One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure --on 3pp product "glut" 4e / 3e

[Sacrificial Lamb]

There was not many reviews or good information on the net about products in the early years of 3e.

That's true.....but it's not 1999-2000 any more. The public has far more fully embraced the Internet now, with lots of great product reviews and information online, and that makes the multitude of choices we have even greater. I can easily find out what I need to know about an rpg product, and I'm not even computer savvy. Honestly, I'm barely computer literate, and I can find loads of information about the rpg products I want. Anyone else can do the same.

 

[Crothian]

That's true.....but it's not 1999-2000 any more. The public has far more fully embraced the Internet now, with lots of great product reviews and information online, and that makes the multitude of choices we have even greater. I can easily find out what I need to know about an rpg product, and I'm not even computer savvy. Honestly, I'm barely computer literate, and I can find loads of information about the rpg products I want. Anyone else can do the same.

The conversation that brought this up was from a book that came out in early in 3e not today. Trust me, I know a little something about RPG reviews and discussion.

 

[Mark]

There was not many reviews or good information on the net about products in the early years of 3e.

If you didn't like there not being many reviews why didn't you just start wri-


Oh. Right. Sorry.

 

[Celebrim]

Even when there was a ton of quality print products, an average gamer could not afford even all of the quality stuff.

Oh noez.

and that's where a lot of 'fanism' among the d20 crowd started to come in when you could only afford one or two books a month

The horror.

Even with quality, there can be too much supply and not enough demand.

We've got to do something about all this consumer choice!

 

[Celebrim]

Ironically, now that there are companies I trust (Necro, Paizo, Malhavoc, Green Ronin, Goodman) I'd buy a lot more 3pp. Too bad WotC (and Goodman) seem to be the only company willing and able to support 4e.

There is a simple explanation for why WotC disliked all that 'product glut'.

There are far more books from Green Ronin on my shelf than from WoTC.

That's what they are really trying to 'protect' me from.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

A glut in the marketplace implies that supply exceeds demand. This situation is good for the consumer, at least in the short run, but it is not necessarily good for the industry in the long run. I attribute some of the current dearth in 3PP products precisely to a backlash against the earlier glut.

So yes, I would rather see a few quality products than many poor products. In the former situation, everybody is winning. In the latter, either consumers are buying poor products, or producers and retailers are eating the cost of creating them.

 

[ggroy]

Casual gamers booklist(from my groups)

4E PHB
4E PHB II
Adventurer's Vault
Martial Power
Arcane Power
Character Builder from DDI(either from their own account or leaching from somebody else)
(maybe) Forgotten Realms Players Guide

In my 4E games and other local 4E games I'm aware of, the casual gamers typically only bought the 4E PHB. A few had the 4E PHB II, if they were playing a character class that was only present in PHB II.

Very few bought any of the other 4E books.

 

[Alzrius]

Its not that I don't favor a free market. Its that I'm wary of another collapse like we saw with the d20 glut.

The so-called "collapse" had nothing to do with any glut in products - rather, the release of 3.5 created the glut where there hadn't been one before. Suddenly, everything 3.0 was worthless, regardless of its quality, and nothing could be moved from the shelves.

Basically, people are describing a free market economy in which products compete for shelf space, customers sort out what kinds of products they want, and the retailers and distributors, over time, respond to market demand. I'm far from an enthusiastic capitalist (corporations are usually a BBEG in my campaigns) but I find it interesting how many people react so strongly against a free market in favor of a market with less choice in the short and long term.

I agree; I can understand people saying that they'd prefer that there were only good products on the market, but that's impossible to achieve even without getting into subjective distinctions of what is and isn't "good."

If X percent of books will be "good" books, then it's better to have there be more books on the shelves overall, since that increases the value of X percent.

And, as we've seen on the other thread, having fewer books of a type on shelves also makes distributors less inclined to carry any of that type to begin with.

 

[Bumbles]

It's funny how this situation reminded me of the early days of Video games, and a comment somebody made about Hula Hoops, and how if a company had been able to patent them, they'd have been able to come up with reasons for folks to keep buying them.

I dunno.

I do know that most of my shopping comes from browsing in the store. I don't like checking review sites, I don't like following this company and that company to see what they're making. If I look at a preview PDF, I'll probably totally forget about it for the rest of time. Maybe I'm just totally different from everybody else though.

If X percent of books will be "good" books, then it's better to have there be more books on the shelves overall, since that increases the value of X percent.

This presumes X will remain constant, but it could go up and down, perhaps significantly, depending on the situation.

 

[Greg K]

There is a simple explanation for why WotC disliked all that 'product glut'.

There are far more books from Green Ronin on my shelf than from WoTC.

That's what they are really trying to 'protect' me from.

As someone with far more Green Ronin and other third material than WOTC material on my shelf or in pdf, that was my thought as well.