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<blockquote data-quote="UngainlyTitan" data-source="post: 5422264" data-attributes="member: 28487"><p>Traditionally with rpgs you can sell 3 things, rules, settings and adventures.</p><p> </p><p>Rules will sell to the entire playerbase. Now traditionally in D&D rules have been sold as new classes, way to change enxiting classes and spells and in later editions feats and spells/powers.</p><p> </p><p>In order to encourage buy in often these rule additions have built in power creep. Eventually the market saturates either the players have more rules than they can ever play an/or DM's are banning stuff left and right because of powercreep.</p><p> </p><p>Settings: a given setting will only appeal to a subset of the playerbase. Futhermore setting stuff saturates out even faster than rule crunch.</p><p> </p><p>Adventures are only sellable to DM's and DM's are only about 1/6 or even less of the playerbase and many DM's roll their own.</p><p> </p><p>Now a boardgame has some advantages over an rpg, s boardgame is finite, so may hours and your done. You get sales from new players and old players replacing their existing copy bacause they have lost too many bits.</p><p>Now rpgs are books and pretty much never wear out also typically the players buy more material than they are ever likely to use in their lives. So how do you keep selling them new stuff. This is where edition changes come in. To change that dynamic then you need to sell to the players something other than rules, setting and adventures.</p><p> </p><p>To get off the edition treadmill then you need to sell something else to the players. Something that will produce a steady revenue that is independant of the rules, setting and adventures. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you DDI!</p><p>Play online on our server using characters generated on our tools with people you get to know on our forums.</p><p> </p><p>Paizo is extremely fortunate that they build their business as creators of adventures. Now with Pathfinder, they may find themselves with the problem (if it get successful enough) of do we expand Pathfinder by selling splatbooks. If we do then splatbooks become our primary revenue engine but we become a larger company but in 10 years or so we will face all the problems WoTC has now with fractured playerbase and all that comes with it or do we stick to our thing have keep the adventure paths as our primary revenue generator and just support Pathfinder enough to maintain the playerbase.</p><p> </p><p>Wizards D&D does not have this option, they had build their business on selling splatbooks and the only way off that treadmill is to become a facilator to play or sell some service to the playerbase. Now can it generate enough revenue to replace the edition treadmill, I really do not know but I see very little other options for them.</p><p> </p><p>I do agree with the OP that constant editions where the rules are essentially a new game does fracture the playerbase and runs the risk of diminsihing the number of player playing the latest version.</p><p> </p><p>Question ( I am curious and I think it is relevant): What old rpg companies are still in the business and still making their primary revenue off their original rpg ip?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="UngainlyTitan, post: 5422264, member: 28487"] Traditionally with rpgs you can sell 3 things, rules, settings and adventures. Rules will sell to the entire playerbase. Now traditionally in D&D rules have been sold as new classes, way to change enxiting classes and spells and in later editions feats and spells/powers. In order to encourage buy in often these rule additions have built in power creep. Eventually the market saturates either the players have more rules than they can ever play an/or DM's are banning stuff left and right because of powercreep. Settings: a given setting will only appeal to a subset of the playerbase. Futhermore setting stuff saturates out even faster than rule crunch. Adventures are only sellable to DM's and DM's are only about 1/6 or even less of the playerbase and many DM's roll their own. Now a boardgame has some advantages over an rpg, s boardgame is finite, so may hours and your done. You get sales from new players and old players replacing their existing copy bacause they have lost too many bits. Now rpgs are books and pretty much never wear out also typically the players buy more material than they are ever likely to use in their lives. So how do you keep selling them new stuff. This is where edition changes come in. To change that dynamic then you need to sell to the players something other than rules, setting and adventures. To get off the edition treadmill then you need to sell something else to the players. Something that will produce a steady revenue that is independant of the rules, setting and adventures. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you DDI! Play online on our server using characters generated on our tools with people you get to know on our forums. Paizo is extremely fortunate that they build their business as creators of adventures. Now with Pathfinder, they may find themselves with the problem (if it get successful enough) of do we expand Pathfinder by selling splatbooks. If we do then splatbooks become our primary revenue engine but we become a larger company but in 10 years or so we will face all the problems WoTC has now with fractured playerbase and all that comes with it or do we stick to our thing have keep the adventure paths as our primary revenue generator and just support Pathfinder enough to maintain the playerbase. Wizards D&D does not have this option, they had build their business on selling splatbooks and the only way off that treadmill is to become a facilator to play or sell some service to the playerbase. Now can it generate enough revenue to replace the edition treadmill, I really do not know but I see very little other options for them. I do agree with the OP that constant editions where the rules are essentially a new game does fracture the playerbase and runs the risk of diminsihing the number of player playing the latest version. Question ( I am curious and I think it is relevant): What old rpg companies are still in the business and still making their primary revenue off their original rpg ip? [/QUOTE]
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