Mearls' Latest Thought on the Industry

[helium3]

Go into any Half-Price Books and you'll see what I'm talking about. Right around the time 3e came out a ton of 2e books were liquidated (which didn't surprise me). Yesterday I noticed that several 3e books and adventures (and some D&D Minis) had been recently liquidated.

You can spot liquidated merchandise at a HPB by the bar code/sticker and volume.

Mongoose and Atlas are also companies that have liquidated inventory that I've seen in HPB.

EDIT: I'm too slow!

I'm not sure if what you're describing is larger in magnitude than what I saw a couple of years ago, but shortly after 3.5 came out a ton of 3.0 stuff started showing up on the shelves at the Half-Priced Books I went to on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Are you talking about stuff like Savage Species and the other 3.0 supplements?

 

[philreed]

I'm not sure if what you're describing is larger in magnitude than what I saw a couple of years ago, but shortly after 3.5 came out a ton of 3.0 stuff started showing up on the shelves at the Half-Priced Books I went to on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Are you talking about stuff like Savage Species and the other 3.0 supplements?

This was a lot of Forgotten Realms. What gave it away as a recent dump was the SW Minis scenario book.

 

[frankthedm]

How am I staggerinly uninformed, Wulf? It just may be possible that I own all those "multitude" of adventures and still need more. Whatever you may like to think..there have been very few adventures created in contrast to the large pile of crunchy poo that we have on hand.

That goes to the DM vs. PC population dispariity

Players, who are more numerous and often have more free time, make “crunchy poo” thinking "This would make a kewl character". They make other stuff as well, but most of it is what they want to have.

DMs, who are often much more busy, make adventures, of what they want to run.

Andif you think some adventures are too crunchy, snag an old edition vampire plotbook and adapt it to a fantasy setting.

 

[Rykion]

I have to agree with those that think Mr. Mearls is off on his thinking. There are more companies and products available because of pdf publishing. A lot of it might not be worth buying, but the print side of RPG industry was like that right after 3.0 started. The more pdf sales take off, the more innovation and collaboration we are likely to see. There are still plenty of people putting out ideas for free and describing their homebrew campaigns, so the free spread of ideas is still going on. RPG's started as people playing their home ruled wargames, but they didn't take off until someone decided to make money off of it by putting it in print. Are those people not already in the business supposed to work for free for years and then hope to make a few bucks if a big print company feels them worthy?

 

[ssampier]

I would have to disagree with Mr. Mearls. I can reasonably assumed he is concerned about scale of the situation, many PDF publishers making small, niche products (with a smaller profit margin) that they either are ignored or worse go bankrupt and leave the industry.

My view is one of a historical mind-set. In the beginning d20 was new and products were literally flying off the shelves. Publishers wanted to promote their products even further, so they offered many “freebies” on their website. This was great until the d20 well shrunk and d20 products did not sell as well; more competition, less opportunity to for some gamers to “buy everything”.

Since the writer wants to get paid someday, the Internet proved an interesting business model for small products that a publisher could no longer give away for free. Thus, products were once free are now available as PDF for a small cost (whether that cost is reasonable is debatable).

So the choice would be between losing these ideas altogether since the publisher could not make money or the consumer spends a small sum for them. I prefer the latter. Even if the ideas are half-baked or shoddy, at least a person could say, “Well I don’t Robot Dynamics XYZ, but I love Robot Accessories 6.2.” With the OGL, publishers can produce their own version (called Robot Dynamics ZYX) including the loved robot accessories (called “Robot Dressings 8.0”).

I fail to see how that scenario hampers innovation. People can still whine and complain when they do not like something, people do not have to buy it, and people can fix mistakes if they wish.

 

[painandgreed]

Personally, I think Mr. Mearls has failed a Sanity check someplace. I would bet that the PDF market produces more inovation, ideas, and fully refined product that contribute back into gaming, than it would if everything was free. If the OGL had some sort of non-commerical clause in it, D&D outside of WotC probably would not exist and communication on the web would probably be less than it is now and mostly only a few fan sites hyping house rules and settings with little thought of making it usable by anyone else.

 

[WizarDru]

Hello fellow gamers,

Forgive my ignorance, but what are wikis?

Hey, Atavar.

Wikis (pronounced wee-kee...it's Hawaiiian for 'quick') are essentially collaborative websites dedicated to a cataloging of information, usually (but not necessarily) based on a specific topic of information. The most famous of these is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. Sometimes the word is used to reference the website and other times the software that powers it. A Wiki is, essentially, a very simple HTML database that allows multiple people to edit and modify it.

In the context of this conversation, when they are refering to a OGC Wiki, they are talking about the idea of creating a Open Game Content Wiki, where different publishers could essentially aggregate their open-content into a centralized database for ease of use by the community. How feasible this would be is left as an exercise to the reader.

 

[JVisgaitis]

In the context of this conversation, when they are refering to a OGC Wiki, they are talking about the idea of creating a Open Game Content Wiki, where different publishers could essentially aggregate their open-content into a centralized database for ease of use by the community. How feasible this would be is left as an exercise to the reader.

Tavis from Behemoth3 tried to do a similar approach with his Sword Project. I always thought it was a great idea, but it never seemed to have taken off.

 

[MerricB]

I don't agree with Mike's post.

I also don't think it's Mike running the Wizards company line.

I think it is Mike defending the Forge. Remember the big flame-war we had last week?

Wizards isn't interested in Open Source. Heck, most of the publishers aren't interested in Open Source (read, free gaming).

Cheers!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

OK, I like Mike Mearls and I like his work, I'm a big fan of Iron Heroes. But I gotta say he's not just off base, he's out in the bleachers.

The Marketplace is excellent for innovation and the more people participating the more innovation you get. You also get a lot of crap, but that's the way of things.

I can envision several scenarios, but none of them point to a lack of innovation

a) Biggus Geekus PDF publishes Llamaworld d20. It's a hit. Magnificent sales. Soon after, White Wolf paper publishes Llama: The Quadrepeding. Biggus doesn't get the White Wolf money, publicity, or groupies, but that's OK. The White Wolf book may be seen to be derivative (and thus lacking innovation), but the WW people are going to take their own view of Llamas and bring it to their game. Just like there are a million movies made that are buddy-cop movies, but that doesn't mean the next one can't make it's own stamp on the genre.

b) Biggus Geekus PDF publishes Llamaworld d20. It's a hit. Magnificent sales. WotC was thinking about paper publishing The Complete Llama but now they are afraid of losing sales due to the awesomeness of Llamaworld d20. But no PDF publisher outside of Malhavoc (and maybe not even them) is going to scare WotC from doing anything. No big time paper publisher is going to scare WotC from doing anything. No big time paper publisher is going to scare each other from doing antyhing. Shadowrun and Gurps Cyberpunk were published within, like, five minutes of each other. Shadowrun sold a lot better but that had more to do with the GURPS version being kinda bland and Shadowrun having magic elves with assult rifles, which was new at the time. There never has been a lack of innovation in the past from this scenario and I'm hard pressed to see how it could happen now or in the future.

c) Biggus Geekus PDF publishes Llamaworld d20. It sucks. Biggus goes bankrupt and spends the remainder of his days in an alley behind a Korean deli. Is there a loss of inovation as Steve Jackson Games panics and aborts GURPS Lamaworld. Maybe, but PDFs bomb all the time for all different reasons. Steve Jackson could invest the $10 and figure out why the PDF sucked and use that knowledge to improve his own product.


Is there something I'm missing? Because I can't even envision a scenario where a lack of innovation would occur, much less understand how this is a problem with the industry.