Revenue alternatives to new editions

[Sunseeker]

(they NEED a visual method of online play to connect gamers).

The biggest "block" to this is connecting DMs with Players. By making the interconnecting of DMs and players easier, you are facilitating play, creating "buzz" and thus providing a fertile garden for growing the game and hobby.

Imagine this:

A digital tabletop that really works. Play is fluid and fun but also captures the essence of Dungeons & Dragons. Perhaps even if the technology and AI were good enough, the game could turn into one where the DM was optional[/I].

Emphasis mine.

What you're talking about is called an MMORPG. There is no DM, there is no fudge to the rules, you play in a pre-created world. What you have described, a quasi-social networking gaming platform is the base concept of an MMO. WotC already has DDO and the fantasy MMO market is glutted with WoW-wannabees.

WotC produce "adventures" that players can purchase for a pricepoint similar to an App. If you have the "Tomb of Horrors" adventure, you can join any online Tomb of Horrors "game" (they might be listed out). Now it is up to you whether you choose the "WotC" DMless one or the "Tomb of Horrors" run by PirateCat.

They're called expansion packs. They're great, if the thing they're adding on to is a success.

Would this still be D&D? If they can put the D&D badge on it then I suppose it must be. In all honesty, such a thing is not what I would prefer. The complete codifying of the rules in 4e (so that it could be reliably translated to a digital referee) allows such a thing but I'm pretty sure it is not what my group would be playing. In terms of growing the hobby though (and thus the revenue), I could see it as working spectacularly.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

I wouldn't call it D&D, in fact, I have a very low regard for any kinds of online D&Ding. I really don't think that the game really "exists" without that personal social interaction. Sure, we're all busy, but for people who've played tabletop vs forums or MMOs, I think most of us can agree that in-person D&Ding is what really makes it worthwhile.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Depending on an RPG at all for a steady revenue model may simply be unattainable. It may simply be best to focus on another type of product and do RPGs on the side. For example, White Wolf is mainly doing an MMORPG now and Steve Jackson Games is focused on Munckin.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Give the character builder away and charge to block advertising or for premium content.

 

[TerraDave]

The choices presented to a publisher could be seen as:

• Substantial Change: Sell some books, risk fracturing the base
• No/Little Change: Not enough change to merit sales, but the base stays in intact

Damned if they do or don't, what is a publisher to do to create a revenue stream?

Thats right. Whith 4E, I think WotC found itself in a situation where it needed a relaunch to remain viable, but they felt they couldn't do another 3.5 plus. And they also had a 3E version of the game that was pretty popular and massively supported (and didn't feel tired and stale the way 2E did). So they did a deep rebuild looking for all the "added value" they could find. Some of use where happy with the results...

The e-subscription thing could still work. A lot of misteps but it could still work. But I want to follow up on JoeG: support for harried DMs. This seems like where the deepest demand lies, and accessaries and toolkits to help them would be good for the whole hobby.

E.g. DMs where probably the big drivers of DDM sales (we know it wasn't people playing it as a stand alone game), until quality fell and they satuarated the market.

 

[CarlZog]

Once you've written the core books, exhausted all the splat books, and all the fans are playing in at least one published setting ... what is a publisher to do to stay afloat?

If I really knew the answer I'd go to work in the game industry, but from a hobbyist/layman's perspective it strikes me that part of the strategy is increasing market penetration.

Instead of just producing new stuff to sell to the same old crowd, game companies also benefit from focusing on ways to sell core material to a larger crowd. Elements of WotCs current efforts certainly seem aimed at that goal.

For whatever it's worth,

Carl

 

[Umbran]

What do you think?

I think folks overestimate the number of smartphones. Last numbers I saw suggested that smartphones are only 20% of cell phone sales. Now, perhaps gamers are a bit above average with their adoption of these things, but it still likes a niche of the niche right now.

Not a bad addition to a revenue stream, but not a component to rely on either.

 

[delericho]

For the vast majority of games/settings/adventure paths, I'm in favour of a "limited run" model - get in, publish half a dozen books to say what you want to say, and get out. Good examples of this model would be the 3.5e Eberron books or Al Qadim. By having a stated end point for the line, you hopefully avoid things getting stale, and avoid the drop in sales that inevitably comes with yet another book in an open-ended line.

However, that's obviously not a sustainable model for WotC, Paizo, or any other prospective "big guns" in the industry. For the moment, I think the best option is a subscription model, provided you can come up with enough new material month on month to keep people interested.

(Of course, a particularly evil variant of this would be to set up lots of online game management tools (a character vault, online adventure generation, campaign logging, and so on), where the generated materials remain resident on the company's servers. After a while, the volume of generated material may become such that the group finds the subscription becomes "pay to play", not merely "pay for our subscription content.")

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think folks overestimate the number of smartphones. Last numbers I saw suggested that smartphones are only 20% of cell phone sales. Now, perhaps gamers are a bit above average with their adoption of these things, but it still likes a niche of the niche right now.

Not a bad addition to a revenue stream, but not a component to rely on either.

OTOH, the single factor with the strongest correlation with success is getting your product to market first. The first tabletop RPG with a solid app for smartphones and similar devices may be able to cement for itself a serious revenue stream not only for the products that app supports initially, but also (potentially) licensing it's engine for use in apps for other similar products.

 

[Umbran]

OTOH, the single factor with the strongest correlation with success is getting your product to market first.

Yes. I'm just thinking that this is a medium-term revenue possibility, rather than a short-term one. Smartphones haven't yet penetrated the market deeply enough for this to be a major source of revenue.

And, for my money, smartphones aren't the right form-factor anyhow - screen's too small to display enough information at one time. Tablets are the appropriate device to target, IMHO.

Mind you, it also means tying your RPG development to software development, which is apt to be problematic, at best. If it were a big-money proposition, then it wouldn't be a big deal, but for the smaller money in a niche market, it is probably a notable concern.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And, for my money, smartphones aren't the right form-factor anyhow - screen's too small to display enough information at one time. Tablets are the appropriate device to target, IMHO.

As I type this on my iTouch, I agree with you 85%.

I have designed about 100 or so PCs in various game systems on my Palm (which is slowly dying), and I run them off of it with no problems- scrolling up or down takes about as much time as leafing through pages. I anticipate doing so with my iTouch eventually as well.

But my campaign note on the same machine are useless on game night- too much data, too small a screen. Retrieving data from an electronic RPG sourcebook would be likewise nightmarish.