Edition Cycles and declining sales

[ggroy]

So we have different parties changing the publishing models in different ways:

Paizo tries to bind its customers with subscriptions, offering a substantial discount if you decide to go this way.

FFG tries to give you more "stuff", with lots of physical components appealing to the toy lovers.

WotC tries to change from a (book) publisher to a service provider, reducing the amount of physical components and offering computer support.

There's also a fourth publishing model of White Wolf, purporting to be moving to a DDI type model simultaneously with an MMORPG video game for World of Darkness.

YouTube - whitewolfgames's Channel

 

[Scribble]

WotC tries to change from a (book) publisher to a service provider, reducing the amount of physical components and offering computer support.

I think this is only part of it though. I think another main part of the "new model" is the way new abilities are added to the game.

In the past, new books generally seemed to mean new rules being tacked onto the game, causing the core idea to expand, sometimes in unpredictable ways.

The new approach seems to be much more controlled. I haven't seen a whole lot of "new" rules being added to the game, mainly new ways to use the existing rules. (AKA new powers, classes, races, and feats.)

Combined with the DDI, this I think will allow the game to exist far longer then it has in the past. Wizards can sell players what they seem to want (new powers and abilities) without creating a bloated mess.

It's also much easier to fix issues and problems, since even banning certain feats/powers won't have much of an effect on anything else.

 

[pawsplay]

It is smoother. The more people that pay on a month to month basis, the more revenue on a month to month basis. As it includes the books, they will have less significant downs and ups in their revenue chart.

Since the material is available offline, the incentive is to re-up whenever there's a new release. I have a friend who plays 4e and has mostly stopped paying books. Effectively, he now gets each book for the price of one month subscription and lives without the art. Back to the original revenue model, basically.

 

[Scribble]

Since the material is available offline, the incentive is to re-up whenever there's a new release. I have a friend who plays 4e and has mostly stopped paying books. Effectively, he now gets each book for the price of one month subscription and lives without the art. Back to the original revenue model, basically.

Same revenue model, but with different costs involved. Not selling a physical book has a lot more loss associated with it then not selling a month of subscription fees.

 

[BryonD]

Of the first group I played 4E D&D with starting back in June/July 2008, two of the players left gaming altogether while another two went back to 3.5E (or Pathfinder). Only one is still playing 4E in my present game. (This particular group went through "Keep on the Shadowfell" over the summer of 2008).

The two players that left gaming altogether, were casual players who wanted to check out the "new shiny" game at the time. Neither bought any 4E books. (Not even the PHB1). As far as I know, the two players that went back to 3.5E/Pathfinder, only bought the core books and nothing else. Don't know if they already sold their 4E books.

I stand corrected. Of the people who have stopped playing, none of them ever bought the core books to begin with.

 

[AllisterH]

Wouldn't Paizo be the "the service provider" model?

I've always seen paizo more interested in their PDF side than their actual hardcopy side.

 

[Garmorn]

I told you: I actually think that the publishing model of 4e, with printed stuff as well as a subscription model, is valid for a period of transfer only.



I meant a period of transfer between the old publishing model (printed books only) and the new model we can so lovingly speculate about.

'sniped for brevity'

Personally I think DDI is going to extend the life of 4e by adding hard sales.

A major SF publisher has found by giving away electronic copies of their novels bust sales of their hard copy books. So much so that they maintain a online libary of whole novels that are free and give away CD in the back of some of their major sellers that have a state that ask you to copy and give away the CDs. The CD's have 8 or more complete novels on each one.

I am looking to buy a few of the books because of what I see on line. I find using hard copies easier and more enjoyable then online copies.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

As far as the Amazon thing... I can kind of understand Amazon's actions. Not notifying people why it was happening, and just "quietly" doing it was a bad move, but since the company supplying the digital copy didn't have the right to do so, wouldn't the copy you had be "technically" like stolen goods? (And stolen goods can be and are confiscated from the buyer.)

If WoTC did something like this, man... THAT would be really foul play. But I really don't think they would.

Stolen goods may be confiscated from the buyer, but not by the seller. That would be like me stealing your tv and you breaking into my house to steal it back. Neither is permissable. What Amazon should have done was remove the file from their site and settled out of court with the owner of the IP for the damages. Remotely deleting the files from their customers was a horrible move, and it's why I don't own a Kindle. I was thinking of buying one until that fiasco. They promise they won't do it again, but I won't be buying one until they don't have the ability to do it.

Sorry about the threadjack, but the Kindle fiasco is something I feel strongly about.

 

[pawsplay]

Stolen goods may be confiscated from the buyer, but not by the seller. That would be like me stealing your tv and you breaking into my house to steal it back. Neither is permissable. What Amazon should have done was remove the file from their site and settled out of court with the owner of the IP for the damages. Remotely deleting the files from their customers was a horrible move, and it's why I don't own a Kindle. I was thinking of buying one until that fiasco. They promise they won't do it again, but I won't be buying one until they don't have the ability to do it.

Sorry about the threadjack, but the Kindle fiasco is something I feel strongly about.

Their statement was that they will not be handling "similar situations" in that manner in the future. I suspect their lawyers may have informed them that being a copyright vigilante is a very... liable occupation.

 

[delericho]

You are basing a lot on an optional poll on a single website that many people either missed, ignored, or otherwise did not take part in.

It's also been the pattern with each past edition, and with every other game I'm aware of. The 'core' sells really well, but as you move on each successive book in the series sells fewer copies than its predecessor. This is especially true if you 'number' the books ("Players Handbook 2", "Monster Manual 3"...) as the perception is that you need all the previous books in the series in order to use the latest one, which means you're automatically selling to a subset of those who bought the previous book.

It is possible that 4e will buck this trend. It also seems extremely unlikely.

The new approach seems to be much more controlled. I haven't seen a whole lot of "new" rules being added to the game, mainly new ways to use the existing rules. (AKA new powers, classes, races, and feats.)

Combined with the DDI, this I think will allow the game to exist far longer then it has in the past. Wizards can sell players what they seem to want (new powers and abilities) without creating a bloated mess.

The problem with this is that there is a limit to how far you can expand before everything starts to get a bit 'samey', especially when you factor in re-skinning of powers. Once you've got three powers that do damage and drive the target back three squares, you don't really need a fourth

They could tackle this by deliberately introducing some moderate power-creep into later books (so that new classes are that bit more powerful, and users of the old classes 'have' to buy "Martial Power X" to remain competitive). But, honestly, I would much rather they just produce new editions every five years instead.