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General Tabletop Discussion
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Robin Laws posts a column about the industry that's actually salient and sane
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<blockquote data-quote="2WS-Steve" data-source="post: 2884572" data-attributes="member: 3289"><p>Not only that, but with a miniature or MtG card my attention-deficit-disorder self can use it one gaming night, feel satisfied, then get bored and want to buy a new bunch of minis to use next week. With MtG there's always the "I'd like to try a red/blue deck next" thing to keep me trying and buying new stuff.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The group I played with in NJ were still using their GURPS 3e core books (only) after maybe a decade. </p><p></p><p>Now that I've left I figure they'll stick with their D&D 3e core books until maybe something like armageddon.</p><p></p><p>That ability to get incredible mileage off a small cash investment is fantastic for the hobby -- but not so great for the hobby business.</p><p></p><p>What struck me as particualrly problematic for business is that you, individually, could (and when you were freelancing, had to) write books 10 to 20 times as fast as your customers could use them. </p><p></p><p>Compare that to novels, songs or movies. Even a novel, the slowest of those, can be read in a few days and takes maybe 3-6 months to write. A movie employs scores of people for a year, then is consumed in two hours.</p><p></p><p>I'm glad to see WotC experimenting with support materials. The pre-painted, inexpensive minis have turned out very nice but I'm not so sure about the tiles yet, since we've had those for a while from other sources and they haven't really taken off.</p><p></p><p>It does seem that computer support in some form would be a natural, since software has the nice (from a business perspective) property of becoming naturally obsolete, and thus replacable, every time a new generation of processors and graphics chips comes out.</p><p></p><p>But I thought I saw somewhere that WotC or Hasbro sold much of its rights to D&D in that regard.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="2WS-Steve, post: 2884572, member: 3289"] Not only that, but with a miniature or MtG card my attention-deficit-disorder self can use it one gaming night, feel satisfied, then get bored and want to buy a new bunch of minis to use next week. With MtG there's always the "I'd like to try a red/blue deck next" thing to keep me trying and buying new stuff. The group I played with in NJ were still using their GURPS 3e core books (only) after maybe a decade. Now that I've left I figure they'll stick with their D&D 3e core books until maybe something like armageddon. That ability to get incredible mileage off a small cash investment is fantastic for the hobby -- but not so great for the hobby business. What struck me as particualrly problematic for business is that you, individually, could (and when you were freelancing, had to) write books 10 to 20 times as fast as your customers could use them. Compare that to novels, songs or movies. Even a novel, the slowest of those, can be read in a few days and takes maybe 3-6 months to write. A movie employs scores of people for a year, then is consumed in two hours. I'm glad to see WotC experimenting with support materials. The pre-painted, inexpensive minis have turned out very nice but I'm not so sure about the tiles yet, since we've had those for a while from other sources and they haven't really taken off. It does seem that computer support in some form would be a natural, since software has the nice (from a business perspective) property of becoming naturally obsolete, and thus replacable, every time a new generation of processors and graphics chips comes out. But I thought I saw somewhere that WotC or Hasbro sold much of its rights to D&D in that regard. [/QUOTE]
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