Excellent point on WotC mishandling

[evilref]

I didn't come up with this "fire the customer" thing out of thin air, but it is just rumor (my memory tells me that one of Ryan Dancey's posts or one of Monte Cook's blogs was probably the source, but I'm not sure, so don't quote me on that). The story as interpreted it goes that they were considering it, including mass culling of sacred cows, as of 3E, but caution stayed their hand because they knew there was no proof that people would transfer from 2E. 4E doesn't seem to have seen that caution in play, perhaps because 3E was embraced so well.

So, you don't remember for sure but 4E's designers set out to 'fire' their customer base by having 3e drop the sacred cows. So, WotC planned to fire their customers for 4e 10+ years ago. Man that's some strategic planning there.

Or, you know, codswallop.

 

[BryonD]

I can agree on the divided fan base, that is self-evident. But I think they could have encountered the same division if they made 4E hew closer to 3E. I actually believe they would have lost more of their fan base. (I can hear the theoretical cries of "4E is just 3.75!!!1!!one!! WotC just wants our moneyz!" from beyond the grave of What-Might-Have-Been.)

I was a one of the minority of voices supporting the basic idea of 4E the day it was announced. Mostly we had the typical cliched "new edition money grubbers" screams before anyone knew anything AT ALL about what 4E would look like. As much as I love 3E, I wasn't looking for 3.75 out of 4E.

BUT, I strongly think that the root philosophy of 3E has a better foundation of appeal than the approach that 4E embraced.

Paizo seems to thrive with Pathfinder because their fabase isn't seeking the same crunch-filled expansions that WotC used to produce. I'm beginning to wonder if WotC really lost many customers to Paizo. Those customers don't seem to mind the lack of crunch and probably weren't buying much, if anything, from WotC. And they probably already enjoyed Paizo's adventures immensely (and for good reasons), again not buying them from WotC. So what did WotC lose from these types of customers when they "switched" to Pathfinder?

But most of us already have shelves of 3E material, so I don't think that is a completely valid assessment. I certainly am spending less money on gaming than I was during 3E. So when people talk about "the industry in decline" perhaps my case is sufficiently common to be significant.

If WotC had made a new game that still embraced my standards, I'd probably still be spending just like I was before. And happily so.

I think each game serves its niche well. And WotC is faced with retaining and gaining players in a new RPG market. Because of the OGL they created a competitor for life, something that never occurred for prior versions of D&D. You could always play older versions, but until 3E there was no official support once the company moved on to the next edition.

Certainly, but WotC has gone from being the foundation of a big boom that was actually criticized for being so successful that OGL clones were hurting other development to being, as you out it, a "niche".

I 100% agree that they serve their niche REAL well. 4E is awesome at being what it set out to be. But, it is still just a niche now.

 

[MerricB]

A more recent and verifiable one is Mike Mearls saying that the 4E design team sought to prevent RPGs undergoing the same near-extinction process that tabletop wargaming did, and that that was an impetus for the 4E design radicalisation. IMO it seems to have hastened that process rather than prevented it, although arguably any incarnation of 4E would probably be in trouble due to the greater depression unfolding before our eyes, from it's release time forward.

I believe that Wizards were terribly worried about retaining and creating new Dungeon Masters. This would seem to be their primary aim with the redesign of 4e: a game that was easier to run and prepare for than 3e.

Their second goal was to fix the mathematics of the game. 3e has retained a lot of the mathematics of 2e, but then overlaid on top a lot of new bonuses. This had gotten out of control; in my final 3.5e campaign, a couple of players absolutely broke Armour Class (a key system), taking every bonus to it they could find. When they could increase their Dexterity scores, Shield enhancement, Armour enhancement, Ring of Protection and a few other modifiers... it was an astonishing result, and quite broken.

The third goal - and the one most astonishing - was to smooth out the play experience. Part of this required a new starting point for the maths (1st level isn't so deadly and swingy; high level doesn't take so long to play), but in their pursuit of this they also completely overhauled the class/power structure.

This re-imagining of the class structure was both radical and conservative: radical because it was different to what had come before, and conservative in that they applied it to *all* the classes, rather than making exceptions.

With D&D Essentials, I can see Wizards continuing their process of learning from what has gone before. This is not a company that is afraid of change or learning from its mistakes. Of course, they don't always agree with us what their mistakes are...

Cheers!

 

[rounser]

So, you don't remember for sure but 4E's designers set out to 'fire' their customer base by having 3e drop the sacred cows. So, WotC planned to fire their customers for 4e 10+ years ago. Man that's some strategic planning there.

No. I'll reword it so you can understand a little better. The gist of it was that the 3E designers were tempted to do more of a complete overhaul with 3E than they did (perhaps on the scale of 4E), but they didn't know whether such a dramatic departure would be accepted so they erred on the side of caution. That came from some designer or brand manager or other, I'm not making it up, although I'm sure you'll continue to deny it for whatever reason.

 

[tuxgeo]

Brilliant Genius Idea -- modest proposal -- Movie Rights

Yes, believe it or not...your D&D stuff are BOOKS. If you buy a PHB, it's a book. If you buy dice...sure it could qualify as a toy...but overall, D&D is a book brand.

I still disagree with this argument. I think you are mistaking the medium for the message, but this is only my opinion. I do, however, agree with many of your conclusions.

I'm still interested in seeing a discussion on RPG revenue streams that are alternatives to releasing new editions.

There it is: "revenue streams." That's the phrase that we needed in this thread. (No, not "book sales.")

My sudden and (of course) ludicrously profound insight on this whole matter is that Wizards of the Coast needs the movie equivalent of a Harry Potter or a Lord of the Rings, but specifically one centered on the Nentir Vale and using D&D 4E mechanics.

Yes, that is an inordinately tall order. The problems are manifold, but the major one is just this: how could WotC obtain the movie rights to a work of fiction by someone with the lofty stature and writing talent of a Jo Rowling* or a J.R.R. Tolkien?

*actually, let's skip the "lofty stature" part of that description, because Jo is rather short.

First assumption: People such as those authors don't write as "work for hire" at six cents per word; instead, they retain the literary publishing rights of their own works for themselves; but they do sell the movie rights.

Second assumption: The movie rights is where the real money is.

OK, then: It's obvious, right? Wizards of the Coast should loosen up their novel publishing agenda:
(a) Don't do it all in-house;
(b) Allow anyone to use the default setting and rules descriptions in novels (subject, perhaps, to review for content, to keep the overall tone family-friendly);
(c) Make the above two points subject to granting the movie rights to WotC. (Whatever the legal phrasing is.)

So, overall: WotC should make it clear to potential authors that they can set their works in WotC's setting as long as it doesn't embarrass the brand, provided only that first they turn over the movie rights to WotC.
That way, the authors get to keep their literary publishing rights; and WotC gets potential access to the movie rights of more books than they would otherwise.
From there, it's just a matter of scanning the best-sellers lists: if something great comes out of it (probability greater than zero, but I don't know by how much), then WotC at least has the opportunity to cash in "big-time" at the box office.

Second Thoughts Before Even Posting For The First Time:
DO all of the publishing in-house, but explicitly don't make it work-for-hire: allow the authors to retain book rights in exchange for movie rights.
That way, the review for content becomes automatic, and only stuff that is good enough gets published, possibly preventing market-gluts.

 

[Ourph]

My view on what constitutes a "revision" is when the perception of the game changes enough that fans of the game have to differentiate whether they are using the product or not.
<snip>
Sure, Essentials is mostly adding stuff, but it's also changing the way PCs are being made. And for a game like D&D, where character creation is almost a sub-game in and of itself, this is a pretty big change.

This is where you lose me. I haven't run into anyone who actively plays 4e making any distinctions regarding Essentials vs "regular" 4e. Essentials adds options for character creation, but so has every other 4e splat. I don't see people making distinctions for the use of Essentials any more than I see them making distinctions for PHBII or Divine Power.

Now, I do see people making distinctions when they are excluding potential options, like a DM banning character options from the Eberron books, but not distinctions for including options. As far as my experience goes, Essentials is just perceived as the newest round of character options in a long line of expanding character options that are all "core" 4e.

 

[The Little Raven]

Essentials is that change for 4e... I would honestly compare it more to Skills and Powers in how it impacted the game, as opposed to 3.5E to 3E... in that Essentials is a reimagining of character creation rules for a game that stays more or less the same.

1. Choose Race
2. Choose Class
3. Determine Ability Scores
4. Choose Skills
5. Select Feats
6. Choose Powers
7. Choose Equipment
8. Fill in the Numbers
9. Roleplaying Character Details

All of these steps are in both Essentials and pre-Essentials 4e. Character creation is identical. The only thing that has changed is how some of the options work and the order in which they list the steps (sometimes Class is first, for example). This is not a reimagining of the character creation rules.

And you haven't addressed, at all, how the game plays differently after Essentials.

 

[evilref]

No. I'll reword it so you can understand a little better. The gist of it was that the 3E designers were tempted to do more of a complete overhaul with 3E than they did (perhaps on the scale of 4E), but they didn't know whether such a dramatic departure would be accepted so they erred on the side of caution. That came from some designer or brand manager or other, I'm not making it up, although I'm sure you'll continue to deny it for whatever reason.

I'll just quote your posts so you can see where you fell down:

Now look at 4E, which seems to have set out to alienate it's core audience in hopes of attaining a theoretical new, bigger, mainstream audience....I recall mention of "firing the customer" as an option on the table. This seems to be laymen thinking, not marketing professional thinking.

This, the above, would be you directly linking, through your sentence structure and language usage, 4e and 'firing the customer'.

When called upon to provide any proof you claimed:

I didn't come up with this "fire the customer" thing out of thin air, but it is just rumor (my memory tells me that one of Ryan Dancey's posts or one of Monte Cook's blogs was probably the source, but I'm not sure, so don't quote me on that). The story as interpreted it goes that they were considering it, including mass culling of sacred cows, as of 3E, but caution stayed their hand because they knew there was no proof that people would transfer from 2E. 4E doesn't seem to have seen that caution in play, perhaps because 3E was embraced so well.

So, a rumour, or possibly a blog post (maybe), the interpretation of which you think is that when 3E was being designed, they considered culling the ‘sacred cows’.

Now, let’s just look at the first point ‘4E….Firing the customer’. Then let’s look at your substantiation ‘3E’.

4E….3E

4th Edition ‘firing the customer’ ... ‘3rd edition rumour offered as 'evidence’.


This why I made the point about you claiming WotC were planning on firing their customers for 4E 10 years ago. Because your argument for the ‘firing the customer’ for 4E is entirely…the 3rd edition design considerations.

I’m not denying you may have heard a rumour regarding 3rd Edition's design considerations. It’s actually common when redesigning an RPG to consider what to keep.

What I’m denying is that there’s any substantive link between your argument about 4th edition and the reasoning for it which has no bearing on the matter whatsoever.

 

[evilref]

OK, then: It's obvious, right? Wizards of the Coast should loosen up their novel publishing agenda:
(a) Don't do it all in-house;
(b) Allow anyone to use the default setting and rules descriptions in novels (subject, perhaps, to review for content, to keep the overall tone family-friendly);
(c) Make the above two points subject to granting the movie rights to WotC. (Whatever the legal phrasing is.)

The chance of the above happening is zero. The very idea of it is...odd to say the least. There are some serious misunderstandings of how literary publishing works and where the 'worth' in a publishing house really is. The number of movies to come out of published novels is miniscule. The number of movies that make money is significantly smaller than the number of movies made.

Cutting off your income stream for a potential but uncertain income stream in the future is financial idiocy.

Second Thoughts Before Even Posting For The First Time:
DO all of the publishing in-house, but explicitly don't make it work-for-hire: allow the authors to retain book rights in exchange for movie rights.
That way, the review for content becomes automatic, and only stuff that is good enough gets published, possibly preventing market-gluts.

1) If it's in-house then it is work-for-hire.

2) Assuming you mean the only meaning of 'book rights' (which isn't commonly used in publishing) I can think of...this is no different to the above. You're proposing WotC grants a free license to anyone to write using their copyright and intellectual properties.

Again, for a publishing house this would be extremely foolish, not to say financially moronic.

 

[rounser]

This why I made the point about you claiming WotC were planning on firing their customers for 4E 10 years ago.

Only I'm not claiming that. You're just constructing a straw man for your own purposes there. I'm telling you that you're misunderstanding my post, and can't pin me down on that, because that's not what I meant.

If you want a fight, you can attack my contention that 4E did "fire" a lot of D&D's existing customer base, probably knowingly and intentionally, as a lot of the rest of this thread implies (i.e. turfing a lot of the hardcore audience for a theoretical mainstream one yet somehow still ending up with a hardcore play experience only of a different sort, or going for the two birds in the bush rather than the bird in hand).