pawsplay
Hero
I was looking at Ultimate Feats at the used book store yesterday and a thought occured to me. That was probably a great idea for a product when it came out. But I don't think there's a lot of market for that now. Same with adventures. And what's the reason?
Who keeps playing a game a few years after it's out? The fan, the hobbyist, the tinkerer. Someone who could dash out a new class if they had to. Someone who already has a dozen D&D books and can find something they like. Likely, this person has enough experience to be a little pessimistic whether an entire book of feats is really going to add much to their gaming experience unless they are really good feats, or whether an adventure is better than anything they could write themselves.
I wonder when WotC decided this person was not worth selling product to. Because that's pretty much how I see things. WotC doesn't want you kit-bashing your own classes, they want you to buy them and the pages and pages of cards, sorry, powers, that come with them. They don't care about loyalists because they think there is a whole world of new players out there waiting to be captured. They think old school players can fend for themselves, hoarding out of print materials, writing house rules, running furtive convention games and playing with their old college buddies.
I would totally buy a D&D T-shirt if I thought it was cool. I would buy another monster manual, I would buy ten, if I thought they were cool. If I keep running D&D year after year, rulebooks will need to be replaced. After five years of errata, I wouldn't mind paying money for an incrementally revised rulebook. Come on, $40 every five years? Bring it on.
There are plenty of people willing to sink $200 a year into the newest, hottest D&D. But how many of them are going to stick with it? What is going to happen to the D&D brand? Star Trek split between the original series and TNG, but at least they got to keep sharing the same universe.
I'm not sure the new edition is entirely the product of "market research," which WotC did plenty of for 3e. Sometimes I suspect changes were made to suit the personal preferences of the designers, who decided that since they were now King of D&D, they could do that. And with WotC wanting to raise revenue, and a staggered schedule of publication being the plan, and with a mandate to fix problems, this was the perfect opportunity. The only problem was this huge existing fanbase.
I think the problem was eventually solved by calculating who would shell out more money this time around. A lot of people were willing to convert, to stay current. Some bought the new core, even while keeping what they already had. I don't think WotC was incorrect in thinking 4e would reinvigorate sales. Obviously, plenty of people were ready to try something new. I just worry that it was short-sighted.
Eventually, the new edition is going to play out, as all must at some point. And then what will happen? Each generation of D&D player will be stranger to the one before. Will the name D&D even mean anything by the time 5th edition rolls out?
I feel really alienated, moreso than when Forgotten Realms, that new kid on the block, became THE D&D setting, moreso than around when Powers & Skills came out and I left AD&D behind pretty much forever. It became a thing of historical interest to me.
I was reading the D&D celebration book the other day. I really wonder if WotC has forgotten the lessons learned. 3e brought D&D back from the dead. What it did, must have been at some level a successful strategy. Avoiding an explosion of must-have sourcebooks was considered a design goal, and for good reason.
When "core" becomes bigger every year it means two things:
A) a percentage of experienced players will be lost every time you publish a sourcebook, if they reject some of the supplemental material you previously published, and
B) the cost of becoming an acculturated new player just got higher
It looks like to be a hip and with it player these days, you need to plan on laying down $60 to $100 on buying the core rulebooks, plus plan on spending another $40 a couple of times a year on new core, assuming you don't try to collect it all. Then you are going to spend a few dollars more a month for online content.
If you take a yearlong break from spending cash on D&D, you are probably gone for good. You might cherry pick a few things, but once you can't keep up, you're not going to catch up. Why should you? You've already spent $300 on enough gaming material to last a lifetime.
The whole model is based on creating a supply then trying to manufacture a demand for it. I think that style of marketing is on its way out... look at the economy now, with all the bloat it's had to shed. The way to do business is to find a need and address it.
Bundling things like the tabletop and online magazines and stuff with a new edtion was, in my opinion, a mistake. People might have paid for that stuff anyway. If you want to create revenue, you have to find a product people continuously want. Trying to hype something is going to produce, at most, a fad.
Plenty of people love 4e and I am happy for them. I don't. But let's say I were a 4e fan. I would really worry about what would happen if WotC decided 4e wasn't profitable enough before publishing a lot of stuff I was looking forward to. I don't want a gaming hobby that my publisher thinks I should be spending $200 a year on. I am not that target demographic.
If you were going to sell a new edition of D&D to me, you would do it like this:
A) Create something awesome
B) Put it in a big, awesome package
C) Mark up the price generously, which I will pay because it's awesome
D) Sell it to me and let me enjoy it
Who keeps playing a game a few years after it's out? The fan, the hobbyist, the tinkerer. Someone who could dash out a new class if they had to. Someone who already has a dozen D&D books and can find something they like. Likely, this person has enough experience to be a little pessimistic whether an entire book of feats is really going to add much to their gaming experience unless they are really good feats, or whether an adventure is better than anything they could write themselves.
I wonder when WotC decided this person was not worth selling product to. Because that's pretty much how I see things. WotC doesn't want you kit-bashing your own classes, they want you to buy them and the pages and pages of cards, sorry, powers, that come with them. They don't care about loyalists because they think there is a whole world of new players out there waiting to be captured. They think old school players can fend for themselves, hoarding out of print materials, writing house rules, running furtive convention games and playing with their old college buddies.
I would totally buy a D&D T-shirt if I thought it was cool. I would buy another monster manual, I would buy ten, if I thought they were cool. If I keep running D&D year after year, rulebooks will need to be replaced. After five years of errata, I wouldn't mind paying money for an incrementally revised rulebook. Come on, $40 every five years? Bring it on.
There are plenty of people willing to sink $200 a year into the newest, hottest D&D. But how many of them are going to stick with it? What is going to happen to the D&D brand? Star Trek split between the original series and TNG, but at least they got to keep sharing the same universe.
I'm not sure the new edition is entirely the product of "market research," which WotC did plenty of for 3e. Sometimes I suspect changes were made to suit the personal preferences of the designers, who decided that since they were now King of D&D, they could do that. And with WotC wanting to raise revenue, and a staggered schedule of publication being the plan, and with a mandate to fix problems, this was the perfect opportunity. The only problem was this huge existing fanbase.
I think the problem was eventually solved by calculating who would shell out more money this time around. A lot of people were willing to convert, to stay current. Some bought the new core, even while keeping what they already had. I don't think WotC was incorrect in thinking 4e would reinvigorate sales. Obviously, plenty of people were ready to try something new. I just worry that it was short-sighted.
Eventually, the new edition is going to play out, as all must at some point. And then what will happen? Each generation of D&D player will be stranger to the one before. Will the name D&D even mean anything by the time 5th edition rolls out?
I feel really alienated, moreso than when Forgotten Realms, that new kid on the block, became THE D&D setting, moreso than around when Powers & Skills came out and I left AD&D behind pretty much forever. It became a thing of historical interest to me.
I was reading the D&D celebration book the other day. I really wonder if WotC has forgotten the lessons learned. 3e brought D&D back from the dead. What it did, must have been at some level a successful strategy. Avoiding an explosion of must-have sourcebooks was considered a design goal, and for good reason.
When "core" becomes bigger every year it means two things:
A) a percentage of experienced players will be lost every time you publish a sourcebook, if they reject some of the supplemental material you previously published, and
B) the cost of becoming an acculturated new player just got higher
It looks like to be a hip and with it player these days, you need to plan on laying down $60 to $100 on buying the core rulebooks, plus plan on spending another $40 a couple of times a year on new core, assuming you don't try to collect it all. Then you are going to spend a few dollars more a month for online content.
If you take a yearlong break from spending cash on D&D, you are probably gone for good. You might cherry pick a few things, but once you can't keep up, you're not going to catch up. Why should you? You've already spent $300 on enough gaming material to last a lifetime.
The whole model is based on creating a supply then trying to manufacture a demand for it. I think that style of marketing is on its way out... look at the economy now, with all the bloat it's had to shed. The way to do business is to find a need and address it.
Bundling things like the tabletop and online magazines and stuff with a new edtion was, in my opinion, a mistake. People might have paid for that stuff anyway. If you want to create revenue, you have to find a product people continuously want. Trying to hype something is going to produce, at most, a fad.
Plenty of people love 4e and I am happy for them. I don't. But let's say I were a 4e fan. I would really worry about what would happen if WotC decided 4e wasn't profitable enough before publishing a lot of stuff I was looking forward to. I don't want a gaming hobby that my publisher thinks I should be spending $200 a year on. I am not that target demographic.
If you were going to sell a new edition of D&D to me, you would do it like this:
A) Create something awesome
B) Put it in a big, awesome package
C) Mark up the price generously, which I will pay because it's awesome
D) Sell it to me and let me enjoy it
(hint: no spells, rituals or non-weapon abilities allowed if they cause direct physical damage. Have fun.)
