D&D 5E Well played WOTC (or Free RPG Day 2015)

[Morrus]

Do you have the exact numbers with regards to magnitude?

Just downloading the rules doesn't really count as playtesting. Paizo had over 100,00 contributions to the Pathfinder rules so the title is a subjective one. We don't necessarily know who's was bigger but I think Pathfinder was the biggest.

I'm on my phone, but both figures are publicly available. It's not a contested figure.

 

[Gnarl45]

I work for charity one day per year - I take my income for that day, and donate it, rather than use it to pay my own bills.

Good point. I see a difference between a luxury product such as D&D and charity though. Would you do the same for Donald Trump? .

I would agree with a free RPG day where people give some of their RPG books to those that normally wouldn't be able to buy them. But it's not like the ones receiving the books would care. They're already downloading those books...

 

[Umbran]

Good point. I see a difference between a luxury product such as D&D and charity though. Would you do the same for Donald Trump? .

No. But if I really liked my company and they needed a little bit more from me to make something important happen, I might do it.

But, then again, the people actually doing the work may still get paid. The term in business is "loss leader" - a product you expect to take a loss in, that will lead people to purchase other products. The creators get paid, and the company swallows the loss in the hopes it'll pay off n the long run.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Also Free RPG day is available in exactly one country in a limited number of places in that country. Whereas things released on the internet for free are available to a much higher amount of RPGers.

 

[Remathilis]

I grabbed the Fifth Edition Fantasy module by Goodman, so I did get something for 5e.

I can't imagine it would have been a lot of work to make a dozen paper copies of the Elemental Evil Player's Companion per kit and send those out. Thing's already free, in a printable form, and POD. It would have flowed nicely with the Free RPG day stuff and cost WotC just the cost of a small print run.

As always, WotC masters the Zen of of RPG publishing by accepting Nothingness.

 

[Gnarl45]

The term in business is "loss leader" - a product you expect to take a loss in, that will lead people to purchase other products. The creators get paid, and the company swallows the loss in the hopes it'll pay off n the long run.

You already had convinced me with charity that sometimes working for free is acceptable. You could also add help a friend moving to his new house, help the old lady living next doors mow the lawn, cook something special for your wife when she has a bad day, etc... There are plenty of exceptions.

Free products are marketing though. I don't think marketing is working for free but you're welcome to disagree.

But this kind of illustrates my point. Free RPG Day is a really bad marketing idea... What's the point of free RPG day other than giving away your hard work for free? And why would anyone be upset with WoTC for realizing that free RPG day is a bad investment.

 

[exile]

To answer a variety of questions that were raised by my post...

1. Yes, I realize that I spent more money on WotC product on Free RPG day than on product from any other company. That was kind of the point of the post.

2. WotC does not owe anything, and I do not feel a sense of entitlement for product from them. Further, I have very little idea of what is good business or bad business for them; but i always thought it was nice when they did participate in Free RPG day.

3. When I was in private practice, I provided free surgical care to those unavailable to pay on an alarmingly regular basis. Now that I am employed by a hospital, I'm not allowed to do that anymore. That said, just today-- even though I was not on call-- I went in to see a patient who had requested me in preference to the on call surgeon. I gave her that time, even though it didn't translate into any kind of financial bonus.

Any more questions?

 

[Gnarl45]

Any more questions?

Do you also think there should be a free casino and BJ day in Vegas?

 

[Dragonblade]

Do you have the exact numbers with regards to magnitude?

Just downloading the rules doesn't really count as playtesting. Paizo had over 100,00 contributions to the Pathfinder rules so the title is a subjective one. We don't necessarily know who's was bigger but I think Pathfinder was the biggest.

Its cool to be a Paizo fanboy, they are a well-run company full of great people. But if we're going to compare numbers, Paizo had 45,000 downloads of the Pathfinder beta. WotC had over 170,000 downloads of the 5e playtest. Its not even close. WotC even had higher numbers of paying DDI subscribers for 4e than that. As late as 2013, DDI still had 81,000 subscribers bringing in around $500k a month. Good money, just not the $50 mil a year, that Hasbro was looking for.

Paizo had 100,000 forum posts for their Pathfinder playtest, but to say those count as individual contributions is a stretch considering that much of that is the same posters just having a back and forth discussion. WotC got their feedback from online surveys so you can't compare post counts directly. Not that it would even matter.

If you really want to count forum posts as an indicator of fan support for a game, then just look at ENWorld's Hot Game tracker. Its easy to see that D&D 5e online discussion across the internet dwarfs all other RPG's, including Pathfinder which is just barely edging out OSR discussion.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php

 

[77IM]

HOLY ING ITY , how did I miss Free RPG Day???

Morrus or somebody, please remind me next year! Pretty pretty please?