Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder: Is it evidence that new editions don't need to be that different?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Not with that little piece of information, it doesn't. TSR wasn't collapsing because they lacked a third edition. TSR was done in mainly by poor management.
3e was a big hit - put out by a company that could pay for the R&D, pay for the printing, and pay for the promotion.

But didn't this bad management include producing supplements for countless of settings and coming up with other products or even product lines that didn't find enough customers and not creating a new edition of the game?

Or where there much more basic errors, like unable to calculate their numbers, being conned by some financial advisor, financing the corporate heads private motor yachts and air planes, evading taxes and getting caught?

 

[MrGrenadine]

That seems to drive some people's thinking: the only way to keep a brand alive is to keep re-selling the core rules to the core audience, over and over forever.

Actually, I think the way to keep the brand alive is to keep developing improved versions of the core rules, in a way that doesn't sever ties with what had come before, because...well, I still like what had come before.

Pathfinder does this extremely well, so my answer to the OP is a resounding 'yes'.

 

[AllisterH]

If DDI is relatively profitable compared to selling books, 5E may very well be postponed for a very long time. 4E could very well last for a long time as a "living document" that is constantly changing, in the form of the DDI subscription service with the character + monster builders and VTT.

Exactly.

Getting it up and running and stable in the first place is a problem/money sink. But if it is successful?

What would be the incentive to actually produce a new edition? Especially since as you mention, anything you want to fix, you can simply tweak a la the errata in the character builder.

 

[billd91]

But didn't this bad management include producing supplements for countless of settings and coming up with other products or even product lines that didn't find enough customers and not creating a new edition of the game?

Or where there much more basic errors, like unable to calculate their numbers, being conned by some financial advisor, financing the corporate heads private motor yachts and air planes, evading taxes and getting caught?

The bad management may have included producing supplements for countless settings and products and lines that didn't have enough customers, but that still doesn't imply that part of their failure was failure to come up with a new edition.

Plus, in a sense, they did come up with a new edition in the Players Option books. Edition 2.5 if you will. Didn't save them.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Now, the designers have said they WILL NOT DO a 4.5. My guess is that they're going to come out with AD&D 4e.

The ".5" model has been superseded by the PH1, PH2, PH3, etc model. Continual patching of the game rather than a wholesale change midway through the edition life cycle. DDI makes this workable for the customers, and small incremental changes and additions are easier to stomach than a larger reworking of the rules. There will be no 4.5 as a result.

 

[Herschel]

I'd say all Pathfinder proves is that some people, for whatever reason, are very resistant to change. The amount of change varies from system to system and game to game.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Really?

Here's another interpretation of it: Some people enjoy 3.x. Of those poeple, some don't enjoy 4E. Some of those people have bought Pathfinder as an update to the rule system that they do enjoy.

I'm sure for some it is a matter of being resistant to change. Others still enjoy 3E, it's not a character flaw.

 

[Andor]

I'd say all Pathfinder proves is that some people, for whatever reason, are very resistant to change. The amount of change varies from system to system and game to game.

Change has to be positive for people to embrace it. Let's not turn this into an edition wars thread and simpy accept that a significant number of people do not consider 4e to have been change in a positive direction.

 

[Herschel]

Provided the customer is already satisfied with an existing edition, then, yes, a new edition does not need to be all that different. Obviously, though, a market was found for a 4e-type game.

This does not take in to account that 3E was basically played out. There's just really not much room left to add anything for the mass audience, which is the key to regular and future sales figures. It's three more books vs. 60.

If it's not different enough, nobody changes and sales stagnate as much as they had already, if not more. If it's not different enough, fewer people change and fewer people buy.

All Pathfinder "proves" is that some people, for whatever reason, are very resistant to change. It also may "prove" that many gamers don't want to feel "obsolete" by not having a "current" game.

To each their own.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

This does not take in to account that 3E was basically played out. There's just really not much room left to add anything for the mass audience, which is the key to regular and future sales figures. It's three more books vs. 60.

If it's not different enough, nobody changes and sales stagnate as much as they had already, if not more. If it's not different enough, fewer people change and fewer people buy.

All Pathfinder "proves" is that some people, for whatever reason, are very resistant to change. It also may "prove" that many gamers don't want to feel "obsolete" by not having a "current" game.

To each their own.

I like how you repeated that last paragraph despite like four people telling you how you're wrong, and instead of responding to them, you just ignore them and insult people who like 3.5 over 4e.

Classy!