D&D 4E Monte Cook on licensing (and 4E in general?)

[Crazy Jerome]

His PDF sells well because he has a solid following built upon the precipice of actual, physical books.

No, and the opposite is stated right there in the linked post: He built up a following by selling PDFs, and then later branched into print.

PDF sales purely as a means to make money for new publishers who's writers have never seen the light of day is a crapshoot. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with building a business model around self-publishing by PDF. Given time, digital books are likely going to be the most prevalent of distribution methods with the rising cost of paperbinding and bookmaking.

A more plausible argument in Monte Cook's case is that he had his name on the DMG, which led to him being able to sell anything. The PDF route just happened to be the one he took. While I'm sure that name recognition didn't hurt, I'm also sure that if those first few PDFs had been crap, the later sales and expansion into print would not have done nearly as well.

From my perspective there seems to be two big requirements in putting out a hugely successful PDF: At least slightly better quality than comparable print products, and some kind of way to get noticed.

 

[nothing to see here]

I agree. But that was not the point we were discussing. We were discussing the impact of the GSL on 4E's success.

My point was that the majority of D&D players out there don't know or don't care about this discussion, all they care is if the new edition is going to be better or worse than previous edition. That's what will determine the new edition's success or failure IMO. Plain and simple.

Take a look at this poll http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=222814
This poll shows us that 61% of EnWorld's members and visitors will buy 4E even if it's closed. Being OGL or not have no impact on their decision. And these are the gamers we expect to be into all this OGL discussion and other peculiar matters about the RPG market. What about the gamers out there that don't even know what EnWorld is? (and I know plenty of them.)

I actually agree with ainatan's position. I must however, make my one feeble contribution to remind people that message board polls are less than useless when it comes to measuring anybody's gaming opinion.

As it happens a, well conceived, scientific strategic polls could actually tell you a lot. ANY poll you answer on ENWorld is far from scientific or strategic.

Take the "Will you switch even if 4e is closed" question. The 61% means absolutey nothing. There are four grave sins here...

STRIKE 1: The universe for the poll (ENWorld visitors) is self-selecting. This alone invalidates the poll when it comes to the views of the overall gaming market.

STRIKE 2: The respondents to the poll (within ENWorld) are self-selecting. This invalidates the poll from even being an accurate representation of the ENWorld community.

STRIKE 3: The question itself is worded to be leading. Even if the poll were properly sampled it's conclusion would be suspicious.

STRIKE 4: The poll question content attempts to extrapoloate general opinions based on on a very technical knowledge subset. This is also covered in the poll's self-selection above, but would again, call into question the results of the poll.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Obviously this is very much dependent upon the definition of success.

I think the interest in WotC products will allow 4e to remain a success even without 3rd party support, probably no worse than 3e has been and perhaps even better. Of course I am talking about success from WotC's perspective.

The difference is that without 3rd party products, 4e won't be as vibrant. People will play the game, enjoy the game, but those who do not have the time/drive/creativity to create their own material will have no choice but to stick with whatever WotC is feeding them.

Some will be dissatisfied quickly with that and will leave the 4e fold, while others will take what they can get. A lot would depend upon how good WotC would be at putting out different offerings for people with different tastes, or who are just looking for variety.

If there is no 3rd party stuff and WotC were to take the Henry Ford stance of "You can have it in any color, as long as it's black," then I would not put a lot of stock in the long-term success of 4e.

I was about to say something similar. My take on it however is a little different.

How do you define success?
-Do you define success as being it will outsell any other RPG on the market at this current point in time? I'm sure it will.
-Do you define success as having lots of people playing the game? Well that depends on your definition of "lots".
-Do you define success as Wizards not announcing layoff before the 1 year anniversery of 4E? Or how about the PHBII having the sales figures more then 3/4 of the PHBI? Or that 4E is the trendsetter of the RPG industry? Or as 5E not be announced in 4 years? Or as bringing in alot of new blood into the industry? Or tons of 3rd party companies discussing their products all over ENWorld? Or ....

There are so many ways to define success for it, that someone will gleam onto one and say it is a success and someone will gleam onto another and say it was a failure.

 

[dmccoy1693]

From my perspective there seems to be two big requirements in putting out a hugely successful PDF: At least slightly better quality than comparable print products, and some kind of way to get noticed.

I'd agree with that. Few PDF publishers have widespread notice. The PDF publisher with probably the most name recognition is Dreamscarred Press. Why? They're all psionics, a very underpublished niche. They took that ball and ran with it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Anyone who thinks that the GSL scenario isn't more than a little FUBAR'd is drinking the WotC Kool-Aid a bit too strongly, and might want to stop kissing the company so deeply so that they can see the world outside of their passion for 4e.

Anyone who thinks that WotC is, in 4e, is going to fall victim to the "thousand little cuts" of 3rd party publishers might need to refill their glass to remember what MOST D&D fans are like. I'm pretty sure people care more about the name "Dungeons and Dragons" than could ever care about the specific rules the game is played under. The worst that the "Coke Classic" versions of 3e could do is limit how fast and how strong 4e can grow. They can perhaps make it slightly less of a success, but I don't believe they can make it fail.

FWIW, I think it's really sweet how Monte raves about the pdf industry, and I think it's very cool that he has found the virtues of the system. For small publishers, it's an unparalleled realm of possibility, especially when you add the strength of name recognition and minor celebrity to the mix. If I made 6 PDF's a year, and sold them at $10 apiece, I'd only need about 1,000 people to buy them in order to live a pretty good low-income life here in NYC (heck, that'd be more than I make doing my current job, almost!). Since not even Wizards gets rich off of this game, I'd be pretty happy with that. Perhaps I just need 1,000 people who will try out what I put out for $10?

Basically, pdf publishing is very cool, though it's barely a blip on the radar of something like Wizards, and it'll never totally supplant books, but it's a nice way to make a small profit as a small outfit, without having to deal with the immense overhead that a process like WotC's can generate. It's a different way to work with the industry, and it's rewarding in its own ways, I imagine.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I actually agree with ainatan's position. I must however, make my one feeble contribution to remind people that message board polls are less than useless when it comes to measuring anybody's gaming opinion.

As it happens a, well conceived, scientific strategic polls could actually tell you a lot. ANY poll you answer on ENWorld is far from scientific or strategic.

Take the "Will you switch even if 4e is closed" question. The 61% means absolutey nothing. There are four grave sins here...

STRIKE 1: The universe for the poll (ENWorld visitors) is self-selecting. This alone invalidates the poll when it comes to the views of the overall gaming market.

STRIKE 2: The respondents to the poll (within ENWorld) are self-selecting. This invalidates the poll from even being an accurate representation of the ENWorld community.

STRIKE 3: The question itself is worded to be leading. Even if the poll were properly sampled it's conclusion would be suspicious.

STRIKE 4: The poll question content attempts to extrapoloate general opinions based on on a very technical knowledge subset. This is also covered in the poll's self-selection above, but would again, call into question the results of the poll.

Wait, are you saying I shouldn't be using EN World poll results for my marketing research?

Damn.

Do you think I would have better luck at RPG.net?

 

[HeinorNY]

I feel it is similar to Microsoft vs. open source code.

The fact is Microsoft doesn't need open source, the same way WOTC doesn't need open gaming.

 

[HeinorNY]

I must however, make my one feeble contribution to remind people that message board polls are less than useless when it comes to measuring anybody's gaming opinion.

I agree that forum polls don't mean too much, but they have to mean something. Let me correct myself: The Poll shows that 61% of ENWorld members and visitors that entereded that thread and decided to vote don't care for open gaming.

 

[National Acrobat]

Eh? Not to be discouraging, but ENWorld caters foremost to some few Game Masters who even know of this site. Players and other more casual GMs won't notice the lack of 3rd party support (they might not even know of Paizo, Necromancer and whatever RPG-support business there is), and most don't even buy that stuff. There's a reason why rule-books sell so well, and why Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast will (unfortunately) stretch out all the classes across several core-books. Players quite often still buy a copy of the rule-book, even if the GM has one already.

I will agree with this wholeheartedly. My group has at it's core eight players, and sometimes twelve, and I am the only one who visits here. Heck, half of them at our last session wondered what me and a couple of others were talking about when we were discussing 4e. They hadn't even heard that 4e is coming out. Most of the guys, except for 1, that I game with basically buy the ph and leave it up to the gm to buy the other books if needed. Sites like this and all of the information about third parties, gsl, supplements, etc. don't even cross their mind.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I agree that forum polls don't mean too much, but they have to mean something. Let me correct myself: The Poll shows that 61% of ENWorld members and visitors that entereded that thread and decided to vote don't care for open gaming.

Double post - see next page.