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

[Mouseferatu]

Necromancer and Malhavoc are partners with Sword & Sorcery; outside companies who have a deal to use WW's distribution, artists, etc.

Sword & Sorcery itself, however, is basically part of White Wolf; another branch of the same company. So Scarred Lands, and any other SSS products that aren't from one of the partners, are pretty much White Wolf products.

 

[Ranger REG]

All I know is that Arthaus and Black Dog are subsidiaries created by White Wolf. The others are game design studio partners for which White Wolf foot the bill on publishing and distribution. It would be uncommon -- if not rare -- for any one of White Wolf's employees to be involved in actual d20 game design.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

All I know is that Arthaus and Black Dog are subsidiaries created by White Wolf. The others are game design studio partners for which White Wolf foot the bill on publishing and distribution.

I guess this underlines one of my points, that White Wolf has figured out how to publish many world settings and product lines... Having subsidiaries do the grunt work is a perfectly doable situation. WotC should consider it. They are already doing something similar to it with the RPGA.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[mearls]

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.

Quality is pretty much the prime determinant. The key is, how do you define quality? Most of the industry defines quality in d20 as "look as much like non-d20 products as possible." That hasn't really worked out too well.

They key thing to remember when comparing WotC to WW lies in their overhead. There's a certain fixed cost a company incurs for producing a book. Basically, all things being equal, it costs X to make a big. The larger the company, the higher X is. Thus, a book from a larger company needs move more copies to earn back X and then an acceptable level of profit.

The key is that while all non-WotC companies can be measured on a similar scale, WotC is off the charts compared to everyone else.

A book that sells 20,000 copies is a smash success for anyone except WotC. For WotC, it's a failure or a marginal product at best.

 

[Ranger REG]

I guess this underlines one of my points, that White Wolf has figured out how to publish many world settings and product lines... Having subsidiaries do the grunt work is a perfectly doable situation. WotC should consider it. They are already doing something similar to it with the RPGA.

I don't recall RPGA being a game design studio. Just a [D&D] roleplayer fan club. Though WotC did assigned that organization to publish the Greyhawk line earlier, but somewhere along the line, WotC cut off their funding to RPGA. That's why the only GH product for 3e is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteeer.

If RPGA can generate their own funding to help in their design projects, then perhaps WotC would be interested in footing the publishing and distribution bills. Then again WotC have pretty much written off Greyhawk.

Perhaps Paizo should consider funding the game design, since they are already publishing the Living Greyhawk Journal column in one of their magazines (who I shall not name specifically).

 

[Maggan]

WotC already doing it

I guess this underlines one of my points, that White Wolf has figured out how to publish many world settings and product lines... Having subsidiaries do the grunt work is a perfectly doable situation. WotC should consider it. They are already doing something similar to it with the RPGA.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

Well, WotC are already doing that by utilising the d20 license. They have other people publishing worlds and stuff compatible with D&D, so they are essentially getting free support for their best sellers: the core rules.

Also, I think it is important to stress that the risk of publishing several of these worlds mainly lies on the production partners that WW has entered into agreement with. If Unearthed Arcana fails, WW lose little, Malhavoc lose a lot. Same with DragonMech.

Which is a good thing, but reduced risk also means reduced payback. Now, I'm not saying the WW deal is bad for Malhavo et al. or for WW, but I think WotC would consider the payback not worth the investment, especially since they are making most money on core rules, and every d20 product WW puts out supports this model, without any risk for WotC... hmmm... but I just said that less risk means less payback... hmmm... darn... well, putting out the d20 licensen was a big risk, and now they are reaping the rewards by getting free support for D&D.

Or something like that.

Cheers!

Maggan

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I don't recall RPGA being a game design studio. Just a [D&D] roleplayer fan club. Though WotC did assigned that organization to publish the Greyhawk line earlier, but somewhere along the line, WotC cut off their funding to RPGA. That's why the only GH product for 3e is the Living Greyhawk Gazetteeer.

So?

You're either being intentionally obtuse to my point, or are just not aware of how the RPGA functions today.

It seems, based on this post, that you consider that something must bring in directly talliable revenue to count. I fundamentally diagree. I once was a triad member in the Living Greyhawk campaign, and that may mean to you that I have a biased perspective, it also means that I know just how much work the RPGA volunteers put into what they develop, author, and publish.

Nothing is a "product" unless is carries a price tag? Okay... fine. It is irrelevent to my point, that WotC has a familiarity with working with a group of authors who function with a great degree of separation from the operations of the main organization. That is the current status quo for LG right now that is relevent to my comment. At least that is what I was thinking about when I said what I said. That WotC doesn't gets direct revenue from what the volunteers do, as I said, is irrelevent to my point that WotC has a "subsidiary" that has a huge output of "product". They could leverage this experience to start a subsidiary for each of their retired settings thtat have little likelihood of infringing on the fan-base of FR, Core or Eberron (Planescape, Dark Sun and Spelljammer), or start subsidiaries for other marginal concepts.

I'm NOT saying that WotC would set up an "RPGA" for each one, earning no directly talliable revenue. I'm saying that, like White Wolf has done with Arthaus, or how White Wolf has teamed with Malhavoc and Necromancer, WotC could have a subsidiary for particular lines that may have marginal profitability.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[jester47]

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,

WW in house

DragonMech,

All Goodman Games, WW is just printing and distro.

Ravenloft,

WW in house I believe.

Everquest II, and

Limited long term support from WW. That is you will not see nearly as many supplements put out for it as say the Scarred Lands or WoD, this is basicly WWs equivalent to the one off CS that WotC is doing

City-state of the Invincible Overlord,

All Necromancer and Judges Guild. Can't count as in house dev.

Warcraft RPG.

See Comment for the EQ 2 RPG.

Of course, White Wolf also has the

Gamma World

This seems to have limited support too.

and prints Malhavoc's stuff, including
The Diamond Throne.

Emphasis mine. Doesnt count as in house dev. Its Malhavoc.

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!

WoD and Vamp are the same thing. Minds Eye does not expand on the IP that is in the WoD and is based in it or a version of it, and so we cant count that as a setting. We have to count WoD and its subclasses and derivatives as one.

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

These three are seriously strong contendors. In fact I would suspect that the sales from any of these properties rival WoD sales at WW. Also, from what I can tell, WotC is excercising tight control with Dragonlance. Since they have printed (but not designed) a book, I would count thier fingers in this pie.

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.

You forgot Cthuhu D20. The thing is GW, WoT, and CoC d20 were NEVER intended to be supported. So they could never really be ABANDONED. CoC d20 is supported by Chaosium in a limited respect. WW will probably abandon thier CRPG based lines when their next versions come out too.

, like White Wolf is doing with it's vast portfolio of active settings. The comparison is stark it seems to me.

I would hardly call WWs actual in house production of settings vast in relation to WotCs. In the long run limited support is just as good as no support, so, the score is about even. WotC comes in at a 7 with heavy hitters FR, Eberron, and Star Wars, and light punches Urban Arcana, CoC d20, Ghost Walk, and WoT. (I am not counting dragonlance, its technically sov stones now) WW comes in at a 7 with heavy hitters SL, Exalted, Ravenloft, and WoD, followed by light punches WarCraft, EQII, and GammaWorld. No adjustments are made for IP Licensing incestuousness. If you adjust WotC looses 3 for WoT, SW, and CoC. Giving them 4 original settings. However, WW, looses 2 which are really WotCs IP, dropping them to 5 and giving WotC 6. EQ2 and WarCraft drop the score for WW to 3: Scarred Lands, Exalted and WoD. Everything else is a contract deal and could get terminated at any time.

So in the end its about even with WotC benefiting the most.

Aaron.

 

[Mouseferatu]

It would be uncommon -- if not rare -- for any one of White Wolf's employees to be involved in actual d20 game design.

Not true at all. Justin Achilli, Ethan Skemp, the Weick brothers, and many other actual WW staff have been involved in D20 material--in some cases, substantially. And there's an enormous amount of overlap when you get to the freelancers.

 

[jester47]

I will readily admit that WW has such a big publishing pipe that it can easily rent out space on it. And in that respect WW does hold a lot of cards in the d20 world. Where WotC makes more money on licensing, WW makes a lot of money on being everybodys favorite pimp.

Aaron.