delericho
Legend
Uh, Doctor Evil. That has already happened. Someone did make a "Star Wars D&D". They were called "Wizards of the Coast". It didn't make a bazillion dollars, though.
Sufficiently advanced ineptitude is indistinguishable from malice.
D&D General Why Mike Mearls left D&D, an interview by Ben Riggs.
- Thread starter darjr
- Start date
Uh, Doctor Evil. That has already happened. Someone did make a "Star Wars D&D". They were called "Wizards of the Coast". It didn't make a bazillion dollars, though.
Sufficiently advanced ineptitude is indistinguishable from malice.
humble minion
Legend
The way I read it, Mearls wasn't saying Lucasfilm, he was saying someone LIKE Lucasfilm. Damned if I know who though. GoT was well in the rear view mirror by then. Maybe Marvel, before they committed to their bespoke system? Maybe even Critical Role?
Regardless ... I don't entirely buy it. Too much of what Mearls says is contrary to the observed history. In the first leaks of the draft nuOGL, remember, there was that bit about how 'use of the OGL has expanded far beyond its original intent' and 'it was never intended to allow people to put out full competing rulesets' and how nuOGL was intended to fix that perceived problem. That reasoning and that line of argument was aimed squarely between Paizo's (and EN Publishing's and Green Ronin's, etc etc) eyes. Similarly, the big scary threat that WotC quoted at the time was the possbility of Facebook takling the system and putting it into the Metaverse (yes really, don't laugh!)
And the ceiling of $750k per year gross revenue beyond which crippling royalties had to be paid - that was very clearly NOT aimed at big IP companies, Amazon or Facebook or Lucasfilms, and it's ludicrous to suggest it was. The freaking manufacturers of D&D know how much money is (or isn't...) in the RPG industry. They know the economics of the sector, and can make a solid guess at the relative scale of an organisation that's making that amount of revenue. There's absolutely no possible doubt that this figure was deliberately chosen in order to break the medium-large 3rd party publishers, to either reduce them to outsource houses, or to force them to shut up shop and go back to being individuals selling off DMsGuild.
No, I'm afraid I simply don't believe Mearls here. Maybe it's how he personally saw the move, maybe it's the line that was fed to the D&D creatives by WotC at the time, - but no, this explanation simply does not sync with the historical facts, as far as I'm concerned.
Last edited:
Paul Farquhar
Legend
Disney? Elon Musk? Lego? The release of a D&D clone with a much bigger marketing budget than Hasbro can muster is a clear and present danger to anyone who understands business and IP law.
humble minion
Legend
Historically ... it hasn't seemed to be that way. There's been many Star Wars RPGs as pointed out above. There's an official Marvel RPG (admittedly they missed the cultural high point of the MCU by some years). There was a LotR RPG at the same time as the movies were out (it was, admittedly, fairly pants). There was a GoT RPG at the same time the show was on. None of them have set the world on fire or meaningfully threatened D&Ds incredibly dominant position. The only major genre property I can think of that HASN'T had a TTRPG is Harry Potter.
D&D has brand cachet of its own. Hell, if someone DID put a Harry Potter RPG out (as an example), the main thing their marketing budget would need to do is to explain what it actually was and how you played it - and what they'd probably resort to is saying "it's like D&D, but..." And if you released a flat-out clone, in the fantasy adventures genre, then even that would be a struggle. You wouldn]t have anything to say after 'but...'
RPGs aren't a huge market, on a global scale, and so much of it is heavily anchored to D&D, that I think your scenario is a bit improbable. If you're REALLY trying to break D&D's hold on the market by out-advertising WotC, you'd have to spend so much on advertising over such a long time that it'd pretty much outweigh any benefits you'd get, surely.
Presumably, Wizards got a cut of whatever money it did make, though. That's what they're afraid won't happen next time.
Also, the title of the interview is "Why Mike Mearls left D&D", and as far as I can tell the only answer is "No, it's not what the rumors say."
mamba
Legend
yeah, if you are willing to burn $500M to make $50M and take away some market share from D&D in the process, you probably can.
Assuming you still need to turn a profit, it will be very hard to make a dent
LuisCarlos17f
Legend
Let's imagine Epic Games for their Fortnite created a virtual tabletop. This could be a serious rival for Sigil project, and this would be the fear by Hasbro.
I would like to know if there are "good vibes" between Hasbro and Epic Games. There were some collabs about Fortnite but it is like if they didn't trust each other yet.
I would like to know if there are "good vibes" between Hasbro and Epic Games. There were some collabs about Fortnite but it is like if they didn't trust each other yet.
delericho
Legend
But none of these is as big as Star Wars, so if no SW RPG is making that money, it's pretty safe to say nothing else will. The value of "Dungeons & Dragons" is in the brand, which was and is protected.
As you point out in the rest of your post, that line of argument just doesn't stack up.
Sure. But they also know that a SW RPG neither stands to make the money claimed, nor is any threat to D&D.
I don’t believe he was saying this was what was actually happening at any of these companies. He was saying this was the WotC’s corporate executives’ fear of what could happen.
dave2008
Legend
What he described to me was more of a mistake than ineptitude to me, but I guess it is a bit of semantics
Similar Threads
