another rpg industry doomsday article (merged: all 3 "Mishler Rant" threads)

[wedgeski]

That was about 1999, which goes to show how reliable decade-out predictions are in this business.

--Erik

Hmm. I predict Erik's post will be quoted a lot in the next few years. ;P

 

[Vigilance]

I seem to recall it was your old magazine, Comics & Games Retailer, but it may have been another that ran a column by Mike Stackpole that lamented how Wizards of the Coast was mis-managing the Dungeons & Dragons brand, offering $1 million to buy the brand with no questions asked.

That was about a year before 3e came out. I remember it because someone, I think Ryan Dancey, was so bemused by the idea that he pinned the article to the corkboard outside the D&D R&D department.

That was about 1999, which goes to show how reliable decade-out predictions are in this business.

--Erik

It was indeed Mike Stackpole.

And even more amusing (in light of what later happened), one of the reasons he felt the D&D brand was being mismanaged was because TSR had never adopted a sweeping metaplot to drive their RPG lines, as FASA's mech games had done (which were what Mike was working on at the time).

His contention was that TSR's collapse was because the lack of a metaplot had burned the audience out.

At least, that's how I remember his article where he expounded on what TSR had done wrong and made his offer to buy the brand.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Why are they silly? Because you, a 4E fan, don't see anything to be saved from? An in-print 3E clone does represent saviour from the 4E game for some, make no mistake.

I'm talking about the people who think 4E is going to fail and Pathfinder will take its place as the RPG leader.

 

[xechnao]

The main advantage Erik Mona has (or, rather, the main advantage of his employer) is that he works with an Open Game Licensed version of Dungeons & Dragons, which allows his company to tap into the largest player network in the industry.

The main advantage Erik Mona has is that he was publisher of official Dragon and Dungeon magazine and helped him build a name, perfect for serving as the standard bearer of the displeased fans of some practices of Wotc business plan and being able to take advantage of this to further develop his name.

The whole deal is about building and keeping momentum. D&D has lots of it and with the OGL opportunities were opened to take advantage of it.

If Wotc did not have a big name due to its huge success of MtG but was an unknown entity instead I am not sure, even if it produced the same 3e as it did in 1999 that D&D and OGL would have had the boom effect they did.

To check out the overall health of the hobby you have to check the health of the overall momentum wave of game consumer population. In this set, RPGs are in theory the most versatile subset due to their toolbox -make your own- nature. Publishers do not want to realize this but instead struggle with all their efforts to capitalize on the current trends, always having in mind the ones that rocketed rpgs to the top positions in the market.

In the end, D&D as a name has nothing to do with it. If D&D fails to pump the necessary waves it will die. If someone manages to create a new wave source, he creates the potential to prevail, even if D&D is not the label name. As we stand, in the current business model, D&D definately has its own brand value but it definately is not the whole deal regarding the dynamics of the hobby market. And in the not so long run the current priority balance of the marketable rpg products will die. Even if people may now want to dismiss this notion due to general impredictability, common sense does not let me buy into this.

Today, in this brutal age, as some people put it, the industry has to start re-realizing the balance of its principles and itself right now if it wants to create a perspective of marketable tabletop rpgs in the long run. But sadly, the current industry gives me the impression that it does not care. It makes me believe that it does not have any power to care and look towards the future.

 

[seskis281]

In the end, D&D as a name has nothing to do with it.

Oh, I think having the brand "Dungeons & Dragons" to put on a product might help just a teensy bit....

 

[Vigilance]

And here we go, it's still online too, here

Here's my favorite bit I think, though there's so much fail here.

How did I pick the year 2000 as when I'd snag TSR? Well, that's when I figure it'll be at its lowest point, approximately three months after the release of the Third Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I predict that product will tank big-time and I'm willing to point out my reasons for that scenario now, a good 18 months out, so TSR can correct the problems and prevent the disaster. And I'm willing to do this even if it will cost me the chance to buy TSR.

The biggest problem I see with the coming product is the direction from which TSR is coming at it. I think the folks working on the project may not be designing a game suited to today's market. I think they may be using this opportunity to turn AD&D3 into what they think AD&D should have been. Game designers (and gamers) are all notorious for this: thinking we know better than the original designer of the game. Working from a basis of nostalgia that contains not a little contempt for the changes made when the second edition came out, I think TSR may be working on a game that would have been state of the art in 1982. I worry it will be rules-heavy, written in an impenetrable style, unintelligible to a beginning player and idiosyncratic enough to annoy players outside the design team. I fear it will come out in a series of five books, each of which will run $35. Sales will spike with the first one, then spiral down in flames. (And, in an attempt to recover from this disaster, TSR could offer a Classic Coke-New Coke dichotomy in subsequent products, but those things couldn't roll out until 2001, which will be far too late.)

The second problem is that TSR's missed what has been successful in the past. Since 1985, with Dragonlance, and certainly 1989 with Vampire and Shadowrun, the lesson in the industry is that worlds sell, not game systems. Deadlands is the latest example of this: The game system is inelegant, but the world is so exciting and vital that folks buy the products. To be able to move AD&D3 and make it a big hit, TSR needs to design a new game world that will be fresh and exciting and pull a lot of readers in. The difficulty there is, as I have pointed out endlessly, TSR/Wizards of the Coast's track record leads one to worry that it couldn't develop an intellectual property if a gun were held to designers' heads. TSR staffers look at things like BattleTech and Shadowrun -- which they contemptuously consider dead lines -- and wonder why they continue to sell. Here's the secret, boys: They continue to sell because the lines reinvent themselves over and over again. Take BattleTech, for example. Since 1987 I've been working to shape the history of that universe. We had the Fourth Succession War (two years), the Clan Invasion (three years), The Chaos March War (two years). and the Twilight of the Clans (two years) -- and that's leading into the new era. FASA has been doing event-based releases for more than a decade that keeps BattleTech fresh and trucking right along. Things are shaped to appeal to the market, to our changing audience.

 

[ggroy]

Well, that's when I figure it'll be at its lowest point, approximately three months after the release of the Third Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I predict that product will tank big-time ...

Heh.

Famous last words.

 

[kitsune9]

Forked from: Mishler's rant part II. (Forked Thread: another rpg industry doomsday article)


Part III of Mishler's rant.

Adventures in Gaming: The Rambling III: Finale

Actually, I like reading these and everyone's responses. I avoid making a stark opinion on this topic as I tend to think it's much ado about nothing. To me, I'm just a gamer. I've got my games and my friends. Sooner or later, life will change, friends will go, games go away, etc., etc. It's a part of life in that good things eventually come to an end. Will it be tomorrow, one year, five years, 10 years from now? Who really knows? Right now, it's the time to just play, have a blast, and roll for initiative.

Happy Gaming!

 

[Vigilance]

Mike Stackpole is actually one of my game design heroes.

But there is just so much arrogance oozing from that article.

It's also interesting to see a 1999 perspective that TSR was losing its way because of a lack of focus on WORLDS.

Most people today seem to think those same world tanked TSR.

 

[Maggan]

And here we go, it's still online too, here

Has anyone read any subsequent analysis from Stackpole?

/M