This "glut" canard will never die if people aren't willing to discuss specifics.
What I observed is that WotC left holes in the marketplace, and many 3PP, rather than exploit those holes, chose to make products that competed directly with WotC's products.
What holes? What timeframe are you talking about? I'd like to know what dates you're talking about and which D&D leader was in the market at that time (3e or 3.5).
Smart businesses look for opportunities and points of differentiation--they don't attack their competition's strengths (unless they're in a position to really win). When consumers already have good, solid choices in one product category, why pile on to that category when the need for a different type of product is unfulfilled?
I saw a market that included class/race splatbooks from Mongoose, from Green Ronin, from Fantasy Flight, and even Goodman Games, just to name the biggest few.
Are you suggesting that these guys aren't smart businessmen?
Would you say that they prospered under the strategy of offering additional choices, even on the same topics?
This is classic "grow the pie."
It's not as if players with dwarven fighters will limit themselves to just one splatbook. When you are invested in your character/game, you buy more of the stuff that appeals to you. You buy all the books on dwarves, fighters, feats, weapons and armor, etc.
When an unrestricted number of companies creates an unrestricted number of products in an unrestricted range of categories (especially categories in which WotC is strong), the inevitable result is a huge glut that sucks revenues out of the sales channels and creates a swath of destruction. Consumers and retailers are confused about which products to buy, so they dabble in a range and end up with a lot of stuff that doesn't sell. Huge amounts of revenue is tied up in dead product--revenue needed to order new product or simply pay the bills. Shops close (nearly half the core hobby shops in the US shut down over the past five years--admittedly, there are other causes, but the RPG glut was a very real contributor); those that stay open order less and less new product as they see old product stack up.
Hundreds? Really? You're really going to blame the glut on hundreds of publishers?
I can name you a dozen 3PP off the top of my head and cover the majority (90%? 95%?) of the entire d20 products ever offered. I'll concede that it was a glut, but it was generally speaking a
high quality glut.
When I say
high quality, I am actually not talking about the content. I am talking about the quality of presentation, the amount of money, marketing, and business acumen behind it, and most importantly, the ability to push it into distribution.
This is not a difficult exercise. Name the top 3PP you can think of off the top of your head, and you'll very quickly ID most of the d20 product that made up the glut.
AEG
Bastion Press
Fantasy Flight Games
Fiery Dragon
Goodman Games
Green Ronin
Mongoose
Mystic Eye
Necromancer
Paradigm
Sword & Sorcery Studios
When I generalize about the behavior of 3PPs, I am, of course, generalizing. Obviously there are exceptions; I'm not pointing any fingers at specific companies. Offender or innocent: you know who you are (and odds are it's reflected in your level of success).
I can't reconcile the text above with reality, because again, from where I am sitting, the companies most responsible for the glut remain the most successful today.
Unless what you meant was, "If you are successful today, it is because you were responsible for the glut and are flush with cash milked from the collapse of the retailers."
I assume that's not what you meant-- and yet, the top producers of d20 product are still around, and successful today.
Those guys that were driving the glut with stuff produced based on personal tastes instead of sound business decisions did a lot of harm. To the business-oriented 3PPs, to the retail environment, and consequently to WotC.
You really need to be willing to provide specifics.
Again: The
vast majority of the d20 product that was in the distribution chain was put there by companies with the clout to get it there:
The business-oriented 3PPs.
Make a list. Name names. It's ok-- I don't mind doing it, because the vast majority of this product was
successful. There was a market for it.
Was the market as big as the retailers thought it would be? No.
There's your glut.
But the glut had nothing to do with the quality of the products or the types of product lines the publishers chose to focus on.
They just printed too much.
Supply exceeded demand. It really doesn't require any more analysis than that. It is not necessarily an indictment on the quality of the supply that there is no demand for it. Obviously there's less demand for crappy product. But it is also possible for there to be no demand for
good product.
If you try to single out any particular publishers for being responsible for the glut, odds are
very high that you're going to be pointing your finger at a successful publisher with good business sense who built a loyal following and has one or more successful brand lines.
I'll spot you Fast Forward Entertainment and any other defunct 3PPs you like. We'll take all that "crappy glut product" out of existence. Erase it from the history books.
You still won't make a dent in the amount of d20 product produced by the most successful publishers, all of whom are still around and healthy (whether or not they are still publishing for d20).
I suggest that you might have
prolonged the lifetime of 3e publishing, delayed the collapse a bit, but saturation was inevitable.
Saturation in the RPG business is always inevitable. It's why we have 3rd and 4th and 5th editions.
Love it or hate it, one consequence of the GSL is that it'll keep a lot of those guys out of the market, making it a better business environment for the smaller number of publishers that do pursue the GSL.
You have it exactly backwards. The companies who are in the best position to offer quality product-- to use their business acumen to create high quality product and to grow it into successful brands-- are the ones least likely to accept a license that can cut the legs out from all their hard work.
The GSL is far more attractive to 3PPs who want to dabble-- get in, make some money, get out. They won't care one whit if they are building successful product lines and a sustainable publishing business on the back of a volatile, ephemeral, and one-sided license.
Those guys aren't going to get their baby within ten feet of the GSL.
