Mearls' Legends and Lore (or, "All Roads Lead to Rome, Redux")

[BryonD]

IMO there is a mistake being made in that there is a presumption of WotC focus on old players as their target market.

I'm not saying they don't want "us". They do. But, they saw 1,000,000 birds in the bush as worth 100 times 10,000 birds in the hand. That was their marketing strategy out of the gate with 4E. They wanted non table top RPG players to become new players. And not just the normal development of new players, but a whole new market footprint. Who cares if they lose half their birds in the hand if they gain back 100 times that from the bush? On paper that sounds like a solid policy. The problem is, those bush birds have no interest in ever being table top gamers, and their willingness to play MMOs does not change that.

But just because that lesson has been demonstrated the hard way does not mean it has been learned.

IMO WotC is annoyed and disappointed about the 5,000+ birds that they lost from their hand. But, when they look at getting those 5,000+ back, they still see a hell of a lot less birds than the 1,000,000 they didn't get before. And their attention is still focused on the big prize.

I still see that effort to capture the 1,000,000 as a pipe dream. But giving them advice on how to recover the lost 5,000+ assumes they have stopped dreaming. They have not.

 

[Dannager]

The problem is, those bush birds have no interest in ever being table top gamers, and their willingness to play MMOs does not change that.

This is bananas. Go to PAX. Find a spot, and just watch as hundreds of MMO-playing teens and twenty-somethings line up to try out D&D for the first time.

That's not to say that all MMO players are ripe for the plucking, but the fact is that there are gajillions of potential tabletop players who would try the game out (and, probably, enjoy the hell out of it) if given the chance, and many of them would become customers.

Our hobby has never had a problem with people not enjoying the hobby itself. D&D is fun. It's got a track record that proves it, and it's a type of fun that isn't replaced by MMOs (at least, nothing like any MMO that's ever been produced to date). Our hobby's biggest problem is with making the game accessible for new players - making it easy to understand, easy to run, and providing opportunities for people to try the game out without having to invest in it.

WotC knows this, and it is the driving principle behind their entire brand strategy.

 

[BryonD]

This is bananas. Go to PAX. Find a spot, and just watch as hundreds of MMO-playing teens and twenty-somethings line up to try out D&D for the first time.

"Hundreds", "first time". Absolutely.

That's not to say that all MMO players are ripe for the plucking, but the fact is that there are gajillions of potential tabletop players who would try the game out (and, probably, enjoy the hell out of it) if given the chance, and many of them would become customers.

Our hobby has never had a problem with people not enjoying the hobby itself. D&D is fun. It's got a track record that proves it, and it's a type of fun that isn't replaced by MMOs (at least, nothing like any MMO that's ever been produced to date). Our hobby's biggest problem is with making the game accessible for new players - making it easy to understand, easy to run, and providing opportunities for people to try the game out without having to invest in it.

"Gajillions" seems a good choice of number, being as it is fictional.

I agree that the hobby has never had a problem with having a solid fan base. I in no way challenged that. But, that fan base is a more or less understood subset of the population. Trying to pretend that your market is not what it is, that is the problem.

I think the claim that accessibility is the problem is far more "bananas" than my claim. D&D is vastly more accessible than it was during the original "golden age".

And I think the obsession with "easy" is just a insult to the intellect of the kids who ARE potential long term gamers. As has been described in detail, early D&D was highly complex. The complexities were very different than the complexities of current versions, but they were still there. And the game thrived on fans who LOVED that.

Now WotC is trying to follow your advice and they are turning off the serious potential gamers who are not interested in "easy" in exchange for being a three second fad amongst people who are never going to be long term table top players.

WotC knows this, and it is the driving principle behind their entire brand strategy.

I agree they *think* they know it and I agree they are acting on this belief.

And the stumbling decline and deeply split market are the results.

 

[Mercurius]

IMO there is a mistake being made in that there is a presumption of WotC focus on old players as their target market.

Etc....

Perhaps we could say that post-4E release Mistake #1 was taking the "birds in hand" for granted, or at least assuming that they would draw enough newbies to more than make up for those that they lost. But I don't see how they could have predicted just how many 3.5ers they would lose, that wouldn't come back. Their early PR guffaws like the GSL and PDF issues just compacted the issue. To make matters worse (from WotC's perspective), quite a few folks went over to Pathfinder, which was created under WotC's very own OGL.
You're probably right that it is a pipe dream to try to win over the "birds in the bush," or at least a large portion of them. But what else can they do at this point? What do you think they should do? Could they actually win back the 3.5/Pathfinder crowd? I don't think so. Even if they groveled and apologized for making fun of 3.5 and did everything on Aberzanorax's list--and even killed 4E and pretended it never happened, instead making 5E a continuation of 3.5....I still don't think it would matter, at least not yet. Maybe in another year or two once Pathfinder's luster wears off a bit.

So the only thing WotC can do at this point, imo at least, is keep on trying to find ways to catch some of those birds-in-the-bush. The problem is, and has been, twofold: How to attract new players and keep them? And, as a subset of that question, how to transform casual players into diehards?

Pathfinder will probably downsize a bit at some point, but I think they've created a formula that--if they stick to it and don't corporatize--will keep a strong diehard core. WotC shouldn't waste time and energy trying to win those folks back.

All that said, I like Aberzanzorax's list and honestly don't know why any of that would be such a problem, although think 3 and 4 are pipe dreams.

 

[pemerton]

I'll say this,

This would be a MUCH more positive thread and WotC would have taken a big step forward if the article had been exactly the same, but at the end they had added:

"and that's why we're..."

1. resuming availability of pdfs.
2. expanding the GSL
3. announcing the return to Dungeon and Dragon in print, from PAIZO (still 4e)
4. Releasing a small series of brand new prior edition material.
5. any other action that actually supported the statement being made.

<snip>

I hope someone at WotC reads this thread and it helps them to understand the viewpoint/perspective fans currently have of the company

I think that 2, 3 and 4 are completely unreaslistic.

The GSL is already very generous by the standards of commercial IP sharing. It is not as generous as releasing the d20 SRD under the OGL, but - from WotC's point of view - that must be regarded as somewhat of a debacle, given that OGL+SRD is the very vehicle whereby Paizo are now taking on WotC at it's own game of producing the world's best selling tabletop fantasy RPG.

(I know there is a school of thought which says that many of those who are playing Pathfinder would have just stuck with 3E, or given up altogether, in the face of 4e. I tend to incline to the other school of thought, that the endurance in the marketplace of a widely known and widely supported competitor is a burden on the growth of 4e. And it's the OGL+SRD that make Pathfinder possible.)

3 would involve WotC entering into a licensing agreement with its largest commercial rival. Not unheard of, I guess, but in all the circumstances, and given the history, and given WotC's apparent intention to focus even more on online release of material under the banners of Dungeon and Dragon, extremely improbable. This would be for WotC to completely abandon its current approach, and to concede to Paizo.

4 is unrealistic both from a brand point of view - WotC (rightly or wrongly) seem very concerned about diluting the 4e D&D brand - and also from the point of view of commercial reality. As it is, WotC seems to have a shortage of writer-hours (hence the noted current dearth of new material).

I assume that WotC also regards the PDFs as unviable from a commercial point of view - else it would release them - and I assume that brand diluation is their main concern. Whether or not that concern is misplaced, I doubt that reading this thread would radically change their minds! I think that those who want the PDFs back would be better advised explaining how the PDFs being available would support and grow 4e and DDI. Whereas most people who want the PDFs back tend to talk about how these will help them play Pathfinder, or some retro-clone, or otherwise keep going with a non-4e edition, and how prior-4e editions are highly interconvertible, whereas 4e is a radical break from the past. This may all be true, but it just seems to be a list of reasons that, from WotC's point of view, are reasons not to want to make the PDFs available!

It's a while since I've seen a thread from a Pathfinder-player or retro-clone player talk about how they're using The Plane Above in their game, or the Underdark, or adapting the 4e mixed elementals into d20 form. I think this might be what Mearls has in mind when he's saying it's all D&D - maybe he's saying that 4e is D&D too, and that those who don't play 4e might still be interested in the game elements that it has to offer. If I wanted to persuade WotC that it was worth their while to engage with the players of earlier versions by releasing the PDFs, this is at least the sort of impression that I'd be trying to create.

 

[pemerton]

And I think the obsession with "easy" is just a insult to the intellect of the kids who ARE potential long term gamers.

I think by easy Dannager is meaning not just inherent complexity but ease of presentation, ease in terms of time, etc.

Now WotC is trying to follow your advice and they are turning off the serious potential gamers who are not interested in "easy" in exchange for being a three second fad amongst people who are never going to be long term table top players.

Is this meant to be a characterisation of 4e? Encounters? What exactly is the target of your denigration here?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in a war
For a lead role in a cage?"

 

[Mercurius]

I assume that WotC also regards the PDFs as unviable from a commercial point of view - else it would release them - and I assume that brand diluation is their main concern. Whether or not that concern is misplaced, I doubt that reading this thread would radically change their minds! I think that those who want the PDFs back would be better advised explaining how the PDFs being available would support and grow 4e and DDI. Whereas most people who want the PDFs back tend to talk about how these will help them play Pathfinder, or some retro-clone, or otherwise keep going with a non-4e edition, and how prior-4e editions are highly interconvertible, whereas 4e is a radical break from the past. This may all be true, but it just seems to be a list of reasons that, from WotC's point of view, are reasons not to want to make the PDFs available!

Excellent point - and I would also like to hear someone explain why WotC offering their PDFs would help them grow 4E and DDI, because that is what they are primarily interested in doing.

I can offer one thought: It would create goodwill among those not interested in 4E who might feel more inclined to buy an occasional 4E product because they aren't apoplectic about WotC's latest PR blunder. But in the larger scheme of things, I think this is a very small group of people.

 

[Mercurius]

"Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in a war
For a lead role in a cage?"

My sentiment was more like:

Doctors imprisoning me,
All that I see,
Absolute horror,
I cannot live,
I cannot die,
Trapped in myself,
My body my holding ceeellll!!!

 

[pemerton]

Their early PR guffaws like the GSL

I think this is a bit unfair. Even with the so-called "poison pill", the GSL was a very generous sharing of commercial IP.

The OGL + SRD was an experiment. From the point of view of WotC it must surely count as at best a mixed success. It is very hard to know how much the availability of d20-licensed material contributed to the growth of 3E. My personal view is that pure OGL+SRD games - like Arcana Unearthed, Conan etc contributed little or nothing to the growth of 3E - and that they more likely redirected consumers away from WotC. If WotC shares my view, then from there point of view the question becomes - how can we leverage whatever advantage we might get from d20-style material, without exposing ourselves in the way that we did with pure OGL+SRD? The GSL is one candidate answer to this question.

Here's another way of looking at it. Dancey's professed goal with the OGL was to lock in the d20 SRD as the default RPG for mainstream gaming. The growing success of Pathfinder suggests that Dancey's goal here has been accomplished to a significant extent. Certainly, releasing the world's best selling RPG rules under a non-revocable, indefinite, free licence seems always to have had a good chance of producing this result.

But this was only in WotC's commercial interests if it could be taken for granted that they would always do the best out of d20 sales. Dancey seems to have believed that this was so. Assuming that WotC is even half-rational as a commercial actor, it's decision to break from the SRD shows that this was in fact not true - hence the move to 4e. And in light of this realisation, hence the move away from an SRD+OGL model and towards the GSL instead.

When you look at the situation from the commercial perspective of WotC - which includes, assuming that they're even half-rational, their appreciation of the need to shift the mainstream RPG market away from OGL+SRD games and onto games which WotC (in virtue of retaining control over the IP) dominates the market - you can also get a better handle on their ads for 4e. For those ads to work, they had to rapidly shift the bulk of WotC's customer base from 3E to 4e. Any delay in effectiveness would give time for Pathfinder (or some similar OGL+SRD competitor) to emerge, effectively stifling 4e at its creation. In fact the ads didn't work, and something like this has happened - but from WotC's point of view it's not as if anything has been lost. They had to try it, and perhaps those ads were the best that they could come up with.

Now all the above has been written from the point of view of WotC as a commercial entity. From the point of view of a player of RPGs, it's rather different. For those who like diversity, the OGL+SRD was a great thing. But reality is still a constraint. It's simply irrational both to be thankful for the diversification in the market that was made possible by the OGL+STD, and to be regretful that the company which was the market leader has moved on and is trying to leave OGL+SRD games behind. You can't rationally both enjoy the destruction of the monopoly, and be regretful about the consequecnes of that destruction for WotC's publication schedule and it's ongoing attitude towards the IP that it continues to control.