Pathfinder 1E Publishers of D&D: from past to future. Paizo and Wotc.

[DEFCON 1]

There's a community aspect to this game, and supporting that community is an important part of what WotC does. It isn't just a matter of making a product and putting it out there.

The community exists because the product was worth having a community devoted to it. So long as the product is maintained at that level, the community will remain.

People can and will buy a product even if there is no 'community' to join. (IE no message boards, no Twitter feeds, no 'fan club', no social networking etc.) So long as you have a circle of players to play with, there is no requirement for needing ANY contact with anyone outside that circle.

However... a community usually does not last very long if the product they are there to support isn't actually worth organizing around. If a product sucks, the community eventually dissipates.

If you are a company and worry about the social networking parts before the product you produce... you are putting the cart before the horse and you'll more often than not see a quick death. Worry about making product. The community will eventually show up for it. If you can then spend a little bit of time helping the community along, great. But your primary focus should always be looking at the bottom line and making sure what you're putting out is WORTH the community's time in following you.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah, but what you say here is kind of...redundant? Nobody believes that Wotc is supposed to not produce product.
The question is if there is this kind of product they can produce that enough people will buy it.

My point was that some people will invariably mention that WotC should do more than just produce product. That it's their responsibility to "stop the fragmentation of the game" or "preserve the integrity of the D&D name". Or any other phrases folks will use (more often than not to infer that WotC just isn't doing a very good job at their stewardship of the D&D brand.) So on and so forth. As though the D&D brand somehow means more than other brands, and thus WotC should be doing more to make D&D somehow more important than it currently is.

That's been my point. And why I keep suggesting that D&D is no more important than Fruity Pebbles... much to prosfilaes' chagrin, as it seems he believes it has a higher place on the brand food-chain because of the money and time required to spend on it. Which is fine to believe from his point of view... but is not something I think a company should really focus on or worry about. No company should believe it's own hype. Because at the end of the day... if the product is crap, the people WILL leave (regardless of the memories the players might have of the good times, or how much investment has already been made.)

 

[Imaro]

My point was that some people will invariably mention that WotC should do more than just produce product. That it's their responsibility to "stop the fragmentation of the game" or "preserve the integrity of the D&D name". Or any other phrases folks will use (more often than not to infer that WotC just isn't doing a very good job at their stewardship of the D&D brand.) So on and so forth. As though the D&D brand somehow means more than other brands, and thus WotC should be doing more to make D&D somehow more important than it currently is.

That's been my point. And why I keep suggesting that D&D is no more important than Fruity Pebbles... much to prosfilaes' chagrin, as it seems he believes it has a higher place on the brand food-chain because of the money and time required to spend on it. Which is fine to believe from his point of view... but is not something I think a company should really focus on or worry about. No company should believe it's own hype. Because at the end of the day... if the product is crap, the people WILL leave (regardless of the memories the players might have of the good times, or how much investment has already been made.)

Hmmm, this doesn't sound right at all. D&D as a brand could actually, from the video-games/fb game/novels/boardgames/etc. be more profitable than the rpg. There are brands that are objectively worth more than other brands (That's where licensing royalkties come from)... and branding is actually one of, if not the most, important aspects of a product. So, yeah I'm not really agreeing with this post. YMMV of course.

 

[xechnao]

My point was that some people will invariably mention that WotC should do more than just produce product. That it's their responsibility to "stop the fragmentation of the game" or "preserve the integrity of the D&D name". Or any other phrases folks will use (more often than not to infer that WotC just isn't doing a very good job at their stewardship of the D&D brand.) So on and so forth. As though the D&D brand somehow means more than other brands, and thus WotC should be doing more to make D&D somehow more important than it currently is.

That's been my point. And why I keep suggesting that D&D is no more important than Fruity Pebbles... much to prosfilaes' chagrin, as it seems he believes it has a higher place on the brand food-chain because of the money and time required to spend on it. Which is fine to believe from his point of view... but is not something I think a company should really focus on or worry about. No company should believe it's own hype. Because at the end of the day... if the product is crap, the people WILL leave (regardless of the memories the players might have of the good times, or how much investment has already been made.)

Defcon the matter of fact is that the success of the product Wotc produces is linked to the nature of an existent and living market.

What or where the appeal of their product is, it's not something easy to define. Here is where their problem lies.

People talk about communities as these already exist and are more or less definable. Wotc has to start from somewhere and these communities offer a logical choice. But is it viable? This I can not answer.

 

[Croesus]

The question is, how can a RPG company continue to be profitable once they cover all the bases so to speak without releasing a new edition?
...snip...
Rules bloat is definitely a problem games have suffered from in the past. You really only need so many classes/powers before it starts getting silly and hard to keep track of. What type of things should an RPG company be trying to release to support their game that doesn't cause bloat of one kind or another?

I think they're headed in the right direction with 4E - sell the rulebooks, then sign folks up for a monthly fee to access various tools that make playing the game easier.

However, I would argue they should go even further with 5E. As some have suggested, produce a much simplified rules set, focus on the introductory set, try to get folks to at least try the game (both new and existing players).

At the same time, offer a service like DDI, focusing on tools like a character builder, monster builder, encounter designer, map creation (both tactical and world), kingdom generation, name generators, etc. Keep the rules simple, so that they can more easily be supported with such tools. Include a free month subscription with the introductory set.

Then judiciously add new rules as options, which are integrated into the tools above, and can be turned on/off by any particular subscriber. Don't flood the system with new/updated rules - keep it streamlined.

Add new content to the digital tools monthly: items, npc's, creatures, places, maps, etc. Content - not rules! Add enough that your subscribers keep coming back to see what's appeared since their last visit. Make it easy for users to add their own content to their account, so they can easily take that new monster and use it in the ecounter builder, or whatever. Make it easy for subscribers to share content with other subscribers, either in a general area, or to specific subscribers. The more convenient the tools, the more likely subscribers will stay and bring in others.

If they can keep the rules simple, but offer strong digital tools, they might be able to avoid needing rules/splat/whatever bloat to produce steady revenue, instead using subscriber fees for this purpose.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, but what you say here is kind of...redundant? Nobody believes that Wotc is supposed to not produce product.
The question is if there is this kind of product they can produce that enough people will buy it.

If that is your only criteria, then I'd say they have succeeded. While 4e might not be as popular as 3e was in, say, 2001, it's certainly not a failure. From all appearances, it's healthy and growing. Between now three (Living campaigns, Encounters and Dungeon Assault) organized play initiatives and a pretty solid DDI subscriber base, I'd say 4e is healthy and growing.

When people talk about how popular 3e was, they always want to point to 2000-2003 (ish) during the boom years and how 4e isn't living up to that. Thing is, D&D, throughout its history, only lived up to that level ONCE and that what in in the very early 80's. Yet, D&D has been pretty healthy for most of its lifetime.

Could it be better? Probably. Then again, we have two distinct branches of D&D which combined, appeal to a much, much wider audience than ever before. How can this not be good for D&D as a whole? I don't want consolodation. I don't want there to be a unifying D&D. I don't want any color so long as all I want is black. I want choices. Choices are good. Choices mean that the hobby will continue to grow and competition means that the companies providing material for my hobby have to be better all the time.

This is all good.

 

[prosfilaes]

As though the D&D brand somehow means more than other brands,

Objectively, it does. As a trademark, it blows any other trademark in the RPG field out of the water, and for outsiders, is virtually a generic phrase for fantasy roleplaying.

and thus WotC should be doing more to make D&D somehow more important than it currently is.

WotC is in business to make money. Good licenses pull in tons of cash for little risk and little cost on WotC's part. So, yeah, if WotC can make D&D big enough to put D&D™-flavored Cheetos and D&D™-flavored Mountain Dew on the shelves of every Wal-Mart in the country, then they should do it.

And why I keep suggesting that D&D is no more important than Fruity Pebbles... much to prosfilaes' chagrin, as it seems he believes it has a higher place on the brand food-chain because of the money and time required to spend on it.

What, there's a brand food-chain? You're ascribing to me a view I don't even understand.

If the 787 was sold like Fruity Pebbles was, with the company creating a bunch of product without making sure any end-users were going to buy it, Boeing would be out of business. Boeing took an order for 50 787s in 2004; they delivered the first 787 this September. Boeing listens to its customers. You don't sell every product the same way; D&D may not be the 787, but it's also not Fruity Pebbles.

if the product is crap, the people WILL leave

Coca-Cola fails blind taste tests against Generic Soda all the time. And is more expensive to them to boot. And in most places outsells all better-tasting, less expensive colas combined.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Objectively, it does. As a trademark, it blows any other trademark in the RPG field out of the water, and for outsiders, is virtually a generic phrase for fantasy roleplaying.

WotC is in business to make money. Good licenses pull in tons of cash for little risk and little cost on WotC's part. So, yeah, if WotC can make D&D big enough to put D&D™-flavored Cheetos and D&D™-flavored Mountain Dew on the shelves of every Wal-Mart in the country, then they should do it.

I understand what you're saying, and you are right that from an objective "brand" point of view-- if you look at what the brand name is worth... then you can put the 'D&D' brand name on more things than the 'Fruity Pebbles' brand name, and thus make more money from licensing. You are correct on that. But that's actually not my real point, and I will admit I've probably been less than clear by being a bit facetious about sticking with the Fruity Pebbles comparison... since that seems to be the one aspect that keeps getting focused on, even though you could use any brand for my point. For that, I apologize.

My main point has always been that the name on the box means much less to the long-term success of a product than the quality of said product. The name 'D&D' has value. Absolutely. But just putting that name on anything does not make the value stronger. Sure, you'll get a little bit of short-term monies from people who recognize the brand name and pick the product up on impulse because of it... but if that product sucks... you will not see a long-term investment by people in the product.

And that's what I mean when I say that D&D is no more important than any other brand, because to say otherwise is to imply that the name 'D&D' can mean long-term profitability on name alone without there being a worthwhile product behind it. And that's simply not the case.

A video game with 'D&D' on the cover means nothing to the long-term profitability of D&D video games if the game itself sucks. You won't have huge sales, you won't get a sequel greenlit, you won't see the game possibly optioned from a movie studio.

A cereal with 'D&D' on the box will not make any money other than first-round impulse buys if the cereal just doesn't taste good.

The D&D cartoon never gets made if the D&D game wasn't good enough and popular enough to warrant fan devotion such that the producers thought people might watch a cartoon based on it.

So this is what I mean when I say that company cannot put the cart before the horse. You can't worry about the brand name before (or at the expense of) the product that creates the popularity of the name in the first place. Because if you do... you get three weeks of tee-shirt, toy and merchandise sales of 'Eragon' brand crap when the movie is first released... but you'll never see any of that money EVER again, because you were more concerned about the marketing of Eragon and not the film itself.

 

[prosfilaes]

And that's what I mean when I say that D&D is no more important than any other brand, because to say otherwise is to imply that the name 'D&D' can mean long-term profitability on name alone without there being a worthwhile product behind it. And that's simply not the case.

I don't think your conclusion follows in the first sentence. Objectively, New Coke beat Coke Classic solidly in taste tests. The importance of a good brand is that it can take a product that's at best worthwhile and make it stomp competitors that are better into the ground.

In RPGs, the 5th edition of Ars Magica won the Origins Award. About the same time, Monster Manual III came out. On LibraryThing, there's about twice as many holders of MM III as Ars Magica. Ars Magica (5th edition) makes a pretty good showing for an Origins Award winner; none of them come close to the (universally panned) Complete Book of Priests (for AD&D 2).

Edit: Missed one; the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting for D&D 3 is an Origins winner. Apparently 4 times better than Ars Magica 5ed, if we assume the brand didn't matter.

You can't worry about the brand name before (or at the expense of) the product that creates the popularity of the name in the first place.

I disagree. WotC is better off producing good board games with the D&D name then great board games without the D&D name. It's better off producing good RPGs with the D&D name then great RPGs with no connection to D&D. Not only are the first going to sell better, they're going to build up a D&D name that's going to keep them selling better. The Tome of Battle for D&D 3.5 sold better and built up D&D stronger then the Tome of Battle RPG would have, even if they could have made that a much better game.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't think your conclusion follows in the first sentence. Objectively, New Coke beat Coke Classic solidly in taste tests.

I'd be interested in where you got this information, and more importantly... who was it that ran these taste tests and how wide a sample size did they use? Because I do not seem to recall the problem being when it was released that "this new Coke tastes SO much better than the old one, but the can just says 'Coke' and not 'Coca-Cola' on it anymore, so I'm not going to buy it." The problem for most people as far as I remember living through it was actually "this soda sucks."

I disagree. WotC is better off producing good board games with the D&D name then great board games without the D&D name. It's better off producing good RPGs with the D&D name then great RPGs with no connection to D&D.

But what is WotC better off producing... a crappy product with the name D&D or a great product without the name D&D?

Comparing 'good' to 'great' is pointless. In both cases it implies they are at least trying to create a quality product, and it all comes down to perception whether one ends up being 'good' and one ends up being 'great'. However... WotC could easily produce any piece of crap product they wanted to in 1/10th the time, energy, and cost and slapped the D&D name on ... if they thought the name alone would generate sales.

But if they did that... they'd find that eventually the D&D name would become as much crap as the products they were slapping it on.