SteveC said:
Fourth, consider what you’re releasing and whether or not you actually can afford to do it. Will it sell? I mean REALLY will it sell. Your brand new book on poisons and herbs isn’t going to sell, no matter how cool it’s going to look or who the art is by. Consider what the market is asking for and give it to them. As an example, there is no D20 Exalted. Get someone who knows D20 and also knows crazy kung-fu movies (these don’t have to be the same person) and file the serial numbers off of WW’s product and you have something that will sell. A LOT. Make a game of tactical combat along the lines of a first person shooter or team “recon” game. If you make it with high production values: maps! Counters! Minis!...and have something with decent rules, it will sell! A lot.
In other words - follow the market, don't try to lead the market? See what else is selling and do your version of it? This is my pet peeve - derivative or predictable products that duplicate rather than innovate. A company is far more likely to get my gaming dollar if they show me something I have never or only rarely seen before. Another book on, e.g., the sea, new/variant races, old products updated to the latest rules, the Forgotten Realms (again!) etc. will not find space on my bookshelf. I know others live for this stuff and I know this "conservatism" is not wholly responsible for any market doldrums but, at least for me, it is big.
eyebeams said:
Products are generally considered to compete if they fulfil the same desire. . . . By and large, competition to fulfil the "desire to play RPGs" is largely illusory. People want to play particular games, WotC market research shows that they play these games non-exclusively. Strictly speaking, the numbers may well indicate that competition between RPGs and other media is *more* relevant than competition between RPGs.
I respectfully disagree based on personal experience with gamers who play in published settings but not with the rules designed for those settings. Thus, e.g., GURPS Forgotten Realms campaigns, Runequest Greyhawks games, Hero System Warhammer Games. These different systems all compete for these gamers' dollars. These different systems are all platforms for RPGs from among which gamers will choose which they prefer for their RPG experience. They are then in competition.
On a larger scale, if a gamer wishes to play an RPG and has money to purchase and follow/support but a single system, all RPG systems are competing for that gamer's dollars. I think you dismiss "the desire to play RPGs" too quickly. Personal experience, again, but when I go into a game store with limited funds I must choose between Iron Kingdoms Libre Mechanus, Wotc's Heroes of Horror or Magic of Eberron, and Mongoose's Heretics of Tarantis. All these and every other RPG I might buy are in competition for my gaming dollar. I may, however, be unusual in playing broadly among RPG systems; I do not know.
eyebeams said:
I find the idea that the post-Enron world features strictly honest corporate dealings and spin-free public relationships to be extremely silly. Perhaps that is not what you are trying to say, but that would be the natural outcome in a world where Charles Ryan could *not* apply spin to something as vague as the quip, "best year ever." Legally, whether deceit is actionable depends on whether a person could reasonably rely on it in such a manner as to have caused injury.
"Best year ever" is not actionable without further details that Mr. Ryan is noted as having carefully avoided. See MerrickB quoted below. "Best year ever" is devoid of a solid, quantifiable point or frame of reference and is thus puffery or spin, upon which no savy (or much less than savy) invester would rely. I have no doubt Mr. Ryan is unquestionably _not_ lying. Just as unquestionably, we have no idea what criteria he is referring to when he says "best year ever." He could mean almost anything and be using almost any criteria; we simply do not know. This does not mean his statement must be immediately discounted but it also does not mean his statement must be immediately accepted as synonymous with any particular rosy scenario.
Posters here are often asked for proof of their statements which they may not have beyond personal experience or observation. It is then fair to ask the same of Mr. Ryan, who because of his position, does have the ability to "prove" his statement. That he does not offer to backup "best year ever" with hard data is neither crime nor fault but it does render his statement unproven, unless by his mere position one must believe anything and everything he says, which would make for very short and much fewer threads.
Grains of salt are in order; season to taste.
MerricB said:
As Charles has been so insistent that D&D has been doing well, I really have to believe him.
So, insistence/persistence equals truth? If you say it often enough and loudly enough, it is true? UGH! That may be how you "win" an internet argument but it is hardly a marker of veracity - one way or the other, mind you.
MerricB said:
I mean, this hasn't been one off-the-cuff remark we're talking about. Charles has repeated it in various sources (and in news interviews), and although he's been very careful to not give away sales data, I think there's no way you could interpret "best year ever" to not include increased sales.
There is "no way" it cannot mean "increased sales?" UGH! Repetition does not signify any meaning beyond the four corners of the statement, which, as even you note, is devoid of specifics. You are reading in with no basis upon which to do so other than mere repetition and an obvious jones for Wotc.
MerricB said:
Does that mean that RPGs (in general) are doing well? Of course not. (It does mean the one I really care about is doing well, though
)
And here we have the jones. I'll credit your honesty and that information you can thereby cozen from Mr. Ryan or others at Wotc - but not much more.
Just WOW
