Well, TSR did go bankrupt...
I agree that this is not definitive proof that Pathfinder will dominate the RPG marketplace decades from now.
Is Wotc Slipping?
- Thread starter Stormonu
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Well, TSR did go bankrupt...
I agree that this is not definitive proof that Pathfinder will dominate the RPG marketplace decades from now.
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
I say this in all seriousness and as a 4E fan: how could they not be slipping?
To begin with, in order to be a strong company, you have to actually release some products. The last time I picked up any serious amount of WotC products was in August of last year. In September, I picked up a copy of the Rules Compendium, but that's been it.
The entire Essentials line was not targeted at me, as I'm neither a lapsed player or new to the scene, so I had no reason to pick up any of the books. For the existing fanbase, I'm not alone in that regard.
I had a DDI account since day one, and I cancelled it over the online character builder issue (and also because the DDI content was pretty much non-existent). Nothing I've seen lately has encouraged me to rethink that decision.
Since then, a number of books that I would have purchased have been cancelled, and I have Heroes of Shadow to look forward to. That's a book I would most likely have avoided, but since it seems to be the only product that's actually coming out, I'll take a seriously look at it. That's pretty likely to be my only purchase for WotC this year, and quite frankly that's sad.
So there's my anecdote, which is worth nothing, but still, in many ways perception in business is reality. Is there anyone saying "WotC is going great, their sales are through the roof! What good times D&D is having?" If they are, then I haven't seen it in a long while. Even folks who are positive about the game (which, I'll say again, includes me) are acknowledging problems.
What we see a lot of is "I don't know, and neither do you." And yet that in itself is telling: if no one is out there really excited for what's happening with the brand at the moment, isn't that the surest sign of it slipping?
Let me be clear: I love 4E, and until Essentials came along I was really enjoying the way the game was going. I think 4E "classic" is the best edition of the game I've ever played, and I WAS very excited with the direction things were going. So you might think I'm a disgruntled fan (which really isn't true: we're playing a fantastic 4E game at the moment) but if I am just a disgruntled fan, where is everyone who was supposed to pick up the banner with the launch of Essentials? Certainly I'm not hearing them talk.
And perception can (and often does) become reality.
To begin with, in order to be a strong company, you have to actually release some products. The last time I picked up any serious amount of WotC products was in August of last year. In September, I picked up a copy of the Rules Compendium, but that's been it.
The entire Essentials line was not targeted at me, as I'm neither a lapsed player or new to the scene, so I had no reason to pick up any of the books. For the existing fanbase, I'm not alone in that regard.
I had a DDI account since day one, and I cancelled it over the online character builder issue (and also because the DDI content was pretty much non-existent). Nothing I've seen lately has encouraged me to rethink that decision.
Since then, a number of books that I would have purchased have been cancelled, and I have Heroes of Shadow to look forward to. That's a book I would most likely have avoided, but since it seems to be the only product that's actually coming out, I'll take a seriously look at it. That's pretty likely to be my only purchase for WotC this year, and quite frankly that's sad.
So there's my anecdote, which is worth nothing, but still, in many ways perception in business is reality. Is there anyone saying "WotC is going great, their sales are through the roof! What good times D&D is having?" If they are, then I haven't seen it in a long while. Even folks who are positive about the game (which, I'll say again, includes me) are acknowledging problems.
What we see a lot of is "I don't know, and neither do you." And yet that in itself is telling: if no one is out there really excited for what's happening with the brand at the moment, isn't that the surest sign of it slipping?
Let me be clear: I love 4E, and until Essentials came along I was really enjoying the way the game was going. I think 4E "classic" is the best edition of the game I've ever played, and I WAS very excited with the direction things were going. So you might think I'm a disgruntled fan (which really isn't true: we're playing a fantastic 4E game at the moment) but if I am just a disgruntled fan, where is everyone who was supposed to pick up the banner with the launch of Essentials? Certainly I'm not hearing them talk.
And perception can (and often does) become reality.
Dice4Hire
First Post
I'll pretend to be one once I google to find out what on earth it is.
Dice4Hire
First Post
Dice4Hire
First Post
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
Hah! That's the truth. This year otherwise appears to be one where I spend the least money on D&D since I started playing back in the 1970s. That's scary to me! How old that makes me feel is also scary.
I should elaborate a bit, because I actually found virtually every part of Retreater's post to be objectionable.
1) The idea that "nothing will ever have the brand recognition of D&D, so no one should ever even attempt to compete" is self-defeating. Pathfinder doesn't need to "beat" D&D to be a very successful business.
2) Pathfinder has an intro product in development at the moment and will have it out by the end of the year. Just because something does not currently exist does not mean that it will never exist.
3) There are PLENTY of things that Wizards of the Coast could do to entice 3.5 or Pathfinder players to their products. Capitulating on this point, as Retreater suggests, shows enormous lack of imagination. I'm beginning to see why he calls himself "Retreater".
4) If a publisher (like, for example, Wizards of the Coast) has a brand that brings them millions and millions and millions of dollars in profit, are those dollars worth less because they came from a "niche hobby"? Indeed, most hobbies are niche, and yet lots of people make lots of money catering to the interests of hobbyists. Not really a lot of "doom" in this scenario, in my opinion.
The hobby games industry can support lots of games from lots of publishers. It has retailers ready to sell product and hundreds of thousands of gamers--many of them completists--eager to trade money for stuff that makes them smile.
There is no reason to be gloomy about the state of the industry, the state of the hobby, or the state of a given game system, in my view. Even if Pathfinder and/or 4th edition were declared utter financial failures tomorrow and nothing was ever published for them again, there's more than enough stuff already published in both systems to provide fun for years to come.
If all RPG publishers were as fatalistic in their outlook as Retreater, there wouldn't be any RPG publishers left at all.
--Erik
1) The idea that "nothing will ever have the brand recognition of D&D, so no one should ever even attempt to compete" is self-defeating. Pathfinder doesn't need to "beat" D&D to be a very successful business.
2) Pathfinder has an intro product in development at the moment and will have it out by the end of the year. Just because something does not currently exist does not mean that it will never exist.
3) There are PLENTY of things that Wizards of the Coast could do to entice 3.5 or Pathfinder players to their products. Capitulating on this point, as Retreater suggests, shows enormous lack of imagination. I'm beginning to see why he calls himself "Retreater".
4) If a publisher (like, for example, Wizards of the Coast) has a brand that brings them millions and millions and millions of dollars in profit, are those dollars worth less because they came from a "niche hobby"? Indeed, most hobbies are niche, and yet lots of people make lots of money catering to the interests of hobbyists. Not really a lot of "doom" in this scenario, in my opinion.
The hobby games industry can support lots of games from lots of publishers. It has retailers ready to sell product and hundreds of thousands of gamers--many of them completists--eager to trade money for stuff that makes them smile.
There is no reason to be gloomy about the state of the industry, the state of the hobby, or the state of a given game system, in my view. Even if Pathfinder and/or 4th edition were declared utter financial failures tomorrow and nothing was ever published for them again, there's more than enough stuff already published in both systems to provide fun for years to come.
If all RPG publishers were as fatalistic in their outlook as Retreater, there wouldn't be any RPG publishers left at all.
--Erik
It's a type of statistical modeling that gets around gaps in knowledge or information. It would be one way of addressing the shifting baselines / moving goal posts / lack of solid data that people have been mentioning. Presumably there would be a way to build a model that included the ICV2 data, the surmised DDI subscription levels, BOOKSCAN, and the amazon numbers.
And then we could argue about the model as well as the data.I've only run into it in the field of fisheries science (and only as the grunt worker who gets told to "go out and kill 10,000 trout and bring me their earbones, I need them for my model"), they use it cause "counting fish is like counting trees, except they are invisible and they keep moving and they eat each other".
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Stormonu
NeoGrognard
While certainly WotC needs some way to keep D&D in people's minds, I'm somewhat glad they've finally scaled back on the book schedule - I wish they'd done it back in the 3E days. It was as if Nintendo put out two Mario games a month or Microsoft put out two new Halo games a month for five years.
Unfortunately, we've all pretty much gotten used to the rapid scale of new books coming out and I think that has gone towards coloring perceptions - if WotC (or whoever) isn't putting out the new shiney, the company must be dying! Also, while I'm sure WotC's DDI is making decent returns, I hope it doesn't isolate its "in-print" image and actually turn away customers who either are not aware it exists or think the line has become stagnant because there's no new print products.
(As an aside, I hope book glut doesn't happen to Pathfinder. I'd like to be able to look back some 5-7 years into the game and there be somewhere around 10 major books. AP's though, keep 'em coming - just not so many new rules).
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