What's stopping WOTC from going back to 3.5?

[gamerprinter]

Well, Paizo released Legacy of Fire Adventure Path which is set in the Arabic parts of Golarian, last year or so. I haven't heard any specific flak or derision to Paizo or to this specific AP. I don't think any specific general fear by the public regarding the middle east today, as even dententing the spirits of gamers wanting some Arabic fun.

I think gamers are more mature than the general public anyway.

 

[SSquirrel]

So I said they were anecdotal observations in my original post, but do they ring true for others reading this? I don't have much data but it's really rare to hear people claim 4E has more momentum than 3.5 in their community. Do you feel more gamers you know are teaching their siblings, nephews, and friends 4E than 3.5? Are they recommending new players get 4E and go out and buy the books?

No this doesn't ring true at all. Actually all the gamers I am friends with here in Louisville are playing either 4E or Savage Worlds. We've taught several people 4E, some of which gave D&D a try in 3.5 and said learning 4E was much easier and they enjoy it more. The only other game people generally talk about is Pathfinder, but I don't know anyone who actually PLAYS PF. No one talks about 3.5.

Amazon - Pathfinder is outselling the 4E PHB. This indicates PF is about as popular or moreso than 4E but misses a whole demographic that plays a game that is essentially the same.

Actually, here's the relevant info from the top 20 gaming books on Amazon right now. PF is #1 yes, but look at how many books are D&D in that top 20. The top 4 D&D books are the Starter set, the Rules Compendium, the PHB, HotFL and the new Madness at Gardmore Abbey comes in at #6. Monster Vault is #9 and the DMG is #17, so we certainly have the core of 4th edition well covered. Plus various other books.

Pathfinder: 1, 7, 10, 12
D&D 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 19
Non D&D Books: 11, 13, 15, 18
Other RPGs: 14 (Black Crusader W40K for the curious)
D&D Novel: 20 (the first Dragonlance Chronicles book)

Using the Amazon list to proclaim PF the winner also fails to take a few other things into consideration. $10 or less a month gets you DDI access and I know some people who haven't bought any books and just pay the $10. How representative they are we don't know, but it does happen. Also, PF is newer than 4E and the greatest influx of sales of even the core products occurs within the first several months after release. 4E could well have quickly reached a saturation point and new purchases are slower than PF. How many of the people buying PF already own a 4E PHB? Same question goes the other way too really. There is a large unknown quantity for WotC revenue in the form of DDI. If DDI is very popular, they are pulling n lots of money from that. One group I played with still uses the side loaded OCB instead of the online version and I was its only DDI subscriber, but my current group uses multiple DDI accounts. That other group is currently running Savage Worlds, but when they are done w/their back to back Savage Worlds campaigns, they are going back to a 4E game.

Meetup - I've seen 4 3.5 games start here and a 2E game. No Pathfinder yet. I'm the only one to propose a 4E game. I consider this to be a very useful and neutral benchmark and I'm curious what others have noticed.

There are 2 meet up groups listed in the Louisville KY area (metro size of about a million people). One group is 13 people and sounds like a pretty open bunch, but they list Story RPGs (which says Indie RPGs next to it), so I'm guessing they're probably a bit more Dogs in the Vineyard etc than D&D or Pathfinder. The other group has 273 members and it's focus is D&D. Encounters, 4E, apparently at least one PF game going. They mention they have members into variety of games, but the group is not built around PF and from what I can see of recent events, it seems almost entirely 4E focused. Just my anecdotal regional info.

Again, this is all very anecdotal evidence. But I haven't seen any evidence that suggests WOTC's customer base hasn't shrunk dramatically. Can anyone show me any evidence that suggests more than 70% or even 51% of gamers play the version of D&D WOTC is selling.

Can you show us any evidence that they don't? Didn't think so. You could teach a math class in imaginary numbers with all the numbers you are imagining and putting forth as fact.

Even the supplement line during 2E (The Fighters Handbook, the Bards Handbook, etc) was mostly flavor followed by NWPs and some kits that didn't really do much to break the game.

*cough*Bladesinger!!*cough*

IMO wizards has just never been very good with the whole flavor thing.

The most flavorful thing WotC has come up with to date was actually Keith Baker's Eberron work. So yeah, I can totally go w/this. I actually liked a good bit of what they did with the new Realms, there was certainly a decent bit of flavor there. Whether people like it is another story

 

[prosfilaes]

Also, PF is newer than 4E and the greatest influx of sales of even the core products occurs within the first several months after release.

PF is 2 years old, 4E is 3. There's no reason to think that PF's age is a major factor in sales.

There is a large unknown quantity for WotC revenue in the form of DDI.

Not that unknown; the discussion has aged off the boards, so I can't find the numbers, but IIRC Wizards lists a forum group of all the DDI users on the forum that has 60,000 members; they may or may not be adding new members of DDI who haven't signed up for the forums to that group, but there was general consensus that represents the lower bound of DDI users, with the upper bound being some small multiple of that value, say maybe 200,000 DDI members at most.

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

No this doesn't ring true at all
...
There are 2 meet up groups listed in the Louisville KY area (metro size of about a million people). One group is 13 people and sounds like a pretty open bunch, but they list Story RPGs (which says Indie RPGs next to it), so I'm guessing they're probably a bit more Dogs in the Vineyard etc than D&D or Pathfinder. The other group has 273 members and it's focus is D&D. Encounters, 4E, apparently at least one PF game going. They mention they have members into variety of games, but the group is not built around PF and from what I can see of recent events, it seems almost entirely 4E focused. Just my anecdotal regional info.

So I'll just disregard the rude comments about using imaginary numbers. There's an obvious zeitgeist here against 4E, and it's curious how much two pools can vary. What geographic factor would cause folks in Louisville to play different games than in Flagstaff? Those kinds of numbers (on meetup) vary so widely it's unbelievable. If you're a gamer I'll talk to you, so it's strange how their can be such a large hidden 4E community.

I've met a lot of gamers, mostly millenials, and I can count the number of 4E enthusiasts I know on one hand. Two of those were swayed by positive experiences in my own 4E game. In my more limited experience with older gamers they seem to be a bit more open to 4E, but tend to stick to older editions more often than not. I imagine the meetup applies to an older crowd than the 18-24 group that dominates a college town. So is it a generational thing?

I hang out at a comic store that sells 4E and PF and the owner says the customer base feels about the same way. I actually came in the store after it opened and convinced him to order 4E books and that was the beginning of his business in tabletop roleplaying. He later bought Pathfinder since so many customers complained to him about not wanting to buy 4E. Oddly he seems to sell more 4E books than PF because they're required for the Encounters event. But interestingly the folks at the Encounters that bought the books don't care much for 4E or Encounters - they're just busy professionals with kids looking to get a fix on a Wednesday night from an event that doesn't require prep or much time commitment. So WOTC is profiting from a game where the ambiance of the table damages it's brand image - it's weird.

Your PF/D&D tally of amazon doesn't account for all of the people that play 3.5/PF off their SRDs. Also lots of college kids play off of pirated PDFs. While that obviously isn't a group WOTC wants to chase, those people are teaching new players 3.5 and the edition is gaining new loyalists.

It's weird - I hear comments all the time from the 4E crowd like "It'd be fun to give that a try but I can't find people because everyone hates 4E". That implies of the lets say forty gamers they knew, from whichever state they came from, they've had the same experience as me (Flagstaff sees a lot of out of state students coming in for college). How is that not indicative of something? You can say the 3.5 grognards are the loudest and whiniest (and you'd probably be right in many cases) but it really feels like the 4E crowd must be entirely in the closet. Until I got here...

 

[Hussar]

Well, Paizo released Legacy of Fire Adventure Path which is set in the Arabic parts of Golarian, last year or so. I haven't heard any specific flak or derision to Paizo or to this specific AP. I don't think any specific general fear by the public regarding the middle east today, as even dententing the spirits of gamers wanting some Arabic fun.

I think gamers are more mature than the general public anyway.

Not to be snarky, but, Paizo could probably produce pretty much anything it wants and it wouldn't get any specific flak or derision simply because it wouldn't even come close to appearing on the radar.

OTOH, WOTC is a whole lot more visible to the general public. WOTC does occassionally get mentioned in mainstream press, for example. And, I'm pretty sure that the lawyers overseeing things at Hasbro would nix anything like Al Qadim, if for no other reason than the similarities of the name to hot political topics.

As to why doesn't WOTC re-release 3e? Why bother? For one, it couldn't possibly compete with the used book market - how much 3e stuff is still out there on shelves? For another, there's no way the distributors would do it either because they'd know they'd be in for a pretty hard sell. Finally, if you owned an FLGS, would you stock a newly released 3.5 PHB to sit right beside the original 3.5 PHB you've still got sitting on your shelf?

Let's not forget, before 4e, before Pathfinder, 3.5 was dying. Sales had dropped off, virtually every 3pp was out of D&D (with a couple of notable exceptions) and it was bringing in no new blood.

Why on earth would you rerelease that?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Let's not forget, before 4e, before Pathfinder, 3.5 was dying. Sales had dropped off, virtually every 3pp was out of D&D (with a couple of notable exceptions) and it was bringing in no new blood.

The first question a marketer would ask is "Why were sales flagging?" (If indeed they were.)

Market saturation is possible. Declining quality of products could be as well. Etc.

 

[gamerprinter]

Perhaps, but some pretty obscure things make it to the limelight if it pushes the right buttons. What I'm saying Paizo, no matter how obscure you want to make it, had it been using some subject matter that the public found particularly vile or disturbing might - if it offended someone, it might have gotten some kind of public view of it.

I just don't think avoiding Arabic settings in light of current events, as being some kind of issue. As long as such a setting isn't about terrorists, suicide bombers, religious war, or any kind of 'crusader' motif - if you stick with Arabian Nights in flavor - I don't think it would be a troubling subject, even for WotC.

 

[SSquirrel]

Not that unknown; the discussion has aged off the boards, so I can't find the numbers, but IIRC Wizards lists a forum group of all the DDI users on the forum that has 60,000 members; they may or may not be adding new members of DDI who haven't signed up for the forums to that group, but there was general consensus that represents the lower bound of DDI users, with the upper bound being some small multiple of that value, say maybe 200,000 DDI members at most.

So we have anywhere from 60-200k DDI members. We have no way of knowing how many of those are single month members and then dropped or how many are paying subs in any of the 3 options. If even half of those people are averaging in the $8 range as the quarterly option is a median price point between the likely smaller group who pays for a whole year at once and the larger group that pays month to month. This is true in MMOs, I don't see why similar behavior wouldn't apply here.

If even half of the members are paying that average price, WotC is seeing anywhere from $240-$800,000 per month on top of any book sales. I will freely admit this is merely an example w/no basis other than potential extrapolation from the numbers provided in the above post. Just trying to show that there is a significant chunk of money that is not viewed from hobby store sales.

So I'll just disregard the rude comments about using imaginary numbers.

If you pluck numbers out of thin air and state them as fact (which is the opposite of my above example), someone WILL call you out on it. I'm sorry if the truth hurts.

What geographic factor would cause folks in Louisville to play different games than in Flagstaff? Those kinds of numbers (on meetup) vary so widely it's unbelievable. If you're a gamer I'll talk to you, so it's strange how their can be such a large hidden 4E community.

It isn't a hidden community. The Louisville metro area is 8 times the size of Flagstaff's (Google, it's fun) and we have a ton of colleges here as well as a large number of hospitals. People move here from all over and it's in an interesting place when compared to other large metro areas. We're 2 hours from Cincinnati, Nashville and Indianapolis. 3 hours to Columbus, just over an hour to Lexington. 4 to Chicago and St Louis and Knoxville. 6 to Pittsburgh. We're very centrally located to a wide variety and in the end Meetup is very hit or miss. Some areas use it a lot, some areas don't use it much at all. I used it to meet a D&D group when I lived in Iowa City. I haven't really used it since.

I've met a lot of gamers, mostly millenials, and I can count the number of 4E enthusiasts I know on one hand. Two of those were swayed by positive experiences in my own 4E game. In my more limited experience with older gamers they seem to be a bit more open to 4E, but tend to stick to older editions more often than not. I imagine the meetup applies to an older crowd than the 18-24 group that dominates a college town. So is it a generational thing?

I dont' know. The people I have gamed with in Louisville ranged from about 40 all the way down to 18, I'm toward the top of that range at 35 and I've played for 24 years now. We have some people who are newer to gaming as well as many who have played since Basic.

So WOTC is profiting from a game where the ambiance of the table damages it's brand image - it's weird.

Encounters is just sort of weird all the way around. I'm not a big fan of gaming w/completely random people, so I don't participate. I don't really play in games at cons either tho. *shrug*

Your PF/D&D tally of amazon doesn't account for all of the people that play 3.5/PF off their SRDs. Also lots of college kids play off of pirated PDFs. While that obviously isn't a group WOTC wants to chase, those people are teaching new players 3.5 and the edition is gaining new loyalists.

Ok. You were the one using Amazon to proclaim PF as selling so much better, but then when I showed you that over half of the top 20 was actually WotC product you move the goalposts and push toward pirated pdfs, which none of us are capable of tracking. Who are all these people pushing 3.5? I never hear anyone talking about 3.5 games when I'm in stores in town.

How is that not indicative of something? You can say the 3.5 grognards are the loudest and whiniest (and you'd probably be right in many cases) but it really feels like the 4E crowd must be entirely in the closet. Until I got here...

B/c it's all anecdotal and it's all data collected from opt in options. People who choose to use Meetup. People who choose to go to a gaming store instead of pirating or ordering from amazon or B&N. What exactly is the 4E crowd in the closet about? I've shared my experience locally and it has been pretty strongly 4E. Savage Worlds comes up second. I know people playing games of both happily. Clearly I won't' claim to know even a fraction of the gamers here in Louisville, but of all the ones I know that are gaming in the area, those are the 2 games getting played.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I loved Al Qadim, but I have to wonder if they would have trouble marketing that setting today. So many potential issues with offending people.

THIS (assuming their isn't a target group marketing survey that saids Dervishes, bedouins, and shiekhs not as cool or exciting as pirates, ninjas, samurai, or barbarians, vikings or knights).

WoTC wouldn't have to worry just about Arabian groups protesting because of the "stereotyping of middle easterners", or the "white washing of their culture", they will also have to contend with the ultra conservatives who would be misguided into believing that WoTC was trying to turn some child into a jihadist.

By the end of the day their would be much facepalming by the rpg community as a whole.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I want a Plantnomicon! And more modron stuff - I'm just that kind of nerd.

Seriously, how can you run out of ideas for D&D?

Look at WotC's release schedule in the last two years of 3.5. It's clearly possible to do. Yes, they could have released a Giantanomicon -- something many of us wanted -- and the second wave of "Complete" books was better than the first, but by that point, most of the rules being introduced were wildly different than what was in the core books -- reserve feats and the Book of 9 Swords were clearly dry runs for 4E, for instance -- and the main well had been drained.

If 3.5 was still selling at the levels you seem to think it could/should, they would still be selling it. They gave us a new edition because 3.5 wasn't making the kind of money they needed it to. End of story. Restarting a failing line years later isn't likely to give them a different result, either.

(And I say this as a 3.5 DM and a 3.5 player.)