D&D Has the Biggest Playerbase, So Why is it the Hardest for 3rd Party to Market Too?

Shardstone

Hero

• May 16, 2018

• #1

If what WotC said in the recent article about how they have 12-15 million players in NA is true, then they are way more massive then what 3rd party success would lead one too believe. On a lot of forums outside of EnWorld (and sometimes, even on EnWorld), 3rd party material is always treated as a last resort and very rarely pulled from. After all, when you have a playerbase of 12-15 million, those 100-500 backers on Kickstarter suddenly don't seem like so many. Even if each backer represents a full party of 5 eagers players, that's still less than 1% of the D&D market.

Thoughts?

 

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Umbran

Mod Squad

Staff member

Supporter

• May 16, 2018

• #2

I don't know, but I can speculate.

1) Marketing is hard. Most of those 12 million people are *NOT* scouring the web looking for content. They aren't spending time on EN World or the like. A third-party's ability to reach someone who does not hook into the online communities is extremely limited.

2) Many players are very much playing for the combat wargame. For them *the Rules* matter. I suspect for them third party materials seem largely untested, and not accepted at all tables.

3) Nostalgia matters. Brand recognition matters.

4) WotC makes it *easy* to not need a third party book. I'm running a 5e game that only plays once a month, for maybe 4 hours at a shot. I just don't need that much content. Give me the core rulebooks, and something like Princes of the Apocalypse, and I am off and running for this game, litereally for years without the need to buy any more materials for the game.

 

H

houser2112

Explorer

• May 16, 2018

• #3

If I had to guess, it's because the paucity of options with 5E is a feature, not a bug for many people.

 

jaelis

Oh this is where the title goes?

• May 16, 2018

• #4

100 to 500 backers? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/255133215/strongholds-and-streaming

I had the impression 3rd party materials were doing pretty well. Mini sales and dnd Beyond seem successful. But someone from a game company could surely say better.

 

Shardstone

Hero

• May 16, 2018

• #5

jaelis said:

100 to 500 backers? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/255133215/strongholds-and-streaming

I had the impression 3rd party materials were doing pretty well. Mini sales and dnd Beyond seem successful. But someone from a game company could surely say better.

Click to expand...

You just linked a record breaking 100% outlier kickstarter. I'm afraid I can't accept this as the norm, because in every possible way, it is not. What other D&D (SPECIFICALLY D&D) kickstarter has broke 1 million, let alone 2 million?

 

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix

• May 16, 2018

• #6

There's also the fact that what 3PP offer is something many DM already to easily for themselves. Some may offer campaign settings, a few class options, some spells or background, but many time when I look at 3PP D&D material I ask myself: ''why would I buy the vision of another DM on specific elements? I can do that myself''. WotC made it easy with 5e to create your own content. Putting aside balance, I know for sure when I create content my players that it will fit the game I host, which is not a guarantee with any 3PP.

What I look for in 3PP material is rules for stuff WotC does not (yet) cover. Unfortunately, many 3PP created content (at least from what I see on Kickstarter) suffers from using the same of tropes: high-magic-tech-thingy, post magic apocalypse, d&d in space etc.

 

jaelis

Oh this is where the title goes?

• May 16, 2018

• #7

Probably none. But I know none did for 3e (joking!). But I'm not aware of any like that for other RPG systems, maybe I'm just ignorant?

 

DEFCON 1

Legend

Supporter

• May 16, 2018

• #8

And let's also not forget the huge amount of content available on DMs Guild, all of which are available immediately and at reasonable prices (if not free). The idea of backing a kickstarter product that is still months (if not a year) out from being released is probably not something many players necessarily want or need-- not when they can get other material off of the Guild straight away. You need to have pretty strong company name recognition with good rep or an amazingly different take on the game to inspire more than just a small amount of people to back the product and be willing to wait for it to come out.

 

Li Shenron

Legend

• May 16, 2018

• #9

On one hand, the very slow publishing rate of 5e might be a reason to have a huge 3rd party offering of additional material.

On the other hand, the same rate makes 5e appear as a game that doesn't need such additional material.

But then I think the reason lies more in demographics: the unprecedented high numbers of players are probably made up of a much bigger share of casual gamers than in previous editions. After all, previous editions required more investment in time and money, so 5e is more friendly to casual gamers. But being casual gamers, they are not interested in adding more and more stuff to the game, they don't care for collecting, and they might also not even look at anything beyond official.

Part of the older base (including me) is also not interested in going back to spending a lot of money to fill a shelf with books that get cherrypicked at best.

 

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon

• May 16, 2018

• #10

Well... perhaps because it's *too* easy?

I've been toying with the idea of publishing something for a while. In the old days, there would have been serious obstacles. Finding a publisher. Dealing with printing and distribution. Money. Etc etc.

Now the main obstacle is time and laziness. On the DM guild, thousands are publishing! It's very easy.

So with this very low bar to publish, it is unavoidable that quality has gone down, on average. While there are excellent 3rd party publications, there are also some... not so great ones.

Perhaps this is hurting people's trust of 3rd party material?