If Hasbro Pulls the Plug....

[S'mon]

Is that 50-100 million in revenue or profits? Compared to GWs consistent revenue of £120-130 million over the past couple of years, the latter figure seems unlikely to be reached, or even to be within reach. Though I suppose it depends on whether the book division is considered part of D&D or not, since I suspect that's a larger source of revenue than the RPG.

Revenue, surely. DDI appears to be bringing in around $6 million annually judging by the subscriber figures, and RPG book sales may bring in a similar amount. Fairly small beer, but novel sales are probably more significant. If Games Workshop(?) are taking in $200 million a year that's pretty impressive, comparable to fairly major software companies, and much more than any sums I've seen discussed for RPG companies.

 

[S'mon]

Thanks for the clarification. It would seem that creating a clone would be a challenge. The question may be whether someone be willing and able to take the effort to create a clone.

Yup. There are certainly people in the industry who could do it safely; the guy who runs Kenzer (David Kenzer?) comes to mind - ie someone who is both a games designer and an IP lawyer.

But it's much more of a challenge than previous retro-clones IMO, you can't just take the d20 SRD and tweak it to look more like older editions. You have to strip down the 4e mechanics to their absolute basics and rebuild from the ground up without referring to any non-SRD text. You can then use SRD fluff, eg your description of Duergar needs to come from the SRD: Dwarf :: d20srd.org - and you can't copy/paste the 4e MM2 stat block; I wouldn't use the new fluff about beard spines etc either.

I think Class Powers are a particular issue, they seem designed to make separating 'game mechanics' from 'copyrightable expression' extremely difficult. To be safe I think you'd really need to create brand-new classes with new powers, though I think they could utilise the underlying 4e mechanical structure, eg the AEDU power distribution.

In the end, you would have a game that used 4e mechanics, but might not actually feel all that much like 4e.

Of course, you do not need to create a 4e clone to legally create & distribute 4e-compatible RPG material, that just needs a basic knowledge of trade mark law.

 

[Aldarc]

It is mainly the fact that D&D is the public face that RPGs wear. While I really hope that Pathfinder will eventually get to that point, I don't think that it is there yet.

The Auld Grump

It's hard for me to accept that Pathfinder could ever hope to achieve the level of brand recognition as D&D, and I think even Paizo would mourn the loss of the D&D name. If Hasbro was willing to sell the D&D brand name, then I can guarantee you that Paizo would be just as willing to start calling Pathfinder by the name Dungeons & Dragons. When D&D is practically synonymous with Tabletop RPG in the minds of the public then you know that D&D is definitely THE name of TRPG.

 

[Frostmarrow]

If six guys play Warhammer in a campaign they each need rule books, army books plus $100 worth of miniatures. Not to mention dice, templates, scenery, brushes and paint. If six guys play D&D in a campaign they need rule books, dice, sheets of paper and pencils. It looks to me as if wargaming is a lot more profitable than role-playing gaming. I can see why Wizards is trying to find a market for cards, subscriptions, miniatures, dungeon tiles and boardgames.

 

[wingsandsword]

What I would really miss is the "fluff" of D&D proper that doesn't make it into PF or some retroclone products- the illegal monsters (beholders, Mind Flayers, etc ) , the named Deities (GH, FR, etc), the named magic items, The famous dungeons and adversaries (Inverness, Vecna, Snurre Ironbelly, Eclavdra e.g.), the campaign settings, etc.

Agreed. While the OGL makes the basic rules of D&D immortal through clones of the 3.x edition, and some OGL retroclones like OSRIC have effectively provided immortality to 1e AD&D rules, it's the "product identity" a.k.a. "fluff" which I think defines D&D uniquely compared to other games.

Beholders
Illithid
Githyanki (& their silvers swords and the Lich Queen)
The Great Wheel Cosmology (& Sigil, Factions, and the Blood War)
Vecna, Grummsh, Corellon Larethian (& other deities unique to D&D lore)
The Forgotten Realms and all it entails (pre-spellplague for me at least)

It's still fun without it, but that seems to be a lot of the spark that makes it truly D&D. You can have a D&D game without all that. . .but it just seems wrong for it not to even be in the frame of reference.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Does anyone else feel sad when copyright laws are the bugle heralding the potential success (or survival) of our hobby?




FOR THE LAWYERS, HEYWWWWH!!!!!!!!

 

[OpsKT]

Does anyone else feel sad when copyright laws are the bugle heralding the potential success (or survival) of our hobby?




FOR THE LAWYERS, HEYWWWWH!!!!!!!!

More than you know. Between the lawyers and folks in marketing, the hobby looks so far away from what it was when I started 23 years ago...

 

[Treebore]

D&D is NOT the "gateway" to playing RPG's. We are.

 

[Aldarc]

D&D is NOT the "gateway" to playing RPG's. We are.

Then we are a fractured and feuding "gateway," which hardly bodes well either.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

D&D is NOT the "gateway" to playing RPG's. We are.

This.

How many of you would stop gaming entirely just because D&D stopped being published in a shiny new edition? How many of you would stop inviting friends to play?

I think that if WotC ceased publishing D&D, the demand for RPGs would stay about the same, and another game or games would fill the vacuum left by D&D's passing. I'm not saying it wouldn't cause some pain and maybe some restructuring of the industry, but it wouldn't mean the death of RPGs. As long as there is sufficient demand for RPGs, there will be games offered to satisfy that demand.

The hobby drives the industry, not the other way around.