D&D Has the Biggest Playerbase, So Why is it the Hardest for 3rd Party to Market Too?

Parmandur · May 22, 2018

Hussar said:
We who [MENTION=6834463]happyhermit[/MENTION]?

I've seen second party publishers referred to quite a number of times, particularly in 3e discussions where you had different "tiers" of publishers - those that were using OGL and those that weren't. How would you describe Paizo's publishing Dungeon and Dragon, if not a second party publisher? Or the Dragonlance stuff that was published during 3e which was certainly not under the umbrella of the OGL.

Granted, there aren't anywhere nears as many 2PP out there. The vast majority publish under the OGL, and thus are 3PP. But, in the context of this discussion - about why it's hard for everyone other than WotC to get noticed in the market - how does labeling consumers as the second party publishers help?

There are no "second party publishers," but the consumers are the second party to whom the first party and third party providers are selling. In terms of the discussion, the question is why does the second party market prefer the first party product over third party, relatively speaking. Calling subcontractors "second party publishers" only muddies the water, even if that usage has some slang cred.

Paizo was a third party publisher doing contract work for WotC to produce first party content, same as Kobold Press, Sasquatch Games or Green Ronin have been more recently.

Zardnaar · May 22, 2018

Alot of 3pp is not that good outside of those companies mentioned plus Frog God games.

Adventures a bit more lenient on as they are inherently hit or miss.

pemerton · May 22, 2018

Hussar said:
I suppose, since using the OGL is a thing, you could make the argument that it's a contract law issue, but, the colloquial use is certainly well established in gaming. Paizo, when it produced Dungeon and Dragon magazines, were typically referred to as a second party publisher since they were under direct contract with WotC and were not bound by the OGL. 3rd party, AFAIK, in these conversations, always refers to OGL producers.

The OGL is a licence agreement. So a party to the OGL is a party to an agreement with other licensees. If the publisher in question is drawing on a WotC-licensed SRD, then that publisher is in a contractual agreement with WotC.

What relationship is the 3PP a third party to? The only relatoinship I can see is that between WotC (the core publisher and licensor) and the consumer ie the community of D&D players.

You seem to be saying that 3PP really means "3rd tier" (with WotC as "1st tier" and non-OGL license partners eg Paizo in the 3E era as "2nd tier"). But that just seems weird to me. "Party" doesn't mean "tier".

Zardnaar · May 22, 2018

To me the consumer is a 2nd group but not a 2pp as they don't publish anything they're a consumer.

2pp would be official licensees, 3pp would be OGL or whatever. At last thats what I would understand it as.

1pp= WotC/TSR
2pp Paizo 2002-2007
3pp Most of the rest.

Some of the companies would be 2pp or 3pp depending on the product. Practically in laymans terms anyone who is not WoTC would be 3pp even if its not technically correct.

Much like if someone says America they are probably talking about the USA not the continent and you can usually tell by the context if they do mean the continent.

delericho · May 22, 2018

Zardnaar said:
To me the consumer is a 2nd group but not a 2pp as they don't publish anything they're a consumer.

The customer is indeed the second party. What that means is that there are no "second party publishers" - as you note, customers generally don't publish anything.

(There's probably a very small set of exceptions to this - those few people who went to the trouble of publishing something strictly for their own use. I wouldn't be surprised if there was someone in our hobby just obsessed enough to do such a thing, but I can't imagine they'd be at all common - once you've gone to such lengths, it makes sense to go the extra step.)

Aldarc · May 22, 2018

pemerton said:
You seem to be saying that 3PP really means "3rd tier" (with WotC as "1st tier" and non-OGL license partners eg Paizo in the 3E era as "2nd tier"). But that just seems weird to me. "Party" doesn't mean "tier".

Because "tier" means "animal."

happyhermit · May 22, 2018

Morrus said:
Me neither. I’ve been a third party publisher for D&D for nearly 20 years.

Good to know, it's difficult googling backwards for something like that and I wasn't entirely sure. Prior to the last few years I had little in way of connection to any sort of larger D&D community or media, pretty much the opposite of your experience I suppose. If you haven't seen it then it seems incredibly unlikely that it's a common usage.

Hussar · May 22, 2018

Fair enough.

I have to admit though, I find it a bit difficult to believe that [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] has never seen 2pp used as a term on the boards. I have. But, hey, it's not really that big of an issue to be honest. Again, there are so few licensed publishers out there that it's not really a problem.

As far as the original question goes, I'm actually frankly confused why someone would think that it's much harder for 3PP to get their name out there than it was, say, back in the d20 boom days. With the mountain of Patreons, Kickstarters and various other venues, I'm seeing an awful lot of pretty successful attempts at getting product out there.

Thing is, there's just so much material out there that it can be pretty easy to get lost in the weeds.