Another RPG company with financial difficulties

[MoogleEmpMog]

I see this as a good thing, Moogle. It seems to me that once its mainstream, all you need is the impetus to get people to play it. I think the vehicle has arrived, by the name of World of Warcraft, that has tons of people interested.

I play on an RP server, and tons and tons of people on server are new to rpg's entirely, playing because they heard it was awesome fun(and it is) and now they are rping. These people are | | far from playing D&D next. They understand how to pick a race, a class, and choose talents(feats) inside of WoW. They understand levelling up. All the need is a gaming group to join.

I am convinced its a huge market available to tap. Lots of people on WoW have played D&D, but so many more have never played it, or really heard of it. One little push, and they'd be on the dark side with me.

But why? Why play D&D (online, at least) when they can just play World of Warcraft? If they do the latter, they can roleplay to their hearts content and immerse themselves in gorgeous Blizzard artistry and game design.

I would lump RPG players roughly into three categories for marketing purposes: storytellers, dungeon crawlers and tacticians. Of course, most gamers hit multiple categories.

Storytellers can do their thing in any system. If they just like experiencing good stories, then books, movies and console RPGs serve their needs. They need a pen-n-paper game only if they want to tell their own tales with others. These people can be seen online doing 'collaborative storytelling' and sometimes fanfic. The "new" competition for their business is comprised of console RPGs, internet message boards and isolated RP groups in MMORPGs.

Dungeon crawlers espouse the Steve Jackson's Munchkin motto. They need a system for fast, crazy combat and lots and lots of loot. Games like Diablo, and to a lesser extent like Baldur's Gate and most MMORPGs, serve their needs. Many are beer-and-pretzels gamers IRL, and they need a pen-n-paper game to get together with friends. The "new" competition for their business is comprised of PC RPGs, collectible card games and most MMORPGs.

Tacticians want a robust ruleset, time to plan and a challenging experience. Stories are fine; battles that require almost puzzle-like precision to escape alive are better. Games like Alpha Centauri, Heroes of Might and Magic and Final Fantasy Tactics serve their needs. These games are rarer - on the PC, they've almost vanished entirely. They need a pen-n-paper RPG for infinite tactical options or just for the chance to play a strategy game that doesn't require as much manual as mental dexterity. The "new" competition for their business is comprised of Tactics RPGs and turn-based strategy games, and that market has all but vanished.

Only the Tactician isn't as well served by a MMORPG as by online D&D, and even he is likely to dislike playing without a map and minis.

 

[Seeten]

But why? Why play D&D (online, at least) when they can just play World of Warcraft? If they do the latter, they can roleplay to their hearts content and immerse themselves in gorgeous Blizzard artistry and game design.

There is no reason people cant do both. It isnt an either/or. I LOVE my computer, but sometimes I just dont want to sit in front of it. My eyes get sore, my hands cramped, etc. I AM getting old, and obviously thats part of it, but sometimes relaxing on a couch is good. RP'ing is fun. I know am preaching to the choir, but I think some of us have forgotten how much fun it is. A generation ago, people didnt play ANY games because adults dont play games.

Our generation plays video games. RPG's. We game because its fun. Many people havent been exposed to this brand of fun, and once they are, they are hooked. We just need to get them to experience it, and WoW is doing that for us, in many cases.

 

[Turjan]

It's not that CRPGs just appeared last year. There was the Ultima series, there was Baldurs Gate, etc. Most of these games allowed the player some roleplaying experience, but the path was very much set. If you played the game several times, that was it.

If we then look at MMORPGs, there were only 2 real successes so far: Everquest and Ultima Online. Most other games with their superior graphics got boring very fast. Ultima Online is a phenomenon, because you had very broad choices there, despite its shoddy graphics. However, most people get bored with games like this after some time. The developers try to make the game interesting by changing things constantly, but this only helps so much. It's the same game, nevertheless.

I expect WoW to be a huge success. It will probably have an enormous player base. However, lastly no CRPG so far can compete with the versatility of the own imagination. Tabletop RPGs are more work, and they take very much time to play them, and they need more organization, yes. But they are immensively more flexibel than any CRPG can be. It's no guaranty for tabletop RPGs to stay, but it's a good chance .

On a sidenote: For quite a lot of people, CRPGs are the entry point to the tabletop RPG hobby. It's not a one-way road .

 

[Seeten]

WoW already is a huge success. it has 84 FULL servers. It sold out all copies in 6 weeks. Its had to double servers, double bandwidth and it still isnt close to enough. I know people locally who want to buy it by the dozen but cant because they are waiting on the second run of copies to go out. It has over 800,000 subs in 7 weeks. Its unheard of. EQ topped out at over 400,000 last I heard, and it was the 800 pound gorilla. WoW kidney punched it. Whats more, its unqualified fun. There is dungeon crawling, lockpicking, trap finding, sneaking, backstabbing, crafting(like D&D!) it is so D&D its scary.

I am not just talking about playing D&D online either. This has to be a springboard for people wanting to do it, I have been more inspired to play D&D than ever since starting up on WoW.

 

[Turjan]

Whats more, its unqualified fun. There is dungeon crawling, lockpicking, trap finding, sneaking, backstabbing, crafting(like D&D!) it is so D&D its scary.

So it's more like Ultima Online than Everquest . I thought UO had the much superior concept, anyway, just shoddy graphics. Many of my friends play WoW now, but I have sworn off online RPGs; they are unbelievable time eaters.

 

[Nisarg]

here are what I se as other culprits:

1) Unprofessional companies muddying the industry.

Given that between WoTC and White WOlf you have, what, 75% of the "industry" in terms of what sells, I don't know how much the "unprofessional companies" can really be affecting any decline in membership to the gaming community.

The ugly fact that most people who come to these boards seem to want to forget is that the "industry" cannot be considered without considering the 800-lb. gorilla, and that really that gorilla named WoTC (and maybe his little chimp buddy WW) are actually the only part of the "industry" that matter at all.

You mentioned RPG.now; but really, how much of roleplaying's profits go through RPG.now? What percentage of sales?

The truth is that if every single gaming company on the face of the planet spontaneously combusted with the exception of Wizards of the Coast, there'd STILL be a gaming industry, and many of the people in the hobby wouldn't even have noticed the change.

2) Redundant D20 product.

3) Lack of collective strategy

Again, see above.

"collective strategy" really wouldn't matter much if it was every company other than WoTC working together, they'd still be ants.
On the other hand, if Wizards has a "strategy", it need not be "collective" at all. The others really wouldn't make a difference.

Now, if you do change this into a criticism of Wizards, I might agree with you. They aren't doing enough, either to reform the public image of the game (not totally sure how they could do this, though), nor to get in newer younger gamers (though the basic set is a definite step in the right direction!).

5) Not enough new gamers.

. . . because you can never say this enough.

Now, this one I'll agree with.

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

Well, given that (A) the entire industry seems happy to allow D&D (and maybe Vampire and Star Wars) to be the only games that bother to try to recruit new gamers, (B) that these gatekeeper games affect the make-up of most of the people in the hobby, and (C) few experienced gamers seem to have the ability to understand what begining gamers really need, that's not really surprising.

It's as if all publishers relied on a single publisher of military history non-fiction to teach the population to read and then tried to pitch their books on other subjects to the fan base the military history publisher already recruited.

This is really brilliantly put.

In particular, point "C". SO few people in the "industy" out there today seem to understand that what most people want is a game that is fun, principally, and a GAME. Not an "improvisational theatre experience": they don't need fifty pages on role-playing styles. They need a neat, relatively simple, tactical system that allows them to have concrete mechanics to play an adventure, usually with relatively little RP involved. The typical online forum pundit today wants RPGs that are either very low-rules and high on "story", or very high on rules and high on story. Neither of these are ideal for getting new blood.

Most people's (most of us older guys anyways) first experiences were with the old D&D (either the original books, or the Red Basic set, or AD&D1st). If you try to think back to those days, and those first sessions, there was precious little roleplay going on, and what there was of it was something you were able to make out on your own, after all none of those old games were particularly fabulous at giving character interpretation guidelines beyond "the paladin must be Good" etc.

Now imagine you at 12, 14, 15, whatever, playing your first rpg, had some old wanker show up telling him all about how he has to play a sophisticated character, and giving him a manual filled with garbage about "interpretation"; it would be relatively easy for the teenaged version of you to decide that either the game was dull, or that this was clearly not meant for your age range and you'd best go off and play Vice City.

And that is why we lose new players today. They aren't being catered to. In fact, if a company had the brilliance to make a game designed for younger, newer players based on what those players would really like (ie. a simple but concrete set of rules allowing for something fun without seriousness, and comprehensibly identifiable as a "game" rather than as "art", "group therapy", or "improvisational theatre"...oh, and cheap), I'd wager that far too many of the forum-pundits here would slam it into the ground for being "crap" or "broken", or "discouraging roleplay", etc etc.

Its sad, but really its that exclusionist, incestuous, "we want only what we like and we don't need new people" mentality that is killing the industry; not having too many d20 companies around. Its the mentality of someone saying "my life with master" would be a good introductory rpg with a straight face. Its the total disconnect from reality of people talking about the "state of the rpg industry" and claiming that D&D should be exluded from consideration in the discussion. Its the quixotism of believing the average gamer gives a damn about Origins, or what's happening on the Forge, or even what's happening on Enworld.

And this small-minded "internet fanboy" mentality wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't that so many damn game designers are on these fora too, and you spend enough time here, you start to believe that these places are representative of what gamers really are, and really want. Its a disconnect from the truth.

I mean, you get the opinion of a 100 guys on Rpg.net to figure out how to make a "breakthrough rpg" product, then you only sell 100 copies and claim the industry is falling to pieces.. thats what this amounts to.

Nisarg

 

[Seeten]

What they'd actually say about this game is, "Its stupid dumbed down garbage."

Its what we all said about M:tG's "Starter" products, designed to be relatively simple and get people into magic, to let them build up to complexity.

 

[Seeten]

Oh and they worked, and got new people into the game.

 

[Nisarg]

Satanist goth? Now that's got to be a niche category.

Yea, I considered the Satanistic angle for advertising. That's bad publicity, which isn't always that bad. It could spark some sales from churches buying the PHB for burning purposes.
.

Um, its only "bad publicity" if your target market is evangelical christians and moms. If, on the other hand, you would rather target the teenager market, its excellent publicity.

Look at the music industry: one of their cheapest, most successful moneymaking schemes ever was the "Parental warning sticker": A CD with one of those stickers is about 200 times more likely to be bought by a teenager just because of its presence.

The real problem with the "satanist" thing is that it's been done before, like someone said: the goths are all taken by WW.

If there was some conceivable way to create a "D&D causes your child to engage in promiscuous sex orgies" rumour, we'd be set.

Unfortunately, that would require pretty much a 180º shift from the current popular opinion, which is that D&D guarantees your child won't have sex till he's at least 22...

Nisarg