Is WOTC falling into a problem like the old TSR did

[ProtoClone]

Well WoTC is in the business to be a business for gamers. They can't really be expected to sit and not release much of anything and still be a functioning business.
If you don't like it, don't buy it.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think it's all-or-nothing. Fewer products, certainly. No useful products? Sorry, I just don't buy it. A smaller, more hobbyist market isn't doomed to death.

Failure to die does not imply a better situation. It is not sufficient that they not be doomed to death - you kind of ought to demonstrate how it would be at least as good, if not better, than what we have now.

When I said, "you will not see useful products," I meant that literally - you won't see them on the shelves. Distribution for small publishers really stinks.

We've seen what you're talking about before, back when you needed to go to small hobby shops to find D&D stuff. And guess what? Much of that D&D stuff wasn't so good. And at the time, that model didn't seem to support more than D&D - it was only when TSR and the market got bigger did we start to see diversification of games.

So doomed to death? Maybe not. But good for even hobbist gamers? I remain unconvinced.

Again, I cite the wargame market. It's smaller than it used to be, and there's no Avalon Hill out there right now. But there are a LOT of really great wargames that are being produced.

I would not cite that as an example so quick. You've already said that you don't have numbers. I certainly don't. But, I wouldn't be surprised to find that, at least in terms of raw dollars if not bodies, the wargame market was larger than the tabletop RPG market.

If you're including many of the European-born semi-wargames (Settlers of Catan, Carcassone, et al), I would be rather surprised if they didn't have the larger market. Which would, of course, drastically reduce the usefulness of the comparison.

 

[Shadeydm]

Put me squarely in the camp that wants professional companies releasing D&D products. How anyone could actually long for the days of fan written material is beyond me. For every Tegel Manor, to name a good example, you have hundreds of pages of crap. Poorly editted, poorly tested, and ugly to boot.

No thanks. I'll stick with "slick" books for my dollar.

WoTC hasn't been setting the world on fire with thier editing or stat blocks see some of John Cooper's reviews for specifics but when WoTC can't put out a book with errors in less than 50% of it's stat blocks there is a serious lack of quality control.

 

[molonel]

WoTC hasn't been setting the world on fire with thier editing or stat blocks see some of John Cooper's reviews for specifics but when WoTC can't put out a book with errors in less than 50% of it's stat blocks there is a serious lack of quality control.

I've read John Cooper's reviews. They're good stuff.

They also don't mean a whole lot, unless you are playing Accountant: The Last Audit. So a creature on page 129 has 20' movement instead of 40'.

Oh my God. I think I'll live.

I've run games out of WotC's 3rd Edition Monster Manuals for several years, now. My games have never exploded because some editor forgot to add the Con bonus to a monster's hit points.

 

[Mr. Patient]

WoTC hasn't been setting the world on fire with thier editing or stat blocks see some of John Cooper's reviews for specifics but when WoTC can't put out a book with errors in less than 50% of it's stat blocks there is a serious lack of quality control.

I completely agree, and am quite dissatisfied with WotC's editing, especially for stat blocks. However, even their poor efforts are light-years ahead of most hobbyist/fan-produced stuff, and many of the smaller "professional" PDF publishers' material. They may have some good ideas, but they're buried under an avalanche of bad writing and bad editing. I'm not willing to pay for that anymore.

 

[kenobi65]

I completely agree, and am quite dissatisfied with WotC's editing, especially for stat blocks. However, even their poor efforts are light-years ahead of most hobbyist/fan-produced stuff, and many of the smaller "professional" PDF publishers' material. They may have some good ideas, but they're buried under an avalanche of bad writing and bad editing. I'm not willing to pay for that anymore.

Indeed...I've largely given up on purchasing 3rd-party OGC stuff for D&D; I've just bought too many items that turned out to be amazingly poorly written and edited. I'm sure there's some high-quality stuff out there, but the hit/miss ratio was just too poor for me.

 

[Quasqueton]

A couple years ago, I made a foray into the d20 publishing industry, as an editor.

I had two projects to edit for two different non-WotC d20 gaming companies. You'd definitely recognize one of the companies, and you might recognize the other. I edited one of the projects. But I came down with strep throat and couldn't work on the second, although I read through it after recovering.

Both projects had a *ton* of problems for an editor to fix. Really, a tremendous amount. I put much more time in the first project than the pay was worth, and I'm glad I couldn't do the second, because it would have been just as time consuming for equally little pay. I gave up on the third-party d20 market.

I really hope WotC writers are better than what I experienced. If not, then the editors of the various WotC books deserve much more money *and* a lot of sympathy from we gamers.

Quasqueton

 

[Ranger REG]

Ayuh, and I believe I acknowledged such. I'm also aware that a lot of the designers at WotC weren't happy when the mandate (based on marketing) came down to emphasize rules over background. But there's no question - rules sell.

In any case, this can't be the reason for hating WotC because they're simply providing the demands of the majority of the customers, even if that means WE minorities are being singled out and neglected.

Bigger budgets and a (persumably) more consistent production system, yeah, should produce a more consistent product. WotC has a lot of super-talented folks working for 'em, but again...a matter of personal taste and preference.

Heh. You assume that Hasbro is giving WotC a bigger "allowance" for being a subsidiary. The only thing Hasbro sends to WotC is their people and other resources, rarely funds. WotC is responsible for making money for both themselves and for Hasbro.

As for "lots of super-talented folks," you must have missed the memo where WotC had to let go of some of their super-talented employees from the R&D in order to stay in business. Sure, they still contract them to write for them (as freelanced writers), but what in-house employee pool they have left are the ones editing those submitted material. Their in-house game designer pool is not as big as what TSR used to have.

 

[3catcircus]

And hardcopy is still way, way underpriced. 'People', sadly, are generally ignorant of subjects like economics, inflation and how pricing is affected by them. Compare the cost of books at a store like B&N to how RPGs are priced sometime. The disconnect is...startling.

If I run to B&N, Borders, etc... the price of a paperback is generally no more than $7 (US). I see a new book in hardcover for $25 and *know* that if I wait long enough, a paperback will be released. I'm waiting for the paperback. With RPG books, there isn't a paperback to follow the hardcover.

 

[Faraer]

To keep making money, you need to either sell a lot of stuff to a few people or less stuff to lots of people. Since Wizards hasn't had the guts to try mass-marketing D&D outside the existing ghetto of 'gamers', it's forced to the former course like TSR was.

Yes, all trade books are underpriced and undervalued, and hence so is the work of authors, meaning that few of them can make a living at it.

And I certainly agree that people not familiar with what editing RPG books entails should be a lot less glib with their criticism.