Scott Thorne, a retailer, comments on recent events

[Winterthorn]

I think 4E has "Jumped the Shark"...

I saw the promotional boosters of these Fortune cards at my FLGS last week. I'm not impressed. Consider this: a pack of 8 randomly assorted Fortune card is to retail at $3.99; and a pack of 15 randomly assorted Magic the Gathering cards retails at... $3.99! Same price for 8 cards vs 15 cards -- so as a consumer, what's the better deal? Eight cards one does not really need to buy to play a RPG game vs 15 cards that one *must* buy to play a CCG game? (I am also betting that the actual production cost to make Fortune cards is lower than the cost to make MTG cards.)

All things considered, I think WotC is desperate and that their business plan for D&D has finally Jumped the Shark*. IMO this is the hopelessly corny move that will simply elicit rolled-up eyes from their customers/audience who will say "meh", "bah", or "blah", and walk away to play something else.


*confused? Check out the expression on Google or Wikipedia in relation to the old sitcom "Happy Days".

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I don't wish harm to WotC's overall success. They are the gateway game and acquisition arm of the hobby. If they suffer, we will all ultimately suffer throughout the hobby; manufacturer and fan alike. But do I wish pure misery and financial doom upon a product line of randomized card packs intended to be used as part of each RPG session?

Yes, I do. It is an idea utterly contemptuous of the core gamer and is worthy of our collective scorn and derision.

You find the idea of printing a product some people may be interested in to be utterly contemptuous and worthy of scorn and derision?

Wow, man.

You know, I'm not fond of the cards either, so know what I did? I went "Hey, a product I'm not interested in," and moved on with my life.

 

[Reigan]

Paizo seem to have managed to sell large quantities of DM material, something WotC don't seem to be able to do. WotC focus more on player material which the character builder and errata policy makes largely redundant in printed form.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

You find the idea of printing a product some people may be interested in to be utterly contemptuous and worthy of scorn and derision?

Wow, man.

Hey, a lot of people are interested in buying cigarettes, but I still have scorn and derision for tobacco companies.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Hey, a lot of people are interested in buying cigarettes, but I still have scorn and derision for tobacco companies.

However, you didn't try to suggest that all smokers have scorn and derision for a specific tobacco company.

Steel_Wind attempt to say that all "core gamers" should have scorn and derision for the WotC Fortune Cards. As someone who would probably consider himself a "core gamer" (whatever that term actually means), I hold no scorn or derision for WotC offering this product. Same way I didn't give a rat's ass that they released Three Dragon Ante... another so-called "non-rpg" product that could be used as an RPG accessory.

 

[Belen]

Paizo seem to have managed to sell large quantities of DM material, something WotC don't seem to be able to do. WotC focus more on player material which the character builder and errata policy makes largely redundant in printed form.

I'll bet that DMs represent a nice percentage of Paizo subscribers. DMs tend to buy a lot of product because they use a much wider array than players.

Paizo also has the advantage of being closer to the fans. They do not have to get approval from a bunch of suits to respond to the community.

I just do not see WOTC continuing as a company that will be able to serve the table top community. It just seems too big and unwieldy and maybe recent actions on their part show that they are moving away from the TT community to serve a different market.

 

[Ourph]

Paizo seem to have managed to sell large quantities of DM material, something WotC don't seem to be able to do. WotC focus more on player material which the character builder and errata policy makes largely redundant in printed form.

Open Grave, MMI, MMII, MMIII, Manual of the Planes, The Plane Above, The Plane Below, Underdark, DMG1, DMG2, Hammerfast, Vor Rukoth, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Draconomicon I, Draconomicon II, the DM's Kit, Monster Vault, over a dozen printed adventures, numerous adventures and articles published online, plus the lineup for 2011 (Shadowfell, Icewind Dale Campaign Setting, Monster Vault: Nentir Vale, etc.) would all seem to argue against that observation.

 

[El Mahdi]

Paizo also has the advantage of being closer to the fans. They do not have to get approval from a bunch of suits to respond to the community...

Not entirely true. Although Paizo may not have an administrative overseer like WotC (i.e.: Hasbro), and can probably respond to and address community feedback more quickly and directly, they still have people they are responsible to. They can't just go and do whatever they want, whenever they want. How much Paizo is beholden in this manner is something only Erik Mona can answer, but I'm sure that some level of approval does exist. For example: if Paizo insisted on selling a predominant amount of DM material even if their customer base had changed or no longer desired that material, I'm sure Paizo's stakeholders would have something to say about that. Now I don't know exactly what Paizo's corporate structure looks like, or what level of control Erik Mona has (such as, I don't know if his stockholders can have him replaced or not), but I'm sure the shareholder's (also "Suits") do have a voice in the course of the company.

And, so I can't be accused of stating my own opinion only, or pulling this out of thin air, here's some of Erik's own words on the subject from the Question for the Paizo folks regarding D&D's state of today thread:

...From running my own publishing operation, I've come to appreciate the concept of "opportunity cost" more acutely than ever before. Let's say I have 1 employee. I can put that guy to work on a Pathfinder book, and let's say that book makes Paizo $200 of profit.

The same guy could also work on a Planet Stories mass market pulp reprint, which takes about the same amount of time and effort and has somewhat similar costs. But because the margins are nowhere near as good and the audience is much, much, much smaller, let's say that Planet Stories book makes $2.

My job is to make money for the stakeholders of my company, so no matter how much I personally love pulp fiction, and no matter how strongly the folks who love it with me love it, there aren't as many of them as there are Pathfinder players, and from a purely objective point of view, I'm making a sub-optimal decision by focusing on products with the lower margin and the smaller audience. That 1 man-effort would be more profitable if put to work on a Pathfinder book, or on something with an equal or better profit potential.

You can make sub-optimal decisions for a long time for a lot of different reasons (strategery, love, because it's the "right" thing to do, stupidity, etc.), but you can't make them forever, especially if you work for a publicly traded company. ...

 

[ATimson]

Open Grave, MMI, MMII, MMIII, Manual of the Planes, The Plane Above, The Plane Below, Underdark, DMG1, DMG2, Hammerfast, Vor Rukoth, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Dark Sun Campaign Setting, Draconomicon I, Draconomicon II, the DM's Kit, Monster Vault, over a dozen printed adventures, numerous adventures and articles published online, plus the lineup for 2011 (Shadowfell, Icewind Dale Campaign Setting, Monster Vault: Nentir Vale, etc.) would all seem to argue against that observation.

I accept your point if you replace Dark Sun (which had player & DM content) with Eberron (which was split like FR).

That said, if DM material sells so well for Wizards, why are they cutting back? Dark Sun consolidated the player/DM books, and Neverwinter appears to have done the same. DMG3 went by the wayside (of course there aren't that many epic-level games, Wizards, you never put out the DM support book!). They haven't bothered with any campaigns after their first, just assorted scattershot adventures.

If Paizo is selling support contracts to DMs, Wizards is just a spare parts vendor.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That said, if DM material sells so well for Wizards, why are they cutting back?

Depends entirely on what they have left to produce, the man-hours they would have to spend to produce it, and the expected profit they would make off of it if they did. It's not that hard to understand.

The first DMG produced for whatever edition of D&D we have and will get will always be the biggest seller. The second one will sell less. The third one will sell even less. At some point, the amount of man-hours spent to create that third, fourth, fifth DMG will not justify the amount of profit they will make off of it. Many people usually like and get excited for "new". "More of the same" does not hold the same place in many people's hearts.

In fact... as is evidenced from what we've seen in every edition transition... they're more likely to get higher sales from producing a new edition's first DMG, than a current edition's third or fourth DMG. Even accepting the fact that you'll have a good segment of the gaming population who is not ready to move on to a new edition and will decry the fact that it is occuring... there will probably be many more who will. Many more than who would buy that current edition's #3 or #4. After all... WotC could have released a third 3.5 DMG had they wanted to... but they must have looked at their financials and determined that they just would not have sold enough to justify working on it. Instead, they moved on to 4E and probably sold many more copies of 4E's first one.