Bloat [Forked Thread: Where does this idea come from?]

[Lanefan]

Forked from: Where does this idea come from? (Forked Thread: The still "complete" list)

Re: publication bloat:

It really, really isn't. If you'd like, I'll be happy to go into why setting bloat is far worse for the company (if not the market) than "other bloat," but this thread probably isn't the place for it. Feel free to fork, if you care enough to pursue it.

Done.

I may be in the minority here, but I generally find new settings far more interesting than (yet more) new rules. And adventure modules are better than both...I don't count them in any sort of bloat-related discussion.

In 1e, for example, even late in the run - say, 1988 - I could start a complete all-rules-in game with what, 9 books (PH, DMG, MM x 3, UA, OA, DSG, WSG), and one could argue that the last three aren't necessary. Throw in a couple of adventures and maybe a box-set setting (FR or Greyhawk) and I'm good to rock. Better yet, those books were released over a long period, so the annual expenditure wasn't much at all.

Compare that with 3e late in its run - say, end of 2007 - and for an all-official-rules-in game (ignoring 3rd-party), how many books did you need? I don't know them all and thus can't give an answer, but it'd be many more than 9.

With 4e, the philosophy of "everything is core" means that for an all-rules-in game you need to buy every book (except setting books) that WotC has released, and go on doing so. (or subscribe to the DDI and print 'em yourself; same cost if not more) And we passed 9 books a while back...

Except the original 4E model was never about "There will be three core books a year, and nothing more." Yes, they said one new PHB, DMG, and MM per year, but they never once claimed, or even implied, that those would be the only books.

The impression I got, though maybe wishful thinking on my part, was it'd be "three core books a year and very little more".

Lanefan

 

[Mouseferatu]

Okay, in reverse order...

The impression I got, though maybe wishful thinking on my part, was it'd be "three core books a year and very little more".

It was, indeed, wishful thinking on your part. Such was never stated or implied, and would, in fact, be an impossible business plan for any major RPG setting.

So, on to the major point...

I may be in the minority here, but I generally find new settings far more interesting than (yet more) new rules. And adventure modules are better than both...I don't count them in any sort of bloat-related discussion.

That may be, but we're talking about the company, and the market as a whole, not the preferences of certain individuals. (For those who followed us over, my contention was that "setting bloat" is far worse for WotC, or any other major RPG company, than "other bloat.") Here's what I'm talking about...

We have the overall D&D Market, which (for purposes of this discussion) consists of anyone who currently plays or might be interested in playing. I'm going to abbreviate it DDM, from this point onward.

Also for purposes of this discussion, we're going to leave out two sub-groups of the DDM. Those groups are:

Collectors, who buy pretty much every book produced for D&D. They don't need to be factored into our thinking, because they're a safe bet unless the company really pisses them off.

Borrowers, who almost never buy the books. We don't need to consider them, because while they're technically part of the potential market, they're not really among the buyers we have to shoot for.

Both of the above are, of course, simplifications, but they'll do for our purposes.

Okay so far?

So, other than the PHB itself (and even that's debatable), no D&D book is going to appeal to the entire DDM. Every single D&D book published, from the DMG itself to a campaign setting to the smallest adventure has a target market (hereafter abbreviated TM) which is made up of only a portion of the overall DDM. The larger a book's TM--that is, the greater the portion of the DDM that it appeals to--the better it's likely to sell.

This, obviously, fluctuates. Some people outside the anticipated TM may buy a book, and some people in it will decide not to. We're talking anticipated markets, and general trends. But they'll tend to even out.

So, let's look at a book like Martial Power. The TM for a book like that is pretty big, since it consists of anyone who's playing a martial class, is thinking of playing a martial class, or really likes the martial classes.

Compare that to, say, the core setting book for Eberron or Forgotten Realms. The TM for such a book consists of people running that setting, some of the people playing in that setting, and people who are so fond of settings that they'll buy any of them.

Can you take a guess which TM is larger? I'll give you a hint; it's the first one.

That's okay, because while the TM for a book like Martial Power may be larger, the TM for the core book of a popular setting is still plenty big enough to make it worthwhile.

But that's the core book of the setting. The problem now is that, for each setting book beyond the first, the size of your TM shrinks by an enormous percentage.

If WotC publishes a book on the planes, their TM is any DM or player who enjoys planar campaigns or planar influence within said campaigns. But if WotC publishes a book on, say, the planes of Eberron (back when the cosmologies were wildly different), their TM is limited to Eberron DMs or players who have said interest.

And the more esoteric you get, the more your Target Market shrinks to a smaller and smaller percentage of the D&D Market, because you're already started off at a disadvantage by restricting your TM to fans of a given setting.

(That's one of the main reasons for WotC's decision, in 4E, to limit settings to a 3-book model: Because the more books you have on a given setting, the more you're getting into diminishing returns.)

Now, let's look at TSR back in the 2E era. They had an enormous number of settings, each of which was being supported to a greater or lesser extent. And each one was, by definition, targeted at only a tiny portion of the market, because only a sliver of the market (even if it was, in some cases, a wide sliver) was into any given setting. Every spot on the schedule reserved for a Planescape book was a spot not being given to a Greyhawk book; every spot for a Ravenloft book was one not being given to Al-Qadim. Heck, take it further. A book about, say, the Ravenloft domain of Souragne would've been targeted only at the portion of the RL market interested in that setting, with the RL market itself only being a portion of the overall D&D market. And all such spots were spots not being given to "generic" books which might have a much larger TM, because they'd appeal to a far greater portion of the market than a setting book.

Or, in shorter terms, any "generic" D&D book is carving its potential niche out of the entire D&D audience. Any setting-specific D&D book is carving its potential niche out of the niche already carved out by the setting itself.

But all these books, whether the Player's Handbook 2 or the Complete Book of Golddwarfistan in Faerun, require (more or less) the same amount of resources. Sure, maybe this book here can reuse some art, or that book there can use less experienced (and thus cheaper) freelancers, but those are minor fluctuations. For the most part, any book of roughly comparable size has the same production and opportunity costs of any other.

So what we have is a situation where WotC is sinking X amount of dollars into a book, no matter what it is. If Book A potentially appeals to, say, one-fifth of the overall D&D market, while Book B potentially appeals to one-half of the Setting 1 market, but that setting itself appeals to only one-fifth of the overall market... Well, I'm not that good at math, but I can see which is the wiser choice.

(BTW, I'm making these numbers up. I don't have access to sales figures, and couldn't share them if I did. I'm talking about theory.)

And that doesn't even take into account other costs, such as the size of print runs (which are, again, based on anticipated sales and the size of the TM), or the question of what other book ideas don't make it onto the schedule to leave room for the book in question.

Bottom line: Setting books (perhaps beyond the initial core guides, if that) are almost innately lower sellers, or at least far greater risks, than "generic" books. And if each said book is a potential loss, how much worse for the company when the majority of the catalog is made up of such books?

Yeah, it sucks for people who prefer settings over crunch. And I'm not being dismissive what I say that; I'm a setting-whore myself. So this may not play into any individual's idea of "bloat." But where the company is concerned, and where the bulk of the market is concerned, this is just the way it is. A bloat of setting material can be far more harmful to the bottom line than even a much larger surplus of "generic" sourcebooks can be.

And this may just be the single longest post I've ever made on ENWorld.

 

[Lanefan]

OK, I'll concede your points re market share and settings; that all makes sense.

But, we're still left with problem one: overall bloat, now and forthcoming.

Business models be damned, there comes a time when either one has to ask "how much is too much" and slow things down drastically, or collapse the edition (as happened with 2e and to some extent 3e) and start again.

Collapsing the edition is not, to me, an acceptable solution.

As for market share, there's another way around it: instead of scattergunning out 25 books in a year, each appealing to a greater or lesser extent of the market, why not just hype out one or two? Make a Big Deal out of them (and, of course, make them top-notch in quality and content), and nigh everyone in the market will buy each one. 1e's Unearthed Arcana is an example of this, though one could argue not all the content was top-notch. This is sort-of what I thought WotC would be doing with the annual PH-DMG-MM releases.

An example for 4e might be a Powers book, but instead of one for each class or role like I gather they're doing, just have one great big one covering everything. The hype for this could have started, for example, shortly after 4e's release, with the book released shortly before last Christmas. And pretty much every 4e player would want it, as no matter what class they play there'd be stuff they could use.

But just do one of these type of things a year, such that someone coming in 5 years down the road doesn't have quite so much catch-up purchasing to do and can thus afford to dive into the game.

And, the profits made from these big sellers can go into producing the lower-run specialty stuff - settings (in box sets!), adventures (though these can sell well too, if they're any good), and so forth.

Lan-"I see this as a hobby rather than an industry - am I evil?"-efan

 

[Mouseferatu]

Collapsing the edition is not, to me, an acceptable solution.

Unfortunately, there's no way around it.

Look at every successful RPG in existence, and you'll find multiple editions. Some come faster, some slower, but they all arrive, because there will always come a point where one of two things happens:

1) The company does, indeed, run out of ideas that are sufficiently salable, or

2) The staff comes up with better ways to do things.

As for market share, there's another way around it: instead of scattergunning out 25 books in a year, each appealing to a greater or lesser extent of the market, why not just hype out one or two?

Because it's not workable.

First, no matter how you hype a given book, it's still never going to appeal to the entire market. It's possible to come close on occasion--I'd hazard a guess that the PHBs are all in the ballpark--but that's a rare event.

More importantly, though, even if WotC could guarantee that, say, two books a year would sell that well, that's still not nearly enough to support the line.

An example for 4e might be a Powers book, but instead of one for each class or role like I gather they're doing, just have one great big one covering everything.

And the results would be either a book that's so big that it costs more than the average gamer is willing to pay, or has so little material for each specific class that you start losing buyers who want more material for the class they're playing. In either case, you still wind up with fewer sales than you do with a more targeted approach, because people aren't usually willing to pay for material they don't want. If Person X isn't interested in, say, divine classes, he's probably not going to shell out $60 for a book that devotes a quarter of its pages to those classes.

But just do one of these type of things a year, such that someone coming in 5 years down the road doesn't have quite so much catch-up purchasing to do and can thus afford to dive into the game.

As I said above, it won't support the line. It won't even come close. An RPG company doesn't make money if it doesn't keep printing books, no matter how well previous books might've sold.

And, the profits made from these big sellers can go into producing the lower-run specialty stuff - settings (in box sets!), adventures (though these can sell well too, if they're any good), and so forth.

And what you end up with is a company that goes out of business. See, this is exactly what TSR did--they funneled money from more successful lines into less successful ones, and the final result was that what profits they did earn were eaten up pumping out more niche material. If a company with multiple product lines wants to succeed, each line must stand or fall on its own. And if a company that produces multiple types of products wants to succeed, each type of product must, at least for the most part, stand or fall on its own. Otherwise, the company makes no profit even if some of its stuff is doing well.

Lan-"I see this as a hobby rather than an industry - am I evil?"-efan

You're not evil, but you're also not responsible for running a business. You can afford to see it as a hobby. A company that wants to actually stay in business cannot, no matter how much people might wish they could.

Would WotC be able to avoid moving on to 5E if they slowed down their production to what you're talking about? Sure--not because there wouldn't be a need for it, but because it'd kill the D&D line stone dead. It's fine line to walk--too much product and too little product are both lethal--and frankly, I don't envy the folks at any RPG company who have to make that decision.

 

[Fifth Element]

Ari, you seem to have a good deal of business sense. And an ability to write about it clearly and concisely. (I suppose the latter should be less surprising than the former.)

I for one am glad WotC runs D&D as a business rather than a hobby. I like being able to buy new D&D books. If they operated as a hobby, my ability to do that would soon disappear.

 

[ggroy]

An example for 4e might be a Powers book, but instead of one for each class or role like I gather they're doing, just have one great big one covering everything. The hype for this could have started, for example, shortly after 4e's release, with the book released shortly before last Christmas. And pretty much every 4e player would want it, as no matter what class they play there'd be stuff they could use.

I would be very reluctant to buy such a book, if it was one of those huge beasts with over 500 pages and an MSRP of over 55 or 60 bucks.

 

[Storminator]

And, the profits made from these big sellers can go into producing the lower-run specialty stuff - settings (in box sets!), adventures (though these can sell well too, if they're any good), and so forth.

I'd just like to comment on this part.

If I have a successful business line and an unsuccessful one, does it make sense to push resources from the success to the failure? Shouldn't I reinvest the profits in the successful venture, thereby becoming more successful?

Doesn't this hold true no matter what the business is?

PS

 

[malraux]

With 4e, the philosophy of "everything is core" means that for an all-rules-in game you need to buy every book (except setting books) that WotC has released, and go on doing so. (or subscribe to the DDI and print 'em yourself; same cost if not more) And we passed 9 books a while back...

Good God, why? Unless someone is playing a character that benefits from Arcane Power, why on earth would you have to buy AP? Moreover, if the player wants those things, shouldn't it be incumbent upon him to buy AP? Even if you restrict your DM purchases to just DM books, I don't see why every DM needs a copy of MotP or Dragonomicon. Those only matter if your game needs them to matter.

Core doesn't mean you have to buy.

edit: I will admit that WotC has pretty much made DDi a must purchase for any DM. But that's only because its so good.

 

[Bumbles]

I would be very reluctant to buy such a book, if it was one of those huge beasts with over 500 pages and an MSRP of over 55 or 60 bucks.

I know a number of people back in 2nd edition who liked the Monstrous Compedium or whatever they called the big white book. Others wanted several books to use instead.

And that's a case where little re-formatting would have been necessary.

 

[billd91]

I can see the hypothesis that multiple setting support is more troublesome for the business model than putting out lots of more general, setting neutral products. It makes sense that the different settings are going to compete with each other more than general class power and expanded monster books will.

But I do think that there's a class of sourcebooks that fits between the general class power books and specific settings. The various specialty monster books like the Draconomicon and generalized environment books like 3.5's Frostburn and Stormwrack, I think, offer a certain amount of competition, softer than the specific settings, but more substantial than general class power expansions. And like with 3.5, I fully expect WotC will probably put out quite a few of these as part of their business model.

While these have more general appeal than the specific settings, they are more specialized and subject to rejection by a buyer because they don't fit their particular type of campaign or simply have less useful rule/idea density for their money. Completists will pick them up, but a lot of us who approach our gaming purchases with more of a budget in mind, will do more picking and choosing, much like we would for specific settings books.