Decline of RPG sales

[buzz]

The B&N and Borders are not carrying the FRCS around here.

This probably has a lot more to do with the fact the FRCS was released four years ago than WotC not being interested in promoting it. I don't see Border's carrying the LG Gazetteer or MotP, either. They do, however, have all the latest FR books.

Eberron needs to promoted. It's new. The new D&D Online game is going to be set there. FR, otoh, already sells millions of Salvatrore novels and has a huge fanbase.

 

[buzz]

Eberron is meant to be marketed to people who are more familiar with pokemon, final fantasy, and x-men than with more traditional styles.

Oh, where is the rolleyes smiley when you need it?

 

[buzz]

Slap WOTC production values and the D&D logo on something more traditional; would it have sold better? We'll never know.

Um, Kalamar? Granted, the production values were't quite up to the current standards (but weren't too off back in 2001/2002), but it had a big honkin' D&D logo on it. Even DL doesn't have that anymore.

 

[buzz]

I really wanted them to go back to D&D's roots and do something like Wilderlands - that's how the game could have been reinvented in terms of D&D doing what D&D does best, but I suppose they were gunshy after TSR reinventing the wheel and failing so many times.

Might I ask, why does it matter that Wilderlands got published by a company other than WotC? You want Wilderlands' old-school feel... you got it. Just not from WotC. Why doesn't that count?

WotC is giving you what you want... via the OGL. Pretty innovative...

I'm much happier that WotC chose to do something unusual. I'm playing in a Wilderlands campiagn right now, and it's lots of fun. But honestly, the setting is nothing that I couldn't see any DM coming up with; it's merely giving D&D a map and encounters. Eberron, otoh, does interesting things with D&D tropes and introduces unconventional ideas, yet still delivers the basic D&D experience. IMO.

 

[rounser]

Why doesn't that count?

Well it does (thank you Necromancer Games/Judges Guild), but the path WOTC takes sculpts the game moreso than d20 companies.

 

[SBMC]

Consider also that Wizards considers 3e books to be mostly compatible with 3.5e. We *also* haven't seen a reprint of the Manual of the Planes (one of the best-received 3e books).

The ongoing argument of "innovation is good" generally boils down to "innovating away from D&D is good" and is utterly against my interests and the interests of Wizards, and only serves a minority of people.

That's the problem with Iron Heroes, despite Mike's best intentions: it requires all PCs and character-based NPCs be Iron Heroes-based. Magic Items (a core part of the normal D&D experience) are sidelined.

(Indeed, if it doesn't have notes for adapting prestige classes, then a great deal of the four most popular D&D supplements, the Complete series, is also made useless).

One of the fascinating things about both the Expanded Psionics Handbook and Magic of Incarnum is the way they just slot into D&D without upsetting anything. (Compare to the Complete Priest's Handbook back in 2e, which required you to redesign the cleric class and all the gods to use its rules!)

Cheers!

Yup - great way to put it

 

[Hussar]

Consider also that Wizards considers 3e books to be mostly compatible with 3.5e. We *also* haven't seen a reprint of the Manual of the Planes (one of the best-received 3e books).

The ongoing argument of "innovation is good" generally boils down to "innovating away from D&D is good" and is utterly against my interests and the interests of Wizards, and only serves a minority of people.

That's the problem with Iron Heroes, despite Mike's best intentions: it requires all PCs and character-based NPCs be Iron Heroes-based. Magic Items (a core part of the normal D&D experience) are sidelined.

(Indeed, if it doesn't have notes for adapting prestige classes, then a great deal of the four most popular D&D supplements, the Complete series, is also made useless).

One of the fascinating things about both the Expanded Psionics Handbook and Magic of Incarnum is the way they just slot into D&D without upsetting anything. (Compare to the Complete Priest's Handbook back in 2e, which required you to redesign the cleric class and all the gods to use its rules!)

Cheers!

Darn you SBMC, I was going to quote that too and you beat me to it. Quoted for Truth.

That last bit that MerricB put up is very important IMO. The fact that I can (usually) pick up any WOTC product and be fairly certain that I can use it with any other WOTC product without a great deal of work is one of the main benefits of buying only WOTC. Sure, it might lead to more "bland" works, that's true, but, then again, the idea of "bland" depends on the buyer as well.

To someone who is new to the game, the magic system in DnD is not bland or vanilla. It's new and interesting and, above all, it WORKS. Someone with say, less than 5 years gaming experience, doesn't need an entirely new magic system. It's very doubtful he's gotten his full run with the existing one.

By ensuring that their products hang together and are (more or less) compatible with all their other products, WOTC does make life a lot easier on the newer gamer. If the newer gamer has to rewrite, edit and rework a book to make it function, then most people will stop gaming. That's what we saw in the 2e days. Book after book that contradicted everything before it and no guidance as to how to fit things together.

New gamers don't need alternatives that may or may not work as advertised.

Something that baffles me about all of this. If I were to publish a book with typos and editting errors every ten pages, no one would buy it. If I were to make a video game where there were major bugs every ten minutes, I'd get hosed. If I made a board game where the players were expected to rewrite the rules constantly, it would never sell. Why, then, is it considered acceptable to inflict gaming books on the market that have mechanical and language errors throughout?

 

[Turjan]

Something that baffles me about all of this. If I were to publish a book with typos and editting errors every ten pages, no one would buy it. If I were to make a video game where there were major bugs every ten minutes, I'd get hosed. If I made a board game where the players were expected to rewrite the rules constantly, it would never sell. Why, then, is it considered acceptable to inflict gaming books on the market that have mechanical and language errors throughout?

Because you don't get any others? Even if the quality level of WotC books is generally pretty high, there are a few WotC books that show horrible editing with typos and errors galore, whereas there are 3rd party companies that show a very high standard of editing (e.g., Malhavoc Press). I just mention this because I think it's better to refrain from over-generalizations .

 

[buzz]

Well it does (thank you Necromancer Games/Judges Guild), but the path WOTC takes sculpts the game moreso than d20 companies.

Then isn't it nice that WotC is leading with something unusual like Eberron (while supporting something traditional like FR), rather than putting out Greyhawk 2: Electric Booglaoo? Or even, "We've got the basics covered; you d20 folk, go nuts."

 

[SBMC]

Then isn't it nice that WotC is leading with something unusual like Eberron (while supporting something traditional like FR), rather than putting out Greyhawk 2: Electric Booglaoo? Or even, "We've got the basics covered; you d20 folk, go nuts."

I think that folks should also recall that one thing that WoTC wished to do; via market research; was to allow material to be released for folks to create their own worlds in that spirit, Eberron, IMO, was designed to be different; everyone knows Greyhawk and FR - a whole lot of home spun worlds are closly related to these (and most worlds are actually homespun - with bits of FR and GH in there).

Why? because Eberron is different; why release the same thing? Worse; why release a replica of a major competitor - anyone remember the "New Coke" catastrophe? For you young ones; Coke released a new product; repalcing the old that was very similar to Pepsi. As such, among other things, they admitted Pepsi had a better product. I forget the number but a huge chunk of sales (double didgets percetage wise) was lost. It is considered one of the top business mistakes of the 20th century; right up there with Apple's marketing failure.

If Monte Cooks company released something similar to FR what would you say? Eberron is distinctly different from anything out there (or at least that is in major circulation; I have never seen anything similar).