D&D 5E WTF Wizards of the Coast? *RANT* (video link)

[Morrus]

I'm not talking Monopoly or Checkers here, I'm talking boutique hobbyist board games.

If I'd meant to include games like that, I'd have said "thousands of times bigger" rather than just an order of magnitude.

 

[Greg Benage]

Wizards of the Coast is pretty uniquely positioned to leverage economies of scale far better than its competitors. The problem has always been vision, never market or capability.

I'm at a loss even to imagine how you land on this conclusion with such unshakable certainty. All the smart, creative, visionary people that have been in and out of that company over the years, people who know the industry and their business inside and out, and yet you just know they're all clueless about the market and their own capabilities. Maybe take a step back and reflect on that?

 

[Nickolaidas]

Still, I don't understand why Paizo's sales are (apparently) not hurt with their books also released as PDF, while Wizards' will be. I understand why people think that Wizard going digital (besides printable) will hurt them in the long/short run, I just don't understand why it doesn't hurt Paizo.

 

[darjr]

Wait I thought we were talking tools? PDFs of the core would not hurt wotc nor do the ones floating out there now hurt sales very much if at all. WotC doesn't do PDFs of the core because, and this is an educated guess, they don't want to upset the hobby stores.

I don't think legal PDFs would hurt sales very much if at all.

 

[Greg Benage]

Wait I thought we were talking tools. PDFs of the core would not hurt wotc nor do the ones floating out there now hurt sales very much if at all. WotC doesn't do PDFs of the core because, and this is an educated guess, they don't want to upset the hobby stores.

I don't think legal PDFs would hurt sales very much if at all.

I mostly agree, and I'd further suggest that Wizards needs their tier partners to be happy more than Paizo does. Those partnerships are simply more valuable for Wizards. I'm sure D&D is a nice little business, but they really want those tier partners (from Alliance to FLGS to Barnes & Noble) to keep selling Magic cards and novels.

 

[Shasarak]

There's a big difference between a rulebook that you will be referencing constantly during play, and character options books that you only really need when building your character. I never bought any of the 4E splatbooks since the character builder had all the info I needed in a much more accessible and well-organized format, and the character sheets and power cards it would print contained all the relevant rules.

Actually buying the books would only cost extra money and take up space in my bookshelf.

Not really. If you are a Player then there is no reason why you would need to look at the rulebook during play for either Pathfinder or for DnD.

 

[Jester David]

I'm not talking Monopoly or Checkers here, I'm talking boutique hobbyist board games. While the industry may be larger, it's also far more crowded. The market for any specific game—I think XCOM is the perfect example—is far, far smaller.

The hobbey game industry is huge compared to the RPG industry.
http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/32102/hobby-games-market-climbs-880-million
D&D is <$10 million and the entire RPG industry is *well* under $88 million (@Morrus' order of magnitude)

Wizards of the Coast is pretty uniquely positioned to leverage economies of scale far better than its competitors. The problem has always been vision, never market or capability.

I don't see how. They're a CCG company first and foremost. There are likely more janitors on staff than book writers, let alone RPG book staff. Paizo has three times the RPG staff.
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with digital tools or apps. Making an app is in their skill set like making dogfood is. They *could* release official D&D dogfood but they're almost certainly better off letting an actual dogfood maker licence the rights and do it themself.
The lack of digital tools for D&D is likely the same as the lack of official digital tools for Pathfinder (or dogfood): anyone big enough to afford the licence fees doesn't think it's profitable enough to buy the licence, or they're so small that success and quality aren't a guarantee and WotC doesn't want to give them the rights.

 

[RCanine]

The hobbey game industry is huge compared to the RPG industry.
http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/32102/hobby-games-market-climbs-880-million
D&D is <$10 million and the entire RPG industry is *well* under $88 million (@Morrus' order of magnitude)

First of all, your article states that the hobbyist board games market is $125M to the RPG market's $25M -- 5x is hardly an order of magnitude.

Secondly, clicking on the links in that article, you'll note that D&D is the #1 (of five) in the RPG market, 4 of the top 10 board games were published eight or more years ago! That means that the dozens of board games released each year are going to split a much smaller chunk of the admittedly larger pie.

I don't see how. They're a CCG company first and foremost. There are likely more janitors on staff than book writers, let alone RPG book staff. Paizo has three times the RPG staff.

This is my point; WotC is:

* Head and shoulders the largest RPG maker
* The only RPG with name recognition beyond ubernerds like us
* Owned by a massive company that has expertise in making digital products

That is what defined their "unique position". The challenge they face is that they are refusing to innovate their business model. I mean come on, they sell giant paper books. Who does that? Remember when the only way to buy video games was to go to Best Buy and bring home a box? Many video games struggle today are free. Remember renting movies? Remember when a map was on paper?

I don't think face-to-face gaming is going anywhere, but I do thing there's a Netflix of it bound to happen eventually, and I'd like it to be WotC. Because who else is going to do it?

 

[captcorajus]

I do not think that its that big a deal to give access to the FULL rules in an app with a subscription. The benefits are many:
- instant search of the rules
- instant updates and all inclusive for errata and clarifications.
Certainly worth paying for

The idea that their digital development team is 'tiny' and that's why they haven't got it done is ludicrous.
This is the kind of task you farm out. If you'd watch the video I address this specifically.

 

[captcorajus]

Seriously?

You seriously want us to believe WotC's stone age approach is okay for the 21st century?

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to expect any game line to offer full digital support from day one.

In D&D's case, at the very least:
- fully indexed hyperlinked rulebooks
- digital character sheets to create, calculate and update player characters
- encounter calculator doing all the manual steps
- magic loot generator, including customized loot tables
- DM tools to pick monsters and spells; to customize and create monsters and spells

That's the baseline for anyone except the most hardcore apologist.

Then computers can do so much more. But that would be acceptable to have only now, years later.

Perfect. For anyone that actually WATCHED my video this was exactly the point I made.