What happened with Vampire?

[KirayaTiDrekan]

If I may...

Vampire: The Masquerade (1st edition softcover), the first classic World of Darkness product, talks about Gehenna prominently in the introduction, specifically on page 7, and Gehenna is a central theme of the game.

 

[Mark Hope]

It does talk about it, but it's nothing more than a myth and certainly not a central theme of the game until much, much later.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

The closure of the MMO sucks for a lot of our friends, but that hasn't affected Onyx Path's license to create new materials.

For the Classic World of Darkness, not including Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, which was one of the final CCP products, we've done:

- WTA: Werewolf Translation Guide
- VTM: V20 Companion
- VTM: Children of the Revolution
- MTA: Convention Book: N.W.O.
- MTA: Convention Book: Progenitors
- WTA: Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition
- MTA: Mage Translation Guide
- WTA: Skinner
- VTM: The Hunters Hunted II
- MTA: Convention Book: Syndicate
- MTA: Convention Book: Void Engineers
- WTA: Changing Breeds
- WTA: W20 Rage Across the World
- WTA: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II
- VTM: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology
- DA: Dark Ages: Darkening Sky
- WTA: W20 Cookbook

All of which are available in print. So yes, we have been releasing plenty of stuff in the last two years. If none of that interests you... well, there's not much I can do about that, but the books are there regardless. We have been making them, even if they're not to your taste.

The new World of Darkness also continues to do quite well. Out of the top five of our "hottest" items on DriveThruRPG, the top three are for the new WoD.

If you're doing well, good for you.

A lot of what you list above are re-releases or rehashes of existing books, though. That's what I'm talking about. I have virtually every book from the oWOD already, from when they were already released. I'm not seeing much from Onyx Path that's really new.

If that's what your customers want, more power to you.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

The long-term ramifications seem obvious now, but unlike what D&D did (sell off its previous line to another publisher who vowed to keep it going until the end of times), they gave their meta-story final death - and fans got understandable pissed. I guess that was part of the huge reaction at the time - it wasn't a choice, gamers were given an ultimatum: switch or quit. We know how us gamers tend to react to those sorts of situations, and I wonder if this wasn't one of the biggest reasons why so many fans just left the game completely - even though the line of reasoning at the time was pretty sound.

Most of the people I knew who left the game did so because they really hated the nWOD. oWOD was a dark, adult game with an intriguing magic system. nWOD scrapped the magic system (big mistake) and isn't nearly as dark. Even the art suffered - it became a lot more manga-ish in some of the books. They got rid of everything that set the WOD apart from most other games at the time. It was obviously geared towards younger players. They made the same mistake that D&D did years later when it switched from 3.5 to 4.

White Wolf made bad business decisions all around, just like TSR had done previously, and Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro later. It's easy to say that hindsight is 20/20, but it was pretty obvious at the time that White Wolf's sales issues with oWOD had nothing to do with the game itself. If they had any business advisors, they weren't doing their job.

Given how many new people I was able to bring into the oWOD prior to it's demise, I don't really buy the argument that it was "almost impossible" to bring in new players. It was as easy as ever. You teach them how to play, and then start. They pick things up along the way.

When I play WOD games, I just use my oWOD books. They aren't going anywhere. I gave the nWOD materials a shot, but they were just not as intriguing as the old stuff, for the most part. If others enjoy them, that's great.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

This is totally fair, but a game without publisher support will rarely ever last as long as a game with publisher support. Support is what keeps the blood flowing (not meant to be a pun). And a number of people may have also quit spitefully, just because their world was "destroyed" and they felt abandoned (that's far too dramatic but I couldn't think of the right word - and to be fair, WoD is pretty dramatic). Hard to say, though.

Exactly. When new material is no longer published for a game, most people start to drift away. In this case, though, for a lot of players at the time there was also a palpable sense that White Wolf was screwing them over. A lot of people simply left in disgust.

I kept playing, and still do on occasion, but I could never get into the nWoD. I did give it a shot, but most people I knew had no interest in doing so after having invested so much time and money into the older system.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

It does talk about it, but it's nothing more than a myth and certainly not a central theme of the game until much, much later.

Exactly. Most of the people I encountered over the years weren't even using the metaplot as part of their games. I certainly never did.

 

[IanWatson]

A lot of what you list above are re-releases or rehashes of existing books, though.

Of the items we've released which you quoted, none of them are rereleases. Given our PDF/PoD model, our back catalogue is perpetually available, so there's no point in rereleasing anything since the originals are freely available.

Of the "rehashing"... well, that's debatable. We generally make an effort not to release anything unless it has something novel which isn't already covered. We're not on the publishing treadmill anymore.

But using the most generous interpretation of a "rehash," the following are still wholly new:

- WTA: Werewolf Translation Guide
- VTM: V20 Companion
- VTM: Children of the Revolution
- MTA: Mage Translation Guide
- WTA: Skinner
- WTA: W20 Rage Across the World (despite the name)
- WTA: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II
- VTM: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology
- DA: Dark Ages: Darkening Sky
- WTA: W20 Cookbook

... which is still more than half the Classic WoD products we've released.

 

[evilbob]

Of the "rehashing"... well, that's debatable.

I have to go with IanWatson on this one. The new oWoD core book (V20) is different enough and updated enough that in my opinion it's still worth it. I can see how someone who has already bought all those books 20 years ago would give it a pass, but honestly if you've taken a break, it's a better starting point than the old core book. AND it has everything that oWoD players said they wanted: support, expansions, new material, etc. I'm not sure why they're still getting burned for giving people what they asked for. After 10 years I'm willing to give them another shot.

pickin_grinnin, I think you have some core differences of opinion with some in this thread when it comes to what's a good business move and what isn't, and I don't have actual numbers with which to agree or disagree, but while it's easy - as I said - to say in hindsight that they made a bad move, I really don't know what else could have been done at the time, either with WW or WotC. And WotC is doing the same thing again, for what it's worth. I think keeping a product running, supported, and expanding without rebooting must be much more difficult than people think.

 

[Balesir]

Well, not quite. Sometimes capital is left idle because of a business being on the downslope of a declining cycle in the market, when to sell it off would leave the company unable to compete when the market turns around. Often, paying storage/maintenance fees are cheaper than selling off and re-buying later. Factories get temporarily mothballed, franchise locations get shuttered for years.

See, for example, Marvel Productions. When strapped for cash, they sold off rights to X-Men, Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four movies. Now, when they are in a position of being able to actually develop those properties themselves, they are stuck in agreements negotiated from a position of weakness. They may *never* get those rights back, and they've proven to be worth billions of dollars.

"Make the IP work for you, at all times, at any cost," is not necessarily the best business decision. Sometimes, sitting on it to make it work for you later is a sound choice.

Holding it in the expectation that it will gain in value is "making it work for you" - but it's a risky option with a significant payoff required before it becomes viable. The fact that it can pay off in a few cases is by no means a demonstration of overall advisability; even with a higher price after holding, you need to overcome opportunity costs and even several apparently "successful" cases have failed to do this.

IP is no different. Some very well managed IP- see Disney, Hendrix, Presley, etc.- gets held back in order to properly leverage it in the market, either by keeping scarcity (and thus, price) high, taking the time to create derivative IP in different media, etc. Some video games once considered "abandonware" have returned to the market decades later, repackaged in new forms. The Atari 2600 was first released in 1977...and just a few years ago, Atari released the Atari Flashback consoles featuring 40 or so of the old games.t- see Disney, Hendrix, Presley

In the case of one of these I know about - Jimi Hendrix's music - I don't really think the holding was successful, even if an expected appreciation in value was the sole or main reason for holding (which I'm by no means convinced it was). Holding for, what, 30 years? That would require around a 10 times increase in value just to cover the holding cost. Did it really net that much more? I'm sceptical.

To be worth holding, the property must gain value at least equivalent to the opportunity cost. The long term (nominal) return on stocks is currently around 7%. That means that, even for a modest holding period of 5 years, a 40% increase in price is required simply to cover the opportunity; less than that and you are making an effective loss. This may work for a few cases, but it's a big risk (and risky investments demand higher returns still).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the case of one of these I know about - Jimi Hendrix's music - I don't really think the holding was successful, even if an expected appreciation in value was the sole or main reason for holding (which I'm by no means convinced it was). Holding for, what, 30 years? That would require around a 10 times increase in value just to cover the holding cost. Did it really net that much more? I'm sceptical.

Believe it. Most of Jimi Hendrix's earnings were post-mortem. His modest estate was turned into $80m by 2002, and is currently over $175m, and earns $10m annually in licensing fees and royalties. This puts him fourth on the list of top earning dead celebrities.

It would probably be more, but Jimi died intestate, and his assets were tied up in a 30 year court battle.