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Wierd Pete's lament in KODT #116 - is it true???
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<blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3035088" data-attributes="member: 11760"><p>No, it hasn't.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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:</p><p>* Glut of crapass products in the D20 market,</p><p>* White Wolf coming out with a new (and controversial) new version of most of their products,</p><p>* Lots of new editions of existing products without an obvious must-buy factor (witness how many of the publishers you cited <em>specifically told people they didn't need to buy the new version of their products</em> in an attempt to soothe their outrage),</p><p>* Rising prices of paper (which arguably had been artificially deflated for a very long time) making prices go up,</p><p>* Online retailers buying en masse and undercutting local retailers,</p><p>* Et cetera.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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 <em>second</em> MMORPG next year, and so on.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>In the words of Warren Ellis, Change or Die.</p><p></p><p></p><p>No, because I'm not.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>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 <em>squat</em> 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).</p><p></p><p>World of Warcraft, still one of the most expensive MMORPGs, by virtue of its astounding success, still has <em>half</em> 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.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p></p><p>You're still asking for a higher start-up price than potential gamers can get elsewhere.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Whizbang Dustyboots, post: 3035088, member: 11760"] 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 [i]specifically told people they didn't need to buy the new version of their products[/i] 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. 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 [i]second[/i] 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. No, because I'm not. 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. 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. 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 [i]squat[/i] 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 [i]half[/i] 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.) 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. 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. [/QUOTE]
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