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

[GMSkarka]

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]

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]

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:

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.