3.X Petition

[catsclaw227]

To be fair though, the amount a 3.5 releases seems to have slowed down significantly since the 4E anouncement. Speaking for myself, I still went out a bought MMV, RC and EoE after the 4E anouncement, not to mention a bunch of 3rd party stuff I spotted on sale.

I did this as well, but I am planning to go 4e. I purchased about 10 books from the Green Ronin sale, but I can guarantee that if they didn't have the sale, I wouldn't have bought all the stuff I did.

It appears (from thread here on EnWorld and those on other boards) that many of the people claiming that they are still supporting 3.x with purchases lately are talking about the huge sales at Kenzer, Fantasy Flight Games and Green Ronin. How many of these people would have bought these books' prices weren't so *drastically* reduced?

Also, if I am not mistaken, 3.x sales were falling significantly before the 4e announcement. Maybe Morrus could confirm or deny this. Either way, the people spoke about the long term viability of the 3.x market a long time ago.

Online petitions don't really work. They are easy to fake, and as a result, any company worth it's salt wouldn't even come cloe to considering the results in their business decisions.

I like 3.x, heck I love it, but I plan on going 4e. I will DM my AoW to the end (3.5), and maybe even DM an additional 3.x campaign too. But I won't buy anything more for 3.x, since I already have enough for a lifetime. In my opinion, there's nothing new or innovative to be done anymore with 3.x that I don't already have. My dollars are going to 4e.

 

[kenobi65]

Still there are plenty of industries where niche providers do quite well for themselves, especially when there is no direct competition from the "big boy on the block".

True enough...but RPGs are already a niche category, and most of the 3rd-party 3.5 publishers are very, very small operations to start with. Now we're talking about having them cater to a niche within a niche. At a certain point, there's simply not enough sales for them to be able to serve that market and survive.

 

[VictorC]

While I do love the idea of some people continuing the 3.x line, I really don't see it being all that successful. I am 100% behind the idea, but would hate to see a bunch of small companies loose money. If it does happen I will buy all the books that interest me, and probably just a few that I'm in the right place and time for, but I would hate to see anybody stretch themselves too far and regret it later.

 

[Odhanan]

One trouble with this "remaining market" for 3e is that they don't all want the same 3e. There's a big difference between the products of all of the publishers.

I suspect many DMs wanting to stick with 3.5 have built their homebrews, their houserules, already have several variations of the d20 mechanics, so that's not like they are inexperienced in making compatible game materials fit their own vision of the game.

Now, that said, your remark is true nonetheless, Merric: there is a need, publication-wise, for a single banner, a strong OGL ruleset still in print that would carve the niche and standard for future 3.5 publications. I think this can happen. Whether it will depends on a number of issues on which we all have opinions but very few data to back it up, like how many people will stick to 3.5, how self-sustainable the niche ends up being on the long term, that kind of thing. These are the real questions right now on the 3.75 side-of-things.

 

[catsclaw227]

Now, that said, your remark is true nonetheless, Merric: there is a need, publication-wise, for a single banner, a strong OGL ruleset still in print that would carve the niche and standard for future 3.5 publications. I think this can happen. Whether it will depends on a number of issues on which we all have opinions but very few data to back it up, like how many people will stick to 3.5, how self-sustainable the niche ends up being on the long term, that kind of thing. These are the real questions right now on the 3.75 side-of-things.

I agree that this can happen, and it would be nice to see a revised, patched 3.75 ruleset. I'd love to use it in my AoW game right now.

But I am not sure what company or coalition of companies would be willing to invest the time and resources to pull it off. It could be corporate suicide for a smaller company to try and I don't think that the majors (Green Ronin, Paizo/Necro, Goodman, Kenzer, Mongoose) want to do it without KNOWING it would be profitable. It appears that the current state of 3.x sales figures clearly show that it would not be.

 

[Odhanan]

It appears that the current state of 3.x sales figures clearly show that it would not be.

1/ If you have figures on this, please share them. For the moment, I'm asked to believe people without actual figures to back this up.

2/ This is a peculiar time of anticipation for many fans of the game. Some take breaks from it right now, others read every single piece of 4E info to make their own minds, and so on. If products aren't selling much right now, it may have a lot to do with it, and might change around/after 4E's release.

My bottom line is that it's all opinion and wind so far, on both sides of the conundrum.

 

[kenobi65]

1/ If you have figures on this, please share them. For the moment, I'm asked to believe people without actual figures to back this up.

Several publishers have chimed in on this thread to tell us that they're seeing substantial sales declines. They're unwilling to share actual figures, because that's confidential information. They're citing actual figures (their own); sorry that you can't believe them without seeing those figures, but I don't see where they'd have anything to gain by not telling the truth (even without actual numbers).

 

[catsclaw227]

1/ If you have figures on this, please share them. For the moment, I'm asked to believe people without actual figures to back this up.

2/ This is a peculiar time of anticipation for many fans of the game. Some take breaks from it right now, others read every single piece of 4E info to make their own minds, and so on. If products aren't selling much right now, it may have a lot to do with it, and might change around/after 4E's release.

My bottom line is that it's all opinion and wind so far, on both sides of the conundrum.

There were a number of threads, even before the 4e announcement that discussed the state of the RPG industry with regards to the d20 label and sales figures. Either Bill or Clark from Necro, MongooseMatt, Morrus and others all stated that there was a substantive decline in sales. Now, I imagine, it is worse. Of course they won't show their figures, but these are all stand-up guys and I have no problem believing them on their word.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

To be fair though, the amount a 3.5 releases seems to have slowed down significantly since the 4E anouncement. Speaking for myself, I still went out a bought MMV, RC and EoE after the 4E anouncement, not to mention a bunch of 3rd party stuff I spotted on sale.

The WotC stuff doesn't help. They're not going to keep on producing 3.5 stuff no matter what. Only 3rd party purchases matter at this point, when it comes to getting publishers to continue publishing 3.5 stuff. And picking just one company to support won't do it, either, since they may not be aware that you're buying 3.5 stuff from another company and, frankly, you giving someone else money isn't a real incentive for them to produce stuff you like when, as has been said, they could just aim for the 4E market instead.

2.) While the "vocal minority" might not be a huge slice of the market, I strongly suspect there is still quite a solid market who either aren't interested in changing editions or wont be jumping to 4E until it has "established" itself.

Why aren't they buying, then?

 

[Odhanan]

Why aren't they buying, then?

Because they are confused, because the recent 3.5 market hasn't been providing them (enough) with what they want, because they believe in the crap that says that "you follow 4E or you just give up on D&D/you're a grognard/you don't matter", or any other of many different reasons. I'm sure there might be just as many reasons as there are people reluctant to switch to 4E, actually.