Time to change the supplement-driven business model for D&D (and other RPGs)?

[TrippyHippy]

As others will say: citation needed. One should not consider a change in business model without real data.

Mainly anecdotal from my end, I'm afraid, although my own experience with attending conferences is that the attendees are getting older, and there are less of them.

There has, however, been commentary from a number of RPG companies about the difficulties in shifting books these days compared with previous times. I follow only certain game's so I can't cite them all - but I recall the Mongoose year of address indicating decline in the industry, while companies like White Wolf and others operate on a massively reduced level than previous years.

You could balance these out with other rising companies, I guess, but I tend to regard the rise of Pathfinder, for example as zero sum. That is, Pathfinder didn't exist before 2008, so any sales beyond this point have nothing to compare to. there is also the feeling that they have largely circumvented the old D&D3/D20 market rather than bringing in new gamers as such. We know that D&D has declined in sales through the 4th edition, as it's been expressed through several professional outlets - retailers included. I'm fairly certain that someone in the know has ample data that some things in the rpg hobby aren't perfectly healthy. I also openly wonder whether gamers buying massive amounts of supplements or games - way beyond what they could ever be expected to play in a lifetime - is all that healthy either (although it's a slightly different issue).

Yes, this is speculation, and it's entirely reasonable and valid to argue that citations should be needed. However, this isn't me trying to lecture anybody saying that we should change for the sake of it. It's me just asking the question whether the current business model is the best, whether it can be improved and whether there is an alternative. I don't claim to be an expert any more than anyone else.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I think the answer to that is simple - Monopoly and its ilk keep their revenue stream large by having such a large buying public, and so many new customers coming in as people become old enough to take part, that their market never really saturates. There are almost always enough new customers to keep the game in print.

The problem is that, whether *you* consider them as a "division" of board games or not is not material. The buying public doesn't think they are the same. Most of the buying public isn't interested in tabletop RPGs. The market is smaller, so it can be (and is) saturated rather quickly.

So, I don't think the current business model is one the publishers chose, so much as the one that they've found works under the market conditions in which they operate.

Well, I'm not sure about this - and this was actually one of the things that inspired this thread.

I've watched Will Wheaton's Tabletop pretty avidly since it came about, and also really like Felicia Day's channel as a great boost to the gaming hobby, generally. I've been a gamer pretty much all my adult and adolescent life but a lot of it has been overly focussed on rpgs in exclusion to other games. The thing is, rpgs are a relatively complex and highly specific form of gaming and there is a bridging point between more casual games and rpgs to bring people into the hobby. The variety of tabletop games on show in the series, reminded me of how diversity in products can actually create a broader appeal across the range of all of them.

If we cite one of the more successful rpg companies in recent times, Fantasy Flight Games, their rpg division is only a small section of their overall catalogue. They sell board games and card games too. It's this diversity of gaming product that makes them successful I feel. I've seen similar things in retail shops. The number of specialist RPG shops are few and far between these days, but shops that diversify into family games or even low level sports gear have a greater chance of success.

In the case of D&D, I honestly wonder how a big company like Wizards/Hasbro can sustain sales of a game like D&D to the level that they want. They tried the open license which was basically set up because the sales of supplements was considered negligible to the unit sales of the core rules, yet supplements were required to maintain interest and sales in the core rules. What better way to reduce costs, by effectively getting 3rd party companies to give you free advertising? Yet, lots of problems clearly arose from it (like for example Paizo producing a new game that outsold D&D!). They lost control of the OGL, because the business aspects grew beyond it.

My feeling is that the best way to make the D&D brand popular and profitable, is to sell the core rules alone with few supplements (if any!). Then, give an open license for people to publish free supplementary material only. Beyond that, use the D&D brand to sell other stuff with a greater profit margin - board games, video games, miniature games, card games, movies, etc. As long as the brand remains popular, you are more likely to generate sales across all ranges of games.

The other factor of note is that GW published research about 10 years ago about the lifespan of games (usually about three years) before their sales drop. Narrative based games (including rpgs) have a longer span, however. The reason for that is most likely because the games themselves are played over the long term. If the model can be used to tap into that phenomena, then there shouldn't be a reason why the RPG industry and hobby can't be successful in the long term.

 

[Iosue]

I'm not convinced that this is really important. This site has a whole lot of long-time gamers. And sure, they'd love to see continuity. But, I'm not sure they are a large enough segment of the market for this strategy to be crucial.

I don't think I expressed myself clearly. I'm not necessarily talking about accessing the long-term gamers. For starters, I know that to-hit tables, Saves vs Death Ray, and descending AC, elements of D&D quite dear to my heart, are gone, gone, gone, never to return. For good or ill, WotC made a break with history in 2000, and there's no going back. The best that old-timers can hope for is something akin to Next, where the game can be turned into one that roughly emulates the TSR editions. Nor am I talking about keeping the game static. OD&D is different from AD&D which is different from B/X D&D which is again different from BECMI/RC D&D, and then 2nd Edition is different still. There's room for change, for improvement, both mechanically and presentation wise.

So I think there needs to be TSR-like continuity (distinct from continuity to TSR-editions at this stage!). While all the above are different, in some fundamental ways, nonetheless any adventure from one can be used with another, and a player of one particular of those editions could easily drop into a game of a different one. The reason is not because those old players are necessarily a revenue resource. I highly doubt TSR was getting a whole lotta of money from OD&D players in 1999. It's to maintain a steadily continuing fan base, with new players coming as old players leave.

As an example, I was brought into the game in 1987, by a friend using Moldvay Basic and Keep on the Borderlands. He eventually gave me his Basic and Expert sets because he was focusing on AD&D. When 2nd Edition came out a few years later, I don't believe he made the switch. But I bought the 2nd Ed. core books, because while I didn't have a strong connection to the 1st edition books, the 2nd edition game was essentially familiar enough that my characters and settings easily ported over. Even as TSR moved their focus from adventure modules and DM splats to campaign settings and player splats, they retained me as a relatively new customer because the material they made was largely compatible with my own.

WotC has not followed this paradigm, and as a result, the fan base has fractured much sooner and much more granular that usual. Even leaving aside how much of jump it was from 2nd Ed. to 3rd Ed., the 3.5 revision was not just an errata update, but necessitated a revision of much of the whole line. 4e rendered many of 3.x books mechanically useless. And the Essentials line was not so cleanly integrated into the market, as much as I like it. Someone who got into the game in 2006 or 2007, making their world and characters, found they had to start from zero again in 2008. And as much as I like Next, someone just getting into 4e is going to find most of their books and all of their characters pretty much invalidated* sometime next year.

This is what I mean by compatibility and continuity. To-date, every WotC edition has offered players a choice. Move your campaign over entirely to the new shiny, or just enjoy your old books. And not just old players, where this might be somewhat expected, but relatively new players as well. A player who started in 1977 still shared a common D&D language with a player who started in 1997. That in itself may not necessarily be a positive in a business sense (though IMO it is). However, a player who started in 1999 is playing a virtually different game from a player who started in 2004, who is playing a virtually different game from someone who started in 2009. On the whole, I think that's a negative, as a business strategy.

*Of course any fan of any edition can continue playing their favored edition, and I've long expressed the belief that one thing WotC wants to do with Next is create adventures and material that can be used with multiple editions, 4e included. Nevertheless, it won't be possible for someone to bring their 4e character into a Next game without heavy revision. I don't believe it will be possible to play a game with a Next DMG and 4e MM.

 

[Morrus]

Mainly anecdotal from my end, I'm afraid, although my own experience with attending conferences is that the attendees are getting older, and there are less of them.

By conferences do you mean conventions? Gen Con sets new records year after year (it's up to 50K now). The other conventions I go to, UKGE is increasing in size each year. Dragonmeet, I've only been to one, so I don't know. It your anecdotal impressions don't appear to match the actual figures.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Yes, conventions. I'm in a different country to yourself, although went to Uk conventions all the time when I lived there. They were always getting smaller when I was there (I left about 2009
admittedly).They are very modest affairs where I am at (NZ) and all the gaming shops have shut down over the last two years or so. The US may be a different thing, so that's good news.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, gaming shops have been in free fall for a decade or more now. I remember Ryan Dancey talking about there being over 2000 dedicated gaming shops in the US before 2001. By about 2007, there were less than 500. But, that's the same for just about any dedicated brick and mortar type shop. I mean, how many small bookstores (non-chain) do you see anymore?

I think we cannot underestimate the effect that things like Amazon and direct sales have done to the hobby.

 

[TrippyHippy]

We still have quite a few small book stores in my town and Wellington (nearest city). There are zero game shops outside of Games Workshop or comic stores that have a few extras on the side.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, conventions. I'm in a different country to yourself, although went to Uk conventions all the time when I lived there. They were always getting smaller when I was there (I left about 2009
admittedly).They are very modest affairs where I am at (NZ) and all the gaming shops have shut down over the last two years or so. The US may be a different thing, so that's good news.

Note that RPGs have never really been big here with the launch of 3.0 maybe being an exception. I heard Auckland was down to 1 game store and they used to have 3 or 4. I'm in Dunedin, no FLGS and the local uni RPG club seems to be into Vampire and indie games as opposed to D&D. I briefly went there and they seemed more interested in TSR era D&D than modern stuff.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The last game store in Wellington shut down last year, and I'm reasonably certain if Auckland have a store the stock is very limited. Dunedin used to have quite a strong RPG community (through the Varsity) and at least one really good specialist shop about 10-15 years ago.

 

[Zardnaar]

The last game store in Wellington shut down last year, and I'm reasonably certain if Auckland have a store there stock is very limited. Dunedin used to have quite a strong RPG community (through the Varsity) and at least one really good specialist shop about 10-15 years ago.

Had 3 shops at one point (1997) last one closed 2008. There is around 60 odd regulars in the varsity group but they're not playing D&D as a general rule at least at organized event home games IDK. I had a look in their RPG cupboard and they had some oldDragon/Dungeon and 2nd ed stuff along with 3.0 and 3.5. Also had a near mint copy of the TSR Dragonlance and Buck Rogers board games. We still have a shop doing Magic/Warhammer no RPG product though. I think you can order it in but it is expensive.

I assume Gene in Wellington is still doing magic?