What did TSR do wrong?

[teitan]

People talk about WOTC releasing "so much product" or "putting out more than TSR did" but I think these people are forgetting, skipped over 2e or just started with 3e because WOTC absolutely flooded, I mean FLOODED the market for not just months but years with up to 5 releases a month, through the various product lines! In 1e they didn't release so much, mainly adventures until the last few years of the product cycle when they did books like the Dragonlance Adventures and the Survival Guides.

 

[Maggan]

People talk about WOTC releasing "so much product" or "putting out more than TSR did" but I think these people are forgetting, skipped over 2e or just started with 3e because WOTC absolutely flooded, I mean FLOODED the market for not just months but years with up to 5 releases a month, through the various product lines! In 1e they didn't release so much, mainly adventures until the last few years of the product cycle when they did books like the Dragonlance Adventures and the Survival Guides.

I compiled the numbers a while ago.

3e had at that time still not released the same amount that 1e did, although they were getting close.

Keeping up the pace they are up to now, it'll take WotC 22 (twenty-two) years to catch up to the amount of 2e material released.

/M

 

[Rothe]

Do you mean SPI?

Frank Menzter explains why TSR did not honor subscriptions to Strategy & Tactics:

Ref: Dragonsfoot

Yes SPI. My typing is notoriuosly bad.

Oh I realize it was a financial decision. I just don't like it when a company can make a deal then say oops I think we charged too little, sorry we won't honor your subscription anymore, when as a private individual I could never get away with that. I understand what they did was legal, but we are talking about companies alienating people and how TSR handled this. IIRC WoTC handled outstanding obligations owed by TSR to others in a much more customer friendly way.

(P.S. I cetainly don't think TSR killed wargaming by any stretch)

 

[RFisher]

I suppose I could print out the internet content, and keep a physical copy, but that's a headache for me that would have been avoided i I simply got the paper version to begin with.

I used to tout many of the same advantages of print over digital as well. Then I realized all the flexibility of being able to print parts I want hardcopy for myself. It is seldom a headache. (Unless it's a self-induced one because I've stubbornly decided to print something duplex or as a booklet. Though spending a little more on a printer the next time I buy one could alleviate some of that.) Then you add the benefits of digital copies (e.g. search, put on my Rocket eBook). Of course, there are still some advantages of a professionally printed magazine, but--especially for content like I'd get from Dragon or Dungeon--the fact that a digital copy gives me most of the benefits of hardcopy plus the benefits of digital tends to trump those. YMMV.

Of course, the X factor is whether the publisher makes doing what you want with the digital copy easy or hard. If they're going to be charging a fee for their content, then I expect them to go out of their way to facilitate all the benefits of digital content including the flexibility to print it as I want to.

 

[Storm Raven]

I used to tout many of the same advantages of print over digital as well.

And for many people, including me, the advantages of print over digital remain.

Then I realized all the flexibility of being able to print parts I want hardcopy for myself. It is seldom a headache. (Unless it's a self-induced one because I've stubbornly decided to print something duplex or as a booklet. Though spending a little more on a printer the next time I buy one could alleviate some of that.) Then you add the benefits of digital copies (e.g. search, put on my Rocket eBook). Of course, there are still some advantages of a professionally printed magazine, but--especially for content like I'd get from Dragon or Dungeon--the fact that a digital copy gives me most of the benefits of hardcopy plus the benefits of digital tends to trump those. YMMV.

So now, to enjoy the same benefits I enjoyed with the print version (that cost me $38 per year), I need to buy a more expensive printer, keep it stocked (and restocked) with ink, spend time at home reviewing material to decide what I want to print out, and probably buy an expensive ebook too. And the printed product will be less durable, storable, and attractive that the old print version.

Wow. You should never go into sales. With a pitch like that, I don't see how I would ever want something like the DI.

Of course, I've already experimented with DI type publications. I used to subscribe to Pyramid. As a print magazine, I liked it. When it went digital, a friend got me a year long gift subscription. Even though it was free I rarely used it. The content was generally just as good. But I could not throw it into my briefcase and read it on the way to work. Or read it during down time at the doctor's office, or while waiting for a game session to start, and so on. Even though the cost of Pyramid is quite low, after the year was up, I let the subscription lapse, because it just wasn't worth anything to me.

I get a fair number of magazines: Asimov's Science Fiction and Fact, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Science News, National Geographic and, until September Dragon and Dungeon. I don't get any digital publications - I don't get Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, or Pyramid and so on, even though I like Card's books, and like GURPS. This is not because I don't think I would enjoy the content; rather, it is because the format of a digital publication is nigh useless to me, and a headache to use.

You don't mind the headaches, or don't notice them. That's great for you. I do. I suspect that lots of current Dragon and Dungeon subscribers will find themselves in my boat. I could be wrong, but if I were WotC, I wouldn't be gambling to farm on it.

 

[RFisher]

Wow. You should never go into sales. With a pitch like that, I don't see how I would ever want something like the DI.

True, there is a reason I'm not in sales, but you seem to have missed that I wasn't trying to sell you anything. Also that I only said I should buy a more feature-full printer (which doesn't necessarily mean spending more than I did on my current printer) because I have a tendency to want to do silly things. The implication being that a more reasonable person wouldn't feel that need. Neither did I suggest you needed to buy an eBook. (Heck, I didn't buy mine.)

 

[buzz]

As someone who was temporarily out of the hobby when TSR eventually went belly up, what did they do that has earned them this general level of animaosity? Was it marketing practices, poor quality products?

Both.

I'd highly recommend listing to Fear the Boot's interview with Ryan Dancey. It insightfully covers the big mistakes TSR made.

 

[Chiaroscuro23]

But the policy (according to them) was based on the idea that non-enforcement of IPR can lead to unenforceability; which is true when relating to commercial use of TMs as TMs - if WoTC let other publishers use "D&D" to mean "RPGs", then D&D could lose TM protection. TSR's lawyers then extended this threefold - to descriptive use of D&D to refer to the D&D game, to non-commercial use in eg fan-published articles, and to (allegedly) copyright-protected works.

This is generally correct, though it's worth noting that it's very, very hard to lose a trademark. Most folks don't even know that aspirin didn't used to be generic, and both Xerox and Kleenex are still with us. I would bet most people couldn't even tell you the generic term for Pop Tarts (possibly because the off-brands are terrible. Man, I never buy name-brand groceries except pop tarts, because the competition is chalky and awful.)

They may have been genuinely worried that fan-created modules & other materials on the Internet threatened their business, but their stated reason, at least to me, was all about potential loss of TM protection.

But this I don't believe for a second. Content owners routinely claim that they are required by law to defend their rights. They do it in all sorts of areas that are not in fact required (and again, losing a TM by not defending it is relatively difficult. It requires significant abdication of control, not just turning a blind eye to some noncommercial websites, as you note.) When content owners seek to expand their rights beyond what the law guarantees them while simultaneously trying to deflect customer anger to a third party (the law) I don't believe for a second that they've made an honest mistake that just happens to be plainly false and quite beneficial to them. Add to this the strategy of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) that the uncertainty of IP law engenders and they try to expand their rights far beyond what the law actually grants.

People make lots of innocent mistakes about the law (especially about IP law online, where misinformation is rampant), but I refuse to believe that sophisticated parties with the benefit of counsel just happened to mistakenly interpret the law in a way that enables them to shirt customer complaints to an outside force.




Also, the death of wargaming article people have mentioned is A Farewell to Hexes by Greg Costikyan, once a very prominent name in this hobby, and an excellent writer to boot.

http://www.costik.com/spisins.html

 

[Gentlegamer]

TSR's failures as a company began, for me, with the ouster of Gary Gygax. Kevin and Brian Blume tried to wreck TSR and when that didn't work they got their legbreaker Lorraine Williams in to do it and she handily succeeded.

I agree. What is scary is not even the Blume Bros. could cancel Dragon (they tried). Now WotC has done what some of the real D&D "villains" couldn't do.

 

[Maldin]

"The force of the human, personal pain in that building was nearly overwhelming - on several occasions I had to retreat to a bathroom to sit and compose myself so that my own tears would not further trouble those already tortured souls."

Ah yes! The famous "Crying in the Bathroom" letter! I remember it quite well. If this is to be brought up, to be fair, it should also be noted that several of those "tortured souls" later responded to Dancey's letter with a "don't know where the heck he was, because that sure wasn't our company... we all loved our jobs and looked forward to working there every day".

Anyways, back onto the topic of this thread... TSR did a lot of things wrong, starting way back when EGG was at the helm (which people haven't really commented on yet, and that eventually contributed to his ouster, above and beyond the down right vicious actions of the other principals), and culminating in.... well, others have already expounded in detail upon the period when TSR finally collapsed financially. Ryan has made a lot of statements (particularly when he was Brand Manager) that I strongly disagreed with, but I have to say that, despite our differing views on many things, Ryan is a sharp guy, and I think his blog comments about the recent events (and WotC's behavior) are spot on!

Denis, aka "Maldin"
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