The Coming Doom...

[scourger]

I crashed!

I just like to think of it as a market correction on the microscopic level. I buy fewer gaming products, but I still acquire plenty of games. Most of it is d20, too (or at least I dream of it being compatible, like WotC's new minis lines!). The sky didn't fall, but I sure hit that ceiling hard!

 

[Michael Morris]

@Vigilance - At no point did I take you're comments as condescending or sarcastic.

@KaeYoss - This particular bulldog has rubber teeth - I don't impose bans, close or delete threads. That's the mod's job.

I do however report threads - and I have P-kitty on speed dial

 

[Gez]

@Vigilance - At no point did I take you're comments as condescending or sarcastic.

*makes a sarcastic and condescending comment about MM's spelling of "your".*

 

[Zappo]

Well, there are some important parallels between early videogame companies and current D20 companies. Like many current D20 companies, many early videogame producers were very small operations, publishing stuff made by very few people, for which coding games was their second job. Twenty years ago, you usually could not live on videogames unless you were exceptionally successful. Many of those companies didn't have any valid business model, much like TSR, and died in a similar way when they tried to grow beyond what a disorganized management can efficiently deal with.

Ultimately, the videogame business survived and thrived. Today, there is orders of magnitude more money in the videogame industry than anywhere in the past, and the games are (nostalgia and a few exceptions aside) better than ever. People can actually write games for high wages, and I know that I would kill to get such a job.

If the hypothetical D20 crash will lead to a similar result in the long run, I'll call it natural selection and think it is good.

 

[Sir Elton]

Sir Elton, I believe you missed one RPG - Paranoia XP!

If you say so.

 

[Vigilance]

@Vigilance - At no point did I take you're comments as condescending or sarcastic.

Good, cause that wasn't my intention.

Just disagreeing with my tongue planted firmly in cheek.

Chuck

 

[Umbran]

Come to think of it, I was probably drunk - so feel free to forget the whole thread

Oh, but why? I mean, wouldn't a claim of "in vino veritas" be more fun?

 

[JoeGKushner]

The market's too small for a crash.

Most of the print publishers are moving away from d20 already anyway like Atlas, Fantasy Flight Games, etc... There have been fatalities (Fast Foward Games anyone... ugh...) and there have been a ton of products via the PDF and that PDF market isn't going to stop producing product due to the low price point entry barrier so nope, no crash.

Reduction in 3rd company product which WoTC is already making up for? Yup...

 

[Turjan]

Reduction in 3rd company product which WoTC is already making up for? Yup...

This is more or less the point. The d20 license allowed WotC to use the resources of other companies as booster to get a furious headstart for their new edition (I mean 3E). Race and class books, adventure scenarios and variant rules were produced by others in order to satisfy niche markets, while the company itself could concentrate on the core rules. Once they were done with this, they recycled their own material in a revision and produced the race and class books, adventure scenarios and variant rules themselves, building on the experiences from the first cycle. This doesn't leave much room for competitors. Altogether, this seems to be a pretty natural development to me.

 

[Alzrius]

There is a crash coming in my opinion folks. I think - or hope - that it won't be as far reaching or catastrophic as the video game crash of 1983. I do believe that we won't see half as many d20 publishers on the floor of Gencon 2005 as we did 2004 though - these things can happen that fast.

Just a late night observation. I hope I'm wrong, for the sake of a lot of folks and their dreams.

It's not so much that you're wrong, as you're just not taking the analogy far enough.

As Zappo said, things didn't end in 1983. Nintendo, who had been on the scene since 1981, breathed new life into the industry in 1985 (1984 in Japan) with the NES, and the rest is history.

Even if there is a crash (which I think is a big if), the market still self-corrects goes forward.