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[Goodman/Dancey on 4E] RPGs in the 21st Century - towards another "generational peak"
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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4838099" data-attributes="member: 80487"><p>A caveat: I am not personally much interested in whatever may happen with WotC's business. The D&D I prefer to play has already -- as is the case with traditional historical wargaming -- been abandoned by Hasbro, and taken up by hobbyists able to sustain it without a big corporation's concern for return on investment. As the hobby was started by hobbyists, and most of the best works (in my view) have been published by such small firms as TSR was in its early days, I regard that as a probably healthy return to norm.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I think consideration of the fad aspect is probably spot on. I seem to recall a couple of booms in arcade games, since which the proliferation of actual arcades appears to have been a passing fad. The dedicated cabinet console has gone the way of the pinball machine -- not vanished, but much less common than formerly. Video games are now well established, though, as home entertainment on specialized or general-purpose personal computer systems.</p><p></p><p>Likewise, I see paper-and-pencil RPGs as having enjoyed a fad in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I think WotC would probably profit from having something that really fills the same niche as the old Basic sets, but I doubt that any strategy is going to bring back the good old days when D&D was almost as hot as disco (well, as close as something so geeky could be).</p><p></p><p>The hobby never was as big as the Grateful Dead, and I don't think it -- much less D&D alone -- ever will be.</p><p></p><p>One reason perhaps is that it's tied to genre fiction, and by the time something becomes a genre it's already moribund. We have seen the stages of rigor mortis from cliché to parody. The carcass today has largely been consumed, and "fantasy" -- in a much broader interpretation -- is pretty much the new "mainstream". Genre fandom never dies, it just fades back into its customary place at the fringes of culture.</p><p></p><p>Commercially, what seems to work for Wizards is getting ever more revenue from a stagnant or even contracting market. D&Ders who use miniatures, and those who are into published game settings and their fiction lines, spend more. Those who routinely "upgrade" with the latest supplement -- and eventually with the latest game -- spend more. The "new edition" routine can be counted on for a periodic burst of sales, as well as providing an opportunity to sell the same "intellectual property" all over again.</p><p></p><p>What seems the next obvious move is to leverage that brand loyalty into the computer software field. Wizards seems to me not to have a very good track record in that department so far, but getting into online services (in which D&D Insider is just the first step) is clearly the new frontier.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 4838099, member: 80487"] A caveat: I am not personally much interested in whatever may happen with WotC's business. The D&D I prefer to play has already -- as is the case with traditional historical wargaming -- been abandoned by Hasbro, and taken up by hobbyists able to sustain it without a big corporation's concern for return on investment. As the hobby was started by hobbyists, and most of the best works (in my view) have been published by such small firms as TSR was in its early days, I regard that as a probably healthy return to norm. I think consideration of the fad aspect is probably spot on. I seem to recall a couple of booms in arcade games, since which the proliferation of actual arcades appears to have been a passing fad. The dedicated cabinet console has gone the way of the pinball machine -- not vanished, but much less common than formerly. Video games are now well established, though, as home entertainment on specialized or general-purpose personal computer systems. Likewise, I see paper-and-pencil RPGs as having enjoyed a fad in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I think WotC would probably profit from having something that really fills the same niche as the old Basic sets, but I doubt that any strategy is going to bring back the good old days when D&D was almost as hot as disco (well, as close as something so geeky could be). The hobby never was as big as the Grateful Dead, and I don't think it -- much less D&D alone -- ever will be. One reason perhaps is that it's tied to genre fiction, and by the time something becomes a genre it's already moribund. We have seen the stages of rigor mortis from cliché to parody. The carcass today has largely been consumed, and "fantasy" -- in a much broader interpretation -- is pretty much the new "mainstream". Genre fandom never dies, it just fades back into its customary place at the fringes of culture. Commercially, what seems to work for Wizards is getting ever more revenue from a stagnant or even contracting market. D&Ders who use miniatures, and those who are into published game settings and their fiction lines, spend more. Those who routinely "upgrade" with the latest supplement -- and eventually with the latest game -- spend more. The "new edition" routine can be counted on for a periodic burst of sales, as well as providing an opportunity to sell the same "intellectual property" all over again. What seems the next obvious move is to leverage that brand loyalty into the computer software field. Wizards seems to me not to have a very good track record in that department so far, but getting into online services (in which D&D Insider is just the first step) is clearly the new frontier. [/QUOTE]
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