Wierd Pete's lament in KODT #116 - is it true???

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

WoW took away from table top gaming in the same way that Magic: The Gathering took away from the table top RPG audience. It appealed to a broadbase of people but primarily appeals to role players. The people who play WoW are the target audience of games like D&D or WoD and when WoW is pulling those people away then the target audience isn't there.

I'm sorry, but you're cutting out several steps here and ignoring some important fundemental differences:

1) MMORPGs are available 24/7, pen-and-paper typically are not.
2) Pen-and-paper games have more social factors involved than even an MMORPG with voice chat.

It does not automatically follow that people happily playing pen-and-paper would switch over to an MMORPG, because there's a lot of major differences between the two experiences.

Now, someone who only can play one or the other a few hours a week total might have to make a choice, but for most people, that's not the case. People typically can spend many more hours on an MMORPG, because it is available at their convenience -- I can squeeze in a quick fight against the Horde before going to work or visit the auction house before going to bed. People (often working adults and parents) with limited schedules will find this to be an especially big advantage over clearing a large chunk of every Saturday for pen and paper gaming.

But at the same time, the social aspect is a lot less, even in the best case scenario in MMORPGs, and many people don't want to give that up. In my WoW guild, we lose several people on weekends, because they want to keep going with their D&D games rather than raid in WoW, for just that reason.

If people are choosing an MMORPG over pen-and-paper, instead of merely supplementing one with the other (which is my experience in five years of MMORPGs), it's because something's wrong with their pen-and-paper experience. And that's not the fault of the MMORPGs.

As to games like Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, the game's sales demonstrably diminished in my own store, as I said, it was anecdotal.

But again, there's been no link established between the sales drop-off and WoW, when other culprits, like a rate hike and the fact that it's a new version of a recently released product, seem to be more likely culprits.

This isn't the hobby companies fault

Whose is it then? Hobby companies certainly can produce value-priced introductory products instead of having a model that requires a $50-$100 barrier to entry. Instead, only a few companies bother with value-priced intro products at all, and those that do come around to them as an afterthought, years after launching the "main" (high barrier to entry) product line.

Look how many people started D&D with the Basic Set which, even by today's standards and at today's prices, is a cheap buy-in and a more complete product than the comparable (afterthought) products we're seeing with 3E.

In contrast, MMORPGs have had the model for years that you get a free month when you buy the product (some even longer), meaning that for a $15-$30 buy-in, you can play your brains out for a month (which people tend to do, when they start during summer and winter vacations) before dropping another penny.

For $15, you cannot get a month's worth of D&D in, unless you really, really love the few possibilities in the current version of the basic game.

If WoW, and MMORPGs, are to blame for anything, it's for showing that the business model that RPGs have used for the past 15 years or so is a lousy one for the consumers, who -- not surprisingly -- know it.

 

[Reynard]

If WoW, and MMORPGs, are to blame for anything, it's for showing that the business model that RPGs have used for the past 15 years or so is a lousy one for the consumers, who -- not surprisingly -- know it.

This is interesting. I wonder if it is viable for a company like WotC -- which specializes in nice looking products with weight to them -- could somehow develope a successfully "D&D subscription" program where supplements are produced as (smaller) PDFs and sent directly to the consumer. If someone could buy-in to D&D for @$50 and then spend $15 a month and be garaunteed the ability to play and content upgrades, would rthey do it? Is it even possible, let alone viable?

Part of the issue as I see it -- living in Connecticut where there's gamers, but they tend to hide -- is that no matter how attractive you make the game, you can't sell the game play. It is a function of demographics, your own outgoing (or not) nature, and a host of other issues. Unless, of course, WotC stops worrying about us old fogies and goes after the high school and college age kids -- those with the time to play -- and develops a play experience that can be satisfying in any size chunk, from one hour to ten.

I mean, when I was at Origins, the only teenagers I saw where hauling boxes of magic cards or crates of minis.

 

[teitan]

I didn't say Wow and other MMORPGs are soley responsible but that the situation was similar to when Magic The Gathering and similar card games damn near killed the industry back in the mid 90s. I see the same rebound occuring now, on a smaller scale though because there isn't a "new" White Wolf to generate interest with new types of products that appeal to a new demographic like Vampire appealed to the goth crowd and spread out into the general populace.

Sure there are a lot of differences between P&P and MMORPG, we've gone over them many times in a lot of threads here but are those differences really a factor in someones decision to play WoW WHENEVER and WHEREEVER they want or to play D&D when the other players find it convenient? That is a big factor in some people's decisions. Sure, you don't have the experience of rolling dice together, sharing the same pizza and Dew and throwing cheetos at each other like you do at the table but I don't really think about that stuff when I play WoW myself. I'm also not blaming the MMORPG for the failings on individual home games. Most people I talk to say their RPG nights are about 4 hours long and 20 minutes of gaming...

There HAS been a sales linakage in the drop off of RPG sales and WoW, it has been done. Ryan Dancey wrote an article onit that generated quite a bit of discussion a year ago. I think too many people freaked out over it, forgetting the Magic the Gathering lesson from 94-98 though. WoW is a fad in a way. Its not going to go away, its always going to be big but like Magic, many players will eventually filter back to the more fulfilling experience of a table top roleplaying game where their character IS a character. RPGs and comics have BOTH been hurt by the video gaming industry as teens and even many adults have opted to spend their recreation dollar on PCs and consoles over table top gaming. The sales increase in these areas have corresponded with sales losses in tabletop gaming and similar hobbyist ventures like comic books. These things can't last forever though and the hobbyist insudtry will/is bouncing back.

You DO realize your rebuttal is an agreement with mine but for some reason you are arguing?

The RPG publishers can't be blamed because the product does take a lot of money to produce for minimal profit as Mike pointed out in his comments. Unlike comic books, RPG do not have a secondary market to fall back on like trade paperbacks. The model for roleplaying games is not necessarily THAT bad, its the model that MMORPGs have supported up to WoW and to a lesser extent City of Heroes, releasing a supplement to add on to the core game etc. EVen the prices are comparable to expansions but the difference is that with a MMORPG you know you can't wait til the next expansion and get the previous one for 20 bucks whereas RPGs continue to be produced at the same cost and releasing a paperback edition at a later date is not feasible because a hardcover might NEVER sell out. Sure, they could release a limited hardcover version and then release the paperback but look at how that heped GoO keep afloat...

I think the industry has forgotten that paperbacks are more practical though because of the plethora of hardcovers out there. ALso the idea of core books as loss leaders isn't that good an idea either. When supplements routinely sell LESS copies than the core book and you maintain the hardcover format, higher pricing etc on the later supplements, it hurts. Core products should be released as the money makers and then the supplements produced in line to support the line. I also don't think a set of core books like D&D possesses is a feasible model for the future but a 40 dollar hardcover similar to D20 Modern would be best with 20 dollar support books that expand on that core in softcover format. I'd prefer a 30 dollar hardcover but I know that's not happening when 4e finally comes out.

Jason

 

[ForceUser]

Is it true? Are sales of tabletop products dropping, and if so is it because of mmorpgs or other computer based games?

The sky is falling. News at 11.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There HAS been a sales linakage in the drop off of RPG sales and WoW, it has been done. Ryan Dancey wrote an article onit that generated quite a bit of discussion a year ago.

No, it hasn't.

No offense to Mr. Dancey, but he did about what you've done: "WoW is doing well, RPGs are going down. Thus, A and B have a relationship." Two things occuring simultanteously are not automatically related, except perhaps in some mystical/quantum fashion.

Likewise, there's been no good explanation as to why WoW is responsible for the decline in RPGs, especially since there's no shortage of other potential causes:
* Glut of crapass products in the D20 market,
* White Wolf coming out with a new (and controversial) new version of most of their products,
* Lots of new editions of existing products without an obvious must-buy factor (witness how many of the publishers you cited specifically told people they didn't need to buy the new version of their products in an attempt to soothe their outrage),
* Rising prices of paper (which arguably had been artificially deflated for a very long time) making prices go up,
* Online retailers buying en masse and undercutting local retailers,
* Et cetera.

Now, I suppose we could ignore all of those and blame WoW instead. But to me, that's suggestive of an attempt to shift blame and not an attempt to really understand what's going on.

WoW is a fad in a way. Its not going to go away, its always going to be big but like Magic, many players will eventually filter back to the more fulfilling experience of a table top roleplaying game where their character IS a character.

MMORPGs have gone up in total subscriber numbers non-stop since their introduction. Waiting for MMORPGs to stop being popular is like waiting for the Internet fad to be over. If anything, MMORPGs are going more mainstream, with the exploding popularity of XBox Live, Disney coming out with their second MMORPG next year, and so on.

I work in the newspaper industry, which is still waiting for the radio and TV fads to be over, to say nothing of the Internet. Not surprisingly, the newspaper industry is taking it in the shorts as a result.

In the words of Warren Ellis, Change or Die.

You DO realize your rebuttal is an agreement with mine but for some reason you are arguing?

No, because I'm not.

The RPG publishers can't be blamed because the product does take a lot of money to produce for minimal profit as Mike pointed out in his comments.

The current products cost too much. The answer isn't to throw up their hands and say "woe is us, we are helpless!" The answer is to change the products.

Unlike comic books, RPG do not have a secondary market to fall back on like trade paperbacks.

Given that there's a thread on this message board about whether or not a certain high-end product is available on Amazon, I'd say the secondary market is not just in existence, it's pretty well-known. Now, Amazon (and the like) will have massive impacts on the gaming industry, but I wouldn't say that they don't exist as a secondary market. They're the same market as the comic book industry's -- in fact, in most brick and mortar chain bookstores, you'll see the RPGs shelved adjacent to the graphic novels.

The model for roleplaying games is not necessarily THAT bad, its the model that MMORPGs have supported up to WoW and to a lesser extent City of Heroes, releasing a supplement to add on to the core game etc. EVen the prices are comparable to expansions

Wow, this simply isn't true. I can go down to Best Buy right now and pick up EverQuest I along with 25,000 expansions in a single box for $20 and not pay squat for a month. You sure can't do that with D&D. You can almost do it with World of Darkness, if you're going to be satisfied with playing an unpowered guy getting killed by the vaguely defined stuff at the back of the mortals book over and over (although I think dice will take you over $20, if you even could get it the book for that little at this point).

World of Warcraft, still one of the most expensive MMORPGs, by virtue of its astounding success, still has half the initial start-up cost as D&D and, again, you can play like a fiend for a month without paying any more. If you got a 10-day guest pass from a friend, you can go 41 days without paying anything other than the cost of the box. (And, in fact, Blizzard really doesn't care if you don't own your own box -- they really want your subscription fees instead, so you can sign up for an account without owning a box; that's what they're trying to enable with the free guest passes.)

but the difference is that with a MMORPG you know you can't wait til the next expansion and get the previous one for 20 bucks

Huh? Sony Online Entertainment repackages the core game, plus all but the most current expansion, in a big almost-all-in-one package every time they squeeze out another expansion. That's like going to the store and picking up the three core books and discovering that everything 3.5 that was released before August of this year has now been crammed into those three books.

You're right, you can't get the last expansion for $20. You can get it for essentially free, if you decide you don't need it when it first comes out.

I also don't think a set of core books like D&D possesses is a feasible model for the future but a 40 dollar hardcover similar to D20 Modern would be best with 20 dollar support books that expand on that core in softcover format.

You're still asking for a higher start-up price than potential gamers can get elsewhere.

Give us a true Basic Game (in the OD&D sense), including dice, and enabling months of play, for under $20. Make the books black and white, give us only five levels of advancement in the four core classes and three core races, whatever. Those rules can be contained in 16 pages. The only barrier to doing it that way is desire.

 

[Templetroll]

The best MMORPG cannot provide the immediacy and variety of any, even a bad, human DM. MMORPGs are great fun, but it is always within the limit of the game design and programming. That does not exist with pen and paper gaming, which is unlimited in what some one can describe, what your imagination can provide to you.

Players on MMORPG engage in a practise called 'leveling up' which can be intensely boring if the game design is poor. The only way to level up in pen and paper gaming is by a variety of encounters. Even if many are with the same monsters, the differences in terrain and other factors will make them more entertaining. The likelihood of the DM using a greater variety of monsters than is typical in a MMORPG is much greater, all the DM needs to do is check for hit points and he can go. It doesn't work that way in a computer game.

My view is that there is still a market for pen and paper games; they provide too much to disappear.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I saw WoW hurt some gaming groups (namely one I was in - in the end, I couldn't play there any more), but I don't think it will kill RPGs in general.

This is interesting. I wonder if it is viable for a company like WotC -- which specializes in nice looking products with weight to them -- could somehow develope a successfully "D&D subscription" program where supplements are produced as (smaller) PDFs and sent directly to the consumer. If someone could buy-in to D&D for @$50 and then spend $15 a month and be garaunteed the ability to play and content upgrades, would rthey do it?

I know I wouldn't. I want books. I'll pay for them when I buy them. I don't buy what I don't want. The choice when to spend my money will remain mine.

They can introduce something like that for all I care. As long as they keep doing the real RPG material, I'll keep buying what I want.

Sure there are a lot of differences between P&P and MMORPG, we've gone over them many times in a lot of threads here but are those differences really a factor in someones decision to play WoW WHENEVER and WHEREEVER they want or to play D&D when the other players That is a big factor in some people's decisions.

Two things about this: After what I've seen about WoW guilds and all that stuff, there's also schedules to be kept and all that stuff - with the only difference that it's online.

The other thing is that his shows that these gamers seem to lose more of their social abilities. They don't want to adapt to a larger group of people, they want to sit with others around a table.

I really like those D&D (and, in a sense, Roleplaying) ads wizards keeps doing.

I also don't think a set of core books like D&D possesses is a feasible model for the future but a 40 dollar hardcover similar to D20 Modern would be best with 20 dollar support books that expand on that core in softcover format. I'd prefer a 30 dollar hardcover but I know that's not happening when 4e finally comes out.

I could see two books - one Rulebook and a Monster Compendium, but to put all core material into one book? I don't want that. I like the way D&D books can be split up among people:

DM looks at the MM with monsters for the next encounter, player one looks at the PHB for his level-up in the Monk Class, player two looks at another PHB - they only need the PHB more than once, the rest is mostly for DMs, anyway - for his rogue level-up, and player three is busy shopping, using the DMG magic item list to browse a bit.

If you'd put them into a single book, most monsters would probably go. I wouldn't like that.

 

[Reynard]

I know I wouldn't. I want books. I'll pay for them when I buy them. I don't buy what I don't want. The choice when to spend my money will remain mine.

They can introduce something like that for all I care. As long as they keep doing the real RPG material, I'll keep buying what I want.

What if it was real books? What if you bought the core D&D book and then received a 32 or 64 page supplement each month in the mail for, say, $60 or $100 for the year? Maybe there'd be a "Player Subscription" program, a "DM Subscription" program and a "Adventure Subscription" program. Players would get things akin to the complete books, parcelled out over the year, while DMs would get monsters, magic items, environment stuff, etc... Adventures would, of course, be just that, propably in a loosely linked Adventure Path.

Is this something people would be willing to pay for, assuming we're talking about quality on par with current WotC material (minus the hardcovers).

 

[an_idol_mind]

What if it was real books? What if you bought the core D&D book and then received a 32 or 64 page supplement each month in the mail for, say, $60 or $100 for the year? Maybe there'd be a "Player Subscription" program, a "DM Subscription" program and a "Adventure Subscription" program. Players would get things akin to the complete books, parcelled out over the year, while DMs would get monsters, magic items, environment stuff, etc... Adventures would, of course, be just that, propably in a loosely linked Adventure Path.

Is this something people would be willing to pay for, assuming we're talking about quality on par with current WotC material (minus the hardcovers).

Honestly, the subscription program as you just described it seems an awful lot like having a subscription to Dungeon or Dragon magazine.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Back, back into your unquiet grave!

Graves are a comfortable place!