"Core" and Business Models

[Sundragon2012]

I have some experience in the subscription buisness model from my own buisness.

If you create a good product, the subscription model is the best model for both the customer and the buisness. The customer benefits from a steady stream of useful product and the company is guaranteed to make money on an ongoing basis.

There is no making anyone buy anything they don't want. There is the deliberate doling out of goodies that leaves the customers hungry for more product. If someone is a real fan, they wait with baited breath for everything you release thereby making you more money thereby making you able to make more product and the cycle continues.

As much as I want D&D made by gamers who love the game, which I have NO doubt is the case, I realize that WoTC must remain profitable. If this means they draw in a new batch of 12yr olds through adding elements of Newer fantasy tropes, fine. I won't use much of that stuff, but that's me. I have never been a slavish adopter of D&D's canon core assumptions. However, WoTC knows that there is a large crowd of D&D fanboys who act as if core canon fluff is sacred writ and these people will buy anything and justify its presence in the game no matter how silly it is. I'm glad this unthinking host exists because they keep WoTC afloat keeping D&D alive for those who are, like myself, more descriminating in regards to what we allow in our games.

Just look at the wailing and the gnashing of teeth going on about the succubus and erinyes....did that many people use these critters as integral parts of the game? No, they didn't (outside of planescape fans maybe), but those who are going crazy about something so inconsequential ARE D&D's rabid customers who NEED their core canon fix from on high to legitimize their visions. These folks will buy 4e and they will complain while they do it. Then in 7-8yrs when 5e comes out they will fight to defend 4e fluff as the heart and soul of D&D. And thus the cycle continues.

4e will succeed because of the very people who now complain. They need their core like they need air. Look how many people will not even buy high quality 3rd party supplements because they are not "core" ie. created by WoTC the holy priesthood of the One True Way (tm). Because of these folks, the subscription model is pure genius.



Sundragon

 

[Moon-Lancer]

you make some good points sundragon.

However, I absolutely HATE the subscription mentality and the capitalist craze. Its why I don't buy card games, or miniatures, or play any subscription games. I loathe it. Now that i am seeing that d&d is adding this mentality to the books themselves, that annoys me to no end. I dont like being pushed through manufactured wants and needs. I control my wants and needs, no one else.

What i want is to buy 3 books and get a complete game, like 3.5. If i cant get that with 4e, Then i might just have to go and support someone who is less pushy. and money grubbing.

It may end up this is not the case, and I have judge wtc wrong, and i really hope i have, but i wont be pushed around through unfounded physiological wants and needs that do not exist. everyday its buy this or subscribe to that. If d&d is not going to be my refuge from this, then i dont need them anymore.

 

[Desdichado]

What exactly is the capitalist craze? Are you saying capitalism is some fad that's been going on for the last few months and will fade away again as quickly?

Companies finding new business models to make money is hardly a 'capitalist craze."

I'd call you a communist and give you a now, but I'm not sure that I can.

 

[Hjorimir]

Meh, as far as buying books goes, it doesn't bother me one bit. I have stacks of 3.X books, so I already know that I'm willing to buy books regardless if they are core or not.

However, I do see a hidden positive here over the 3.X model. The old model was that any product was balanced against itself and the core three books. This caused all kinds of balance problems when players started to combine products that were not balanced against one another (feat and PrC combinations being the biggest culprits).

With the new model, WotC will be forced to balance any of the new core books against the rest of the core. This should make for better balance in game mechanics. To me, that's a good thing.

 

[Abstraction]

I may be going out on a limb here, but I think the model that WOTC is going to try to adopt is that of a continuing rules engine. They won't need splat books and I suspect that they may cut out most or all adventures. Weren't modules pretty poor money makers? In that case, they can call anything they want core. It will be up to the homebrewers and the third-party publishers to define what is required to go along with their adventures.

I personally hope that they give us some of the missing iconic information sooner rather than later, as I NEED gnomes in my homebrew and would rather not wait too long for the druid.

BTW, I am getting really tired of the old saw that WOTC is somehow trying to ruin the game. How would that make any business sense? They have some very die-hard D&D people developing 4E who want to see the game get bigger and better. The only smart business model for WOTC is to give the fans what they want now and to keep giving them what they want in the future. I do hope they learned their lesson from Magic. A product cycle that is too tight, too expensive and invalidates previous product will burn the players out. But, unlike Magic, we'll keep playing D&D. We managed to do it with the TSR meltdown, after all.

 

[The Little Raven]

Its why I don't buy card games

You know very little about card games in general if you think they're of this "subscription" style.

Magic and it's collectible siblings are the exception, rather than the rule. Check out games like Vampire: Dark Influences, Anima, Graverobbers from Outer Space, or Lunch Money for card games that don't require you to crack open your wallet to keep competitive (since they're pretty much all close-ended card games).

 

[Sundragon2012]

you make some good points sundragon.

However, I absolutely HATE the subscription mentality and the capitalist craze. Its why I don't buy card games, or miniatures, or play any subscription games. I loathe it. Now that i am seeing that d&d is adding this mentality to the books themselves, that annoys me to no end. I dont like being pushed through manufactured wants and needs. I control my wants and needs, no one else.

Well if designers want to eat, create more product, and keep adding to D&D they have to be capitalistic in this society. WoTC has to turn a profit or D&D is dead. Hey if we lived in a socialist utopia like the Star Trek Federation we could all do want we wanted for the love of the work, but until that time come, WoTC has to sell books.

What i want is to buy 3 books and get a complete game, like 3.5. If i cant get that with 4e, Then i might just have to go and support someone who is less pushy. and money grubbing.

3 books a year for 8yrs would still equal fewer books than the splat book mania that has infected D&D for years. Only 3 books of well thought out, playtested materials would be a blessing IMO.

It may end up this is not the case, and I have judge wtc wrong, and i really hope i have, but i wont be pushed around through unfounded philological wants and needs that do not exist. everyday its buy this or subscribe to that. If d&d is not going to be my refuge from this, then i dont need them anymore.

Even if WoTC only created the 3 books a year, which is a very, very small number of books, there will only be three, the first three that you need. No one has to buy what doesn't interest them. DMs will always have the power to forbid anything that doesn't fit in their game. Maybe if we don't have pile of splat books DMs won't have to disappoint overly eager players who buy splatbooks and think they are entitled to use them. If If there is only one player's book and one DM's book then it will be much easier for DMs to control the stream of materials into their campaigns.

I don't see a down side to any of this.



Sundragon

 

[Nifft]

This concerns me, too. 3E addressed some of the perceived problems of the 2E era. One of those problems was picking up a module and having it reference you to some book you needed to own in order to use it - this was a particular problem with Planescape, IIRC, and one of the reasons I never bought any Planescape product after the first boxed set.

I'd like to see this concern directly addressed. I'd hate to think that WoTC was in danger of making some old mistakes all over again.

Given the success of the Expedition modules, and their format, I think we're in danger of the opposite (but it's not really much of a danger).

By way of explanation: those modules are remarkably self-contained. There are new monsters, there are new rules, and they all are detailed right in their respective encounters.

So I'd worry more that Frost Giants will only be written up in V7: Expedition to the Jarl's Glacier. But if they are, it's not that big a deal IMHO, because those self-contained encounters are remarkably portable to many a home game. So even if you're getting fewer monsters per book, they may be the monsters you want, and they may come with cool set-piece battles and encounters.

Or not. Wildly speculating, -- N

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I don't see a down side to any of this.

Sundragon

we don't know how many splat books their will be. their could be just as many. I don't like the idea of taking whats best about the core of d&d and dividing it and filling the rest in with new stuff or lower quality stuff, unless the srd includes these things.

4e sounds like a really fun game system, but sounds like a nightmare in the way its trying to sell itself.

I realize its a company, that needs money to survive, but it has survived up till now right? I would think that the digital initiative i would think that the game could still support a small core with lots of options like 3.5.

If the wizard was to appear in phb2, how many people would cry foul? I suspect alot more people then are right now. the druid is to me, what many people see the wizard as being to them. with that in mind, i'm sure anyone of you can see it from my perspective, just imagine the wizard is in the phb 2 and its not in the srd.

Thats how i feel right now. I hope the srd includes what wizards is calling core. until then i wait.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

You know very little about card games in general if you think they're of this "subscription" style.

Magic and it's collectible siblings are the exception, rather than the rule. Check out games like Vampire: Dark Influences, Anima, Graverobbers from Outer Space, or Lunch Money for card games that don't require you to crack open your wallet to keep competitive (since they're pretty much all close-ended card games).

I should have been more specific. You are right.