Is WotC still the industry LEADER?

[Mournblade94]

This attitude, described by Stan!, sounds eerily like the days of Lorraine Williams at TSR. I know many say that they feel like WotC is returning to the days of TSR. And then others argue just as strongly that WotC isn't acting like TSR. I agree that WotC is not going the way of TSR's lawsuit happy days. WotC is also not actively attempting to run other game companies out of the business. But I think that the reason many keep comparing the current WotC with the late TSR is because of this attitude. Whether they are following the TSR playbook exactly, or not at all, this attitude can do nothing but get them into trouble. Even if it's just to continue causing inept mistakes like they've been making for the last year or so. But, no matter how you cut it, this attitude smacks of arrogance and purposeful disconnect from their customer base. Whether the consequences of this attitude come quickly, or take years to manifest, the consequences will eventually follow. That is, unless they change this attitude.

I have to agree. TSR at the time was run by Non gamers. WOTC has gamers working for it, but it is run by Non-gamers. Even if Mike Mearls was to take on executive role in WOTC, he would still be beholden to HASBRO exec decisions.

 

[DaveMage]

They're not really leading anyone at this time, are they?

Goodman and XRP are the only print companies that are making any significant numbers of 4E stuff, and even they are not exclusively creating support materials for WotC products.

That's a far, far cry from when there were at least 10 print companies making supporting products, and following WotC's lead.

WotC's former best partner, Paizo, is making competing products. And with the latest action by WotC, now Paizo has virtually no financial reason to support WotC at all. Paizo will likely still sell WotC print books, but WotC print titles are very rarely in Paizo's bestseller list.

Remember when White Wolf was producing a large supply of product that supported WotC? Now WW is trying to take WotC's customers.

Different times indeed.

 

[Cadfan]

Stan! seems to be using it mostly in this way, and, more than that, adds to it the idea that the "market leader" would try to lead the WHOLE MARKET in a given direction, rather than just themselves. They would take others along, educate them, help them to match pace, and basically support the whole of the thing. A leader in the 4e sense of the term: they help their teammates (smaller companies in the industry) do things.

Ah. Right. The d20 vision of "leader" as "Borg."

Under that definition, I'm glad they aren't leading anymore. They were definitely leading when they got everyone to start making d20 versions of their games, but I'm not convinced that was actually good for gaming. It certainly led the gaming market in a given direction, but it wasn't a direction I particularly liked.

 

[xechnao]

That's not very subjective, really. Do other companies want to work with WotC to grow the hobby as a whole? Or are they opening up their own paths, blazing their own trails, and going off in their own directions? That's something you can answer, more or less.

A leader guides focus towards something specific. I do not believe that this is a viable idea for the long term growth of the hobby. Maybe in the short term -but in the long term it will create bubble: as it happened indeed.

 

[MerricB]

I'd say... that if Wizards tried to be an industry leader back in the "good old days"... it failed.

The most amazing thing that Wizards did was create the OGL. How many significant games are there that use the OGL for their own rules system that isn't derived from an existing OGL game?

 

[Xyxox]

I agree with Stan! completely.

That said, it will be interesting to watch. Games Workshoip was at one time the leader in tabletop war gaming. Like WotC, that no longer holds true, but nobody has really stepped into the fold to become the leader in teh industry.

Unlike that niche, the RPG tabletop gaming hobby has many ptoential leaders standing by ready to take the mantle of "industry leader".

Paizo
Green Ronin
White Wolf

If you ever saw two of these three determine a merger was in their best interest, I think we'd have our leader in the industry.

 

[TerraDave]

Do they lead like they did in 2000-2003. No. But that was sort of an anomoly. For much of their history, the maker of D&D was sort of like this beached whale that everyone else sort of ran circles around, but couldn't really dislodge.

Today: 4E and the DDI have "leading edge" elements that will (or probably already have) inspire others. But mostly, they are that beached whale, thrashing its tale.

 

[Alikar]

I really don't get how people are even beginning to think that Wotc is not the industry leader. Look at the PDF news. People are mad because they want to play the game Wotc makes. I mean the PHBs are selling like mad and I'm sure the other Wotc books are doing just as well.

As much as some people may not want to admit it, the industry leader is determined by sales and nothing else.

 

[Deverash]

That brings up a good question, then. If WotC isn't the leader in hobby gaming, who is?

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Remember when White Wolf was producing a large supply of product that supported WotC? Now WW is trying to take WotC's customers.

Different times indeed.

True. But, those times changed long before now. Scarred Lands, which was WW's biggest D&D support, ended in 05 as I recall. When the d20 bubble popped, pretty much everyone got out of the game.

In the year before 4e was announced, how many publishers were supporting WOTC titles? 3, maybe 5? Sure, there was lots of small ones, but, I'm talking more serious sized companies. Paizo sized and the like.

A lot of these changes occured quite some time ago. The days when there were companies lining up to ride on WOTC's train ended about the same time 3.5 hit the streets.

Claiming that WOTC has lost its market leading position because companies aren't lining up now isn't really looking at the history very closely. Nobody's been knocking down WOTC's doors for years now. Even before all the hoopla of the last 18 months, those early days of 3e were dead and buried for quite some time.