Goodman Games solicits input

[Scribble]

My point is that I doubt Pathfinder has had any significant effect on 4E players, so why should Goodman want to change now when things were going so well just a few short months ago?

Maybe I misread what he posted, but my sense was that Goodman was full speed ahead for 4E and doing very well.

Again why does wanting to reach a wider audience = your primary business failing?

It's now the start of a new year/quarter, and perhaps he's just looking into what else his business can do- Not inspired by lack of sales, but inspired by a large group of people who might also be a source of revenue.

In fact, you can look at it the other way... Sales of the DCC have been so good, that he's looking for ways to invest that extra income back into his company, and ultimately make even more money.

There's a large group of people who wants 4e DCCs. There might be a large group of people who want Pathfinder DCCs.

Why not sell to both of them and just have an even larger group of customers who want DCCs?

 

[Shemeska]

But this isn't what Joe Goodman said just a few months ago. Sales of his 4e products were GREAT - remember?

I took his comments a few months ago as being almost Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf -esque.

'Of course my 4e sales are going strong! They're wonderful! Why would you think otherwise?'



But my perception could be wrong, and he might just be hedging his bets or trying to expand his sales base. The baghdad bob level of assurance against all odds was how I took it though.

 

[Maggan]

I have commented on this on this topic at my blog, In the Mind of Mad Man, due to the fact that I didn't think it appropriate to use that type of graphic language on this forum.

I'm curious as to why you choose to use so strong a language towards another publisher and competitor?

Is there a backstory that would put your strong reaction in some kind of perspective? If not, then I'll just say that I find your comments ill-considered and uncalled for.

/M

 

[DaveMage]

Again why does wanting to reach a wider audience = your primary business failing?

It certainly does not! But if this were the case, why not do this much, much earlier? Why NOW as opposed to those many months ago when the new GSL was finalized?

Goodman had an opportunity to be on board with Pathfinder when it released. Instead he chose to post about how great 4E was and how the 3.5-based system is a "clunker". Now suddenlty the tune seems to be changing. Something is not adding up....

 

[Scribble]

It certainly does not! But if this were the case, why not do this much, much earlier? Why NOW as opposed to those many months ago when the new GSL was finalized?

Goodman had an opportunity to be on board with Pathfinder when it released. Instead he chose to post about how great 4E was and how the 3.5-based system is a "clunker". Now suddenlty the tune seems to be changing. Something is not adding up....

Could be anything- perhaps he just wanted to see how well Pathfinder would do first? Or he was waiting for enough in the reinvestment funds, or a new quarter, or more free time... Whatever. Really only one who knows for sure is Goodman. I just don't see where the need for "alarm" is coming from.

 

[DaveMage]

Could be anything- perhaps he just wanted to see how well Pathfinder would do first? Or he was waiting for enough in the reinvestment funds, or a new quarter, or more free time... Whatever. Really only one who knows for sure is Goodman. I just don't see where the need for "alarm" is coming from.

For me, it's not so much alarm as it is trying to understand the market. So much is closed to the consumer that all we can do is speculate - and probably badly.

However, what I saw a few months ago were two publishers looking at the environment and drawing substantially different conclusions. On one side there was Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games saying that print 4E by a 3pp was not viable, while Joe Goodman claimed the opposite was true - and seemed to imply (and maybe I misread) that 3pps who didn't think the 4E market was viable didn't understand how to do business in the current environment.

Now it seems by Joe Goodman's post (and you're right, I may be completely misinterpreting) that in a very short time the 3pp 4E market is no longer as viable on its own.

 

[Maggan]

that in a very short time the 3pp 4E market is no longer as viable on its own.

I wonder what constitutes "a short time" in the rpg publishing field? I remember people talking about 3e products being viable for 3 months from publication, and after that they are basically dead.

So 3 months is a lifetime for a product, and Goodman posted his thoughts over 6 months ago.

To me, running a web agency, six months is long enough to bring major changes in the business landscape around me, enough for new developments to boost our profits or if worse came to worse, 6 months is enough to sink my company two times over if business stopped rolling in.

So from my perspective, this doesn't come head over heels after the #4e is doing fine", but quite a long time after. A time where we have had several factors changing the rpg landscape, Pathfinder being one, the success of the DDI being another, and the continual economic downturn being a third.

/M

 

[BryonD]

I wonder what constitutes "a short time" in the rpg publishing field? I remember people talking about 3e products being viable for 3 months from publication, and after that they are basically dead.

So 3 months is a lifetime for a product, and Goodman posted his thoughts over 6 months ago.

I don't think he was talking about individual products, but the marketplace itself.

 

[jaerdaph]

I don't think he was talking about individual products, but the marketplace itself.

That's how I interpret it as well. Products may still have a three month life span, but the amount of money you make over three months now than over three months back then is less. And getting to the point of three months with less return has come a lot quicker since the release of 4e than it did in the 3e boom days.

 

[BryonD]

Keep in mind that even when Goodman was talking about how great his 4E sales were, he was also adding caveats with comments like :"Is 4E doing as well as 3E sales in 2001? Definitely not. That was the high point in a generation."

Nothing he has said now is a smoking gun that he is not making money on 4E. To the contrary, if he was losing money he would probably be moving on.

But to claim he is simply looking to expand seems a really radical reading of his comments as well. Compared to a baseline of "definitely not" 3E he has moved on to draw a trend over time of fracturing and loss of solid foundation. "What's a module publisher to do?" has a clear "I need solutions" tone to it, not an "How do I reinvest all this gravy" tone.

Honestly, I don't think the alternate stats solution will turn out to be viable. Maybe I'm wrong. But I just don't see the profit justifying the effort.