D&D 5E What happens if other gaming companies don't have time for WoTc?

[Mistwell]

They're not licensing them out (they're contracting them out - different legal term), so it's a false premise. They've always used contracted freelancers. If they cannot find a good company with a group of freelancers to hire under a single company title, they will just return to hiring a bunch of individual freelancers to hire under multiple company titles. So for example instead of hiring five guys under the Green Ronin company title, they will hire Owen Stephensen under whatever sole proprietorship title his company uses, and Sean K Reynolds under his company name, and a bunch of artists and editors and such, combined with their own staff (which appear to be actually rather large at this point, despite rumors to the contrary).

I don't see the problem here - WOTC tried something new by using groups of freelancers under one title instead of a bunch of individuals. Fans keep taking it the wrong way, calling it a license or outsourcing and such, when that's never what was going on. So yeah, it might actually help their PR to just go back to the way they used to do it, which the way Paizo still does it. Functionally it's almost identical to the way they're doing it now, but visually to some fans it apparently looks very different, and it keeps getting spun as a negative or a problem.

Though, the more likely scenario is the one mentioned above - they won't run out of good third party companies to partner with them because it's profitable for those companies. Those companies would just use the money they make to hire more good freelancers if it ever became an issue.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Though, the more likely scenario is the one mentioned above - they won't run out of good third party companies to partner with them because it's profitable for those companies. Those companies would just use the money they make to hire more good freelancers if it ever became an issue.

You don't know that for sure. I think you are overvaluing Wizards of the Coast. Kickstarter has really opened up a new Realm in the world of gaming because it allowed this companies to present something directly to the people and get the backing for it if potential customers want it. These companies don't need WoTc and if they could get successful products off the ground then they could be in a position to become so busy they don't have time for anything else.

We don't know for sure how well these stories are selling and we don't know how much these 3PP are being paid. Remember when Chris Perkins said he was working on stories for the next 7 years? I would say Wizards has probably already contracted future stories out because realistically, you don't have time to wait and see if your current stories are selling and then decide to proceed to the next one on such short notice.

If these other companies get the fame then they could break off on their own.

 

[Mistwell]

You don't know that for sure.

Which is why I said, "the more likely scenario..." to denote something I was not sure, but I thought was more likely.

I think you are overvaluing Wizards of the Coast. Kickstarter has really opened up a new Realm in the world of gaming because it allowed this companies to present something directly to the people and get the backing for it if potential customers want it. These companies don't need WoTc and if they could get successful products off the ground then they could be in a position to become so busy they don't have time for anything else.

Because more money is bad? Again, I am not saying they would not also do a Kickstarter project, I am saying they can do that AND do a WOTC project, by hiring more freelancers. There isn't really a finite pool of freelancers - there are so many, so eager to work, that I don't see any drying of that pool by Kickstarter projects. In fact throw a rock on EnWorld and you will likely hit someone who would be interested in being hired by a Green Ronin type company as a project freelancer to work on official WOTC projects or Green Ronin kickstarter projects.

If these other companies get the fame then they could break off on their own.

That's, from my perspective, looking at it backwards. They're already on their own. They already broke off on their own long ago. Green Ronin is run by Chris Prams, who used to work for WOTC and do freelance work for them. He broke off on his own, made Green Ronin, made Mutants and Masterminds and many other fine games and supplements which are rather popular and have a name for themselves already, and now WOTC hired them as contractors for a project. I doubt Chris and Green Ronin ever "needed" WOTC, they were I suspect doing just fine without WOTC. But, it's useful to work with WOTC, and probably something they like doing.

It's weird, I NEVER see threads like this concerned that Paizo will suddenly run out of freelancers because those freelancers are working so much on their own projects. The idea that the world would run out of good gaming freelancers is just...unrealistic in my opinion.

 

[Celtavian]

And it's nice they are giving work to gaming companies that love D&D.

 

[redrick]

I don't have numbers, but the sales for the D&D APs have to be HUGE compared to any product released directly by a 3pp publisher. Is the success of Princes of the Apocalypse going to help draw attention to Sasquatch and hopefully help them move more units of Primeval Thule? Sure, possibly. But I find it hard to believe that Primeval Thule is going to compete numbers-wise with a major D&D product anytime soon.

These Adventure Paths are being used in every organized play store all over the world. Tons of people are using them in their home games. They are the sole product being released for one of the two most successful RPGs in the world, that is orders of magnitude more successful than any 3pp game (other than Pathfinder.) Their release is crucial to the Wizards plan for supporting their game.

Obviously, Green Ronin or Sasquatch or Kobold Press isn't seeing all the profit for these products (or possibly any — just a pre-negotiated fee), but I'm sure that the arrangement is still attractive.

And if Wizards can't find a design studio willing to sign on (for a price that they're willing to pay), they can just hire the freelancers and do it themselves, just like they've done in the past.

 

[Corpsetaker]

I don't have numbers, but the sales for the D&D APs have to be HUGE compared to any product released directly by a 3pp publisher. Is the success of Princes of the Apocalypse going to help draw attention to Sasquatch and hopefully help them move more units of Primeval Thule? Sure, possibly. But I find it hard to believe that Primeval Thule is going to compete numbers-wise with a major D&D product anytime soon.

These Adventure Paths are being used in every organized play store all over the world. Tons of people are using them in their home games. They are the sole product being released for one of the two most successful RPGs in the world, that is orders of magnitude more successful than any 3pp game (other than Pathfinder.) Their release is crucial to the Wizards plan for supporting their game.

Obviously, Green Ronin or Sasquatch or Kobold Press isn't seeing all the profit for these products (or possibly any — just a pre-negotiated fee), but I'm sure that the arrangement is still attractive.

And if Wizards can't find a design studio willing to sign on (for a price that they're willing to pay), they can just hire the freelancers and do it themselves, just like they've done in the past.

Times are different than they were. Nobody thought Paizo would dominate the RPG world. D&D isn't the undisputed RPG on the block anymore because a lot of people have started really delving into other systems as well as older systems. People could just buy the core 3 and move on to 3PP, especially those that are coming out with a "brand new" campaign setting since Wizards isn't giving us full coverage of the already established settings, let alone a new one.

I think Wizards might be leaning too much on these companies to the point where Wizards could be in trouble if these companies decided to do their own stuff. I think people forget that a lot of great game designers have moved on to other companies. Just because they are Wizards of the Coast doesn't mean they are automatically the best.

 

[redrick]

I think we might have seen a variant with this. Out of the Abyss is out in September not August, and was not ready for GenCon. And the Sword Coast Adventurer's Handbook isn't ready for the start of the season. I get the slight impression, Green Ronin might have prioritized DragonAge and the FantasyAge stuff, getting that stuff out for GenCon.
This is just some off-hand speculation really. If told otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised: I imagine the teams are very different. But it does make sense to prioritize the stuff that you get a higher percentage of and is going to grow your own brands rather than content that's just licensed.

If Green Ronin was contracted to complete Out of the Abyss, I'm sure that that contract included deadlines. Now, of course, those deadlines can be extended and extensions are given all the time, but if Wizards determined that Green Ronin was pushing deadlines on the D&D product, because they were putting more resources into their own products, that could cause real problems with Wizards. If pushed to the extreme (which a one month delay is not), I imagine it could even turn into a lawsuit for breach of contract.

This is not something that fans need to be worrying about. This is a back-end logistical concern for Wizards and their team. Judging by the information we've seen posted here about the rates paid to freelancers writing for RPG products, RPG writing is a buyer's market. Wizards has substantially more resources than any other company publishing RPGs. They can figure out how to contract companies and freelancers to help produce their products.

 

[Morrus]

I don't have numbers, but the sales for the D&D APs have to be HUGE compared to any product released directly by a 3pp publisher.

There are no 3PP publishers. That'll help explain why you don't have the numbers.

 

[redrick]

There are no 3PP publishers. That'll help explain why you don't have the numbers.

Ladno, ladno. You get my point! Which is that I'm speculating wildly in my own different direction...

Anyway, shouldn't crap on another man's wild speculations with my own contradictory wild speculations.

I like that Wizards is working with established companies, because it suggests to me that their relationship is probably not too exploitative, and it seems pretty clear to all involved that Wizards is rotating their projects around to different companies, so hopefully nobody is operating under the false pretense of establishing a dedicated relationship with Wizards where suddenly this big D&D pipeline will start flowing into their little company, encouraging them to make huge investments in the company that end up crashing and burning when Wizards moves onto the next studio.

This appears to be a mutually beneficial relationship, where Wizards gets to cut costs and overhead and be a little more flexible with what kind of products they produce, while also funneling some of that sweet D&D cash into smaller, but respectable, design studios who can take the paycheck, develop a product that gets heavily marketed to the (relatively) large worldwide D&D audience, and then go back to making their own rpg products. Seems good to me.

 

[DongMaster]

This falls under the umbrella of 'not an issue'

Here is one dude singing in your choir - Agreed!