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

[diaglo]

The number of companies present in the "industry" has no bearing on the quality of games released.

QFT.

 

[Fenes]

The question is, does the money going into WoW subscription come out of the "entertainment pool", or the "computer & video game pool"?

 

[diaglo]

Tome of Battle, Book of Nine swords, 160 full color pages in hardcover $30.

Yeah, that evil WoTC always trying to rip us off.

yeah, the WotC 160 page books for the last several months have been set at $29.95
and the 224 page books are set at $34.95

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ok, whatever, you don't seem to be seeing my point.

Because you're almost impossible to follow.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The question is, does the money going into WoW subscription come out of the "entertainment pool", or the "computer & video game pool"?

The videogame pool being a subset of the entertainment pool, of course. In college, back when Make Fire was a major, they told us that everyone on average spends I think it was 15 percent of their personal budgets on entertainment, and that additional forms of entertainment simply cannibalized portions of that budget.

Certainly people who get into MMORPGs tend to shift their spending away from most other games, at least ones they're not really excited about, and I know plenty of folks who have cut down their cable subscriptions to a lower tier, and so on, since they weren't using them. OTOH, I also know a lot of WoW players who have bought all the WoW RPG books for lore reasons, so if there's cannibalization going on, it isn't necessarily at the expense of traditional RPGs. Someone skipping going to the movies once a month can pay the monthly fee for an MMORPG with a little change left over.

 

[Jim Hague]

Ok, whatever, you don't seem to be seeing my point. What is the most common arguement about RPG price increases? Entertainment value vs. DVDs, Comics, Movies, Video games etc and how you get more entertainment dollar from an RPG than you do from one of these examples. RPGs are a recreational activity, like movies etc. RPGs, from your arguement, only appeal to RPG players.

That's exactly who they appeal to. RPG players. You're trying to compare entirely different markets here, and it just doesn't make sense. Again, there's no Grand Unified Economic Theory - if there were, marketing folks'd be all over it. You're dealing with different markets, and you have to tailor your products and marketing accordingly.

What I am arguing is how to increase sales in an ever increasingly incestuous market. D&D and other RPGs need to attract those dollars away from the MMORPG market and other markets because the consumer only has so much money. On average a consumer is going to spend their money on WoW rather than D&D if you presented the option to them. That is a lost sale. That is recreation dollars lost to the market. Its SIMPLE economics. These products ARE comparable in spite of their different natures. Would you argue that the rise of video games hasn't led to the decrease in sales of action figures? It is demonstrable and this is a similar comparison. Sure, its apples and oranges but it isn't unfair or wrong to compare fruit even of different types.

And you fail to understand that market focus is the key here - yes, the hobby needs to bring in fresh blood, but the vast majority of entertainment dollars aren't going to go to RPGs and never will. There is no generic 'recreation dollar' you can tap. And there's no such thing as 'simple' economics, outside of balancing your checkbook. You're making entirely spurious arguments based on little other than anecdotal evidence - and 'fairness' doesn't enter into the equation. It is wrong to compare here, because it's different markets. You don't seem to be grasping that.

Mini games can lead to RPGs much more easily than video games and D&D with the minis game is the PERFECT lead in product with its tactical elements familiar to wargamers, giving them something familiar to relate to. I didn't say that the model is working yet, but that they are on the right track and the cross promotional products are working. I am seeing more and more of the Warhammer players from my store picking up D&D core rules and wanting to learn how to play. I had to teach character creation about two weeks ago to 5 of them. Its going to work.

I point at WotC's shift from RPG support towards minis as exactly how 'perfect' a lead-in minis are for RPGs; they aren't. Your anecdotal evidence is entirely trumped by market evidence and the numbers to back it up. I could just as easily argue that an increasing lack of game support from GW is the reason Warhammer players are moving to D&D; after all, the only booth GW had at GenCon this year was for the Warhammer MMO. Wargames have actually been around longer than RPGs, recall - and by your reasoning, the shift should have occurred already. It hasn't. Again, different markets. There're many, many, many RPGers and potential new gamers who don't like moving minis around on a battlemat.

You need to rethink this idea more than a little bit.