D&D 4E What was Paizo thinking? 3.75 the 4E clone?

[Brown Jenkin]

Just to point out the facts, although it doesn't directly apply here, WotC did not purchase everything TSR had. TSR also had certain rights to Buck Rodgers which originally came through Loraine Williams from her family. After Peter Adkinson had made his bid for the company and it was accepted she decided that she wanted to keep the rights that she had for Buck Rodgers and Peter was then able to renegotiate a slightly lower price for TSR. Again, not really relevant to the marketing discussion but just a bit of trivia.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yes, exactly. A bad idea, IMHO, for a product that supposedly has compatibility with the previous rules set as one of its main selling points. So far, the PF Alpha looks less compatible with 3.5 than 3.5 was with 3.0. We'll see how the development process goes, but I expect that the divergence will only increase in most ways.

A quick look at previous editions shows a high degree of compatability pre-3e. Many folks, myself included, use 3.0 materials with 3e without encountering difficulties. So, overall, the idea that one can make changes to a rule system while leaving basic compatability intact is, IMHO, fairly well demonstrated by the history of D&D itself.

That said, I agree with you that some of the changes in the Alpha, if retained, would tend to lower compatability overall.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

The situation is completely different. Mr. Gygax was forced out of TSR. WotC was simply purchasing TSR, and all of its assets.

OK,

(1) We know that WotC didn't purchase all of TSR's assets. (ex, Buck Rogers)

(2) I don't think that we know exactly what assets WotC did purchase, because we don't have access to the actual deal.

(3) We know that TSR did some customer feedback, because some of us were customers who supplied that feedback.

Based upon this, I have to assume that one of the following is true:

(A) WotC didn't purchase TSR's customer feedback (for whatever reason), so it wasn't there when Ryan Dancy looked for it.

(B) TSR's market data was available, and Ryan Dancey didn't find it impressive.

What we should not assume is true is

(C) TSR produced no market data.

(If for no other reason than that Ryan Dancey didn't make that claim, either.)

Now, my take on the above is that it is most likely that (B) is true. There was market data (ex. survey cards) that Mr. Dancey didn't think sufficient for a modern business. However, if this is the case, we still have scant reason to believe that, excepting the initial survey that led to 3e, WotC has done any better. IOW, it is reasonable to suspect that 4e is as much "in the dark" as any TSR decision was.

If (A) is true, then Mr. Dancey couldn't possibly have enough information to determine how poor or good TSR's market data was. Again, this makes it reasonable to suspect that the decisions driving 4e are as much "in the dark" as any TSR decision was.

In either event, the idea that TSR failed due to failure to communicate with its market is nothing more than part of the mythology of the game. We certainly have no means to determine what is "fact" in this case and what is not.

RC

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

So far, the PF Alpha looks less compatible with 3.5 than 3.5 was with 3.0.

For varying degrees of "compatibility" on the "anal retentive" scale.

 

[JediSoth]

TSR may not have paid attention to market research, but they did do some. I recall filling out a rather lengthy survey in Dragon magazine in regards to design specifics for the forthcoming 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

I remember it quite vividly 'cause I thought it was cool that they were asking the customers what we wanted to see in a second edition of the game. I thought it was even cooler that the monster manuals were three-ring binders, since that's the selection I checked on that particular question (my opinion of them has since changed, but that's neither here nor there).

The way I see it, Paizo's hand was forced by the tardiness of the GSL. From what I've read, they wanted to have it in hand to evaluated (and would most likely have switched over to 4E), but without it and production schedules being what they are, they have to move forward. They can't move forward to 4E without the legal information in the GSL, so they decided to go this route. That doesn't mean that they won't produce adventure paths for 4E in the future, once they get the GSL, but right now, they can't, even if they want to.

I can see very clearly the problem with 3rd party companies producing 4E stuff right now (or at least announcing it before the GSL has been released). What if they spend a lot of time and money creating things only to find out what they've created is not allowed under the GSL? The time spent on those projects is now wasted and that takes away from their bottom line. I would hope no company would be foolish enough to do that, but stranger things have happened.* If I was in Paizo's shoes, I certainly wouldn't commit to publishing anything under a license agreement I haven't seen yet. For all they know they GSL contains language that says anything published under it becomes WotC's Intellectual Property.**



JediSoth

* I come from a background in publishing, so I'm not just talking out of my lower oriface here, I know all about wasted time on project you're ultimately not going to make money on, and it's something management, board members, and financial gurus really frown upon.

** I'm not saying that it does, I'm just being hypothetical.

*** It's sad I feel the need to explain comments in footnotes, but after having people jump down my throat for minor 4E criticisms, I feel it's necessary to cover all my bases.

 

[Shadewyn]

When a company is purchased by another company, its records become the property of the purchasing company.

Obviously, you must be a lawyer who handles these types of cases to speak with such authority?

Dunno about Fire, but as a financial analyst who has worked with several merging companies, the assertion by Fire is true. All records even the mundane become property of the purchasing company. Destroying records, or "walking away" with client lists or marketing data is a serious offense. In modern mergers it is not uncommon during the period of a potential merger to lock down all disposal services (especially in hostile take overs) so that nothing valuable is thrown out by disgruntled folks.

* I come from a background in publishing, so I'm not just talking out of my lower oriface here, I know all about wasted time on project you're ultimately not going to make money on, and it's something management, board members, and financial gurus really frown upon.

...

*** It's sad I feel the need to explain comments in footnotes, but after having people jump down my throat for minor 4E criticisms, I feel it's necessary to cover all my bases.

Too late Jedi ... I find your footnotes lacking in proper 4E spirit and as one of those financial folks I am afraid I must inform you that it is company policy to give you the plauge ... *hmmm add a Monty Burns cackle to that if ya will*


Also the debate on who had which feedback cards at what time misses the point. The basic marketing resources are not the same between the two companies. The original point was that even if everyone who ever bought a TSR or Paizo product did a survey then what? The capacity for smaller firms to hire market segmentation analysts, then conduct test studies and groups, and come up with usable business level advice on market trends and product placement goals is a far cry from "Did you like this product ... circle 1 to 5"

Good ... bad ...or ugly, the WotC / Hasbro team quite simply has better resources. They also have more access to data such as how fast paying customers shifted from one version of D&D to another based on prior conversions.

Today Paizo is happy that the downloads of a free product hit 10K. Lets assume over the next year that ammount TRIPLES to account for all the Paizo fans who missed what their favorite publisher was doing.

How many were "free product curious" versus potential customers? Also unlike D&D where everyone pretty much buys a PHB cause you eventually get annoyed at sharing with the cheesy poof eater next to you ... how many copies of Patherfinder sell to a game group? Is it one and then print out the PDF a few more times?

Assuming that every single Alpha player becomes a customer ... is there a large enough base of customers now for Joe and Jane Average to get together a group to play Pathfinder? Or will it be one of game you head to GenCon or other conventions to play once a year when you can find enough folks who like the system to run a game?

Lets keep with fun assumptions that 30,000 folks may eventually download alpha and 100% convert. Its that a better market to pursue than 4E pathfinder ?

 

[nutluck]

Something that has been pointed out and is true but I would like to add to is this.

Those who post online and know about stuff online is a minority of gamers. But how many of the online people are GM's? I imagine a much higher precentage of GM's are also internet people than players are. Often GM's decided where the gaming group goes and what games are played.

Now with the above example of 30k lets assume only 10k actually buy the game of these early group. But how many of them are GM's that represent a group of players that might get their whole group to switch?

Because of these unknown factors there is no way to have a clue by any of these polls or feedback will be anywhere close to right.

I mean say the polls showing 20-30% of all DnD players don't go 4e. If that is accurate that is a huge amount. If it is not it is nothing. On the same token if most of them go on to support Pathfinder, that still might not be all that many really. But if they are mostly GM's who represent groups of 4-7 people, who then all go Pathfinder RPG. Well then that could be a huge among of people. There is just no way to know and all we can do is mostly take pretty wild blind guesses.

Now I will go on to say that Paizo has a strong fan base of loyal customers. They have and will lose some customers. I think they will likely gain as many if not more than the lose at least in the short term. Which could be as low as 1-3% of the total sales of WoTC, which for them would barely be worth noting, cause if the new 4e does not bring is a hell of a lot more new players than that. Then i think they will see it as a major failure, since part of the point of 4e is to appeal to non-gamers and get more customers and make the market grow.

I would say WotC could comfortable lose 20% of their total sales and likely still be a huge success since they are planing and hopefully going to add at least that many if not more new players. If Paizo only gets half of those they lose, it would be a huge success for them as well.

So in short who knows what will happen and none of us deep down have a clue, what will come of all of this. I mean how many predicted that little company making a game about vampires would in less than a decade compete with TSR at the time for sales? I doubt many if any. (not saying this means Paizo will become huge like WW did, only saying you never know. To many unknown factors)

Ok enough rambling from me.

 

[Fifth Element]

(1) We know that WotC didn't purchase all of TSR's assets. (ex, Buck Rogers)

Just to be clear, Buck Rogers was never an asset of TSR. TSR had a license to publish Buck Rogers material. Contracts are not assets. Said license was likely revocable under certain circumstances, or even possibly at the grantor's whim.

And yes, I'm a professional accountant, so I know of what I speak.

 

[dmccoy1693]

10,000 downloads in a week seems like an awfully good beginning. Go Paizo.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Just to be clear, Buck Rogers was never an asset of TSR. TSR had a license to publish Buck Rogers material. Contracts are not assets. Said license was likely revocable under certain circumstances, or even possibly at the grantor's whim.

And yes, I'm a professional accountant, so I know of what I speak.

In my original post I never claimed that TSR owned all rights to Buck Rodgers. That was a simplification of my point. The Dille Family Trust owns all rights to Buck Rodgers, and Loraine Dille Williams is a member of that family and when she was in charge of TSR she brought with her certain licensing rights which TSR used to make the Buck Rodgers Roleplaying game. When selling the company to WotC Ms. Williams decided that those licenses would not be included in the sale. While Ms. Williams did not own the rights by herself, that was the family trust, she did have a large say over whether licensing rights would or could be transfered.