Goodman rebuttal

[Doug McCrae]

Even during the darkest days of TSR, D&D never really lost that title(though White Wolf might have gotten close)

I read somewhere (how's that for an unimpeachable source) that for one month in the early 90s Vampire outsold D&D. That's the only point in the history of rpgs when D&D wasn't the top seller.

 

[jdrakeh]

I blame it on today's nature of doing business.

Offering feedback is fine. Rocketing off multiple pieces of hatemail or posting personal attacks thinly disguised as 'feedback' on forums is not fine, however. It's pretty screwed up, really. As for blaming others for personal choices. . . I think that is a big part of the problem.

It often seems that everybody wants to act like a jerk but then blame it on somebody else. Nobody makes somebody else send a hateful email or post a personal attack on a public forum. The sole responsibility for such actions belongs to the person taking them.

For the record, I'm not saying that you're making this excuse on behalf of yourself (you've been nothing but cordial), but please don't make it for anybody else, either (they're doing just fine pushing my buttons without any help).

Having said that, we seem to be drifting waaaaaaaaaaay off thread topic. If you'd like to continue this discussion, let's do it by PM.

 

[xechnao]

If you'd like to continue this discussion, let's do it by PM.

No need so I think. The way you put it got me pretty convinced I agree with your feelings here.

 

[Windjammer]

I found Joe Goodman's posting extremely valuable.

While I don't know why Goodman felt it necessary to dedicate the latter part of his post to the fate of 4E in general, I think the first bit, about Goodman Games' fate within 4E, is undoubtedly valuable.

It shows that Goodman picked a really healthy business model. One which works for him, and one which he only decided upon after careful deliberation.

I wish he had said a bit more on why the specific partnership with 4E worked out so well, meaning his success as a license taker of the GSL.

Personally, I can only collect two tid bits of info from the past months.

First, when 4E designers first announced their "Points of light" setting ideas, and the idea of the new core races, Joe Goodman and the rest of the "World of Aereth" design team were jumping up and down with joy on their boards. Basically, Aereth already IS "points of light" and Dragonborn already ARE key players in their world. For them, 4E was moving in a direction they were supporting ALREADY in their product. This sets Goodman Games apart from companies like Paizo or Necromancer Games who felt 4E was moving in a direction not in line with their own product expectations for D&D. (Something Paizo and Necromance Games have said time and again.)

Second, the Dungeon Crawl Classics line hasn't always been too keen on rules precision. As someone who isn't keen on rules precision when writing modules myself (not that I'd ever publish mine), the product line has my sympathies. However, it also caught considerable criticism for that. (You can read up about this on a mega-review of the ENTRIRE 3.5 DCC product line on RPGnet.) So the advent of 4E, with its generosity to DMs and designers to play fast and loose with rules - say, when designing monsters, when designing traps, basically when statting out something not already covered by the rules, because the core rules (contra 3E) don't stat out everything already - was a godsent for Goodman Games' DCC line.

In the latter vein, I'd recommend you to read a wonderful interview with Harley Stroh here:

Interview: Harley Stroh « Kobold Quarterly

In short, I wish Joe Goodman would be more liberal about his experiences with 4E online and even less mind the general question of 4E's doing well or not. Let's hope he keeps posting, do I'm sure he's got better things to do.

 

[ggroy]

Heck, here's one rival theory. In tough economic times, people turn to games for a release from the pressures of life, and to find relatively inexpensive entertainment, The peaks in D&D (and/or hobby gaming) coincide with recessions. There was a bad recession in the early 80s. There was another after the dot com bubble (2001 peak). There was one in the early 90s (but CCGs arose and stole potential D&D customers so parts of the hobby were still doing very well). And there is a particularly deep one now so the gaming hobby should be doing relatively well. If 4E and other games fail to take advantage of the fact that people need an avenue of "escape" from the somewhat depressing economic realities, then perhaps they are doing something wrong this time around.

It would be interesting to see how much MMORPGs suck up the gaming dollars during the recession this time around, that CCGs and pen and paper RPGs did during past recessions.

If was a kid or a teenager today, I certainly would be attracted to MMORPG games like WoW than older style CCG card games or pen and paper rpgs. Arguably if I was 20 years older than I am today, I probably would have been more into wargames than pen and paper rpgs.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Forgive me, I don't usually participate in these industry threads, and I feel like I am missing an important premise. Why does it matter how well WotC is performing compared to Hasbro's goals?

Are people worried that WotC will declare bankruptcy and, being "too big to fail", will bring down the entire hobby with them? (Presumably, WotC is not in line for any government bailout money.) Or are so many people in this forum considering publishing 4E material and need to know how risky the market is (whether WotC will continue supporting 4E)?

What's it to you that WotC meets some projected dollar amount set by Hasbro?

Some people seem to fear Hasbro as "the evil corporation that could ruin everything on a whim". Other people can't distinguish between D&D and the OGL/3pp community, feel that on a personal level at least they are one and the same, and that damage to OGL/3pp is damage to D&D. Few people disagree that some harm has come to the OGL/3pp and many OGL/3pp fans might be blaming Hasbro for this and are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

[AllisterH]

Forgive me, I don't usually participate in these industry threads, and I feel like I am missing an important premise. Why does it matter how well WotC is performing compared to Hasbro's goals?

Are people worried that WotC will declare bankruptcy and, being "too big to fail", will bring down the entire hobby with them? (Presumably, WotC is not in line for any government bailout money.) Or are so many people in this forum considering publishing 4E material and need to know how risky the market is (whether WotC will continue supporting 4E)?

What's it to you that WotC meets some projected dollar amount set by Hasbro?

Honestly this makes no sense....

Isn't M:TG STILL eclipsing D&D sales by an order of magnitude?

 

[Alzrius]

I haven't laughed so hard in months Enable your XP so I can give some to you, man.

"...created the month of May." LOL

Joe, I checked my XP settings, and they should be enabled.

That said, I'm glad you were amused by what I posted. However, I've since come to understand that several other people were not - to anyone who was offended by what I wrote, I sincerely apologize. I was trying to evoke satire, not insult Joseph Goodman or anyone who agreed with his post.

 

[JoeGKushner]

In terms of distributors and Goodman/Clark...

Necromancer Games has never been on it's own. White Wofl>Kenzer (with what many consider less than stellar results in the printing of the products)>Paizo(and the partnership with Paizo has yielded nothing in print from Necromancer yet... shame that there's not going to be a Pathfinder Tome of Horrors at launch).

Goodman Games has distributed other companies.

I'm going to go with Joe on this one.

 

[Treebore]

In terms of distributors and Goodman/Clark...

Necromancer Games has never been on it's own. White Wofl>Kenzer (with what many consider less than stellar results in the printing of the products)>Paizo(and the partnership with Paizo has yielded nothing in print from Necromancer yet... shame that there's not going to be a Pathfinder Tome of Horrors at launch).

Goodman Games has distributed other companies.

I'm going to go with Joe on this one.

You forget one other publisher Necromancer used for Lost City of Barakus, Taverns, and several other of their products, Troll Lord Games.