another rpg industry doomsday article (merged: all 3 "Mishler Rant" threads)

[GMSkarka]

Originally Posted by Treebore

The only thing that seems inaccurate about his post is his analysis of PDF sales.

• ...and his statements about Print-On-Demand ship times and discounts.
  
• ...and his statements regarding inflation of paperbacks, where he compared apples (mass market paperbacks) to oranges (trade paperbacks), which he is now claiming is immaterial because the content is identical -- so I guess that a hardcover should cost the same as a paperback, too, for the same reason
  
• ...and his statements about pay rates in mainstream publishing.
  
• ...and his insistence that we're in a "Greater Depression" the likes of which hasn't been seen since the "Roman Crisis of the Third Century."
  
• ...and his deciding to take a single data point (the price of a game that hasn't been released yet) and claim that it represents a trend.

I could, of course, continue. But really, there is no point. He has his fanboys, who will insist that he's insightful and correct in his analysis, by virtue of the fact that they like his games.

[thecasualoblivion]

Originally Posted by rounser

From what we've heard of WOTC's sales related to the legal case, the majority of the former D&D audience are not buying 4E, with sales in the hundreds of thousands and the former audience estimated in the millions, from memory.

I'd say if you look at the number of people who are former D&D players, I'd imagine that if you were to look at how many were former players because of 4E, that number would be quite small. Most people who are former players of D&D are so because of life reasons that have nothing to do with the game itself, like moving, lack of free time, moved on to other things, ect. D&D has existed since 1974. I'd imagine that 90%-99% of former D&D players left before 4E was even announced.

[thecasualoblivion]

Originally Posted by catsclaw227

I am still not sure what you are saying. Are you saying that 4e D&D is a niche product in the RPG industry?

It is the 800lb gorilla.

Maybe Erik M. can let us know if he thinks 4e D&D is a niche product...

Something like this:

Originally Posted by Erik Mona

The main advantage Mike Mearls has (or, rather, the main advantage of his employer) is that he works with Dungeons & Dragons, a brand with 85% name recognition in the GENERAL PUBLIC, and a brand with a 35-year tradition of high quality and market leadership. His is also the best-capitalized company in the industry, with long-established market dominance in the hobby and mass market retail channels. Dungeons & Dragons has an existing network of players (i.e. customers) that is at least two, possibly three or four orders of magnitude larger than that of any other brand in the industry.

There is no existing fallacy among gaming professionals, from independent operators like James Mishler to brand managers and major corporations like Scott Rouse, that "if it were good it will sell as well as D&D." Anyone with an even basic understanding of the RPG industry knows that _no_ pen and paper RPG will sell as well as D&D. It would take a CATASTROPHIC failure of game design, distribution, and probably the economy overall for the D&D business to falter to the point at which another company can even contemplate selling in the sort of numbers that Wizards sells.

[b[Most gaming stores, if they carry RPGs at all, carry only Dungeons & Dragons.[/b] No, I'm not talking about good stores, but ALL stores that carry RPGs, which vastly outnumber the good stores. When Paizo was publishing 3.5 products with production values and quality equal to or exceeding that of Wizards of the Coast, we continually ran into retailers who refused to carry our line (or the products of any other publisher), because it "wasn't D&D". This is even though we published 100% official D&D in the form of Dragon and Dungeon magazines for FIVE YEARS. Many of the same stores that ordered a few copies of Dragon a month didn't bother to check out our stuff, and still haven't.

You've got to have some sort of angle, because until you can prove to people like Diamond Book Distributors or PSI that you have an audience ready to buy your product in significant numbers, you're never ever going to see one of your products in a bookstore.

Even then, modest success is going to net you something like 3,000 sales, and a huge success would sell maybe 10,000 copies. I hear from a lot of PDF-only publishers that moving 1000 units is a huge, smashing success.

If Wizards of the Coast sells 10,000 copies of a book, they have probably lost money. If a product line routinely sells this number of products, that line will likely be canceled next time it's time for the managers to solicit new products.

A tremendous success in this industry for any company (including Paizo) would likely be viewed as a terrible, terrible failure at Wizards of the Coast.

Thus has it been for the publishers of D&D and the publishers of games that follow in its wake since, oh, about 1974.

And I don't expect it to change.

--Erik

[Erik Mona]

Thanks for saving me the trouble of cutting and pasting that reply, TCO!

My sentiments exactly!

--Erik

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by thecasualoblivion

I'd imagine that 90%-99% of former D&D players left before 4E was even announced.

Of the 25-30 people I knew who regularly played D&D when I was growing up (ie. from my school and college years), only 4 or 5 of them still actively or occasionally play any rpgs these days. The rest have very little to no interest in playing any rpgs or board games these days.

Even myself, I took a long hiatus from playing rpgs. I stopped playing any rpgs shortly after the 1E AD&D Forgotten Realms grey box was released. (I had other priorities in those days). I didn't play at all during the 2E AD&D and 3E D&D eras, but still occasionally read news about the hobby via usenet newsgroups whenever I was really bored. I occasionally picked up several rpg books during that time (but never played them), mainly from previous rpg acquaintances selling old rpg books they didn't need anymore for a pittance. (ie. Stuff like these particular acquaintances' wives threatening to leave them if they didn't stop gaming, etc ...). I got back into playing rpg games regularly after 3.5E was released, but didn't buy many books at first. I only started to buy more rpg books, when I was DM'ing again.

[kenmarable]

Originally Posted by GMSkarka

I'd like to dispel at least one misconception that I've seen repeated a few times in this discussion: the whole "PDF as Loss Leader" thing.

PDFs, regardless of price, are no more a "loss leader" for the print version of a game product than an iTunes download, vinyl or cassette album is a "loss leader" for the CD.

It's a different format, with a different price. Nothing more.

Or are you seriously going to tell me that paperback novels are "loss leaders" for hardcovers? (Mishler most likely would, since he seems to think that if it's the same content, it should be exactly the same price, regardless of format -- at least according this his latest bizarre assertion about trade paperbacks vs mass-market paperbacks....)

But hey, what do I know. I'm just the "King of Snark", apparently.

Well, I would say that in the case of the PFRPG PDF (and only that specific case), Paizo is using it like a loss leader. Technically, it's pretty dang near impossible for them to actually lose money on it, but they are pricing it at 20% of print cover price rather than their usual 70% for the explicitly stated reason of drawing in more customers. So that one PDF isn't technically a loss leader, but I'd say they are deliberately treating it as an "underpriced leader".

But, of course, this is for the one single PDF that Paizo is pricing far below their usual rate. In general, unless you are giving them away for free, I agree that PDFs are just another format at a different price. (Of course, by Mishler's reasoning, I could hire a plane to sky write the entire contents of a novel and it's just the same content in a different size and format. So where's my $8 for you looking up at the sky and reading my book?)

[rounser]

Something like this:

I don't see the refutation, here. It's trading off of a name, yes I agree. But the game design has arguably changed quite dramatically from including a broad church of play styles to a rather narrow niche (e.g. long gamist tactical combats based on miniatures). It's a testament to the power of that name that the game still sees some success regardless, IMO. To reverse the scenario as a rhetorical question, would 4E have sunk without a trace without that name to bouy it?

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by rounser

To reverse the scenario as a rhetorical question, would 4E have sunk without a trace without that name to bouy it?

If I had seen the 4E books at a FLGS or bookstore without the "Dungeons and Dragons" name on the front cover, I don't think I would have even given it a second look. I probably would have skimmed through the book relatively quickly, and put it back on the shelf afterward.

[Kunimatyu]

Originally Posted by rounser

But the game design has arguably changed quite dramatically from including a broad church of play styles to a rather narrow niche (e.g. long gamist tactical combats based on miniatures).

Man, next you'll be telling us that long gamist tactical combats based on miniatures weren't what spawned D&D in the first place

And yes - if 4e D&D was some other RPG, it wouldn't have done nearly as well, for the reasons Erik listed above. That doesn't really have any bearing on its merits or lack thereof, though.

[rounser]

Man, next you'll be telling us that long gamist tactical combats based on miniatures weren't what spawned D&D in the first place

This has been soundly refuted in other threads. OD&D didn't assume the use of miniatures, most didn't use them, and even said it didn't in the text. It offered little tactical options, and had swift combat resolution. 4E is the odd man out here, much as wishful thinking and assumption would have it otherwise.

[JohnRTroy]

Companies that are basically one dude with some desktop publishing software working out of his basement, or who only do PDFs, or who can't get the interest and attention of honest-to-god hobby distributors like Alliance or ACD are completely screwed out of participation in the "industry," and frankly aren't really a part of it.

You would actually be surprised at this being the status of other publishers. Many of the so-called "big names" are like this. The other "dudes" are freelancers.

A lot of them don't admit this, but I found out a few you'd think are "big names" could fall into jepoardy if something happened. About the only person I see admitting this publicly is Clark Peterson of Necromancer games. There are several shops out there who would be in trouble if something happened to their spouse or day-job.

It's hard to see that with the authority being a publisher can do. All you have to do is have a good website and use official language such as the public "we" and you're a professional.

You would have to ask publishers this list of questions to find out.

* Do you work on the publishing full-time without doing any other work, or do you have a second job to supplement your income, or numerous freelance gigs inside or outside of writing not related to your publishing career?

* Are you married or living with somebody? Does your spouse work? Does your spouse make more than you? Do you have kids?

* Are you retired, on disability, or getting any other government assistance to supplement your income?

* Did you win the lottery or have any other windfalls of income?

* Are you living with family members?

* Are you making a living wage? Or are you suffering for your art?

Assuming they would answer these questions, since in some aspects it's not our business, but let's say somebody was willing to take the test. My bet would be many would not be able to answer all of the first five with "no".

It would be tough to guess. I know WoTC and White Wolf have full-time staff. I suspect Paizo has enough money for a staff, and Steve Jackson Games. I remember finding out from Gary Gygax that his publisher partners (TLG and Inner City Games) were partially funded by spouses--in other words, key people can work full time because their spouse makes enough "real world" money so salary isn't an issue.

We know Clark Peterson of Necromancer isn't depending on his stuff for his income. I'd suspect people like Mishler and GMS couldn't pass the "5 nos" test, as well as many people who are publishers here in the publishing forum. It makes me wonder what places like Green Ronin are like.

PDFs, regardless of price, are no more a "loss leader" for the print version of a game product than an iTunes download, vinyl or cassette album is a "loss leader" for the CD.

I know when I used the term loss leader I meant comparing PDFs to other PDFs. While James also mentioned cannibalization, I think he had a key point, that a $10 PDF of as high quality as Pathfinder can make it look to the public that PDFs are overpriced. And he did make good points into the fixed costs of publishing. There are some good points he did make, even if all of them aren't as solid as I once thought.

[catsclaw227]

Originally Posted by thecasualoblivion

Something like this:

Originally Posted by Erik Mona

Thanks for saving me the trouble of cutting and pasting that reply, TCO!

That's sorta what I thought. I was wondering if rounser had seen it, even though it was posted earlier.

Originally Posted by rounser

I don't see the refutation, here. It's trading off of a name, yes I agree. But the game design has arguably changed quite dramatically from including a broad church of play styles to a rather narrow niche (e.g. long gamist tactical combats based on miniatures).

The 4e I play has a lot more elements to it that just "long gamist tactical combats based on miniatures". As a matter of fact it has as many different things going on as it did when I was DMing and playing 3e. And quite frankly, my 4e game acts more like my old AD&D games, though the combat adds more of a tactical element than in my 1e past.

I am not sure who DMed your 4e game, but did you play it as a one shot or a campaign with story (or sandbox) and a consistent, cohesive, ongoing series of game sessions?

But I didn't quote you to mention that, as I am still baffled by your comment that 4e D&D is a niche product in the RPG industry. Seriously, do you really believe that?

[rounser]

But I didn't quote you to mention that, as I am still baffled by your comment that 4e D&D is a niche product in the RPG industry. Seriously, do you really believe that?

No, I think that it's niche game design, whereas D&D's game design used to support a broader church of play styles (probably more through good luck than good judgement). IMO it's extremist in design philosophy and resulting play style, and is viable I think in spite of that. Some will pat it on the back for focus, others rubbish it for the compromises and babies thrown out with the bathwater made in attaining that focus. i.e. IMO it's narrower and caters less for a broad church of play styles than what D&D's audience have grown to expect from D&D.

[Intense_Interest]

Originally Posted by rounser

To reverse the scenario as a rhetorical question, would 4E have sunk without a trace without that name to bouy it?

There is no way anyone could possibly answer this question.

[Vigilance]

Originally Posted by rounser

This has been soundly refuted in other threads. OD&D didn't assume the use of miniatures, most didn't use them, and even said it didn't in the text. It offered little tactical options, and had swift combat resolution. 4E is the odd man out here, much as wishful thinking and assumption would have it otherwise.

Ok, first, OD&D most definitely assumed miniatures.

The cover of OD&D, which I am looking at right now, says "Rules for fantastic medieval wargames playable with paper, pencil and miniature figures".

Spell ranges and areas are also given in inches. No mention is made of feet.

Measuring in inches was how miniature movement was handled in those days. It's every bit as much an assumption that minis will be used as giving movement and ranges in squares.

Only difference is OD&D using inches assumes you're moving minis on a tabletop, using a ruler, rather than on some map grid.

Character movement for a human is listed as "6 inches". Again, no feet conversion is even given.

In book 3 of OD&D, we finally get our first mention of converting inches to feet, where it is specifically mentioned that "in the underworld" (ie in dungeons) you convert inches to feet.

And of course, why would you go to feet "in the underworld"? Because that *is* the place where you are going to be consulting a map with a grid perhaps?

Sorry, but D&D's roots have always been as a miniature game. The only edition that even TRIED to separate itself from the game's wargaming roots was 2nd edition.

[rounser]

Ok, first, OD&D most definitely assumed miniatures.

The cover of OD&D, which I am looking at right now, says "Rules for fantastic medieval wargames playable with paper, pencil and miniature figures".

It was only called that "because we didn't know what else to call it", according to one of Gygax's players (RPG as a term hadn't been coined at that stage), and the text explicitly says that the rules don't assume the use of minis. And fantasy minis mostly did not exist back then, and the majority of groups didn't use minis at all, on the advice of people who were there. Your assumptions are wrong, explicitly refuted by people who were there. Don't drag this dead horse out for another beating, your arguments have been refuted before, and are based on assumption.

[Vigilance]

Originally Posted by rounser

It was only called that "because we didn't know what else to call it", according to one of Gygax's players, and the text explicitly says that the rules don't assume minis. RPG as a term hadn't been coined. And fantasy minis mostly did not exist back then, and the majority of groups didn't use minis at all, on the advice of people who were there. Your assumptions are wrong, explicitly refuted by people who were there. Don't drag this dead horse out for another beating, your arguments have been refuted before, and are based on assumption.

No, they're based on the text of the books.

Seriously, I dont care how others played the game.

Its hardly an "assumption" on my part to go by the rules as written.

You saying its an "assumption" of me to RTFM just because some old-timers didnt use minis?

There have ALWAYS been people who didnt.

But the books always were written for minis.

Its no harder to handwave movement and ranges in 3e than it was in 1e, based on MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

I suppose you'll tell me my personal experience is wrong, just like me bothering to read the books is an "assumption".

[Menexenus]

Yep, I call it .

The difference between me and you is that I'm staking a successful company on it, and you are pulling guesses out of your ass on the internet.

I just saw Erik's reply to Mishler's second post (above). Erik, I think you owe it to yourself to apologize. The guy is simply stating his view and backing it up with his well-considered and carefully laid-out reasons. Of course, you don't have to agree with his conclusions. (I don't. I think he's way too pessimistic about the state of the overall economy. He thinks we're in a Depression and considers a Japanese style "lost decade" to be a best case scenario.) Heck, you don't even have to respond to them! You could just ignore him. Instead, the response you did give (on his website to his post) was rather insulting and mean-spirited. While you may not like what he said about the implications he thought Paizo's PDF pricing would have for the industry as a whole, nothing he said was personal or petty, and it didn't deserve the response you gave it.

I'm sure what you wrote was written in the heat of the moment. (I know there are a number of things I've written over the years in posts and emails that I wish I could "unwrite".) I'm also sure you're a better person than the way you came off in that post. As an impartial observer who doesn't know either one of you, I think you owe the guy an apology.

I hope you'll think about it, Erik. (You might be surprised how good it actually feels to give someone a sincere apology. I know I have been!)

[Thanlis]

Originally Posted by rounser

It was only called that "because we didn't know what else to call it", according to one of Gygax's players, and the text explicitly says that the rules don't assume minis. RPG as a term hadn't been coined. And fantasy minis mostly did not exist back then, and the majority of groups didn't use minis at all, on the advice of people who were there. Your assumptions are wrong, explicitly refuted by people who were there. Don't drag this dead horse out for another beating, your arguments have been refuted before, and are based on assumption.

The text says:

"LAND COMBAT: The basic system is that from CHAINMAIL, with one figure representing one man or creature." (Page 25, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures.)

It also says, on the same page:

"PLAYING AREA: Paper counters and a hexagon or staggered-square playing board should be used in those cases where it is not possible to use miniatures figures."

The mention of paper counters is fascinating, because the quote typically used to prove that D&D didn't use miniatures is this:

"Minature figures can be added if the players have them available and so desire, but miniatures are not required, only esthetically pleasing." (Page 5, Men & Magic.)

Except people often skip the context. That sentence continues: "Similarly, unit counters can be employed -- with or without figures -- although by themselves the bits of cardboard lack the eye-appeal of the varied and brightly painted miniature figures."

I interpret that as meaning that you use figures, but if you don't have figures, it's cool -- you can use unit counters instead. I think that interpretation is borne out by the text from U&WA, which clearly says that you use those counters if you don't have minis.

Now. Did players of the time actually use miniatures or cardboard counters all the time? I dunno, I wasn't there; I wouldn't be surprised if the play evolved away from the rules as written. Play always does. But the text of the original booklets is not terribly ambiguous.

[rounser]

No, they're based on the text of the books.

The text of the OD&D books explicitly tells you that the rules do not assume use of miniatures! And the usual way to play was without them! All you've done is draw out assumptions based on what you're reading into the text based on what you want to believe, when the book itself and people who were there explicitly contradict you. Your argument seems plausible to the casual observer, but people who were there have told us that what you're suggesting isn't true.