The many worlds of White Wolf, disproving WotC conventional wisdom?

[AdmundfortGeographer]

It has been long conventional wisdom that one of TSR's failings was proliferation of worlds. Also, that this practice of TSR's wouldn't be redone by WotC.

But here I saw on ENWorld's news page that White Wolf will be publishing products this upcoming quarter for the worlds of Scarred Lands, DragonMech, Ravenloft, Everquest II, and City-state of the Invincible Overlord, Warcraft RPG.

Of course, White Wolf also has the Gamma World license too, and prints Malhavoc's stuff, including The Diamond Throne.

On top of all this, White Wolf does all of the World of Darkness, Vampire, Exalted, and Mind's Eye Theater. Add it all up!

Am I right to start to doubt WotC's claim that multiple worlds is too difficult for a single company to pull off? That instead, the the problem is that WotC is just incapable of figuring out how to do it?

Yeah, I know, WotC right now has a few, with Star Wars, FR, Eberron, and it's Core "setting" (if a setting is what it really is). WotC has done one-shots with D20 modern and since abandoned, like Urban Arcana, and the D&D one-shot "Ghostwalk", and the effective-one-shot of Wheel of time. But those are abandoned, and not supported, like White Wolf is doing with it's vast portfolio of active settings. The comparison is stark it seems to me.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[MrFilthyIke]

The comparison is stark it seems to me.

I think WW has hit MORE successes than WotC in the area of innovation.
WotC inheirited/purchased a self-perpetuating giant (D&D) that would be
hard-pressed to top or beat with a new world or setting. Eberron is the
closest they've come so far.

WW has innovated two major breakouts on its own, Vampire (and assorted
WoD) and Exalted.

I think WW is more willing to take risks, especially since they don't answer
to a parent company and stockholders.

Just some coppers,

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I think the folly of TSR was by dividing their fanbase; a lot of fans were interested in several of their worlds but could only commit to one or two. WW's settings are somewhat more niche though; a fan of Exalted wouldn't necessarily be interested in Everquest II.

Time will tell though. TSR had a lot of time to go belly-up and there's nothing to say that WW won't too. I, for one, know a fair amount of WoD players who are very annoyed with how WW has handled that line in the last year or so.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I wonder how profitable all of those different product lines are for White Wolf. Obviously, WW has made a bundle off the core World of Darkness line(which is arguably a single shared world), and the Malhavoc line is doing quite well by all accounts.

But how big of a profit margin does, say, Dragonmech produce? Is it covering costs? If so, by how much?

What about Ravenloft? The license went for (relatively) cheap, but that's an added expense that WW needs to cover. Do they? Again, if so, by how much?

Wizards of the Coast doesn't farm out licenses like Dragonlance because those licenses will lose money; rather, WotC farms them out because they won't make as much as Eberron or the Forgotten Realms - again, in theory.

WW may prefer to make a (small) profit on many worlds rather than a large profit on one or two; their business model may support that system, or they may be willing to lose a little extra profit to produce games they like. Either way, the fact that they've survived, perhaps even thrived, on multiple worlds doesn't mean that multiple worlds are necessarily the most profitable option.

 

[Psion]

White Wolf is an RPG company. One of the biggest, but nonetheless.

Wizards is a Hobby Game company owned by a gaint Family Game company.

I imagine many of WW's product line sales are as weak or weaker than what WotC considers worthwhile. But it's good for them.

 

[Desdichado]

Some of the TSR settings were hits, according to their own staff. I think TSR's suite of bad business decisions is not limited to over-fracturing their fan base, but to a number of other things (like making more expensive products than WW, for one thing, and not understanding the concept of "break-even point.") Not only that, different D&D settings are still D&D settings, whereas WW has a more diversified portfolio.

 

[argo]

Scared Lands, Ravenloft and WoD are all different genre's catering to different markets. Warcraft and Everquest are micro-niche products catering to people who are already fans of the setting from that setting's other incarnations.

Greyhawk, Mystara, Dragonlance and FR were (are) all basically competing for the same market share: stock DnD. Even settings like Planescape or Spelljammer come dangerously close to overlaping with the FR market. There is room in the hobby for different products to cater to sub-niches but not to split an existing niche. Espically when the one doing the spliting is the same company.

I think WotC's decision to focus on one or two settings and release "one shots" for everything else is probably the best decision from a buisness standpoint. Even if I don't care for the settings they choose overly much.

Later.

 

[mearls]

White Wolf is an RPG company. One of the biggest, but nonetheless.

Wizards is a Hobby Game company owned by a gaint Family Game company.

I imagine many of WW's product line sales are as weak or weaker than what WotC considers worthwhile. But it's good for them.

Exactly - the companies have different models. WW can afford to publish games and settings that sell far fewer copies than WotC.

The key thing to look at is the WoD: WW has cut back their releases to, I think, 2 per month, compared to 4 or 5 in the past for Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, and so on.

Most of the titles mentioned above have one core book and a steady, but relatively slow, level of support. TSR tried to create 4 or 5 worlds and support them all with monthly supplements - they ended up competing with themselves. WW seems to support just as many settings, but they release far fewer support books for them. If you like both EQ and Ravenloft, there are few enough supplements that you can afford to follow both lines. You're never stuck trying to decide between 5 or 6 new supplements for the two lines.

 

[rogueattorney]

A dumb question followed by (what I hope to be) a smart comment:

Ravenloft and Scarred Lands are from Sword & Sorcery Studios. CSotIO is from Necromancer... Are these subsidiaries of WW? I know there's some sort of relationship, but don't know to what point they're actually entermeshed.

Now, the comment: In WotC's public statements, most importantly the big "what went wrong with TSR" report, I've never seen them mention quality as a determinative of product success. It leads me to wonder whether the quality (or lack thereof) of a product is just assumed, or whether they don't believe quality is a factor in sales (and judging from some top sellers in the industry over the last 30 years, there might be a point to that...).

The "too many settings is bad" and "modules don't make money" proclamation both seem largely rested on the 1990's TSR model. In my opinion, during this time, TSR was putting out a lot of poor quality materials. Sure, they were also putting out some very nice materials, but not consistently. TSR did put out consistantly high quality items from about 1977 to 1982, and by all accounts this roughly coincided with TSR's most financially successful period.

The point of my rambling is that I've seen a lot of comments on what type of materials attract customers, but not much comment on the degree to which the quality of those materials bears on the attraction. The implication being, that if adventures weren't selling, was it because adventures in themselves don't sell? or because attractive adventures weren't being made during the period WotC did the study? Was it truly a case of too many settings? or was it a case of too many low-quality products for these settings?

If company A can make an adequate profit off of product type #1, and company B cannot, I think that tells you more about company A and B than product type #1.

R.A.

 

[Desdichado]

Necromancer and Malhavoc, and I don't remember who else are partners with WW, and they essentially use their distribution chains. Other than that, (barring someone like mearls who outta know chiming in) I don't think WW has any involvement in the production of the product itself.