Not Reading Ryan Dancy

[eyebeams]

It doesn't fit in with those being the current plans. It can fit in with them changing those plans by the end of the year (because of the response to those changes). He's predicting a change in those plans because of developments through the year. He might be right, he might be wrong, but I don't think he's "already wrong."

Well, he says that WW will reduce its business by the end of '07. The problem is that this is impossible. For one thing, releases are planned a year (if they're rushing) to two years (if not) in advance. As I have multiple contracts in the hopper right now and I know that there's stuff that, chronologically speaking, has to come later, that puts off any significant change until around 2009, unless WW feels like wasting lots and lots of money on kill fees and abandoned pre-production.

 

[M.L. Martin]

*Shrug* I haven't taken Ryan Dancey seriously for years; why should I start now?

Besides, I can't shake the feeling that he's upset that the hobby hasn't congealed into a single entity/hivemind yet.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thing is, while Ryan has more than once made comments worth paying attention to, he's also more than once been proved completely wrong, and he's been crying doom of some form or another for years now.

Personally, I take his thoughts for exactly what they are: Guesses. They may be guesses by a man who knows more about the industry than most, which lends them some validity, but at the end of the day, they're still just guesses.

Same here, for the same reasons.

The optimists' blogs don't get quoted that much, so few people pay attention to them as they do the ones predicting The End of All That We Know (Again).

 

[Bayushi Seikuro]

My two cents...

It seems that so many gamers feel the predictions are completely dead wrong.

Dancey has said before similiar things, and a lot of the business end of his predictions get lost.

Hasbro controls Wizards. Hasbro will want to see results, and for Wotc to get Big Numbers, they will need a new edition - everyone (or a good chunk) will buy a 4e, even if only the corebooks. How many people bought 3.5 corebooks and kept only the 3e splat?

Hasbro doesn't understand small markets. Hasbro works with numbers and bottom lines. A similiar situation might be like the New Line cinema/Peter Jackson squabble right now. PJ is saying NL cheated him out of money; they're saying, stop suing us; we've given you a quarter of a billion dollars. Would Peter Jackson's Hobbit make money faster than they could print it? Probably. But in NL's analysis, it's not worth it. I think it's similiar with Hasbro etc -- they want their money now, not seeing that they can make tons of money spread out over years or decades selling quality splatbooks (not all the crud they've been releasing falls under that catergory btw).

Someone made a comment about board games and people who design it having a stronger design sense; I call BS on that. Board games, for the most part, are fire and forget weapons, as it were. They hit or miss; yes, there are many brands and types of monopoly (Star Wars, etc), but they use these 'core rules'; when's the last expansion you've seen come out for Scrabble or Monopoly?

I think Dancey is right in his perception of Hobby Stores, which he defines very clearly. The FLGS myth we talk about here largely falls into the 'group of gamer friends open a business'. I know friends who started a business just to get cheap deals on gaming stuff and it led to a business. I feel there is a large chunk of Hobby Stores/gaming stores that are looking for the quick cash in; they see that X MtG card sells for a thousand dollars, and you have Y chance to get it; it's math to them, no interest in building relations with people.

On another tangent, he's said before gaming won't die, but that we need to accept Hasbro, as a business, will see the pure numbers as being worthless. That will be the best chance for small publishers to print things up, make new ideas. I think that was the point of OGL - to make a common frame of reference for gamers to fall back on. Look at what's happened since OGL -- we saw a glut of fairly useless books come out, but we saw a lot of high quality stuff come out. Who's still in business?

I ramble.

I feel gaming is like the arts; we all say we support the gaming industry, but when do we look at new items? Or new systems? I admit I'm guilty of it as well; I may buy 'interesting' non-d20/D&D stuff, but not as often as I'll buy something of immediate use. It's like saying we support the arts, but refuse to visit galleries of sculptures, preferring paintings or orchestra.

My two meager copper, wistfull scraped up off the floor.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I feel gaming is like the arts; we all say we support the gaming industry, but when do we look at new items? Or new systems? I admit I'm guilty of it as well; I may buy 'interesting' non-d20/D&D stuff, but not as often as I'll buy something of immediate use. It's like saying we support the arts, but refuse to visit galleries of sculptures, preferring paintings or orchestra.

True, but the buy-in on Nobilis is a lot higher than, say, downloading a single off of iTunes to try out a band or entire style of music.

The market both needs people to try new things and is mostly set up to make it difficult. (Although PDFs often go a long way toward helping out, if they have a reasonable price point.)

 

[JVisgaitis]

Yes, she's old. Got her back in 1998. Still works well, but in order to upgrade to OSX I need to upgrade ram to at least 256 megs physical.

So you're on OS9? Wow, that's insane. I'd recommend downloading iCab. Alternatively, try and find an old copy of Mozilla.

On your system dilemma, you certainly don't need to upgrade to a mini. Take a look at eBay, I sold a 17" iMac for like $400 with a ton of software over a year ago. You should be able to get something good on the cheap.

Looks like Ryan's blog is done on iWeb which uses layers. I love Apple, but iWeb needs some serious work... Layers are horrible and reek havoc on older browsers.

 

[Glyfair]

True, but the buy-in on Nobilis is a lot higher than, say, downloading a single off of iTunes to try out a band or entire style of music.

Back in the 80's the "buy in" for a new system was the GM who bought the new system (and there was always at least one person who bought a new game) and would run a few games at the local game store. You got to try a new game for the cost of some time.

Over time, though, we've lost that option (admittedly, some never had that resource at all). It started with MtG. If you walked into the FLGS you didn't see various RPGs getting set up, you saw people playing card games. In the late 90s the organized play systems started taking over. Now you had miniature games as well as card games squeezing the RPGs out. Some RPG companies have dipped into this idea, but it's never very organized or regimented (the RPGA is as organized as it gets).

Let's not even get into the fact that we have lost a large percentage of our FLGS (at least here in the U.S.)

Also, much of the original RPG crowd that is still playing has gotten older. They have to budget their roleplaying time (meaning less experimentation with systems) and often prefer to play with their regular group with very little or no new blood. Some even refuse to play in an RPG session with new people without an extensive audition process!

While RPGs are moving a bit towards the internet, I'm not sure that it's the ideal place to get exposed to a game. Being able to see and use the GMs game material being a major component of most demos (at least those that cause you to want to really "buy in" to the game).

 

[mythusmage]

So you're on OS9? Wow, that's insane. I'd recommend downloading iCab. Alternatively, try and find an old copy of Mozilla.

On your system dilemma, you certainly don't need to upgrade to a mini. Take a look at eBay, I sold a 17" iMac for like $400 with a ton of software over a year ago. You should be able to get something good on the cheap.

Looks like Ryan's blog is done on iWeb which uses layers. I love Apple, but iWeb needs some serious work... Layers are horrible and reek havoc on older browsers.

Mozilla has the same problem Netscape 7 has, iCab for OS 9 doesn't implement CSS well, so I get to make do with what I have.

My real problem is with personal fecal consolidation. I have clinical depression, and so I have trouble staying on track. Now that I'm seeing a dentist, and my shrink upped my meds again, I should do better.

I'd rather not go with a newer used iMac. Most everybody is switching over to writing for MacTel machines, and that software has problems with the older Motorola and IBM chipsets. Besides, a new Mac will last longer than an old one, and thats what I need.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

It worked OK for me (Firefox 2.0 here).

As to the comment, while I have a good deal of respect for Mr. Dancy (spawning more or less from the early work with the SRD/OGL), I think most of his predictions are doom & gloom and full of little substance. I think some of them might happen, but by no stretch all of them.

 

[Kesh]

For those who asked...

Yes, she's old. Got her back in 1998. Still works well, but in order to upgrade to OSX I need to upgrade ram to at least 256 megs physical. I'd be better off trading up for a MacMini and flat panel display. And that requires fecal consolidation on my part. Email or PM me for details on providing (financial) encouragement.

Oooh, you're in OS 9? That would do it. Your browser probably doesn't support XHTML.

Also, I don't think "fecal" is the word you're looking for. "Financial" maybe?