Game Pricing

[King_Stannis]

Re: products worth $100

That's interesting to hear. Here's the deal. If you bought all 5 splatbooks, that's $100 retail, right? How much use did you really get out of it?

A mega-campaign with all the bells and whistles, if you played it straight through, you'd get use out of it every game session for a year! Not just you, but every player in your group. The props, illustrations, maps, "voice-description CD", and soundtrack alone would save you hours of prep time...

yes....and i think i said that what you describe is probably the only thing i'd consider spending $100 on....but still, it's have to be one hell of an adventure - in addition to the bells and whistles. we're talking audio, video (cd for color illustrations and maps), figures, and other things too.

 

[mmadsen]

Pokemon Jr Adventure Game was sold in all the mass market outlets (TRU, Target, Wal*Mart, KB Toys, etc.) This game, designed for six to eight year olds, featured roleplaying, combat (including hit points), and a "DM" (parent) who controlled the action. It was built from a very strategic foundation that included an analysis of the learning potential for the target market prepared for us by a practicing child psychologist, and tested in one-way mirrored rooms so that the designers could observe kids trying to learn how to play it and make changes to improve the product.

It sold more than 500,000 units in just over a year of availability (and was nominated for an Origins Award).

If the Pokemon RPG (pardon, "Jr. Adventure Game") sold a half-million units in one year, why is it off the market now? And why isn't WotC/Hasbro trying similar "adventure" games?

 

[Ranger REG]

wow. i had no idea that rawlings was that self-important. good lord, she didn't write "crime and punishment"! it's a series of kids' books! good ones, granted, but they won't exactly be required reading 50 years from now.

and you're right, ryan, what a huge opportunity that was missed.

** shrugs **

Maybe someday, Ms. Rowling will turn around and see that RPG is harmless and much more beneficial to children than TCG. No offense, WotC and Decipher.

 

[kenjib]

Thanks for the info Ryan. That really is a tremendous shame for the entire industry that Rowling is a control freak about her books. From reviews it seemed that this attitude also really hurt her in the film area as well since the biggest complaint was that the adaptation was too slavish to the books and as a result did not take advantage of the different medium very well (I saw it but didn't read the books so I can't judge for sure - the film was indeed a bit sluggish).

It's good to hear about the success of the Pokemon game. Hopefully it will have a beneficial effect on the industry some years down the line. Do you know if anything is being done to keep up the momentum? As mmadsen points out, why haven't more similar games come to market? Are they in the works?

I really think that the D&D adventure game lacked focus, but of course you would know better about it's target audiences and sales figures. In my firsthand experience, however, it was far too close to normal D&D rules-wise to really be of much use.

Anyway, I don't think this tangent is all too much off topic. The point is that expanding the market might be a better alternative to raising prices - or something that can be done at the same time.

 

[King_Stannis]

** shrugs **

Maybe someday, Ms. Rowling will turn around and see that RPG is harmless and much more beneficial to children than TCG. No offense, WotC and Decipher.

yep....and that time will probably be when interest in her books is on the wane, and she needs to bleed another source of income. of course, that really won't help the rpg industry, striking while the iron is cold, so to speak.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

Expanding the market vs. raising prices

Anyway, I don't think this tangent is all too much off topic. The point is that expanding the market might be a better alternative to raising prices - or something that can be done at the same time.

I agree that expanding the market would be great, but I don't really see RPGs ever being that big. They're not like cars or phones, where nearly everyone in the country would need/want one. The other thing is that WoTC is the only company that can really expand the market, whereas any 3rd party game publisher could do a high quality, ultra-deluxe luxury campaign, if they really put their minds to it. WoTC might be able to do it better, with their resources and access to big name artists, but my guess is that Sword & Sorcery Studios, Atlas Games, and Malhavoc press are all very capable of producing a pre-made campaign. It would be a very big risk, though, since nobody really knows how large a market that would be, but I bet the first folks to do it would reap a lot of profits, followed by a big rush to copy and follow through on the market.

 

[S'mon]

someday you'll post something relevent, hong. i hope i'm there to see it, too.

with over 2,000 posts i think it's fair to say that no one has spoken so much and said so little.

Stannis, you've made my day.

Someone had to say it sometime.

 

[WizarDru]

Thanks for the info Ryan. That really is a tremendous shame for the entire industry that Rowling is a control freak about her books. From reviews it seemed that this attitude also really hurt her in the film area as well since the biggest complaint was that the adaptation was too slavish to the books and as a result did not take advantage of the different medium very well (I saw it but didn't read the books so I can't judge for sure - the film was indeed a bit sluggish).

This attitude seems a tad unfair. Rowlings wanting to control her intellectual property hardly makes her a 'control freak'. This comes off sounding like 'look how this author refuses to further our goals because of her silly artistic integrity'. Would you feel the same way if the author were J.R.R. Tolkein or George R.R. Martin (or possibly even George Lucas, for that matter)? I agree it's a tragic lost opportunity...but given the poor history of other mediums treatment of some creators' works, is this really unreasonable?

The movie wasn't too faithful...it was too faithful in the wrong ways. Columbus chose poorly for some of the cuts he made. It's obvious he made a longer film, and then trimmed down...and because of his cuts, some parts didn't make contextual sense, or were wasted space. The book is a delight, and a real page turner. As for the series readability in the future...well, one might argue about the Borrowers, Stuart Little or Starship Troopers...all juveniles that are still read long after they were written.

 

[drothgery]

<Rowling won't agree to a Harry Potter RPG>

yep....and that time will probably be when interest in her books is on the wane, and she needs to bleed another source of income. of course, that really won't help the rpg industry, striking while the iron is cold, so to speak.

Just a minor aside here...

There are some problems with basing an RPG on fictional works in progress that aren't explicitly designed to be an RPG (aka Dragonlance). Certainly there were things left out of d20 Wheel of Time because Jordan didn't want to spoil future books, and I'd expect that this will almost certainly be true of the Song of Ice and Fire RPG.

 

[gubaru]

Re: products worth $100

That's interesting to hear. Here's the deal. If you bought all 5 splatbooks, that's $100 retail, right? How much use did you really get out of it?

A mega-campaign with all the bells and whistles, if you played it straight through, you'd get use out of it every game session for a year! Not just you, but every player in your group. The props, illustrations, maps, "voice-description CD", and soundtrack alone would save you hours of prep time.

The problem with a mega-adventure/campaign is the amount of ground it would have to cover. Players have a hell of a knack for scuttling the best laid plans, at least mine do. In order to cover all the bases, it's going to have a very simple plot or an unbelievable page count. After all, even if you can recycle some of the material later, the disappointment of something you spent a $100 on and expected to get months of use out of being rendered all but useless after a month would be crushing.

If you go the simple plot route, i.e. a bunch locations loosely tied together, I'd think you'd have to make your sale based on the extras. IMO, that's going to be hard to do. Are minis going to be the main selling point? Some people have more minis than they can use already. Illustrations? Some people would prefer to draw their own or already have a huge collection.

I think that once you're selling extras and not the story itself, it becomes much harder to recoup the investment. IMO you'd have to pick one aspect of the extras to be the main selling point or you run the risk of nothing about the product exciting anyone enough to buy it. Now instead of marketing to the small percentage of gamers that are willing to spend a lot of money, you're marketing to a subsection of that group.