Not Reading Ryan Dancy

[kenobi65]

The 1e PHB supposedly sold about 200,000 units per year for multiple years in a row. That sort of consistency would certainly work fine to support a company.

A small company would kill or die for that. A medium-sized company would, too. I'm still not convinced that that (200K sales of one book per year, and that's it) would be enough to keep Hasbro happy. As it is, D&D may well be worth more to them for the IP, and the related income (from the novels and licensing) than it is for the actual RPG sales.

 

[kenobi65]

It also sold enough that TSR continued to print it for a year (two printings!) after the 2e PHB was released. Unearthed Arcana sold so well that it was printed for two years (4-5 printings!!) after the 2e PHB was released.

So yeah, the books had staying power, and there's no reason to think that the same couldn't be true of 3.x.

Even so, that also was 20 years ago, and, depending on who you talk to, the RPG industry may not be as healthy now as it was then.

 

[Storm Raven]

A small company would kill or die for that. A medium-sized company would, too. I'm still not convinced that that (200K sales of one book per year, and that's it) would be enough to keep Hasbro happy.

WotC, in a non-new-edition-release-year, may not sell a whole lot more total books than that as it stands now. From the figures I have seen (unverified, so take them with a grain of salt), print runs of 20K or so for the various hardback supplements are not that uncommon. Under that assumption, the math adds up to a few hundred thousand game books sold per year for WotC.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I'm sorry, but my wallet and I heavily oppose those forces. I'm not in favor of buying revisions every 3 years. I oppose any [silver-spoon] fans who support this marketing ploy. They might as well send ther full wallet to me since they got money to burn.

Silver spoon? Man, like Ice Cube did for beats, I'm jackin' for books.

 

[SteveC]

You know I'm really surprised at the hostility to the release of an updated rules set every few years. With the SRD, it's perfectly possible to play a 3.5 campaign using your 3.0 rulebooks. Heck, I ran a 3.5 campaign by only updating my Monster Manual, and I haven't ever purchased the 3.5 DMG.

An update of the 3.5 rules to add in the rules that have become defacto parts of 3.5 would be welcomed by me: rules for immediate and swift actions, updates to the polymorph rules, addition of class variant options for the core classes, errata for spells and addition of the new uses for skills...all of those things would cause me to buy a new PHB right now. They also wouldn't invalidate any of the current splat books.

Just sayin' is all.

--Steve

 

[delericho]

I'd rather see WotC aim to make money by selling 1 product to 5 million people rather than by selling 50 products each to 100,000 people

What do the game designers do while the company is living off the income generated by their new PHB 4.0? If they're not producing anything for the game, why would Wizards want to keep them on-staff? Would it not be better to lay off the entire design staff, except for one lead designer, and have him lead a team of freelancers in the development of the PHB 5.0 in four years time?

Is that really what you want to see WotC doing?

 

[Storm Raven]

What do the game designers do while the company is living off the income generated by their new PHB 4.0? If they're not producing anything for the game, why would Wizards want to keep them on-staff? Would it not be better to lay off the entire design staff, except for one lead designer, and have him lead a team of freelancers in the development of the PHB 5.0 in four years time?

Is that really what you want to see WotC doing?

Its what most publishing companies do. Why should WotC be markedly different?

I would rather see WotC have a stable of freelancers they work with on an as needed basis and have them be top notch guys than have one or two top guys and a bunch of second tier talent on staff.

 

[T. Foster]

What do the game designers do while the company is living off the income generated by their new PHB 4.0? If they're not producing anything for the game, why would Wizards want to keep them on-staff? Would it not be better to lay off the entire design staff, except for one lead designer, and have him lead a team of freelancers in the development of the PHB 5.0 in four years time?

Is that really what you want to see WotC doing?

Yeah, pretty much.

 

[WayneLigon]

I would rather see WotC have a stable of freelancers they work with on an as needed basis and have them be top notch guys than have one or two top guys and a bunch of second tier talent on staff.

Why would you assume the freelancers would be top-notch guys? I've seen several companies complain about the ability of freelancers to complete projects on time and turn in quality work. As I understand it, normally even if a book is written by a freelancer it's then turned over to an in-house design staff to make sure it's complete.

 

[DaveMage]

You know I'm really surprised at the hostility to the release of an updated rules set every few years. With the SRD, it's perfectly possible to play a 3.5 campaign using your 3.0 rulebooks. Heck, I ran a 3.5 campaign by only updating my Monster Manual, and I haven't ever purchased the 3.5 DMG.

An update of the 3.5 rules to add in the rules that have become defacto parts of 3.5 would be welcomed by me: rules for immediate and swift actions, updates to the polymorph rules, addition of class variant options for the core classes, errata for spells and addition of the new uses for skills...all of those things would cause me to buy a new PHB right now. They also wouldn't invalidate any of the current splat books.

Just sayin' is all.

--Steve

You are presuming a mild update, and I don't think many would argue with you if that were the case. 3.5 changed just enough, though, that it made many 3.0 products a hassle to update. Adventures written with the 3.0 mentality's tactics, suddenly became silly (the changes in haste and harm spells greatly affected the FR Spider Queen adventure, for example).

For a greater update, I think the amount of hostility is proportional to the amount of products one has purchased in the current system. If you only have a handful of 3.5 books, then, sure, why would you care if there's an update? Your financial investment in the system is minor. But if you have, say, hundreds of 3.5 compatible products (especially adventures), you are much less likely to want an update that may affect the usefulness of the products you have.

(And certainly, one doesn't have to update, but if you are a DM who wants to continue to play 3.5 because you've purchased 100 books for the system, and then 4E comes out, which your 4 players, who buy maybe 4 books/year like even better, then all the investment in 3.5 either becomes a waste or a headache to convert.)