D&D 3.x 3.5: Out With A Whimper

[Firevalkyrie]

While the PS2 still outsells the PS3.

Which is actually not true. PS2 games still outsell PS3 games. But that's because there are far more PS2 consoles out there (on the order of 120 million units, compared to about 5.5 million PS3 units) than PS3. It's a larger market to begin with, by an order of magnitude. But after the PS3 launched, PS2 console sales fell away to a tiny fraction of their pre-launch levels. And even the best-selling post-PS3 launch games are selling at a much slower pace than their pre-PS3 launch counterparts. It's not going to be terribly long before companies stop making PS2 back-ports of their PS3-compatible games.

The comparison is also not terribly valid, because the buy-in for the PS3 is so ridiculous (I can buy a laptop computer for the $500 it would cost to buy a 60gb PS3), and other next-gen consoles are doing much better relative to their previous-gen counterparts - The Wii all but stopped sales of GameCube consoles and games, likewise with the Xbox 360 (I went to GameStop at Mall of America yesterday and saw a huge pile of unloved GameCubes and Xboxen selling for $29.99 each).

 

[Reynard]

Don't get me wrong -- most of the sentiment behind hy OP is "wishful thinking" rather than condemnation of WotC for "poor business practices" (since I wouldn't know what led them to the decisions they have made). Intuitively though, it seems that in this situation, where the job of WotC is to convince the existing player/consumer base to go to 4E, that it would be in their best interest to go out with a bang on 3E, keep people interested and invested and, most importantly, playing.

Free dungeon adventures on the web don't strike me as the most they can do, as most groups don't use pre-published adventures.

I imagine (and I have no way of actually knowing) that keeping Dragon and Dungeon as print magazines, extending Paizo's contract in such a way to make them 4E preview mags and 3.5 support would have gone a long way toward keeping the pace up and generating good will. Obviously, they had reasons for making the decisions they did.

Kind of a tangent: I find it interesting that adventures have somehow become the key product again (at least in WotC's mind), like they were in the "old days". For the longest time, we have been told (and been telling each other) that adventures don't sell and that crunch-tastic, player-oriented books are where it's at. I wonder what happened a year or two ago that changed this attitude and inspired WotC to really push adventures. The easy answer, for which I have no evidence and therefore don't necessarily believe, is that 3rd party publishers like Paizo, Goodman, Necromancer and Green Ronin proved that adventures do sell and WotC realised that they were behind the ball. But, it seems that WotC started its adventure push about the same time as they say they started 4E development, so maybe it was more of a proactive choice, instead of a reactive one to what other publishers were doing. I think when, how and in what form the new SRD and OGL appear will tell us a lot about what WotC thinks is profitable versus what they think is less profitable but supports the main game.

 

[Doug McCrae]

3) Finally at DDXP this year it was stated by WotC that only DDXP would serve as the source of major announcements. They lied intentionally or unintentionally I don't know but they lied all the same.

No they didn't. They said D&DXP would be the major place to promote D&D. This was misinterpreted as saying all major announcements would be made there.

If you're going to accuse WotC of lying you need to have really solid evidence. You don't, and nor does anyone else.

 

[Nine Hands]

In other news, MS no longer makes X-Box games, preferring to put their resources into 360 games.

Nintendo no longer makes Game Boy games in favor of the DS and has abandoned the GameCube in favor of the Wii.

Companies promoting their new product over one they don't make any more.

Shocking!

The Wii allows you to play game cube games and use game cube controllers directly on the unit. Plus you can download games from older consoles to play too. That does not happen automagically, there is a lot of development work and testing that has to happen.

Nintendo is one of the smartest console companies I have ever seen, solid systems, rugged, and I can play older stuff on it. I wish RPG companies could follow suit but I think its really hard for them to do.

 

[Firevalkyrie]

The Wii allows you to play game cube games and use game cube controllers directly on the unit. Plus you can download games from older consoles to play too. That does not happen automagically, there is a lot of development work and testing that has to happen.

Nintendo is one of the smartest console companies I have ever seen, solid systems, rugged, and I can play older stuff on it. I wish RPG companies could follow suit but I think its really hard for them to do.

In an RPG, the problem with that is that the processor running the game (the human brain) doesn't change in either speed or power. Most RPGs maintain a sort of backwards compatibility with previous material, but that's because in most RPGs, a new edition basically amounts to errata and bugfixes. If you want to play an older edition, the answer is simple: Just pull it out and play it. Unlike a video game console, you don't have to wire your D&D books into your brain.

Newer consoles emulate older ones in one of two ways: Either by running a software emulator, which is a literal software simulation of the hardware of the older console, and is slow as hell; or by including the older chipset in the newer console, usually as a sound controller. The Sega Genesis and Saturn, as well as the Sony PS2, did this. The Dreamcast used a more advanced version of the Saturn's CPU. Up until the Wii, reverse compatibility didn't matter worth a hoot in hell to Nintendo; neither the SNES nor the N64 were back-compatible, and for obvious reasons the Game Cube is not back-compatible with any previous Nintendo consoles.

 

[Fifth Element]

The Wii allows you to play game cube games and use game cube controllers directly on the unit. Plus you can download games from older consoles to play too. That does not happen automagically, there is a lot of development work and testing that has to happen.

But it's so completely different that no comparison can be made. You CAN still play older versions of D&D. Just play them. You don't have the equivalent to hardware to worry about.

Nintendo is one of the smartest console companies I have ever seen, solid systems, rugged, and I can play older stuff on it. I wish RPG companies could follow suit but I think its really hard for them to do.

Completely different industries, no comparison. You can play older RPG stuff whenever you want - just play it.

 

[scruffygrognard]

I'm sorry could you point to where EXACTLY I said that Nick Louge and Ari were putting out crap.

POINT TO IT. QUOTE ME.

No inferences, show me when I said that.

If it's not clear that I was addressing in the point that even though something was free it's not immune to critique then you need to RE-READ what I wrote.

Dont be a jerk

The man is correct... he never made any statement to this effect and I agree with his statements.

I have all of Nick Logues adventures on my Amazon Wishlist because I like his adventures. At the same time, I think digital Dungeon and Dragon are crap when compared to the Paizo's versions. There is room for both sets of feelings.

I can love D&D while being annoyed by what I see about 4th edition...

 

[Minicol]

Didn't they have some adventure they cranked out prior to 3e that helped DMs to blow up their 2e worlds? I cannot recall the name of the module right now (Apocolypse something?). I wonder if it was successful? I kind of doubt it.

There were two of those :

"the apocalypse Stone"

"Die ! Vecna Die !"

and then you could also include "Tale of the Comet" and the last Planescape adventure , "Faction War"

So yes, at the time, they were trying to do things right. Sort of. These products were kinda OK, but I did not really feel inclined to run them at the time.

 

[Minicol]

IIRC, they had 3 billed that way. One was The Apocalypse Stone, one was the Reverse Dungeon (which really didn't seem to fit the bill) and the last may have been Die, Vecna, Die (which was a bit more campaign specific, even if it spanned several published campaigns).

No : Reverse Dungeon was a comedic adventure. You played a tribe of poor weak evil little goblins, against the uber-good uber-powerful adventurers.

Very fun !

My longtime players still remember their time at it.

 

[Dormammu]

Oh my! Enough discussion of Nintendo and Sony, please!