whiskey to a beer drinker is like selling tabletop D&D to someone who enjoys Wow.  It's possible, but not easy.  One could argue that 4E was exactly how WotC was attempting to enact that strategy (their success in that endeavour is another discussion entirely).




Can't agree more with you. Yet, the efforts I am seeing from WotC regarding DnD 5th feel more geared towards getting Pathfinder players back than to get new players. 

Of course it is very early days and I am fairly cynical of WotC marketing, though I'll concede they're getting better at it. At least their PR company is now approaching podcasts to promote books, like RA Salvatore's latest one and they send some boardgames for review from time to time. Not sure how much that helps the RPG, but it's a step in the right direction.





WizarDru said:


> Well, I'm not sure what you mean by 'the shambles that was DDO'.  Are you discussing that it was unsuccessful as a game or unsuccessful financially?  If the former, that's a valid opinion.  For myself and my friends, we enjoyed the game...but not enough to spend $15/month with it.  When it went Free-to-Play, however, it was a substantial financial success.  They were the first MMO to adopt that model and tripled their membership virtually overnight.  It wasn't just a success, it was a smash hit for Turbine, with revenue increasing by 5 times.  Regardless, I don't think there's a lot of evidence that DDO's execution helped or hindered the success of D&D as a tabletop game.  The actual subscriber numbers have only ever reached about 2 million (and we don't know how many are duplicate accounts, gold farmers or what have you).  When you consider WoW has had over 12 million active subscribers at it's peak, it's clear the DDO probably has hurt the tabletop game far less than Blizzard, IMHO.




I have no idea how much money it made, to be honest. For me it was a shambles because the game wasn't good enough to justify $15 a month. IMO, if you launch a game at a price, it should be because you believe the game is worth $15 a month. When players consider it isn't and wait until the game is free to play, the game has failed. It might make more money now that's free, but that's not the benchmark I am measuring its success by.

True that there is little evidence to substantiate my claim. I am only claiming it on the basis of brand association. For example, if you like WoW and see the WoW boardgame, you're more likely to buy it than if you didn't like WoW in the first place.




WizarDru said:


> I tend to doubt that, honestly.  Follow-on sales like that rarely actually materialize.  Ask most comic book shop owners how much of a bump a superhero movie gives to the actual comics upon the movie is based, for example.  You'll find that other than a mild bump for one issue (with the exception of the Watchmen graphic novel, which has been in print for 25 years), most comics see no carry-on effects or new readers. It's likely, for example, that more people watched the D&D cartoon as kids (or now on syndication on basic cable) than have ever played the game.




Well, a mild bump would be a lot better than nothing. Also it would help contribute to the general financial health of WotC and, hopefully, give them some incentive to promote the brand cross-products.



WizarDru said:


> I think that RPGs in general need to emphasize their strengths against their various competitors...the things that make tabletop RPGs a superior experience to other forms of entertainment to their fans.  WotC has tried marketing like this in the past but often failed (I recall a print-ad campaign that appeared to disparage MMORPGs that ended up irritating more than enticing...when a large number of your customers enjoy BOTH things, insulting them about one of them is not a great idea, IMHO).




I agree with that. And again it highlights that there is no marketing maturity in the industry. When a company that could actually afford to pay a good marketing director to bring it back onto the map doesn't bother, what are the odds of much smaller bands investing on it?


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## jasper (Aug 30, 2012)

technoextreme said:


> No.  Its worst in AD&D because the rules are obscured through flowery ornate language that shouldn't be there in the first place.   In order to first be able to tinker with something one really must have a clear understanding of the rules which of course the way Gygax wrote wasn't entirely clear at all.



 Plus the need for editor. It was bad enough that spells from different casters had differ effects, but why some rules System shock were in one chapter, and other rules half way into the DMG.


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## Neonchameleon (Aug 30, 2012)

Ulrick said:


> It isn't.




Oh yes it is. /Panto



> Then I'll just play any other edition besides 3.5e or 4e where I don't have to Rule Zero as much.




An ironic assessment given the original argument was about houserules and that it was indicated that you could houserule earlier games and that this advice was there.  You've just reversed the goalposts, first saying that only TSR D&D encouraged you to make the game your own and now saying that you shouldn't use Rule Zero.



> It is unstrictly true. It takes an hour to finish an average encounter. They planned it that way. Both rules and options have lengthened the average encounter--which is usually combat.




If by "rules" you mean "hit points", yes.  A combat in 4e takes longer because in AD&D a standard goblin has IIRC 2 hit points - a level 1 non-minion 4e goblin has IIRC 27.  

Hit point bloat is not the same as rules bloat - in terms of core rules, 4e is closer to oD&D than AD&D.  It then adds options, but the rules remain simple and exception based.



> Most of the "U"s in 4e PHB, from what I've seen, are geared for combat or they're not effective outside of combat.




Many are in the PHB - this proportion decreased over time.  Without any non-combat utilities, you're still as competent as any non-casting AD&D character - utilities allow you to go above and beyond (which to be fair the thief is meant to be able to in 1e even if he took a stealth nerf in 2e with e.g. the downgrading of scale sheer surface to climb wall).



> Like what fiction? Are you simulating fiction? or emulating fiction?




Emulating.  In 4e the game ends up like a novel - in previous editions the game doesn't even resemble a _D&D_ novel that closely.



> But you're right, the problem isn't the 4e character sheets. But they are badly presented. And I do know how to read them, I just don't want to because stopped playing 4e in 2009.




I started playing 4e in 2009, and the game has improved massively since then.



> Well, Lorraine took over around 1986. So I guess that means anything before that year still surpasses 4e. This includes iterations of D&D where characters could be written on index cards.
> 
> Which is fine by me.




You mean iterations like 4e?

The only characters in AD&D that could be written on index cards were non-casters.  Fighters or thieves.  If you wanted to be a caster, all you actually could fit on the index card beyond first level was the _names_ of your spells and the page references.  This is not your character - merely pointers.

In 4e you can write an Essentials fighter or Elementalist Sorceror on one side of an index card.  A thief might take both sides - and I could probably manage most characters on that (most powers take about half a line each).  (And it's one hell of a more usable format than the official character sheets for these classes).


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## Umbran (Aug 30, 2012)

*Ladies and Gents, 

The title of this thread is not, "Which Edition is the Bestest of All!"  Get it back to the topic, and away from edition warring.

Please take questions to e-mail or PM with one of the mods.  Thanks, all. *


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## Piratecat (Aug 30, 2012)

I think it's certainly in WotC's self-interest. Paizo's, too. The market forerunners generally have the biggest interest, and available resources, to build the size of the market. Moreso in D&D than other hobbies, as well, because recruiting one new DM may then result in 4-6 brand new players.


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## WizarDru (Aug 30, 2012)

Leviatham said:


> At least their PR company is now approaching podcasts to promote books, like RA Salvatore's latest one and they send some boardgames for review from time to time. Not sure how much that helps the RPG, but it's a step in the right direction.




Personally, I think there are three things WotC needs to do make D&D Next a success...which in turn will help the industry overall by virtue of network externalities, as Dancey calls them.  


Quality Electronic Tools
Some variant of the OGL
Effective modern communication

I consider D&D 4E to almost require the use of the D&D compendium and character builder, just to make some aspects of the game less tedious.  I think that D&D Next needs to have effective, portable tools for players and DMs.  To do otherwise is to alienate customers and leave money on the table.  It is RIDICULOUS that in 2012, we do not have iOS and Android clients for the character builder and compendium.  Oh, there have been fan projects, but they have all been kludges.  WotC's total failure from the very beginning in this realm needs to change.  Dramatically.  

Let's be clear here: single-person developers have already created tools like this.  Which is also why there should be the second item, a new version of some sort of the OGL, allowing much better third-party content and development.  WOtC should put a program in place to allow some developers to license some of their content (such as the protected content from the OGL days) and allow it into circulation, either for a fee or for something like what some game-makers have done: demand that said developers must release their content for free.  3E's massive surge of quality materials is directly owed to this and made 3E compelling.  4E's almost total lack is the same problem.

Communication is a tricky one.  WotC was doing podcasts prior to 4E.  They had websites.  They had forum reps.  I'm sure they probably have twitter accounts, facebook pages and maybe even G+ hangouts, for all I know.  But WotC needs to better engage it's customers than it does.  Too often it feels like WotC doesn't entirely understand their audience, even though they know them 10X better than TSR ever did.




			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> When players consider it isn't and wait until the game is free to play, the game has failed. It might make more money now that's free, but that's not the benchmark I am measuring its success by.




And that's a fair assessment for a consumer.  For Turbine, however, it's a different matter.  DDO ran for 3 years as a pay service, so it was hardly a failure....and you need to remember, they practically invented the free2play MMORPG space.  Quite a few people found DDO a game worth spending money on occasionally, even if they didn't think it was worth $15 a month _regularly_.  

The larger point is this: it's very unlikely that DDO, with a subscriber base of around 2 million, was going to harm or hurt the installed D&D player base of potentially 6 million world-wide.  Consider the fates of Temple of Elemental Evil and Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale.  The former was so buggy that it was mentioned in virtually every review and it sold relatively poorly.  Daggerdale was almost universally panned.  One was released and the height of 3.5s popularlity, while the other released well into 4E's lifecycle...and from what I can tell, neither had much impact on the tabletop game.  Nor did the far more successful Neverwinter Nights 1, Neverwinter Nights 2, Demon Stone, Dragonshard, D&D Tactics, D&D Heroes or even the D&D facebook game (which may have more players than DDO, for all I know).

I get your idea that such things could all feed back into the popularity of tabletop gaming and D&D in specific....but I think that's the tail wagging the dog.  The original Star Wars RPG wasn't driven by movies or books, for example...but by Star Wars fans who also played RPGs.  The new movies didn't suddenly make later versions of the Star Wars RPG (such as WotC's version) an equal of D&D, even though it reached far, far more people.  For that matter, the D&D movies didn't hurt WotC and that was seen by far more people than probably played the MMO.  It came out right when 3E was barely six months old and was panned pretty badly.  That didn't hurt D&D at all, as we now know.  For the most part, game sales and the industry are more affected by other factors (like the rise of CCGs, the sudden popularity of minis games and Euro-games and things like MMOs and Xbox-Live).   People who play WoW might try the WoW card game...but it's probably far more popular with people who were already playing Magic: The Gathering.  THAT is why D&D is more concerned with attracting Pathfinder players (the D&D equivalent of 'lapsed Catholics', if you will). 




			
				Leviatham said:
			
		

> I agree with that. And again it highlights that there is no marketing maturity in the industry. When a company that could actually afford to pay a good marketing director to bring it back onto the map doesn't bother, what are the odds of much smaller bands investing on it?




And that's the greater issue, one the Dancey originally discussed in his now famous post about the state of TSR when he first investigated them after the acquisition.  Prior to WotC, no one had ever even bothered to try and gauge this sort of stuff.  And currently, ONLY WotC has the ability to do so.  I would wager there are no other RPG producers with a staff of over a hundred out there.  WotC has one.  They have brand managers.  They have marketers.  And they're all gamers, pretty much.  But marketing these games and to gamers is tricky business, especially in a market like this one with so many decent alternatives.

I suspect the very nature of what WotC sells is going to need to change at some point to continue to be successful...or they're going to have to become a brand first and game second.


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## Nytmare (Aug 30, 2012)

WizarDru said:


> And that's a fair assessment for a consumer.  For Turbine, however, it's a different matter.  DDO ran for 3 years as a pay service, so it was hardly a failure....and you need to remember, they practically invented the free2play MMORPG space.  Quite a few people found DDO a game worth spending money on occasionally, even if they didn't think it was worth $15 a month _regularly_.




Granted I'm probably a really odd corner case, but for about 2+ years, I juggled the free 15 day DDO accounts, running a recurring warforged character that changed class and recycled equipment every two weeks.  Over those 3 years DDO didn't make a (direct) dime off of me.

Once they went "free" I dropped about 80 bucks on them over the course of a month, and then stopped playing all together.


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## WizarDru (Aug 31, 2012)

Nytmare said:


> Granted I'm probably a really odd corner case, but for about 2+ years, I juggled the free 15 day DDO accounts, running a recurring warforged character that changed class and recycled equipment every two weeks.  Over those 3 years DDO didn't make a (direct) dime off of me.
> 
> Once they went "free" I dropped about 80 bucks on them over the course of a month, and then stopped playing all together.




And that's actually not unusual.  Here's the thing about the Free-to-Play model: only about 5% of the customers actually spend any money.  But the ones who do tend to spend BIG.  Among my group, none of us went beyond the trials.  When the game went free, we didn't make $15 a month but we spent in spurts, so they definitely made more than if we didn't play at all (I'd wager we spent about $50 in 6 months per person).

The goal of the F2P model is to get the most people possible to play, knowing that some will spend to get more content or skip the boring parts or to get an advantage.  The king of the F2P model is Team Fortress 2, a game that went free several years in and saw it's playerbase increase five-fold and it's revenue stream increased by 40x.   TF2 also has an unusually high 20-30% rate of players who actually spend money on micro-transactions, which is unique in the industry.

I have played plenty of F2P games, but only DDO, Team Fortress 2, Tribes Ascend and one or two others have ever gotten me to spend money on them.  And that's due to them being games that I enjoyed.  Star Trek Online, Champions Online and others foundered on the vine for me, partly because they had their hand out for money so early it irritated me.


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## Desdichado (Aug 31, 2012)

Not exactly on topic, but in case y'all didn't know: Star Wars Old Republic will go to F2P sometime this fall.  I've said for a long time that's the only MMO that will tempt me.  At F2P, I'll play it for sure.


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## Umbran (Aug 31, 2012)

Piratecat said:


> I think it's certainly in WotC's self-interest. Paizo's, too.




Reading this suddenly made me think about a completely different way of approaching this question.

In common parlance, when we ask, "Who is responsible for this?" what we really mean is, "Who do we get to blame when it doesn't go how I want it to?"  But, that's a pretty negative view of the whole thing, and part of a basically dysfunctional relationship is to start with considering blame.

There's another meaning.  Simply, "Who's job is it?"

It is WotC's job to bring people to the hobby?  Well, as P-cat points out, it is probably in their own interest.  It would make sense for them to make it their job.

But, that doesn't mean it isn't your job, too.  What you bought from WotC were rulebooks, not an entitlement to a group of copacetic people to play with.  You have to find them yourself, and if you cannot find them, and you want to play, it is in your own best interests to create them.

Now, you're in the same position as WotC - doing something that's in your own best interests.  It would, similarly, be reasonable for you to make it your job.


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## Jiggawatts (Sep 2, 2012)

> True is that no other update of a game has created an editions war.



Hahahaha, tell that the the 1E'ers when 2E came out, or go to Dragonsfoot and tell that to the people who played, and still play, 1E/2E AD&D when 3E came out (hint: they call 3E "TETSNBN" or "the edition that shall not be named").

As for the topic, it is WotC's job, quite literally, to get people to play D&D, but not role-playing games in general.


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 2, 2012)

Umbran said:


> Reading this suddenly made me think about a completely different way of approaching this question.
> 
> In common parlance, when we ask, "Who is responsible for this?" what we really mean is, "Who do we get to blame when it doesn't go how I want it to?" But, that's a pretty negative view of the whole thing, and part of a basically dysfunctional relationship is to start with considering blame.
> 
> ...




A GM needs players. NearbyGamers www.meetup.com wizards, pathfinder ENWorld forums... That is good for most people, I imagine. I mean, it is possible someone will go out with the equivalent of a sandwich board but unlikely unless desperate. 

Therefore, players bringing new people to the hobby is flawed logic. 

WotC: steal/share players with other companies does not bring people to the hobby. It is complacent marketing. It is the same level as the example of the searching players above, except WotC pays marketers to do it. 

So bringing new people cold to the hobby... is a job for the industry leader.


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## DM Howard (Sep 3, 2012)

I don't think you can peg the job of bringing new players into the hobby on any one group.  Everyone that enjoys the hobby should be happy to introduce new players to the game and not be so insular like it's a super secret club that only  certain people get to join or be a part of.  

I think it's the job of the companies like Wotc, Paizo, Troll Lord Games, and Frog God Games to publish rules and books that will allow new players to more easily transition into the hobby because frankly role playing games can be as confusing as rocket science to the uninitiated! 

Sure it might not seem like it to most of us but that's because we have so much experience with the hobby and the genres involved.  Take someone fresh off the street who sounds interested in your pitch of a role playing game but has no experience with it, or fantasy, which is the genre you are running and they will be so lost the person's head will be turning around!

Companies need to make their games more accessible rules-wise.  Along with that they need to make their games more friendly towards people who are new to the genres involved as well.  Not every new player is going to know what a goblin, a troll, or a kobold is and that's where the individual groups come in as well.  

Many potential new players would be totally willing to give role playing games and the groups a chance.  New players won't just spring out of the grass but potential players are everywhere and YOU (the veterans, the rules-lawyers, the min-maxers) have to give THEM a chance.


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 3, 2012)

Dndungeoneer said:


> I don't think you can peg the job of bringing new players into the hobby on any one group. Everyone that enjoys the hobby should be happy to introduce new players to the game



I agree. 



Dndungeoneer said:


> and not be so insular like it's a super secret club that only certain people get to join or be a part of.



But the point has been missed here. 

Maybe another example... I want a beer. I walk into a beer store. I am a beer drinker and I know what I want to drink. So my decision is based on convenience and prior experience. I want a beer: I buy it from a beer store. (Maybe I want a WotC, maybe I want a Paizo or maybe an independent brew.)

What I am not about to do is convert my local grocer, on the far side of town, to become a beer store. That is a little too much like work to be fun when I can do my shopping, even over the Internet, at places where players gather. 

I might stock up on beer at home and offer one to people I know - usually those would be beer drinkers anyway. They know where the beer store is, where the Internet spots are, and already have a taste for beer.  

I am not going to open my house to the masses in my city, unless I am selling it. And if I do that, maybe put up a poster at the bus stops... I will get beer drinkers anyways.  

I am not describing handshakes, symbols and tokens.  I am not describing an aberrant behaviour.  I am describing the natural order of things, a heuristic.


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## DM Howard (Sep 3, 2012)

Console Cowboy said:


> I agree.
> 
> 
> But the point has been missed here.
> ...




OK, I understand where you are coming from and I agree with you when it comes to the industry needing to take a more active role and one of those is marketing.  

I'm a marketing major and I'm often appalled at how little Wotc, Paizo, and the rest do any kind of marketing to grab new players.  

I'll take this one step further and say that perhaps the industry itself, by not trying very hard to reach out to new players has passed on that "secret club" mentality to the consumer base.  

So perhaps it does indeed need to start with a change in thinking of the industry as a whole.  I'm not saying that tons and tons of money need be spent on marketing to potential consumers but when there is essentially only marketing where there are already "beer drinkers" that's when I think there is a problem.


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 3, 2012)

Dndungeoneer said:


> OK, I understand where you are coming from and I agree with you when it comes to the industry needing to take a more active role and one of those is marketing.
> 
> I'm a marketing major and I'm often appalled at how little Wotc, Paizo, and the rest do any kind of marketing to grab new players.
> 
> ...




Money alone won't cure it. In advertising there is actually taught a "programmable formula" to check spend against (projected) sales. (I know, I taught it at the state university here.) While this theory of per centages is nice for an exam question, it is not real world practical. So throwing money at the problem with advertising is NOT going to bring in new blood or attract people who have never tasted beer to try beer.

To bring in new people takes outside of the box thinking - the kind of thinking they do not indoctrinate at a business school. 

Public relations (not just the simple publicity stuff but the scary social engineering stuff of Noam Chomsky talks) is inexpensive - even cheap. Better than any CPM. And the attraction of new people needs to be established atop a base of relationships; a unique feature of tabletop role-playing games that is different than boardgames; and it has to ignore the territory of video games where, frankly, RPGs lose to graphics and consumer convenience.

I am speaking as a public relations hired gun that started his career in the recession of the late 1980's and retired in 2010. The barriers to the type of work that needs to be done are neither complexity nor expense. The barrier is a lockstep mentality. Ultimately a company does not hire an employee with a degree expecting innovative ideas, but, employers employe such people for their journeyman work and ability to make deadlines - the same criteria that gets a degree in the first place.


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## DM Howard (Sep 3, 2012)

Console Cowboy said:


> Money alone won't cure it. In advertising there is actually taught a "programmable formula" to check spend against (projected) sales. (I know, I taught it at the state university here.) While this theory of per centages is nice for an exam question, it is not real world practical. So throwing money at the problem with advertising is NOT going to bring in new blood or attract people who have never tasted beer to try beer.
> 
> To bring in new people takes outside of the box thinking - the kind of thinking they do not indoctrinate at a business school.
> 
> ...




And I don't necessarily think throwing money at the problem will truly help either but it IS a place to start.  I completely agree that the industry needs to build on relationships but that needs to start somewhere and the industry as a whole needs to become more visible to potential customers rather than sitting back and relying on the same old beer drinkers that they have to bring new customers in.

Honestly I think the best idea (certainly not the least expensive way) to bring this about would be a tv comedy series based around a group that plays role playing games and the show could build upon the relationship building, story telling, and pure social entertainment that this hobby is.  Sure this isn't very realistic in actually happening but I think showing the game in a media form that a wide range of people like to access could increase the industry's visibility dramatically.


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## GreyICE (Sep 3, 2012)

4E WAS Wizards of the Coast's attempt to bring new players into the market.  Lets look at all the things they did:

*Removed finicky systems, subsystems, sub-subsystems, corner cases, walls of text, etc. *

Every class played right out of the box.  Yes, more classes added more variety, new material added new stuff you could do, but you could make a Fighter using PHB 1 and you'd be just fine.

*We're playing in a fantasy game!*

World of Warcraft, Everquest, Final Fantasy, etc.  People have come to expect fantastic settings to have fantastic races.  DnD's races... lacked.  Flip open the PHB and you have: humans, humans with pointy ears, short humans, short humans take 2, short humans take 3 (with beards) and half-orcs (who are humans with little tusks). 

Yeah, gently caress that noise.  You can play a Dragon!  A half-demon!  Their mystic elves had all black eyes and could teleport through the feywild!

*We're big damn HEROES! *

You ever see Cloud stop to rest for 2 weeks because of a few injuries?  Does your character in WoW stop to rest?  Does any of your fantasy heroes ever die to a goblin arrow?  No!

4E was goddamn HEROIC.  Level 1?  Okay.  You're just starting out and guess what?  You kick ass and take names.  And it's only getting better from here.

*Powers*

You want to know what turns off players of other games from PnP rpgs?  Endless table lookup.  Rules arguments.  Wondering how things work.  

Powers are self-contained.  They do exactly what they say.  No "I get 4 level 1 spell slots?  What can I do with those?"  Nope.  You have powers.  You use them.  

*Game systems*

You like boss fights?  Why can't DnD do boss fights?  You dislike measuring in 5 ft increments (or live in ANY OTHER COUNTRY THAN THE US)?  Here, spaces.  Neutral towards metric/english, perfectly comprehensible, and diagonals measure easily.  You want to defend people?  You can defend people (and in a much more interesting manner than traditional 'aggro' mechanics). You play video games?  Good on you.  DnD 4E can do anything your video game can do, do it cooler, do it more interesting, and screw the stupid grinding everyone hates.



----

Here we are now, people.  Don't start whining WotC doesn't do enough to bring in new players when you can click over to Penny Arcade and SEE how DnD 4E did everything you wanted to happen with their edition.  And you killed it.


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 3, 2012)

Double post


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 3, 2012)

Dndungeoneer said:


> And I don't necessarily think throwing money at the problem will truly help either but it IS a place to start. I completely agree that the industry needs to build on relationships but that needs to start somewhere and the industry as a whole needs to become more visible to potential customers rather than sitting back and relying on the same old beer drinkers that they have to bring new customers in.
> 
> Honestly I think the best idea (certainly not the least expensive way) to bring this about would be a tv comedy series based around a group that plays role playing games and the show could build upon the relationship building, story telling, and pure social entertainment that this hobby is. Sure this isn't very realistic in actually happening but I think showing the game in a media form that a wide range of people like to access could increase the industry's visibility dramatically.




And you would be surprised how cost effective it is to shop around a treatment for such a show. The cartoon was just such a show. The backers were the toy manufacture sponsors - the reason why it did not continue on CBS, lack of sponsors. But the idea was sold. And Gary was called away from the work he had to dedicate himself to do there because of the Blumes.

WotC, to go that route, has to have someone on salary dedicated to get this job done. It won't cost $75,000 in one shot ads to do it, to bandy about the figure quoted earlier in this topic. 

And there are other things they could do with a paid staff, the size of which dwarfs other companies. 

But another thing has to come back into fashion: Gary's idea of a non-system. A game that provided suggestions that only the DM had access to. That is a quaint but important concept in AD&D 1e. When that concept was phased out of prominence, as it was, the edition wars occurred with the brand that carried the hobby name. 

I know about Traveller et al. But outsiders would not. They are more likely to hear about the "nerd rage" of D&D and (rightly) assume the game is for elitist Asperger's. It only takes one in a group to use the /system rules/ as a shield to collapse a group who use the hobby to meet others socially.


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 3, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> 4E WAS Wizards of the Coast's attempt to bring new players into the market. Lets look at all the things they did:
> 
> *Removed finicky systems, subsystems, sub-subsystems, corner cases, walls of text, etc. *
> 
> ...




A video game is a passive medium founded on system integrity.
A role-playing game is an active medium founded on player trust.

I cannot possibly be more clear than that. These two things do not exist in the same market. Some niche cross over as always. 

But put it another way, if you stick to your market definition: 
You have WotC beer being sold to WoW Beer.

If you make this into an edition wars Asperger's soapbox, I will call a mod.  (cf my comment about elitist Asperger's)


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## Umbran (Sep 3, 2012)

*Hey, folks!

I see borderline edition warring.  I see appeals to (personal) authority.  I see things getting personal.  None of this is apt to lead to constructive discussion.  If any of you continue down these non-constructive roads, we are apt to simply and quietly remove you from the conversation.

If you are not sure if this warning applies to you - assume it does.  If there's a question, err on the side of being as polite as you can towards your fellow gamers - because that what you should be doing even if we aren't holding a banhammer over your head.*


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## GreyICE (Sep 3, 2012)

Console Cowboy said:


> A video game is a passive medium founded on system integrity.
> A role-playing game is an active medium founded on player trust.
> 
> I cannot possibly be more clear than that. These two things do not exist in the same market. Some niche cross over as always.




I'm sad you can't make it any clearer, because I must admit I have no idea at all what you were saying.  But certainly there must be some overlap between the Video Game/MMO/Fantasy reader market and the _potential_ Pen-and-Paper gamer market.  I'd imagine it's very large.  If we assume that maybe 5% of the "General Population" is part of the potential DnD market, then maybe 25-35% of the "fantasy video game player" market is part of the potential DnD market.  

It's like, if you're making a niche beer that only a few people drink and want to expand your market, would you rather market to the people who drink Budweiser, or the people who don't drink beer?


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 3, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> I'm sad you can't make it any clearer, because I must admit I have no idea at all what you were saying. But certainly there must be some overlap between the Video Game/MMO/Fantasy reader market and the _potential_ Pen-and-Paper gamer market. I'd imagine it's very large. If we assume that maybe 5% of the "General Population" is part of the potential DnD market, then maybe 25-35% of the "fantasy video game player" market is part of the potential DnD market.
> 
> It's like, if you're making a niche beer that only a few people drink and want to expand your market, would you rather market to the people who drink Budweiser, or the people who don't drink beer?




I will answer from a professional's point of view: 
I would create my category and dominate it.  I certainly would not try to run a same-as marketing scheme - particularly if Budweiser were a better beer than mine. 

There are substantial barriers to over come for a cross over to happen. Counting on that to happen means that RPGs have to overcome many disadvantages in comparing itself to a video game. 

So, yes, I would stay away from video games. IF I catch some of their market, it will be because I stand for something different and appealing with the added advantage of actually going for my target consumer. 

This is like the first rule of marketing: segmentation.


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## GreyICE (Sep 4, 2012)

Well I don't claim to be a marketing professional, but so far PnP RPGs have segmented themselves into a limited market that is slowly shrinking.  And I don't see many successful businesses in the larger world who have done this.  I mean take video games as an example - some of the most successful video games of the early era were literally just PnP RPGs - but digital!  Baldurs Gate, Planescape Torment, even Dragon Age.

If RPGs can be "PnP games, but with the advantage digital features," and attract a huge crowd, certainly PnP games can incorporate elements of video games, with the advantage of human features.  I mean unless you're saying there literally are no advantages of human features that video game players would be interested in.  And I think that statement would do a huge disservice to both Video Game Players and the very many excellent DMs out there.


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 4, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> Well I don't claim to be a marketing professional, but so far PnP RPGs have segmented themselves into a limited market that is slowly shrinking. And I don't see many successful businesses in the larger world who have done this. I mean take video games as an example - some of the most successful video games of the early era were literally just PnP RPGs - but digital! Baldurs Gate, Planescape Torment, even Dragon Age.




I agree. RPGs are fighting in the wrong weight category. It has been placed in the wrong market, and gone after the wrong marketplace. That's the segmentation. 

And I agree that the hobby is shrinking. Dancey's Model Train Hobby model is a believe and achieve self-fulfilling prophesy. However, I think this is due to the segmentation and the result of marketing's 90 lb weakling in the 800 lbs gorilla cage rather than from some weakeness (perceived or real) of the hobby itself. 



GreyICE said:


> If RPGs can be "PnP games, but with the advantage digital features," and attract a huge crowd, certainly PnP games can incorporate elements of video games, with the advantage of human features. I mean unless you're saying there literally are no advantages of human features that video game players would be interested in. And I think that statement would do a huge disservice to both Video Game Players and the very many excellent DMs out there.




I am a firm believer that, rather than pursue a model of RPGs as complementary to the electronic media in positioning the hobby, the hobby SHOULD BE taking the lead in that relationship. Electronic media should complement the tabletop experience and not replace it. But, first, dumb-dumb needs to understand the differences and the limitations of mixed media. That's where someone with my background comes in. 

Table accessories and tools are not truly innovative thinking: AD&D 1e had flash cards; DM's screen; paper notes; corridor meetings; mood music; and everything a virtual tabletop does but in a real room. Those things do not upset the experience of RPGs - they complement it. But we haven't mixed media in those examples. 

The challenge is not how to use new media to replace what is but to understand how and when new media culturally fits with the RPGs experience. But dumb-dumb needs to understand that culture first.

Paco mentioned to me that PnP game designers go on to become computer game designers in a kind of apprenticeship step because of the money involved. This would lead me to wonder what's on the mind of the PnP game designer as he or she builds his or her portfolio; what this signifies to the market (industry and hobby); and what sort of self-fulfilling prophesy this creates; and what could be done to stop it. 

At its core a lack of respect will be the death of the hobby. Lack of self-respect. Lack of respect given to players. Lack of respect for the Game Master. Lack of respect (or appreciation for) the differences in media between table and monitor. Lack of respect for the RPGs themselves and their creators in general. 

Fans, really good fans, act out the industry behaviour of stumbling through edition wars that drive people away. 

It is the industry responsibility to not only prevent consumer exodus but to bring in new consumers. And I mean WotC. I mean Dungeons and Dragons. WotC, and I take into account the direction of 5e, is participating in a Coney Island shell game for consumers.


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## GreyICE (Sep 4, 2012)

Wow, I... I couldn't more strongly disagree with everything you said.   A lot of it is wrong.  Some of it doesn't even have the substance to be wrong.  It's just not there.

I think the worst part is probably the idea that if we were all super respectful of everything, all the problems would vanish.  

But the problem is people not buying books and materials.  There's several factors, certainly TPB didn't help.  But if people don't buy they're not interested.  If they're not interested it's not because of respect, or lack thereof.  It's because the hobby doesn't hold their interest.  

And if it doesn't hold their interest, while other hobbies do, there's probably a reason for that.  Wizards was on the right track in a lot of ways with 4E, and it's sad to see it go so thoroughly.  Could it have used a reboot, done better?  Yes.  But that's not what is happening.  

As for the idea that a $70 million industry will lead a $70 BILLION one around, well it's a nice, noble dream, but there's no mechanism to that dream.  There's no way the $70 million industry gets somewhere the $70 billion one is going before they do.  If they're in a similar niche, the best they can do is carve out their own space, and this is not done by declaring "We are the Visionaries of the Future!" and ignoring everything the $70 billion dollar industry does.  That way lies madness and Segway.


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 4, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> Wow, I... I couldn't more strongly disagree with everything you said. A lot of it is wrong. Some of it doesn't even have the substance to be wrong. It's just not there.
> 
> I think the worst part is probably the idea that if we were all super respectful of everything, all the problems would vanish.
> 
> ...




First off, let's define the word respect.... 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/respect

Next, you simply have not understood - or maybe do not want to since 4e was the Giant Killer that WotC gave up on too early and no one is going to dissuade you from that argument. For other people, however, that same scenario plays out with 3x. Yet the problem is not within the edition wars; they are the Asperger's hobby fever from the industry malaria. 

I never claimed WotC is not going to become Blizzard. I said they have to get away from that comparison. You say you are fine with that and look at the market realistically. Perhaps you even believe you do. Yet you want to market RPGs as a cage match between the 800 lbs gorilla and the 90 lbs bookworm whereby you foresee a victory for the bookworm. That is a fantasy.

There is a very solid reason why marketing is defined in war terms: because it is a war, like any war, for resources. And that battle, more often than not, takes place in the consumer mind. RPGs are not video games. They never will be. So far WotC persists on defining itself against competitors (Paizo) and fighting on improperly drawn market segmentation (video game market) to its detriment. This also impacts the growth of the hobby, and leads to decline. And the more the bottom line failure supports the claim the hobby is shrinking, the more the hobby will shrink. 

I believe the hobby market could expand, might even be ready to expand, and that it certainly has not been fully explored in marketing terms. The fact remains it is not expanding because the responsibility for gaining new hobbyists weighs heavy on the backs of the players. Maybe that model was okay in the 1970's and 80's but it is not a workable model today. 

Demographics are not the sole driver of segmentation. WotC needs to understand its product and the media of its product (or were you also disagreeing with my observation that RPGs and video games exist in entirely different media?) when deciding on a target market. 

Just because a consumer plays a fantasy themed video game does not automatically make that person a candidate for RPGs. We're not talking Budweiser vs. Pabst, but, apples and oranges.

Do people who eat apples also drink Budweiser? Sure, _some_ do. But do not be selling apples in place of beer. That’s sheer and expensive folly. 

WotC will realize that only when they respect the hobby enough to have the courage of their marketing convictions. Otherwise, this sloppy seconds strategy of catching breadcrumbs off Blizzard's (or Paizo's) table is all they’ll ever have and the hobby will continue to shrink.


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## GreyICE (Sep 4, 2012)

It is becoming quickly apparent to me that you believe you understand what I write, and this belief has become a permanent impedent to understanding what I write.  I could play the game of insulting you while attempting to bury it in language that might slide past the mods (dictionary links, references to asbergers syndrome, hollow threats, pretending that liking something is 'edition warring').  I find this holds no interest for me.   I bid you adieu. 

If anyone else is interested in holding a discussion, I'll be around.  

I will end on the note that economics is not a zero sum game.  Your entire point is predicated around it being a zero sum game.  To win video game players, DnD must take their video games.  You view it as a direct competition - to play DnD, you must take their WoW, take their Final Fantasy, take their Mass Effect.  You judge this competition, and say it will never happen.  

Instead I note that DnD consumes, for many, one evening/day of the weekend.  And that their normal hobbies still exist, and continue around that evening/day.  They'll still play all of the video games they love - just as I do.  I currently play, on and off, Dungeons of Dredmor, Guild Wars 2, Imperishable Night (I'm TERRIBLE, y'all would laugh) and Final Fantasy XIII-2 (bargin bin sale!).  And yet I still have time to play both 4E and FATE!


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 5, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> Your entire point is predicated around it being a zero sum game.



 
You're putting words into my mouth. Thus, I see you do not understand. But I am beginning to understand where you are coming from. You are propagating the zero sum theology yourself. Of course, marketing communications (PR PsyOps) is my field of expertise here so I will explain with a case study to make the obtuse clear.

Retail food. McDonald's vs. Burger King. Now, in fairness to my argument, I do not believe RPGs and computer games share the same market. The words from my mouth are that the consumer of video games and RPGs should be better segmented to promote differentiation. My vision to re-segment would separate these two competitors into non-competitive markets [that would be me espousing the opposite of zero sum.] 

In food retail, my example of re-segmentation would simply acknowledge you can eat at both McDonald's and Burger King non-competitively as separate things. But you want a competitive analogy. So I am choosing retail food to address you. You have expressed RPGs and video games exist in the same market. So, the case on Burger King versus McDonald's comes to mind. (Hence a zero sum, "win" all or "win" nothing at all scenario.) 

McDonald's marketing focus is on children: happy meals; kid's toys; playgrounds back in my day; and commercials addressing issues that went only as far as adolescence. Burger King is a rival fast food joint. In order to compete within McDonald's segment, it also has to address kids. It has to steal away those consumers from the market segment. 

IF Burger King would aim at the adolescent market they could have sent out a message like: kids, when you are ready for a grown up experience, Burger King will be here for you. But they did not. Could have does not win ball games or increase balance sheets.

What Burger King did was make the same appeal to McDonald’s market, as did McDonald’s. They had party hats, meal deals, and commercials with kids having parties in them, showing the flame broiled shtick. And it failed naturally. 

McDonald’s = WoW. Burger King = D&D There is the essence of your zero sum: targeting the video game consumer with RPGs. Will some people spend at both? Surely. They will also spend at Subway, too. But not enough will spend at Burger King to satisfy Burger King or worry McDonald’s. 

I think this addresses putting words into my mouth. And maybe clarifies my argument that the battle *should not be* for video gamers. When they are ready for a grown up experience, they will come - to coin a phrase. 

Kamikaze Midget here with a friendly reminder for all to try and avoid language that can seem insulting to other posters -- stuff like implying that people who don't like tabletop RPG's are somehow not as "grown up" as the rest of us isn't likely to get a lot of friendly constructive conversation as a result, folks.  Remember: only YOU can prevent flame wars! /smokeythebear 

*To coin a phrase I used (in the post itself!) to describe a missed opportunity for Burger King against McDonald's in creating a very strong differentiation that would pull McDonald's customers while ALSO targeting their own market (older kids). Only misdirection and twisting from my clear intent suggests an argumentative reader. Please read the post to parse it rather than judge a soundbite. *

*Al Ries articulated the Burger King versus McDonald's case better than me: http://adage.com/article/al-ries/exciting-burger-king-s-menu-expansion/234145/*


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## GreyICE (Sep 5, 2012)

Console Cowboy said:


> When they are ready for a grown up experience, they will come - to coin a phrase.




Wow.  

I...

Wow.

I don't even want to play RPGs anymore.  And I love em.


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## Rogue Agent (Sep 6, 2012)

Neonchameleon said:


> 3.5 was, of course made by WotC and the differences with Pathfinder are only some very minor house rules.






> And there was [clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction in the existing customer base] with 3.5.




If you think that was clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction with the existing customer base for 3.5, where do you think all those Pathfinder players came from? You've already admitted that Pathfinder isn't substantially different.

I'm aware that a lot of online theorists and CharOppers like yourself were dissatisfied with 3.5. But that doesn't actually constitute clear, deep, or widespread dissatisfaction.



> Yes, the dungeon structure is a tight one and the quest is a loose one - but it's there.




4E Quests don't constitute a robust game structure. While it provides a goal, it doesn't provide a default action. Without that, you don't have a structure at all.


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## GreyICE (Sep 6, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> If you think that was clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction with the existing customer base for 3.5, where do you think all those Pathfinder players came from? You've already admitted that Pathfinder isn't substantially different.
> 
> I'm aware that a lot of online theorists and CharOppers like yourself were dissatisfied with 3.5. But that doesn't actually constitute clear, deep, or widespread dissatisfaction.




Given that the sales of 4E were hardly anemic (even with 5E announced, the system years old, and the online tools giving you most of the benefits of the books, it's the second best selling system) I think it's fair to say that both 3E and 4E had fans and detractors.  

As is usual though, we're mostly just losing players.  Not to other editions.  Not to other systems.  Just in general.  Gone.


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## S'mon (Sep 6, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> If you think that was clear, deep, and widespread dissatisfaction with the existing customer base for 3.5, where do you think all those Pathfinder players came from? You've already admitted that Pathfinder isn't substantially different.




I think there was a lot of dissatisfaction with 3e's class imbalance and broken high-level play (Scry & Fry, for instance). But most people were looking for a fixed 3e, not a new game system - and 4e looked more like a new game than a fixed 3e. Personally I happen to think 4e is an excellent game, but it gives quite a different sort of play experience to 3e.


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## underfoot007ct (Sep 6, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I think the main thing for the hobby would be to have a decent D&D-brand box set similar to 1983 Red Box Basic or the Pathfinder Beginner Box on sale as an evergreen product in the same places where Monopoly and other board games are sold.  I was going to say 'in toy stores', but frankly I'm not sure my local toy store even sells board games; it seems to be all plastic figurines and videogames -so that may be an issue, if even family board games as a whole are a declining market, what chance for RPGs?
> 
> Still, IME from what I've seen in my FLGSes, even when newbies come in the door looking for this strange thing called D&D, they can leave empty handed and bewildered. A good starter set that's always available is vital. Paizo do it, and kudos to them, but Pathfinder does not have the D&D brand recognition outside the hobby, and it can sound a bit off telling people "Yes, this thing called the _Pathfinder Beginner Box _is the D&D you're looking for!".




Just like the starter boxes made for 3.5E & 4E, IS THAT what you are saying?


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## underfoot007ct (Sep 6, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> 4E WAS Wizards of the Coast's attempt to bring new players into the market.  Lets look at all the things they did:
> 
> *Removed finicky systems, subsystems, sub-subsystems, corner cases, walls of text, etc. *
> 
> ...




Did WOTC kick you dog as well?

Silly me, I thought they discouraged edition warring around these parts.


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## S'mon (Sep 6, 2012)

underfoot007ct said:


> Just like the starter boxes made for 3.5E & 4E, IS THAT what you are saying?




No, it needs to be a complete game, and not feel like a pay-to-preview. The Pathfinder Beginner Box for instance goes to 5th level and I've run 10 3-5 hour sessions with it so far, without nearly exhausting its potential. There's really no comparison between the PBB and any WoTC starter set. I had high hopes for the 4e Red Box; the reality was a crushing disappointment. The 3.0 starter box I have is no better.


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## Desdichado (Sep 6, 2012)

S'mon said:


> No, it needs to be a complete game, and not feel like a pay-to-preview. The Pathfinder Beginner Box for instance goes to 5th level and I've run 10 3-5 hour sessions with it so far, without nearly exhausting its potential. There's really no comparison between the PBB and any WoTC starter set. I had high hopes for the 4e Red Box; the reality was a crushing disappointment. The 3.0 starter box I have is no better.



But isn't that exactly how the old Moldvay or Mentzer boxed sets used to be?  How many levels could you play with the red box?  I recall as a kid being flabbergasted that this game called "Dungeons & Dragons" didn't even have dragons in the basic game, for instance.

I don't disagree with what I think you mean with an evergreen beginner set, but I do disagree that the old boxed sets of yore were any better than the current ones.  If anything, the problem is that WotC has been unable to really see past the paradigm of past boxed sets to what really needs to be done.


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## Umbran (Sep 6, 2012)

underfoot007ct said:


> Did WOTC kick you dog as well?
> 
> Silly me, I thought they discouraged edition warring around these parts.





*Yes.  We also discourage intentional antagonism.  So, you know, maybe you should look to yourself there.

Folks, let me make this clear - we expect everyone to treat each other and their opinions with respect.  If you can't handle that, bow out of this conversation now, please.  I've had enough babysitting this thread, and will just start booting people from it without further warning, explanation, or discussion.

I hope that's clear.  Thanks, all, for your time and polite contributions.*


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## Console Cowboy (Sep 6, 2012)

*If it went unnoticed.*



Console Cowboy said:


> At its core a lack of respect will be the death of the hobby. Lack of self-respect. Lack of respect given to players. Lack of respect for the Game Master. Lack of respect (or appreciation for) the differences in media between table and monitor. Lack of respect for the RPGs themselves and their creators in general.



^this^

About Burger King and my analogy, the source of the phrase I coined: 
http://adage.com/article/al-ries/exciting-burger-king-s-menu-expansion/234145/


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## S'mon (Sep 6, 2012)

Hobo said:


> But isn't that exactly how the old Moldvay or Mentzer boxed sets used to be?  How many levels could you play with the red box?  I recall as a kid being flabbergasted that this game called "Dungeons & Dragons" didn't even have dragons in the basic game, for instance.




Moldvay & Mentzer Basic only went to 3rd level, but they did include a full suite of dragons! From the beatable 5hd White to the you're-gonna-die 10 hd Red.

I'd say 3 levels was the absolute minimum for a 'real game'; they had their reasons but the Pathfinder BB is far more complete, with 5 levels and full rules for adventuring in wilderness (various terrain types) and cities, not just in dungeons. It really gets everything that's best about D&D into that one amazing box.


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## Ulrick (Sep 7, 2012)

The really neat thing about those basic boxed sets, from a beginning player standpoint, you'd didn't need to read the whole thing. Only the DM had to really know the rules, but you only had to keep track the information relevant to your character. The rulebooks didn't surpass 96 pages, and the player didn't have to read anywhere near that amount. 

First time playing D&D? Here, play a fighter. Every group needs an extra fighter or two. 

The fighter class was a great class in pre-3e D&D, because it gave newcomers some grounding in what D&D was all about without inundating them with extra abilities and so forth. It was also a great class for the casual gamer, who didn't want to invest a lot of time in mastering the rules.


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## GreyICE (Sep 7, 2012)

Ulrick said:


> The really neat thing about those basic boxed sets, from a beginning player standpoint, you'd didn't need to read the whole thing. Only the DM had to really know the rules, but you only had to keep track the information relevant to your character. The rulebooks didn't surpass 96 pages, and the player didn't have to read anywhere near that amount.
> 
> First time playing D&D? Here, play a fighter. Every group needs an extra fighter or two.
> 
> The fighter class was a great class in pre-3e D&D, because it gave newcomers some grounding in what D&D was all about without inundating them with extra abilities and so forth. It was also a great class for the casual gamer, who didn't want to invest a lot of time in mastering the rules.




Yeah, there needs to be a casual, streamlined class or three in each iteration of D&D for exactly that purpose.  

Catering to different styles of player in the same group is something that hasn't been done since AD&D.


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## Rogue Agent (Sep 12, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> Given that the sales of 4E were hardly anemic  (even with 5E announced, the system years old, and the online tools  giving you most of the benefits of the books, it's the second best  selling system) I think it's fair to say that both 3E and 4E had fans  and detractors.




Exactly. And that's why 4E was a failed edition.

Any new edition of a game is going to pick up some percentage of the current market. But when you lose at least half your customers, I find it impossible to describe that as anything other than a failure.



Hobo said:


> But isn't that exactly how the old Moldvay or Mentzer boxed sets used to be?  How many levels could you play with the red box?




The key difference is not how many levels the box covered, its what you did with the box once you're done with it.

If you're playing the BECMI Basic Set and you buy the Expert Set, what do you do with the Basic Set? You keep using it.

If you're using the 4E Starter Set and you buy either the core rulebooks or the Essentials rulebooks, what do you do with the Starter Set? You stick it on a shelf and you stop using it.

The distinction in usage here is really huge: If you're new player being introduced to an existing group, you're going to want to pick up the same rulebooks everyone else does. If it's a BECMI group, that means picking up the Basic Set; if it's a 4E group, you're not going to touch the 4E Starter Set.

If you're a new player being introduced to the game by buying a product, the Starter Set ends up being a false start: It's a disposable preview of some other game that you should have bought instead.

Take _Arkham Horror_, for example: If FFG marketed a version of the game which only included 6 investigators and 1 Ancient One as an "Arkham Horror: Starter Set" I would expect that product to crash and burn. Why would you ever buy the Starter Set instead of just spending an extra $10 on the full thing? OTOH, FFG does great business selling expansions to the core game.


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## GreyICE (Sep 12, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> Exactly. And that's why 4E was a failed edition.
> 
> Any new edition of a game is going to pick up some percentage of the current market. But when you lose at least half your customers, I find it impossible to describe that as anything other than a failure.




Really?  If ANY edition managed to pick up the crowd lost from AD&D, it could sacrifice every single current player and still be the most successful edition since AD&D.  

The market is contracting, and frankly WotC is one of the few companies with the sort of name and pull to get people back.  Which was the point of the OP, honestly.


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## Rogue Agent (Sep 12, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> Really?  If ANY edition managed to pick up the crowd lost from AD&D, it could sacrifice every single current player and still be the most successful edition since AD&D.




What relevance do you think that has to do with the posts you're replying to?


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## GreyICE (Sep 12, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> What relevance do you think that has to do with the posts you're replying to?




Everything.


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## WizarDru (Sep 12, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> But when you lose at least half your customers, I find it impossible to describe that as anything other than a failure.




Do we have any way to gauge if this is actually the case?  Has there been data released by anyone to confirm either sales numbers or active gamers?  I was under the impression we really still don't have any hard numbers at all concerning gamers or their preferences.


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## Umbran (Sep 12, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> But when you lose at least half your customers, I find it impossible to describe that as anything other than a failure.




And when you don't lose half your customers, what then?  Does it then become possible?  

So, establish they lost half the customers.  

Otherwise, what we have is that you just find it impossible to describe as other than a failure, but for no actual reason.


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## Rogue Agent (Sep 13, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> Everything.




I want to assure you that your incoherence over the last several posts has been deeply moving for me. (Insofar as I'm backing away slowly from you.)



Umbran said:


> So, establish they lost half the customers.




It was cute having this conversation with you in 2011. In 2012 it's anachronistic. Nobody is disputing the publicly available sales numbers at this point and people from inside WotC have confirmed that the company considers 4E a market failure.

People disputing these things at this point are just clinging to their own denial.


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## GreyICE (Sep 13, 2012)

Sure, but we also happen to know that Hasbro considers any property that is under $50 million/year a failure.  And that would be every property in the pen-and-paper RPG industry, from White Wolf to Pathfinder.  

I don't think there's any edition of D&D that will ever succeed by Hasbro standards, but that's neither here nor there.  Every year D&D doesn't reach the coveted $50 mil goal, they'll be under fire to do it better.  Just look at the long line of WotC products discontinued under fire (seriously, go look at the list of discontinued WotC products sometime.  It's terrifyingly long).


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## Jacob Marley (Sep 13, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> Sure, but we also happen to know that Hasbro considers any property that is under $50 million/year a failure. And that would be every property in the pen-and-paper RPG industry, from White Wolf to Pathfinder.
> 
> I don't think there's any edition of D&D that will ever succeed by Hasbro standards, but that's neither here nor there. Every year D&D doesn't reach the coveted $50 mil goal, they'll be under fire to do it better. Just look at the long line of WotC products discontinued under fire (seriously, go look at the list of discontinued WotC products sometime. It's terrifyingly long).




Um, no. That's not what Hasbro said. Hasbro considered 50M to be the point of differentiation between Core and Non-core brands. Core brands would receive financing from corporate for product development whereas Non-core brands would have to fund product development through existing cash flows. 

Sometime around 2005ish, Hasbro made an internal decision to divide its businesses into two categories. *Core* brands, which had more than $50 million in annual sales, and had a growth path towards $100 million annual sales, and *Non-Core* brands, which didn't.

Under Goldner, the Core Brands would be the tentpoles of the company. They would be exploited across a range of media with an eye towards major motion pictures, following the path Transformers had blazed. Goldner saw what happened to Marvel when they re-oriented their company from a publisher of comic books to a brand building factory (their market capitalization increased by something like 2 billion dollars). He wanted to replicate that at Hasbro.

Core Brands would get the financing they requested for development of their businesses (within reason). Non-Core brands would not. They would be allowed to rise & fall with the overall toy market on their own merits without a lot of marketing or development support. In fact, many Non-Core brands would simply be mothballed - allowed to go dormant for some number of years until the company was ready to take them down off the shelf and try to revive them for a new generation of kids.
​You can read the full piece here.


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## GreyICE (Sep 13, 2012)

> Core Brands would get the financing they requested for development of their businesses (within reason). Non-Core brands would not. They would be allowed to rise & fall with the overall toy market on their own merits *without a lot of marketing or development support. In fact, many Non-Core brands would simply be mothballed* - allowed to go dormant for some number of years until the company was ready to take them down off the shelf and try to revive them for a new generation of kids.




But D&D needs marketing and development support.  It can't afford to just sit there as an established brand like a board game can.   Board games don't have to change.  They don't have to evolve.  D&D does.  D&D needs marketing and development, without them it's dead. 

So yeah, I think I meant exactly what I said.


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## S'mon (Sep 13, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> It was cute having this conversation with you in 2011. In 2012 it's anachronistic. Nobody is disputing the publicly available sales numbers at this point and people from inside WotC have confirmed that the company considers 4E a market failure.




I'd have to agree. Plenty of WoTC people have said 4e failed. WoTC gave up on it less than halfway through its predicted lifespan. Paizo say Pathfinder replaced D&D as market leader in 2010-11, and WoTC don't disagree. 

Plus, and what surprises me more, all the survey polls I've seen indicate that a very large but fairly silent group of players never stopped playing 3e, they didn't convert to either 4e or Pathfinder though I suppose they may be buying some Pathfinder products.

I'm not sure by what metric 4e could be considered not to be a commercial failure, whatever its strengths as a game. Per Dancey it was supposed to turn D&D from a $25-$30 million business into a $50 million business, leading into a $100 million business once Hasbro got the videogame rights back. Instead it turned D&D into something closer to a $15-$20 million* business, judging by what I've seen of DDi numbers and sales figures.

*Probably lower this year, given the lack of new product. I remember looking over all the 2011 data I could get.


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## Maggan (Sep 13, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> Nobody is disputing the publicly available sales numbers at this point




I'm very interested in how the market works, and would like to read more about these publicly available sales numbers. I seem to have missed them, unfortunately.

ICv2 has a ranking, and I guess Amazon has a ranking of sorts, and we have the DDi numbers and whatnot, and Paizo is a sucess as far as anyone can tell, but I'd very much like to get some more details to mull over.

Thanks!

/M


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## Umbran (Sep 13, 2012)

Rogue Agent said:


> Nobody is disputing the publicly available sales numbers at this point




It is hard to dispute what isn't present.  To my knowledge, WotC hasn't released sales numbers.  Period.  How can you claim what they've lost, if you don't know what they had before and after?  I know a lot of weird math, but none that lets you do that with a straight face.

Listen, it is all well and good for you to say that, in your opinion, it was a failure. That would be cool, indisputable, untouchable.  But claiming specific market facts without backup is uncool.  It is that simple.  Data, or it didn't happen.  Back it up, or don't claim it.



> People disputing these things at this point are just clinging to their own denial.




What I am disputing is, "losing half the market," specifically.  That is a very specific sort of claim, sir, and if you want to make it, you ought to be able to back it up.  I am disputing the rhetorical form where people make up unsupported numbers and then take them as rationalizations.  We should strive for better.

So, can you back it up, or can't you?  I'm guessing you can't, or you would have, and made short work of the issue.  

Edit: see below.


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## Umbran (Sep 13, 2012)

It was correctly pointed out that the message of the tail end of my last post was muddled.  So, let me bring it out here instead.  I had said:

_"Going ad hominem is not a suitable substitute [for data]. If you cannot handle someone disputing you on a specific factual claim, you shouldn't make it in the first place. You certainly don't get to be insulting in response. "_

This is rather important.  The world is full of people making unsupported claims, and then using those claims to hang reasoning upon.  If you (general "you", the reader) are going to make a specific claim that goes beyond opinion, you should expect that someone will ask for support - only very few people get to make successful Appeal to Authority, and you probably aren't one of them.  Just because you assert it, does not make it so.

If that happens, and you don't have the data, ADMIT IT, please.  "I'm sorry, I don't have support for that handy" is sufficient.  If your point falls apart if your assertion is not accepted, that's your own fault.  Getting personal in response is not acceptable.  However effective you hope that tactic may be, the ends do not justify the means.  The success of your argument does not justify casting aspersions on your fellow gamers.


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## Jacob Marley (Sep 13, 2012)

GreyICE said:


> But D&D needs marketing and development support. It can't afford to just sit there as an established brand like a board game can. Board games don't have to change. They don't have to evolve. D&D does. D&D needs marketing and development, without them it's dead.



 
Yes. And those funds will be generated through regular business operations. What WotC loses by D&D not being a Core brand is the ability to request additional funds from corporate to build upon their existing marketing and R&D budgets.

The breakdown between Core/Non-core should not be used as a comment on the success or failure of a brand/product line. It is only a statement on how Hasbro, as a corporate entity, is structured. 

Look, I am not arguing against what you think WotC needs for D&D to be successful; I'll let someone else jump down that rabbit hole. I am arguing against what you said Hasbro defines as successful because your definition is not what Hasbro actually said. 




GreyICE said:


> Sure, but we also happen to know that Hasbro considers any property that is under $50 million/year a failure.



 
You're conflating Non-core with failure.


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## S'mon (Sep 14, 2012)

Maggan said:


> I'm very interested in how the market works, and would like to read more about these publicly available sales numbers. I seem to have missed them, unfortunately.
> 
> ICv2 has a ranking, and I guess Amazon has a ranking of sorts, and we have the DDi numbers and whatnot, and Paizo is a sucess as far as anyone can tell, but I'd very much like to get some more details to mull over.
> 
> ...




Paizo has been quite open talking about their sales AIR, you can probably find some comments from Stevens & Mona if you google. The Amazon rankings are only useful if you keep checking them over a long period of time, day to day they're too ephemeral.
Distributors' published numbers are useful, but don't cover every channel.

Going in your FLGS and seeing what stuff gets the prime real estate and what gets relegated to a back-shelf can also be useful to get a feel for the market. Eg most OSR stuff is a lot more obscure off-line than online, Lamentations of the Flame Princess an exception. I remember I was pretty shocked when I walked into Orcs' Nest in late 2010/early 2011 and saw that Pathfinder had taken over the premium shelves (eye level, facing the door) from 4e D&D, with 4e in the shelves immediately below. It's stayed there ever since.

I don't think we need to know all of 4e D&D's exact income or RoI to know that WotC/Hasbro judged 4e D&D a commercial failure, anyway. You could just pick up the Menzoberranzan book and note that the lack of 4e D&D in it!


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## Maggan (Sep 14, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Paizo has been quite open talking about their sales AIR, you can probably find some comments from Stevens & Mona if you google. The Amazon rankings are only useful if you keep checking them over a long period of time, day to day they're too ephemeral.
> Distributors' published numbers are useful, but don't cover every channel.
> 
> Going in your FLGS and seeing what stuff gets the prime real estate and what gets relegated to a back-shelf can also be useful to get a feel for the market. Eg most OSR stuff is a lot more obscure off-line than online, Lamentations of the Flame Princess an exception. I remember I was pretty shocked when I walked into Orcs' Nest in late 2010/early 2011 and saw that Pathfinder had taken over the premium shelves (eye level, facing the door) from 4e D&D, with 4e in the shelves immediately below. It's stayed there ever since.
> ...




Yeah, I do and I've done most of that (although I'm not familiar with the word "AIR" in this circumstance?). I was hoping for some official, "we sold 100 000 Pathfinder rulebooks every year for the last five years" and/or "our sales of D&D books have halved since the release of D&D4, from 100 000 to 50 000 per year".

The only "hardish" figure I've seen was when Dresden Files made the ICv2 list in 2010 after selling 5000 copies. But that's it, and that doesn't really scratch my itch for publicily available sales numbers.

That Pathfinder is outselling D&D at the moment is accepted fact. I'd like to know the magnitude, which I really can't get a handle on from the more touchy feel methods.

Cheers!

/Maggan


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## S'mon (Sep 14, 2012)

AIR - As I Recall.


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## Umbran (Sep 14, 2012)

S'mon said:


> I don't think we need to know all of 4e D&D's exact income or RoI to know that WotC/Hasbro judged 4e D&D a commercial failure, anyway.




It is possible that 4e was a failure.  It is also possible that 4e did just fine and made a tidy profit, but the writing is on the wall that it will not continue to be as much of a success in the future.  These are not the same thing, but both are reasons to move into developing a new edition now.  However, people tend to conflate the two, or forget the latter is an option.  

So, part of it depends on your definition of "success".  Is it a success if it earns you a boatload of money for 4 years?  Or is is a success only if it does so for 8+ years?  Who is making that determination?


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## Desdichado (Sep 14, 2012)

In my experience, most of the folks who want to talk about sales numbers and the "competition" between 4e and Pathfinder (or any other major block of D&D-style game players like lingering 3.5 players, or the OSR) have little to no understanding of statistics, or the limitations of whatever data they do have.

In my opinion, it's helpful to keep your conclusions a bit on the vague rather than quite specific side, and not be afraid to admit when you're being a bit speculative based on data that is somewhat circumstantial.

For example, I believe that the player bases for Pathfinder, 4e, 3.5 and the OSR are all on the same order of magnitude right now.  That's already an interesting situation to discuss--assuming that my assumptions and reading of circumstantial data is correct--and there are plenty of interesting (albeit also speculative, obviously) things that can be said about that in relationship to the development, release and marketing of 5e.

I don't see any need to try and quantify which of those four major blocks of D&D-style gamers is "winning."  Not only do I not find that a very interesting thing in its own right, it doesn't really yield a conclusion that's particularly meaningful anyway.  The fact that the base is fractured as it is is interesting and meaningful.  What caused that and what are appropriate reactions from games producing companies (such as WotC or Paizo) is interesting and meaningful.  Who's "winning" isn't.


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## Neonchameleon (Sep 14, 2012)

Maggan said:


> The only "hardish" figure I've seen was when Dresden Files made the ICv2 list in 2010 after selling 5000 copies. But that's it, and that doesn't really scratch my itch for publicily available sales numbers.
> 
> That Pathfinder is outselling D&D at the moment is accepted fact. I'd like to know the magnitude, which I really can't get a handle on from the more touchy feel methods.




WotC have brought out 4 D&D books this year, one of them systemless and only just released (Mezzobaran), one of them half an advert for other products (Dungeon Explorers' Handbook) and one of them a poor update to an old product (Undermountain).  Paizo on the other hand brought out three Pathfinder books in April - and I'm not aware that was special..


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## S'mon (Sep 14, 2012)

Umbran said:


> It is possible that 4e was a failure.  It is also possible that 4e did just fine and made a tidy profit, but the writing is on the wall that it will not continue to be as much of a success in the future.  These are not the same thing, but both are reasons to move into developing a new edition now.  However, people tend to conflate the two, or forget the latter is an option.
> 
> So, part of it depends on your definition of "success".  Is it a success if it earns you a boatload of money for 4 years?  Or is is a success only if it does so for 8+ years?  Who is making that determination?




My definition would involve the concept of "meets or exceeds expectations" - particularly for Hasbro (and I'm talking about success from the corporate POV) its Return on Investment. For Hasbro, success =/= "makes a profit". Success = "Makes more return than we could have made by investing the money in something else".

Even if 4e did brilliantly 2008-10, we know it was cancelled early. If the plan had always been to terminate 4e in 2011/12, then they would have had 5e ready to go in mid/late 2012, right? Not a 2-2.5 year gap. Or do you think everything is unfolding just as Hasbro predicted? They're Cylons with a Plan?


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## Umbran (Sep 14, 2012)

S'mon said:


> For Hasbro, success =/= "makes a profit". Success = "Makes more return than we could have made by investing the money in something else".




That is, at best, a first approximation, though.  WotC gets to decide what it views as a success. 



> Even if 4e did brilliantly 2008-10, we know it was cancelled early. If the plan had always been to terminate 4e in 2011/12, then they would have had 5e ready to go in mid/late 2012, right? Not a 2-2.5 year gap. Or do you think everything is unfolding just as Hasbro predicted? They're Cylons with a Plan?




I'm suggesting that business these days has a far more nuanced view than "meets prediction == success, fail to meet prediction == failure". The thing is not a digital toggle switch, with only two states.  

I see no *need* to pigeonhole it, except as a dismissive appeal to the emotional content of the word "failure".  We can speak of how it seemed to do well or poorly from different points without trying to shove it into one bucket.  Doing so tends to limit the scope of our considerations.

For example, what if the "failure" were not a matter of game design, but of unexpected market saturation due to economic recession during the past few years?  Will you really consider that possibility seriously if you've dumped the game into the "failure" bucket?


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## Halivar (Sep 14, 2012)

S'mon said:


> Even if 4e did brilliantly 2008-10, we know it was cancelled early. If the plan had always been to terminate 4e in 2011/12, then they would have had 5e ready to go in mid/late 2012, right? Not a 2-2.5 year gap. Or do you think everything is unfolding just as Hasbro predicted?



Seems to me a smart move would be the have the Next Big Thing (tm) ready to go before your current product dies, not after. If we take an RPG's life expectancy to be 6-8 years, then the timing for starting up 5E development strikes me as just right.


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## S'mon (Sep 14, 2012)

Umbran said:


> That is, at best, a first approximation, though.  WotC gets to decide what it views as a success.




Indeed.


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