WotC strategy of Planned Obsolescence? (Forked Thread: WotC 4E D&D bloat)

[ggroy]

Forked from: WotC 4E D&D bloat (was Forked Thread: Pathfinder (PFRPG) bloat)

Wonder if Hasbro/WotC has all along been implicitly pursuing a business strategy of "planned obsolescence" for D&D, in some form or another for 3E/3.5E and now 4E.

Planned obsolescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Industries famous for planned obsolescence are computer hardware firms, like Intel. It is better for a firm to make their own products obsolete, than it is for one of their competitors to do it for them.

I suppose with all the bloat produced for 3.5E by WotC's proliferation of their own splatbooks, it made 3.5E D&D more and more into a huge mess. Perhaps in effect they were trying to "destroy" 3.5E, to make way for a 4E.

I imagine the easiest way to "destroy" 4E, would be for WotC to create more and more bloat until the game is huge mess after 5 or 6 years. By then, it becomes viable and more palatable for a 5E to be introduced.

[Umbran]

I don't believe this is the case, because the market will close the door on the edition for them.

The RPG market is small. It very quickly saturates with a given product - after everyone who is going to play 4e right now has a PHB, the sales drop to a comparative trickle of replacements and a few books for the occasional new gamer.

When the market is saturated with a product, the profit margin on each book drops. So, to keep a decent revenue stream, they have to keep printing new products. That's okay, so long as they have new rules-territory and cool settings to cover. But eventually, when they've covered all the different options folks want out of D&D, the whole edition has saturated.

Then will be the time for a new edition. They don't have to plan it into the release strategy - it will happen eventually no matter what they do. Eventually, the edition willnot be economically viable to keep in print.

Oh, and by the way, I think it is safe to say that WotC has no effective competition in tabletop RPGs at this time. WotC far outsells all other RPG companies, and by economy of scale thereby also probably makes more money per book than any other RPG publisher. There's nobody out there who can make their materials obsolete for them.

[xechnao]

I could see a slower production rate if they did dungeon and dragon in print. But I doubt this would make an edition much more resistant in time. It could extend edition life for an extra year perhaps? I guess they studied all these models, compared their ins and outs and settled for the most profitable one.

I am curious why they haven't tried a Wotc magazine. Focusing on all their products and thus strongly advertising to fans of each product all of their lines. Or have they?

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Umbran

I don't believe this is the case, because the market will close the door on the edition for them.

If WotC are indeed pursuing such a strategy of planned obsolescence, perhaps they are doing it such that it doesn't saturate the market too quickly.

It would be more like a slow motion "train wreck", than flooding the market with tons of bloat in a fast and furious manner.

[xechnao]

Originally Posted by ggroy

It would be more like a slow motion "train wreck"

Yeah, it is like this. Their strategy is like this. The only alternative business strategy would be to support more than one edition. They are not doing this though.

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Umbran

Oh, and by the way, I think it is safe to say that WotC has no effective competition in tabletop RPGs at this time. WotC far outsells all other RPG companies, and by economy of scale thereby also probably makes more money per book than any other RPG publisher. There's nobody out there who can make their materials obsolete for them.

Even without any other major competitors, the strategy of planned obsolescence can in principle be used as a way to preempt and ward off any existing and potential future competitors. Intel does this very effectively in the pc cpu business.

[Dausuul]

Originally Posted by xechnao

Yeah, it is like this. Their strategy is like this. The only alternative business strategy would be to support more than one edition. They are not doing this though.

Which would be a stupid and suicidal strategy. Having to support two editions, or software versions, or whatever, is an unpleasant position for any IP company to be in. It is at best a necessary evil, certainly not a goal to be pursued long-term.

[xechnao]

Originally Posted by Dausuul

Which would be a stupid and suicidal strategy. Having to support two editions, or software versions, or whatever, is an unpleasant position for any IP company to be in. It is at best a necessary evil, certainly not a goal to be pursued long-term.

It is neither stupid nor suicidal. Many companies are doing this as long as their products can serve different needs. 3e, 4e, AD&D and BD&D are not just different versions. They are different games. They are not doing it because they studied it and found out that as things happen to be it would work better for them as they chose to do. Besides the OGL crippled their legs for something like that: they would have to compete on more fronts with less resources on each front.

[GMforPowergamers]

I both agree and disagree.

I think they new that baring something wonky this would not be the last edtion of D&D...I think they also went into this with there eyes wide open. They figured on 3 basic power sources, and 1 per year (more or less) with power suplments coming out regularly. I also asume they think tey can handle the 'wind down' of no new PHB book for 1 year.

so my guess is WotC put a guess of 5-8 years for this edtion. and in one way that is planned obsolescence...

[Scribble]

Eh, I don't think this is the case.

I think they just didn't think hard enough about what an organizational nightmare things would become when they started meeting customer demand for things like feats and PRCs.

I think they wanted a system that allowed character options and variation, but just didn't understand what the "stackable" nature of everything would do.

I also don't really think PRCs were originally intended to play as big a role as they ended up playing. (Causing an unplanned area of expansion.)

This go around, not only do I think they learned a bit about how expandable systems work game wise, but also how they work organizationally. Right now in 4e there is a lot of info out there, but very little that EVERYONE at the table needs access to at all times.

[ggroy]

This time around, WotC has been able to preempt most of the major 3pp's from nipping at its heels, whether it was done deliberately or by happenstance via the 4E GSL license fiasco. Effectively it warded off the major competition from even participating in the first place.

[Agamon]

I don't think the bloat makes the game obsolete or even necessarily an unwelcome mess, but the introduction of a new version can. Bloat is very much ignorable, and if wasn't for DDI, those new crunchy rules from AV, MP, AP, FRPG and EPG wouldn't be a part of my game.

The reason for new rulebooks is a profitable business, not to try to slowly ruin the game. Making the so-called bloat nearly invisible by making it so well organized and selectable in DDI shows that they are trying to not make it a mess.

[Cadfan]

WotC intentionally over saturated their customers with 3e products so that 3e would become bloated and suck to play in order to make people more interested in 4e as a solution?

I think this is laughable, and would urge anyone who thinks this makes sense to take a break from the internet.

That's all I'll say about this.

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by ggroy

Even without any other major competitors, the strategy of planned obsolescence can in principle be used as a way to preempt and ward off any existing and potential future competitors. Intel does this very effectively in the pc cpu business.

I am not convinced that works in a space as small as the D&D market, especially when personal taste drives purchases more than specifications and performance.

[xechnao]

Originally Posted by Scribble

I think they wanted a system that allowed character options and variation, but just didn't understand what the "stackable" nature of everything would do.

The very first book, PHB has balance and system issues -according to most of the fans you hear on the net.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Originally Posted by ggroy

I suppose with all the bloat produced for 3.5E by WotC's proliferation of their own splatbooks, it made 3.5E D&D more and more into a huge mess. Perhaps in effect they were trying to "destroy" 3.5E, to make way for a 4E.

I imagine the easiest way to "destroy" 4E, would be for WotC to create more and more bloat until the game is huge mess after 5 or 6 years. By then, it becomes viable and more palatable for a 5E to be introduced.

I was recently wondering along similar lines, too. Although I don't think they were trying to make a "mess" with all the splatbook releases, the only messes came from a few poorly thought out rules/feats/classes/spells in many of the books. I was just thinking:

It's really annoying how people say 3E had an 8 year life cycle. It's still here, Paizo's making a revision version of it...and frankly, I don't think that the well had dried up on supplements. I do realize that putting out so many books at such a great pace surely shortened its lifespan...is that WotC's plan? They're releasing an awful lot of books for 4E, and... (I'm really not sure about this, could be wrong) aren't they putting out a new PHB every single year? Maybe the plan is to suck as much money from a new edition of rules as they can in the shortest possible amount of time (money/time), and then leave its dried up husk by the roadside so they can put out the new edition and start the process all over again.

Just to sort of copy/paste my thoughts. I’ll have to wait and see what happens with 4E. It’ll be sad if that really is the plan, and 4E doesn’t even last a decade (or even 8 years like 3E!). Hopefully they’re content to make moderate profits over a long time, because I’d be amazed if they don’t, release 5E in a few years, and people don’t catch onto their game and stop buying…

[Windjammer]

Originally Posted by ggroy

I suppose with all the bloat produced for 3.5E by WotC's proliferation of their own splatbooks, it made 3.5E D&D more and more into a huge mess. Perhaps in effect they were trying to "destroy" 3.5E, to make way for a 4E.

Here's a more solid way of phrasing a point similar to yours. Basically, for WotC there comes a point when all the money goes to the next edition and then their product standards for current edition standards are compromised or, which sometimes comes to the same thing, current edition products are simply used for testing grounds.

Here's someone making that point in 2006. I imagine posting it here back then would have caused heaps of ridicule ("WotC told us that there is no 4th edition in the works! How dare you insinuate otherwise! That's just flamebait!").

Originally Posted by Frank Trollmann

Pretty much. Like Magic of Incarnum and Tome of Magic, Book of Nine Swords was never intended to be a balanced and playable book. It's just a concept sketch of a different way of doing things born out of the fact that they don't have playtesters any more.

In short, the book is just "Here's some radical ideas, what do y'all think?" And then people pay money for it, take it home, playtest it their own self, and reports get back to the secret masters who will then either fold it into 4th edition or not.

So based on peer review, I would say that Incarnum will probably never be heard from again, Shadow Magic will be used in some radically different (and simpler) form, and Warblade Maneuvers will be the Fighter standard in 4th edition.


It's the 3.5 standard: Balance through obfiscation.

The statement is that maneuvers and stances that provide bonuses and penalties to stuff don't stack unless they say that they do. Does that mean that a morale bonus stacks with a luck bonus? Noone knows!

And that's the point. The point is that the DM has to decide whether a differently named bonus qualifies as being noted as stacking with its mate. And that means that the DM gets to decide whether those bonuses stack. It even lets him change his mind later on in the campaign if a charactr is over or under performing.

But they can't just say "We haven't playtested this, let alone subject it to rigorous statistical analysis, and we have no idea whether this stuff is balanced if you use it all together. So uh... you might have to spot nerf it or something to keep your game from driving to crazy town. Or maybe not, as I said we aint got clue one as to whether there are any game balance land mines hidden in this - we don't even know whether the land mines - if they exist - would err on the side of underperformance or overperformance. You might have to do all kinds of crap to keep these characters from breaking the game and/or sucking." - that would make it sound like they were just charging people money to playtest ideas for 4th edition for them.

Book of 9 Swords, Magic of Incarnum, and Tome of Magic are Alpha Testing. Seriously, that's just the point of the design process where they pitch an idea to focus groups - it's not playable game material. And the game they are focus group testing for is 4th edition D&D.

WotC just happens to have developed a business model where people pay upwards of thirty dollars to be part of the focus group instead of getting a free T-shirt.

-Frank

Source

The accuracy of this prediction - especially the observation for the warblade being the base design for the 4E fighter class - is nothing short of impressive.

In that vein, I recommend reading the same author's observations over there (and especially his two follow-ups here). As he points out time and again, WotC has NOT playtested a single version of skill challenges to date (June 2008-June 2009) and has not released a version that is actually used by the designers in their home games, whether in a core book for which they charged $30 or an similarly pricey online service. Which is disheartening.

Frank's 2006 post seems to suggest "never mind WotC stopping to playtest - it's for 4E", with the clear implication "WotC is directing all its playtesting efforts into 4E (ergo, 4E will be solidly playtested all around)". As it turned out, that was overly optimistic.

Does anyone know if the splats WotC currently releases are solidly playtested? Or are we back at the stage of the 2nd 3.5 Complete Series which was commissioned to be written by freelance writers and had only moderate quality control?

[outsider]

Originally Posted by ggroy

I suppose with all the bloat produced for 3.5E by WotC's proliferation of their own splatbooks, it made 3.5E D&D more and more into a huge mess. Perhaps in effect they were trying to "destroy" 3.5E, to make way for a 4E.

Or maybe they were trying to make money by selling books.

[Rechan]

Is WotC trying to destroy itself, based on the stationary they use?

Given the toner they put in their printers, it seems like WotC is trying to ruin the tabletop market. Discuss.

Looking at the restaurants in WotC's cafeteria, it's clear they are trying to poison their employees with high fat and cholesterol.

What do you think about the color of stickynotes in WotC's office says about the future of 3PP?

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Rechan

What do you think about the color of stickynotes in WotC's office says about the future of 3PP?

The Hasbro/WotC executives have on their desks, several voodoo dolls of 3pp's for sticking pins and needles into.