D&D to become entirely online?

[rounser]

Yeah. Agree with this.

You might be overreacting a bit, I mean it's not as if they're developing Duke Nukem Forever. They've just missed a deadline, that's all.

 

[jdrakeh]

They are also competing because they are both selling (or will be selling) an updated version of D&D. They'll just be different versions.

Well, Paizo won't be selling an updated version of D&D. WotC will be selling an updated version of D&D, whereas Paizo will be selling Pathfinder, a d20-derived game with an entirely different title and no official connection to D&D. Branding, as WotC has demonstrated, makes a difference in the current market. Will Pathfinder be successful? I'm sure that it will be. Will it pose a credible threat to D&D 4e? I suspect that is much less likely.

Numbers are constantly in flux. To say that they aren't a signifficant portion of the market demographic today doesn't speak to what they'll be tomorrow.

I guess I'm just more comfortable sticking to known figures and past, proven, market trends, rather than relying on non-existent retail reports from the future to make my case. Silly me.

Three of the biggest players in the D20 market were ex-WotC: Paizo, Malhavoc, and Green Ronin, all of which rank at the top of the heap, all of which are poised to go on to do other impressive things that have nothing to do with 4E.

Well, as Charles Ryan clarified above, Malhavoc was not created as the result of a WotC layoff (I was mistaken, it appears). That said, as of October 2007, retail reports don't place any of those companies at "the top of the heap" for WotC competition (nor have they for the last ten years, to my knowledge). The C&GR* rankings for retail sales in October 2007 were: WotC (First), White Wolf (Second), Fan Pro and Privateer Press (tied for third).

I didn't actually say that collectible minis were a financial blunder.

You cited them as an example of a bad business decision. Fact is, they weren't. Again, you may not like the idea (and, as I mentioned earlier, I certainly don't) but if you're denying that they're popular or that the decision paid off for WotC, then you're working hard to ignore some very plain realities.

At any rate, any move they make that costs them even a small percentage of their sales is a bad move. . .

I'm not sure that trading the loyalty of known niche consumer demographics for that of larger, potentially more profitable, consumer demographics is a bad move. I think it's a calculated risk, sure, but a bad move? Personally, I think that it's worth the gamble, as the known niche markets have been getting increasingly smaller over the last several years.

*I'm aware that the C&GR figures aren't 100% accurate -- that said, they are magnitudes more accurate than pure conjecture.