Critical Role Announces Publishing Company

The first game will be a board/card game called Uk’otoa. This will be followed by role playing game products including Syndicult, “an original modern magic roleplaying game designed by Matthew Mercer in which mob families jealously guard secrets and battle it out for power on the city streets.”

Announcing Darrington Press, Our Game Publishing Company | Critical Role

critrole.com

I’ve long wondered whether there might one day be the official Critical Role role playing game, and whether CR's massive influence could make a dent in WotC, the traditional 800lb gorilla.

 

[MGibster]

Consider how big a fan base the MARVEL movies have. More people saw those than watch Critical Role, right? Then how have the various Marvel RPGs and Board Games gone? Decently, for the most part, but the numbers of fans do not correspond to incredible sales of the games. (I wonder if the sales of POP figures outstrip those of the boardgames?)

I think there's a big difference between the Marvel movies and Critical Role in that the vast majority of people who watched Winter Soldier did not play role playing games and were unlikely to have any interest in playing them. CR's audience is certainly much smaller than anything Marvel has produced, but I'd wager that a higher percentage of those who watch CR either play role playing games or are interested in playing them. The audience is smaller, but it's more focused.

 

[wicked cool]

At some point soon critical role will be launching on amazon so I expect popularity to expand. Matt needs to package the campaigns as adventures/ Campaign 2 is great. He deserves everything he gets. He is by far the best DM on youtube and may have the best players on youtube etc

Was the Dragonlance deal really a lucrative deal for both? Not sure how well new stories would do. the Franchise was hanging around after Time of the Twins with some spinoffs doing well such as Huma and Soth getting a fight with Strahd

We are at the height of D&D and its all due to WOTC. We are also at the height of skirmish games. Warhammer/Magic however still dominate my local scene. I haven't invested in gloomhaven but I did invest in Rangers of Shadowdeep/Frostgrave. the problem with all of these skirmish games is that many will get buried. I believe the Fallout games & even the elder scroll games will get destroyed due to cost and clunky rules

Anyone else go the their game store and see the hundreds of games sitting there like used car lots and the costs of these games are insane. $80+ for games and sometimes $80 for expansions and there is no activity around them (hellboy, zombicide etc). Instead the D&D section and the purchasing of magic cards are hot sellers

Not seeing or really hearing a large percentage turning against WOTC. If anything i'm hearing the louder voices saying it needs to be more progressive?

I will take my big corporation as long as I can . they are clearly spending like crazy right now

 

[whimsychris123]

Wow. A lot of speculation here. The End of Wizards! The fall of D&D!

So far they're planning to put out a card game and an RPG about magical-wielding gangsters.

I enjoy speculation as much as the next guy, but this feels like a stretch. Maybe I'm wrong and someday Mercer will be President of the United States. But until then, I'm going to start imagining The Godfather with fireball. "I'm going to cast a command spell he can't refuse."

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think there's a big difference between the Marvel movies and Critical Role in that the vast majority of people who watched Winter Soldier did not play role playing games and were unlikely to have any interest in playing them. CR's audience is certainly much smaller than anything Marvel has produced, but I'd wager that a higher percentage of those who watch CR either play role playing games or are interested in playing them. The audience is smaller, but it's more focused.

So instead of RPGs let’s look at the Marvel movies compared to their source material, the Marvel comics. The movies are the biggest films around, reaching an audience in the tens of millions.

The comics are ecstatic if they can sell 50,000 copies.

And the success of the movies seems to have little impact on the comics.

Now, this is still not a perfect analogy by any means. But I do think there are plenty of CR viewers who don’t actually play RPGs. Is it as significant a percentage of Marvel movie fans who haven’t read a comic in decades? No, but I think it’s safe to say that success in one medium is not the same as success in another.

CR has done a very good job of building their brand and expanding. This seems to me just another step. I don't think they’re trying to compete directly with WotC, which is still their partner, but just a logical expansion.

Could it become some kind of competition down the road? Sure, seems possible. But that’d likely be good for the fans.

 

[BigZebra]

I think people active on message boards and Twitter over estimate the impact of controversy on WotC. I bet none of the people I play with even know about them.

Could not agree more. People in the Twitter-sphere seriously overestimate these controversies’ impact on most RPGers who have never visited a message board for RPG, or have any idea who Chris Perkins is. Many people just play and that’s that.
And since it’s such a niche hobby, none of yelling leaves Twitter.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Yeah, who's ever heard of people losing business due to an uproar on Twitter?

 

[MGibster]

Now, this is still not a perfect analogy by any means. But I do think there are plenty of CR viewers who don’t actually play RPGs. Is it as significant a percentage of Marvel movie fans who haven’t read a comic in decades? No, but I think it’s safe to say that success in one medium is not the same as success in another.

I would never argue that success is guaranteed in most situations. And I will certainly agree that that there are likely plenty of CR viewers who don't play RPGs. But when you're marketing, you don't expect everyone in the audience to make a purchase for what you're selling. My argument is that CR's audience as a whole is much more likely to be interested in RPGs or other games than the audience for the Marvel movies.

CR has done a very good job of building their brand and expanding. This seems to me just another step. I don't think they’re trying to compete directly with WotC, which is still their partner, but just a logical expansion.

I don't believe Paizo had any intention of competing directly against WotC when they published their Rise of the Runelords campaign, but a direct competitor they became and by many accounts their Pathfinder game was outselling D&D during the 4th edition years.

Could it become some kind of competition down the road? Sure, seems possible. But that’d likely be good for the fans.

That's what Orion Black's point was. WotC should be worried because the CR people may directly compete with them at some point in the future. Personally, I like having a lot of choice in what games to play and I agree with you that it's good for the fans. I've always argued that D&D has to change in order to stay relevant to its fans (even if I don't like all the changes myself).

 

[hawkeyefan]

I would never argue that success is guaranteed in most situations. And I will certainly agree that that there are likely plenty of CR viewers who don't play RPGs. But when you're marketing, you don't expect everyone in the audience to make a purchase for what you're selling. My argument is that CR's audience as a whole is much more likely to be interested in RPGs or other games than the audience for the Marvel movies.


I don't believe Paizo had any intention of competing directly against WotC when they published their Rise of the Runelords campaign, but a direct competitor they became and by many accounts their Pathfinder game was outselling D&D during the 4th edition years.



That's what Orion Black's point was. WotC should be worried because the CR people may directly compete with them at some point in the future. Personally, I like having a lot of choice in what games to play and I agree with you that it's good for the fans. I've always argued that D&D has to change in order to stay relevant to its fans (even if I don't like all the changes myself).

I largely agree.....didn't mean to come across as disagreeing strongly. Just that success in one area doesn't always carry over to others. I would agree that CR fans are more likely to play or try RPGs, too.

And I agree about choice. If Darrington Press is successful enough to actually become a competitor of WotC and D&D, I'd be ecstatic. Maybe they'll be able help shift the mainstream a bit so that the audience is more open to things beyond D&D and its derivatives. For instance, Syndicult sounds potentially interesting.....I like that their first attempt at a RPG has nothing to do with Exandria or anything else D&D.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Hard to say, though it's certainly has a massive following. For my part, in my one group that skews older, I'd say maybe half don't even know what Critical Role is or are only minimally aware of it. In my other group, that is a bit younger, everyone knows what Critical Role is, and some are big fans. I've even seen some blurring between what is considered Critical Role canon and what is considered D&D canon by some.

What is CR's viewership? (Have the vast majority of D&D players never seen an episode or never heard of it? Or is it the gateway to 5e that most players have seen at least a few episodes of?)

 

[Mercurius]

Well, they're being sued for $10M by Weis and Hickman because they allege that controversy impacted WotC so much that they walked away from a lucrative trilogy of new Dragonlance books. I'd say controversy impacts WotC and the decisions it makes, and thus impacts the people you play with. I'm surprised, based on the evidence of the last half decade or so, that anybody would think that social media stories don't impact companies.

While I agree that controversies have an impact, where I agree with @Zaukrie (although don't want to speak for them), is that I don't think the majority of D&D players care about the controversies, or have a strong opinion either way, or even if they are aware of them at all. Most just...play D&D.

Similar to Black's comments about liberals and conservatives, as if all D&D fans can be so neatly categorized on one side of the political spectrum. And even if they are, they don't necessarily care or have the same level of upset about the controversies as Black implies (e.g. not all liberals are upset about WotC's "milquetoast" attitude, and not all conservatives are raging against every change to their game). Most D&D players seem rather happy with WotC, or happy enough to keep driving record sales, and just want to play.

Now more generally speaking, what I find interesting about this is the choice of name: Darrington Press. Why not Critical Role Publishing? Wouldn't that give them more automatic sales? I wonder what the reasoning is behind this; maybe they don't want to step on WotC's toes, as Critical Role has a strong relationship with them and starting a self-named publishing company might be viewed as overt competition, rather than the more covert competition of Darrington.