General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I really think alot of these BLOGS get drawn along party lines anymore- I notice the OSR crowd in general flocks to posts like James', spewing doom and gloom because the hobby industry is not like it was in (insert fave year from D&D's heyday) When the people who are actually successful in the market today like WOTC, Paizo and Goodman, say they are doing well- they get jumped by all the negative nellies.
More importantly, As an original LBB'er and OSR fan who also totally digs 4E, who do I get pi$$ed off at at now?.. Paizo??? White Wolf?? Which Bandwagon do I jump on?
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I think people sometimes get too fixated about what's "official" to see what they could do with the whole- "David "Zeb" Cook
In the 21 years since then, I've heard every single year that this industry was on the cusp of failure. I don't think the assertion is any truer now than it was 21 years ago.
1. From here on out, every RPG book must have a "tastefully" scantily clad woman on the cover. Perhaps getting actual pictures of celebrities dressed up in fantasy constumes might help.
2. A certain portion of each book will be dedicated to advertising. Such adverstising would cater to the average gamer, everything from miniatures to deodorant. Coupons could be included.
3. Maybe each book could contain a centerfold of the person on the cover.
4. Along with tips and advice of performing well at table, relationship advice could also be included. "10 ways to tell if that gamer girl is into you!" Or "Only gamer chick at the FLGS? Try these 7 things to WoW them!"
5. Gaming books releases should be monthly (they practically are now anyway).
6. Perhaps the teen demographic could be reached with books that contain articles for them. "Miley Cyrus: D&D or not D&D?" "Parents think you worship Satan? 10 ways to prove them wrong!"
7. All RPG books can repeat the same topic every 2-3 years or so. (Wait minute...they almost do that already...)
I honestly don't understand folks who think that because their business model worked yesterday it should always work.
If you cannot adjust to conditions in the market or better yet find new markets your endeavors are doomed to mediocrity or failure.
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Part of teh orignial author's problem is that he equates the PDF and hardcover book as having the same value. They arent, and dont. I dont value a PDF the same as a actual book. I dont think anyone does.
Part of teh orignial author's problem is that he equates the PDF and hardcover book as having the same value. They arent, and dont. I dont value a PDF the same as a actual book. I dont think anyone does.
To me, PDFs are worthless other than as an easy way to browse through a book. I don't have a laptop, and I find it annoying to read through PDFs on my desktop computer. I usually just buy the books instead.
Well, the thing I find interesting is - why is everyone so easily worked up and pissed off over this?
James posted his own opinions and ideas on his own blog, as he or anyone has the right to do lol. He didn't come here and open this or other thread.. others brought it here.
James has a pretty gloomy vision of the industry (not the hobby, as he says), but also says he hopes he's wrong. The man's entitled to his opinion, and he has experience that gives him a point of view... others have the right to say "I disagree." Hell, he even titles his own blog "ramblings..." I know James and I love the guy - he's one of the best GMs you could ever have - but I don't necessarily agree with every point of view he holds... big deal, that's America heh.... but he says what he thinks...
I am a bit saddened by how Erik Mona came into this so strongly. I've never met him but have always enjoyed his writings and his opinions. I understand an impetus to defend one's company, but all James did was say he didn't like the approach being taken by Paizo on the pdf pricing for the Pathfinder rulebook. Coming back with a bit of namecalling and denegrating James on a personal level strikes me as a bit off... James Mishler's blog and opinion is a threat to the Pathfinder release?
In the end I just have to ask - why do you guys care so much to get so worked up over it?
__________________ John Maddog Wright
"In the Immortal Words of Socrates.... I Drank What!?"
Maybe this is a naive thing to say, and even though I love many of them, I really don't think the "hobby" is dependent on 95% of the publishers that currently exist in order to thrive. 1-3 biggies is all that's needed to keep it viable in stores. (Maybe the glut of publishers and systems has even contributed heavily to the problem.)
Taking it a step further, I'd even go so far as to say the hobby really doesn't need *any* new product from publishers at this point for it to go on anyway. RPG Publishers need consumers more than consumers need RPG publishers.
If all publishers shut down tomorrow, the hobby would go on. I would still play. Many would still play. Cons would still go on, though they may certainly get smaller.
There was a section from this blog post which asserts:
Quote:
WotC went through a period, mostly concurrent with D&D3, where they tried to offload the burden of adventures, never super profitable, onto third party publishers using the OGL. At least, that’s how it was pitched to the top brass there by Ryan Dancey. If you knew Ryan, though, and paid attention to what he said in other venues, you knew Ryan was really tricking WotC into opening D&D because he didn’t like the idea of D&D’s fate being tied to the success of one company.
In the highlighted text, I wonder how much of this was really Ryan Dancey's true intentions.
In the end I just have to ask - why do you guys care so much to get so worked up over it?
Because this industry has a long-standing problem of people, many of them well-intentioned, holding forth in public without much in the way of real knowledge... and forum readers believing them, because they're 'insiders'.
This can actually have a knock-on effect -- a bit like a run on a bank (less drastic, to be sure, but just as real), where sales can be effected because of the pervading mood that things are on a downturn. Believe it or not, but people tend to purchase more if they feel that their purchases will be supported going forward by a healthy industry. If they're convinced (because they heard it from people who "should know") that its not healthy, they're less likely to purchase.
It's not his opinion which is the problem -- opinions are like... Well, you know.
It's that he supports his opinion with "facts" which are flat-out wrong (and in some cases, perhaps even purposefully misleading), and gamers might believe him (leading to very real impact on business) unless those errors are pointed out.
More importantly, As an original LBB'er and OSR fan who also totally digs 4E, who do I get pi$ off at at now?.. Paizo??? White Wolf?? Which Bandwagon do I jump on?
I think White Wolf is okay.
Wait, no -- Ethan Skemp, Werewolf developer and White Wolf employee, posts here frequently, and mentions how much fun he's having playing D&D 4e. Dang.
Well, there's always video and computer games. (Though you should make sure you've played them before attempting to describe the way they play. One never wants one's negative rants to come off as ignorant to anyone who's ever played, or even watched an episode of Attack of the Show or X-Play.)
__________________ - Bob Huss
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To me, PDFs are worthless other than as an easy way to browse through a book. I don't have a laptop, and I find it annoying to read through PDFs on my desktop computer. I usually just buy the books instead.
Yes, but people are missing the whole point of the essay saying that, while customers think PDFs are "worth less" (or "worthless"), that does not change the fact that there are certain fixed costs to publishing and it's not just the cost of printing and warehousing. Just because people are cheap doesn't mean that it makes sense to lower prices.
Quote:
This can actually have a knock-on effect -- a bit like a run on a bank (less drastic, to be sure, but just as real), where sales can be effected because of the pervading mood that things are on a downturn. Believe it or not, but people tend to purchase more if they feel that their purchases will be supported going forward by a healthy industry. If they're convinced (because they heard it from people who "should know") that its not healthy, they're less likely to purchase.
On the other hand, James has a lot of knowledge from what I've seen, and I see attempts to debunk him as akin to people who don't want to hear negative news about their product--even if its true--because they don't want the stock price to go down. I see this a lot, being a fan of XM Radio and how things went crappy and stock holders thinking things are fine, say anything negative and tons of stock holders come into message boards complaining of bias.
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Because this industry has a long-standing problem of people, many of them well-intentioned, holding forth in public without much in the way of real knowledge... and forum readers believing them, because they're 'insiders'.
This can actually have a knock-on effect -- a bit like a run on a bank (less drastic, to be sure, but just as real), where sales can be effected because of the pervading mood that things are on a downturn. Believe it or not, but people tend to purchase more if they feel that their purchases will be supported going forward by a healthy industry. If they're convinced (because they heard it from people who "should know") that its not healthy, they're less likely to purchase.
It's not his opinion which is the problem -- opinions are like... Well, you know.
It's that he supports his opinion with "facts" which are flat-out wrong (and in some cases, perhaps even purposefully misleading), and gamers might believe him (leading to very real impact on business) unless those errors are pointed out.
See I don't get this part of the argument. James does have experience and does have some interesting facts - could his perceptions of the meaning of these be wrong? Sure. He also has the facts that he's been exposed to, which don't include everything and are certainly an incomplete picture - but that's true of every single post or opinion that uses "facts" regardless of how inside or outside someone is, and he supplements these with his guesses and anecdotal evidence - which he even SAYS is anecdotal... so it comes back to just someone voicing their concerns and opinions, and people jumping on it.
Does James Mishler have biases for and against games and business models? Of course he does. So do Erik Mona, Monte Cook, Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, Jim Ward, myself, and every person, known and unknown, who come here. For instance, thecausaloblivian slammed James pretty strongly during this, so looking at something he said on a forked thread:
Quote:
My response to this thread brings up an interesting point. In the current tabletop RPG world, alternatives to mainstream D&D are at a low ebb. Aside from White Wolf chugging along as the number 2 publisher, doing its own thing as always, what is really selling outside of 4E? 3PP 4E books aren't, outside of Goodman being modestly successful selling adventures. The OGL has slowed down considerably. Indie games and non-d20 systems are barely on the radar. Most people who haven't switched to 4E are playing old games. Either retro clones of a previously released game(and I would include Pathfinder in this), older editions of D&D, or playing older games that haven't been updated recently. A few blips here and there, but not a lot. There's 4E, and White Wolf puts out new games for their system, but outside of that, nothing new is really happening.
Now, these are assertions and opinions. Where's the facts to support? (Erik'll probably be upset at the "other than 4e and White Wolf nothing's happening...." guess Paizo's not doing anything....) But, they are just as valid for him to make as James. Lots of people post with assertions and arguments ensue over the merits of points made. Causal has every right to make assertions, just as James does.
What bothers me is this: GMSkarka especially said this is "dangerous" when people who have some "experience" as "insiders" make assertions - this means the more someone has had in experience the more their assertions are dangerous and need to be squelched? The further outside the better when making claims about the RPG community?
You don't have to agree with James. You don't even have to ignore - it's quite possible to have a solid debate on the specifics of the arguments and his assertions.
What bothers me, and it seems to be a real problem here and on many message boards, is that people who disagree immediately turn to personal attacks and denegration to "knock down" those that voice opinions they disagree with.
__________________ John Maddog Wright
"In the Immortal Words of Socrates.... I Drank What!?"
On the other hand, James has a lot of knowledge from what I've seen
...which means, I suppose, that you're ignoring the factual errors that have been pointed out, over and over again, both here and on his blog entry.
I'm not talking opinions -- he's welcome to those. I'm talking about verifiable *fact* (such as his incorrect view of the state of POD production, for example, or his bizarre ideas regarding the word rates of mainstream writing, or his perhaps-purposeful conflation of trade paperbacks with mass market paperbacks in order to make his point about inflation, etc.).
He "has a lot of knowledge", sure -- it's just that a good amount of it is wrong.
However, based on your posts here and on his blog, it's pretty obvious that you've made up your mind, so I guess there's not much point in further discussion.
What bothers me is this: GMSkarka especially said this is "dangerous" when people who have some "experience" as "insiders" make assertions - this means the more someone has had in experience the more their assertions are dangerous and need to be squelched? The further outside the better when making claims about the RPG community?
No, that's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying that when you speak from a position of authority, you bear the responsibility of that authority.
Really, that's not a radical concept.
To use an exaggerated example to show you what I mean: Opinions regarding medicine coming from, say, a Registered Nurse are going to be given a lot more weight that those coming from Joe the Plumber (although maybe not, in some circles -- but I digress).
As such, the RN should be a lot more careful about what they say, because they're speaking with authority about the subject.
2) Usability. My thoughts on RPG products are that a LOT of them were being bought, pre recession, as interesting reading or source material for OTHER games. I think this type of material is something around 30% for our store (about $75k/year in RPGs). When economic times are hard, this spending is cut sharply and we learn who is really playing what. My guess is some publishers have seen their sales grind to a screeching halt and may not know why. I wonder if this is a more universal trend and if anyone has noticed this?
To me, PDFs are worthless other than as an easy way to browse through a book. I don't have a laptop, and I find it annoying to read through PDFs on my desktop computer. I usually just buy the books instead.
Same here...I have a ton of PDF's from Piazo from subscriptions but I never use them. Their a nice add on, but they have no value to me.
I'm saying that when you speak from a position of authority, you bear the responsibility of that authority.
Really, that's not a radical concept.
To use an exaggerated example to show you what I mean: Opinions regarding medicine coming from, say, a Registered Nurse are going to be given a lot more weight that those coming from Joe the Plumber (although maybe not, in some circles -- but I digress).
As such, the RN should be a lot more careful about what they say, because they're speaking with authority about the subject.
Clearer?
A lawyer can be disbarred for giving misleading or outright wrong legal advice.
Part of teh orignial author's problem is that he equates the PDF and hardcover book as having the same value. They arent, and dont. I dont value a PDF the same as a actual book. I dont think anyone does.
As I pointed out in the blog comments, as a matter of fact Paizo values PDF at 70% of printed price. Green Ronin values them at 55%. Malhavoc at generally 57%.
Now, those are publishers, but they are also successful publishers and Green Ronin and Paizo at least have pretty stable PDF prices, so (this is a logic leap due to a lack of sales info) I would presume they are happy with their PDF sales. So, when looking for actual facts, I'd say that the market valuing PDFs in the 55-65% of print price range is probably pretty accurate and stable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by seskis281
I am a bit saddened by how Erik Mona came into this so strongly. I've never met him but have always enjoyed his writings and his opinions. I understand an impetus to defend one's company, but all James did was say he didn't like the approach being taken by Paizo on the pdf pricing for the Pathfinder rulebook. Coming back with a bit of namecalling and denegrating James on a personal level strikes me as a bit off... James Mishler's blog and opinion is a threat to the Pathfinder release?
Well, I was surprised at how strongly Erik came on as well, but to be fair James didn't just say that he didn't like Paizo's approach, he claimed that the PFRPG PDF was going to start a "Race to Zero" and pretty much decimate the PDF market. That seems a fair bit more harsh than "I don't like it". If someone accused your company and their biggest project in years as the harbinger of doom to an entire market, well, I can understand some emotion from Erik.
It's also an utterly unfounded argument. As I probably rambled too long in response to his 2nd post, he's looking at a single data point and claiming it's the beginning of a trend, while ignoring the overall stability of PDF to print pricing across years and dozens of products.
Not only is it bad statistics, but it's also bad logic. And having gotten half way to a PhD in philosophy, bad logic hurts me.
but he says what he thinks...
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