Does Enworld have a major impact in the D20 market?

[Darrin Drader]

I think that ENWorld's impact is even felt by those people - because a lot of them probably play with people who are here, hearing about all the new, cool, stuff. I forget the exact marketing term, but companies often look to market to small, intense niche audiences like ENWorld because the people who take the time to come here are hardcore gamers, and will sing the praises of products that they hear about and like.

Oh, I totally agree that a decent percentage of gaming groups have at least one person who visits occasionally. The exact percentage would be a mystery to me, but I suspect it's probably somewhere around 20%. But, like Mearls said earlier, I think that the actual influence it has on the industry only has a little to do with the total percentage of fans here.

 

[Staffan]

Don't look at me.

Hey, who published the first commercial RPG PDF?

Others have cited Hero Games and 0One games, as well as Hyperbooks (which IIRC is more of a distributor - more of RPGNow than Ronin Arts, if you catch my meaning). But I wouldn't be surprised if the first company who actually brought RPG PDFs to a larger audience was Wizards of the Coast, with their ESD releases of first Forgotten Realms stuff, followed up by Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Dragonlance, and then the rest.

 

[Alhazred]

I always consult Enworld before purchasing any d20 product, whether PDF or hardcopy, reading reviews and asking questions. Whether or not I support a product, a product line or a company is highly - but not exclusively - dependent on Enworld scuttlebutt. However, within my gaming group, I'm a minority of one.

 

[Belen]

I have a feeling that ENWorld plays a significant role in companies with print runs of 10, 000 or fewer books. With print runs that small, then the number of users we have who are hardcore d20 enthusiats would make a real difference to any company.

I also have a feeling that we provide a huge source of free marketing for companies. I know that I have convinced no less than 3 games stores to stock Necromancer Games, Green Ronin, Malhavoc, Fantasy Flight, Troll Lord Games, and Goodman Games products. I even submit an RPG order list for one of my stores so that they know what books to carry. I use ENWorld to get that info.

I do not think that there would be a d20 market without ENWorld. There would probably have still been the large sales torward the beginning, but I think that a lot of the larger d20 companies would be gone now without this site.

Just my thoughts.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Probably a large impact on PDF publishers and no to little impact on print publishers.

For example, how many times have we hear about how terrible WoTC is, and yet they seem to be chugging along quite nicely.

 

[amethal]

I certainly would never have purchased a pdf but for ENWorld's influence.

Me too.

ENWorld has cost me a lot of money, but because all the results are on my hard drive, so far my wife doesn't know about it .......

I'd also like to say thanks to Crothian for all his reviews. I've never been disappointed after buying a pdf based on his review.

 

[Belen]

For example, how many times have we hear about how terrible WoTC is, and yet they seem to be chugging along quite nicely.

I agree about Wizards. There can be a lot of vitriol about them here, although those people still go out and buy the books. People like to complain about the guy on top.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Probably a large impact on PDF publishers and no to little impact on print publishers.

For example, how many times have we hear about how terrible WoTC is, and yet they seem to be chugging along quite nicely.

Not sure WotC is a fair basis for evaluating this. Look at how many people on Slashdot bitch about Microsoft. Being the 800lb gorilla makes you somewhat immune.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Not sure WotC is a fair basis for evaluating this. Look at how many people on Slashdot bitch about Microsoft. Being the 800lb gorilla makes you somewhat immune.

Could be said of any of the "big" boys though like Green Ronin, Malhavoc or Necromancer. Heck, I know Paradigm is still putting out quality material and their Living Arcanis is still running, but you don't hear too much about them here though.

 

[philreed]

Hero Games were real pioneers for PDF products. They started doing them in the early to mid 90s and they actually came on 3.5 discs at the time. I'm not 100% certain they were first, but they were definitely amongst the early adopters.

That's right. I had completely forgotten about those PDFs -- what was that, 1997? 1998?

They may very well have been the first ones that I ever noticed.