On WotC's "Surge"

[TerraDave]

This has become quite an interesting tangent...so we can agree that WotC has a market share problem?

The thread isn't really a Paizo one.

 

[Perram]

This has become quite an interesting tangent...so we can agree that WotC has a market share problem?

The thread isn't really a Paizo one.

Agreed, and it isn't just Paizo. I was just wanting to provide information as requested.

Fantasy Flight's 40k RPG has also been selling really really well, having a signifigant portion of the market themselves, for instance.

Basically WotC does not have the 90+% market majority they enjoyed at the height of the d20 boom.

That said, even though I'm not a 4e loyalist, I don't want them to do poorly any more than I want ANY publisher to do poorly. The more good games the better as far as I'm concerened. And I hope things aren't as bad as they seem.

 

[TerraDave]

Like I said, tangent, but to be fair to you for giving such a detailed answer.

Paizo has 11 people that I can count dedicated to producting Pathfinder material: James Jacobs, Jason Bulhman, F. Wesley Schneider, Sean K. Reynolds, James L. Sutter, Christopher Carey, Rob McCreary, Sarah Robinson, Crystal Frasier, Erik Mona, Mark Morland. And they currently have a job posting looking for another to make 12.

D&D Has 12: Richard Baker, Greg Bilsland, Michele Carter, Jeremy Crawford, Mike Mearls, Kim Mohan, Carl Moore, Christopher Perkins, Stephen Schubert, Matt Sernett, Rodney Thompson, Steve Winter.

To be fair, D&D also has a 4 man team that makes up the "D&D New Business Team", and I'm not sure of their responsibilities. But they aren't listed as current designers, editors, developers of the current table top game.

So thats 11 (soon to be 12) versus 12. Pretty close as far as team size goes.

For the Paizo list, that is all full-time? It does include at least 1 manager, but no other front office people? WotC has a fair number of other people outside R&D (remember, this was originally about how much they needed to sale to cover cost). Though I guess they did shed quite a bit of staff in 08 and 09.

Not really a fair comparasson here, as Paizo's major focus for Pathfinder is their adventures, modules, and campaign setting. I understand that 4e puts less of an emphasis on these aspects, and more on the crunch.

Pathfinder is in many ways the opposite, and releases far more campaign setting material, adventures, and adventure paths than they do crunch. Indeed, the main RPG line only releases 3-4 hard back crunch books per year. But they also release 3-4 books each month in addition to those focusing on their campaign world and adventures, what Paizo considers their flagship.

That is their current plan, focusing on adventures. It seems to be working quite well for them.

WotC has a range of other "D&D" products and the DDI, which is a subscriber product like the APs.

Now, I'm not sure 100% where the D&D vs. Pathfinder numbers lie exactly all sales considered. But I am pretty certain that they are close enough for Paizo to no longer be considered a small competitor. At the very least, they should be considered to control a very sizable and non-trivial portion of the market.

Non-trivial, I would certainly agree with that!

 

[Shemeska]

I count a whole whopping 6 PFRPG products, not including the adventure paths/mods. NOT including minis, modules or mod like products, online contect, novels, dungeon tiles, non-rpg games (card or board) or card for RPGs WotC had 22 books and box sets for D&D in 2010. Even with the cut backs, WotC still has over a dozen products announced for 2011, and will anounce more.

If you're tabulating PFRPG products you'll need to include everything listed for PFRPG including the hardcover rulebooks, Bestiary, APG, etc; then there are different listings for the material for Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and Pathfinder Player Companion. It's more than 6 things. And that's not including the APs, modules, and other stuff.

 

[Scribble]

Basically WotC does not have the 90+% market majority they enjoyed at the height of the d20 boom.

Not necessarily true.

It could simply be that they don't have the 90%+ market majority on book sales, but still maintain the 90%+ of market majority.

We have no way to know that unless all companies involved decide to release their net profits.

 

[Dausuul]

This has become quite an interesting tangent...so we can agree that WotC has a market share problem?

The thread isn't really a Paizo one.

Well, if Pathfinder is in fact selling on a level with 4E, there are three possible explanations:

1. D&D sales have utterly collapsed.
2. 4E left a huge number of gamers "on the table," so to speak, and Pathfinder grabbed most of them up.
3. Pathfinder has brought in a flood of new or lapsed gamers.

Out of these, I'm not seeing how #3 would happen; Pathfinder is aimed squarely at 3E fans. And #1 can't be the only explanation, given Paizo's expansion (and the fact that if D&D were selling on a level with Paizo's output pre-4E, it would have been axed already). So my guess would be that #2 is the main cause, always assuming that the claims of sales parity are correct.

But that's still bad news for WotC. Wizards almost certainly has much higher overhead than Paizo, considering all the efforts they've been making to branch out recently (board games, fortune cards, etc.), and the fact that they're a big company declining rather than a small company rising. And if the gamer pie is not growing (I don't think it is, much), and Paizo's share is getting bigger, WotC's share has to be getting smaller.

 

[Scribble]

Well, if Pathfinder is in fact selling on a level with 4E, there are three possible explanations:

1. D&D sales have utterly collapsed.
2. 4E left a huge number of gamers "on the table," so to speak, and Pathfinder grabbed most of them up.
3. Pathfinder has brought in a flood of new or lapsed gamers.

.

It could also be that only the physical book sales have collapsed, so this heralds a new initiative to move in a direction that supports the fact that their customers are buying the digital product, and only buying physical products that support the digital products.

So maybe we'll start seeing more digital products, and only seeing physical products that are "stuff" based... Like tiles, and tokens, and cards.

 

[Imaro]

It could also be that only the physical book sales have collapsed, so this heralds a new initiative to move in a direction that supports the fact that their customers are buying the digital product, and only buying physical products that support the digital products.

So maybe we'll start seeing more digital products, and only seeing physical products that are "stuff" based... Like tiles, and tokens, and cards.

I find this theory interesting, as Paizo also has digital offerings, a CB, a free SRD, and a subscription based model... that seems to be flourishing along with their book sales. If this is true I wonder if it speaks to WotC not knowing how to successfully integrate the digital and physical products very well... sort of like how DDM and D&D didn't really integrate well for the roleplayers needs.

 

[Dausuul]

Sort of like how DDM and D&D didn't really integrate well for the roleplayers needs.

You don't think they integrated well? I thought they worked brilliantly together. The DDM skirmish game subsidized a flood of cheap minis for us roleplayers. It was a wonderful synergy that was completely wrecked when they went to DDM 2.0.

 

[Imaro]

You don't think they integrated well? I thought they worked brilliantly together. The DDM skirmish game subsidized a flood of cheap minis for us roleplayers. It was a wonderful synergy that was completely wrecked when they went to DDM 2.0.

Perhaps I misspoke, I wasn't saying it didn't work at all for roleplayers... if you were willing to buy a pack of random monsters and hope you got something you wanted... or were willing to sub monsters for the ones you needed... or spent the time and effort searching out single figures on the secondary market... or were willing to pay premium prices for certain iconic D&D monsters like Mind Flayers... etc.

I guess I actually meant they didn't, as it related to the needs of those just trying to run and play D&D (who were ultimately unconcerned with DDM play), present an ideal integration with the D&D roleplaying game.