Excellent point on WotC mishandling

[Dausuul]

In my personal experience, if we took names of people who were playing 3E before 4E came along and listed them under either "switched to 4E" or "didn't switch to 4E", the "didn't list would be longer. That isn't a claim that all the "didn't" people are still playing 3E, many just went on to something else. The circumstantial and anecdotal evidence we keep seeing are universally consistent with my experience. So there certainly may be a distinct fog around the hard numbers, but my experience is in the right ballpark.

As always, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." Your experience may be in the right ballpark--or it may be an anomaly. Without a proper market survey, we simply don't know.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Your experience may be in the right ballpark--or it may be an anomaly. Without a proper market survey, we simply don't know.

I'd also add that without WotC's targets, we don't even know if we're playing in a ballpark.

 

[renau1g]

Yes, licensing revenue from Paizo. Which they made up (to what extent, we'll never know) with direct subscription revenue from DDi. Dragon and Dungeon weren't their main revenue stream. The splatbooks were and still are. If a customer is content playing your game without new options and only subscribes to a side stream of revenue, you're not really losing much when they decide not to follow you to a new edition.

Why are you trying to instigate? I've seen very little uncivil discussion in this thread.

Did I state that the mags were their main revenue stream? You posited a question about what Wizards lost when people switched to PF. I answered, I didn't state that those consumers never bought another source book, I said that there's at least one direct loss. Also, there's an opportunity cost associated with lost customers and a fairly substantial cost to generate new customers, but I didn't mention those as they're not really "hard" costs. Plus, it was a better vehicle to advertise products, future offerings, etc in than the digital one as it's infinitely easier to read a magazine than an ezine (even with tablets coming more prevalent)

I wasn't instigating anything. I was pointing out that the thread was devolving quickly (heck look that the mods even had to come in and clean up a post, others talking about "if you want a fight", etc.) while there's lots of talk about editions "firing" customers (which makes no sense).

 

[dmccoy1693]

It really comes down to 3 reasons why I am not playing and publishing 4E today.

1) The "marketing" of 3 years ago. I don't mean the marketing department. They did an awesome job. Marketing gave us the gnome videos. Marketing gave us some of the best examples of what 4E was going to be like. Marketing did an awesome job. What I feel was done poorly was the non-marketers trying to market it. "Just as clouds will fly over head, 4E will come." "In 3.5, a heal check can determine what you just stepped in." "Grapple is the reason for 4E." I feel the designers that were trotted out to market 4E did a poor job of marketing the game because ... they're not marketing people. Surprise! The designers came up with a good game, but they didn't do a great job at marketing. Not their fault. But management allowed it to continue. Repeatedly during the run up.

2) The 4E GSL was terrible upon initial release and it didn't improve much when it was revised. I still won't publish under it. Mind you, it wasn't the laughable joke of a license that the GSL was originally, but it is still not a good license. Why is it not a good license: far to much risk (the license can end in a heartbeat with no notice) for far to little potential gain (3 years ago sales estimates: dozens of PDFs and a few hundreds of print sales). Wizards could have done a paid license structure that would have gone much further (like if they licensed off Forgotten Realms after they were done with it) that would have sold so much better, but Wizards refused to license anything to anyone. They could have licensed off a few settings they weren't going to develop much if at all. They could have kept the Dungeon and Dragon mags in place and promote the game to existing customers and show them how much fun it was going to be right in the existing marketing channel they already had. Instead they chose to play protectionist and cut off all outsiders. They took their ball and went home. As such, no one wants to play with them anymore. Not even customers that still have whole book shelves of 3.x books. Strike 2 against management for creating that atmosphere.

3) Momentum. I've been playing Pathfinder for over a year now and the Alpha/Beta for a 1-1/2 before that. I'm not going to change now. While I have PHB I-II, I'd sooner play a Pathfinder Dark Sun game with hybrid 3.5 psionic rules instead of picking up PHB III. Why? I've been playing Pathfinder for so long, I'm comfortable with it and am not interested in changing at this point. Even if Essentials is the Bees' Knees, I'm not changing. Wizards knows this*** is the case and they failed to snag myself and other customers early. The fact that management knows that that is a probably conclusion to a certain sequence of events and failed to take extra precaution when they had the opportunity makes it management's fault. Strike 3.

Now I know the current management has probably changed over ... completely in the past 3 years and the problems they inherited from the previous caretakers is not their fault, they do have to deal with the reprecussions of those problems and change course so they do not keep making the same mistakes of the past. I would love to see a non-protectionist Wizards shepherd the RPG industry in a direction they want it to go, but they are not doing that. Instead, Paizo is doing it for them. And in a few years, there won't be a question anymore as to whether Pathfinder is outselling D&D. it was be very obvious.

*** Wizards knows that once a customer goes to a different system, some do not return. link

The downside here is that I believe that one of the reasons that the RPG as a category has declined so much from the early 90s relates to the proliferation of systems. Every one of those different game systems creates a "bubble" of market inefficiency; the cumulative effect of all those bubbles has proven to be a massive downsizing of the marketplace. I have to note, highlight, and reiterate: The problem is not competitive >product<, the problem is competitive >systems<. I am very much for competition and for a lot of interesting and cool products.
...
and a certain amount of people are diverted from D&D to other games never to return.

 

[MerricB]

I think you are very significantly misinterpreting the data, and the fact that these debates continue is evidence of that.

Yes, 3E had run it's course. I was ready and eager for a new game. But it was not at all the 3E system that had burned me out. If WotC had built a completely new system that still engaged me to the level 3E did I would be there. But the fact remains that it was an old game by that time.

Now certainly 4E has brought in a significant number of people who were not 3E players. But, you are specifically talking about "fired" 3E players, so lets just look at that group for a moment.

In my personal experience, if we took names of people who were playing 3E before 4E came along and listed them under either "switched to 4E" or "didn't switch to 4E", the "didn't list would be longer.

Unfortunately, that's not what I said.

The comparison isn't on who was playing 3e and switched to 4e: it was on how many had stopped playing 3e compared to how many were entering the system.

 

[BryonD]

Unfortunately, that's not what I said.

The comparison isn't on who was playing 3e and switched to 4e: it was on how many had stopped playing 3e compared to how many were entering the system.

You said D&D 3E was "firing" old players. I disputed that claim.


Certainly some people were moving on from a game with plenty of years under it. But "burned out" and "fired" in the 4E context are both very inaccurate assessments.

 

[BryonD]

And my experience is the opposite. Of the circle I game with 4 DM's (incl myself) got "burned out" with 3e. We all "switched" over to 4e and haven't looked back. Small sample size, but all our personal experiences will be a small sample size.

I don't for a second doubt the truth of that.

You have your personal experience and I have mine and, as we seem to agree, each of those alone are of negligible significance.

But, again, the circumstantial data over and over and over suggests that the market is deeply fractured. So, I conclude that, perhaps by nothing more than dumb chance, my personal experience is more consistent with the typical experience. The readily conceded fact that there are many, many examples that also go your direction does not trump that.

 

[BryonD]

I contend that OGL support for 3E forced future editions to become niches. Of course I also believe this could have been mitigated by WotC understanding who their #1 competitor was and worked with them to continue their relationship.

shrug

It is still a niche and I don't think the flagship brand of D&D must be or should be a niche within the industry.

How many Paizo fans would have made the switch to 4E if Paizo had supported 4E?

Paizo followed the fans. Not the other way around.

There was a lot of dissatisfaction with 4E before PF was announced. And yes, I know they announced PF before 4E was released. But we had a really solid idea what was coming, and a bunch of claims that we didn't have the "context" turned out to be wrong.

4E doesn't offer what *I* am looking for in an RPG. There are enough people who agree with me to make a difference. I'm not remotely claiming that there are not a lot of people for whom PF doesn't offer them what they want. I'm not trying to argue a "right" game vs. a "wrong" game. I am pointing out that a larger more market inclusive game can and has been established and I believe it COULD have been done again.

I don't think Paizo supporting 4E would have turned more than 10% of their fanbase to 4E.
If growing the hobby is a big deal, then even 4E fans should be thankful to Paizo for shoring up this drain on players.

 

[evilref]

But, again, the circumstantial data over and over and over suggests that the market is deeply fractured. So, I conclude that, perhaps by nothing more than dumb chance, my personal experience is more consistent with the typical experience. The readily conceded fact that there are many, many examples that also go your direction does not trump that.

On the hobby's fracturing, this has been the case for a long time (see early Runequest fans versus D&D fans for an example). White Wolf fans (x edition vs y edition), D&D 1e vs 2e, vs 3e vs 4e vs Palladium, vs, Palladium vs..everyone, Traveller vs traveller (vs megatraveller, vs traveller, vs...), Runequest vs Runequest, WFRP 1e vs 2e vs 3e etc.

OGL was intended, in part, to offer the 'one system to bring them all'. It failed at that. Many companies rushed out products with an incomplete understanding of the rules or poor quality and weakened their own brands (not the fault of the OGL itself).

Gamers like different things, there is no 'one absolute'. And, personally, I'm glad of that. I have thousands of books, with hundreds of systems. They let me use the system for the type of game I and my players want to use.