Which 3rd party publishers will survive?

[LoneWolf23]

Green Ronin has True20 and Mutants and Masterminds now. I think it's safe.

 

[EricNoah]

I think so too. WotC's greatest threat right now is: every d20 publisher can effectively beat them to the punch for the entire library of successful books ever published for 3E.

While Wizards hold the early advantage by determining when 4E releases, their 2 year turn around time puts them at a horrible disadvantage in terms of republishing all their 3E books in 4E form before anyone else does.

Another advantage is WotC's ability to fold their own "official" stuff into the master database that is the DI. I will be very curious to see how users can add their own content (to the character generator, for example), and am also curious to see if WotC will offer some way for 3rd party publishers to get their content "officially" into the master database. Maybe through some more stringent or more specific licensing deal.

 

[Friadoc]

Except for Malhavoc Press which I have big questionmark about... what's going to happen with it if Monte is leaving desing career behind I think most of the publisher who survived so far will survive this period too.

Especially if most of them was nervously expecting new edition of DnD. The OGL will exist and with new edition there will be at least short time of boom in sales so this is good for them.

Well, as Monte said, he left to pursue other things, including the writing of a novel, and from time to time would still dabble if something struck his fancy.

Basically, Malhavoc Press is on the back burner. It is still there, but both him and Sue are using the security that MP has provided them to try other things.

I can't say I blame them, I'm using my severance package from my last employer to try other things, too. Change can be nice and not just "OMG" inspiring.

Now, all that said, the following is just pure theory and speculation, I've no special knowledge, confirmation, or inside source:

But, Monte has been writing his novel for the better part of a year and there is the better part of a year before 4e starts to hit, so nothing is to say that some things don't get updated (Eldritch books or Arcana Evolved) or books made for the new edition if it piques his interest.

If I remember rightly, wasn't there some early meeting at WotC with various people, such as Monte, from other publishers?

It could be possible that they were being offered the inside track, as previous publisher had been when 3e released.

It is all just a theory, mind you, but I'm sure that Malhavoc Press will be valid publisher along side the others.

 

[Friadoc]

Another advantage is WotC's ability to fold their own "official" stuff into the master database that is the DI. I will be very curious to see how users can add their own content (to the character generator, for example), and am also curious to see if WotC will offer some way for 3rd party publishers to get their content "officially" into the master database. Maybe through some more stringent or more specific licensing deal.

Now that's a very good point, very good.

Hopefully something is in the works or lined up for that, since it would be, in my opinion, a severe handicap to the DI for it to not allow any third party stuff into the system.

I think that odds are there will be a way to put third party stuff in, but it will be via user input AND will only apply to the localized instance (i.e. to the user's characters and games) since that'd be the easiest way and avoid WotC having to pay anything.

But, now as I type that, my brain is screaming at me, but it's d20/OGL idiot, so I guess they wouldn't have to pay anything for those crunchie bits, would they?

Hmm, dang, maybe they'll have the ability for the company to see what the DB format should be for stuff (classes, items, et al) and allow for them to send it to a DBA at WotC who enters it into the whole shebang.

Dang, that'd be cool.

 

[T. Foster]

Another advantage is WotC's ability to fold their own "official" stuff into the master database that is the DI. I will be very curious to see how users can add their own content (to the character generator, for example), and am also curious to see if WotC will offer some way for 3rd party publishers to get their content "officially" into the master database. Maybe through some more stringent or more specific licensing deal.

This is spot-on, and I think is being overlooked by a lot of people. 4E is going to continue to have the OGL, so 3rd party publishers can continue to release material and serve the print end of the market, but the digital end of the market I strongly suspect is going to be much more centralized and tightly controlled, supporting either solely WotC's own product or WotC's product plus a very small number of licensees (likely hand-picked by WotC and required to pay a fee for the privilege and stick to some very specific design criteria -- i.e. in order to be officially sanctioned, their material must "fit the mold" of WotC's own material, both stylistically and mechanically). While this may not seem significant at first, as time passes and WotC places more and more emphasis on the digital end of the game, the 3rd party publishers (either all of them or perhaps just most of them) are going to be left out in the cold, serving only those players who don't make use of the digital service at all.

 

[EricNoah]

Let's say I buy a new book today for 3.5. My current experience with eTools is that, generally, if the new cruncy bit isn't in eTools -- or can't be put into eTools -- it almost never sees actual factual use in my game. It just rarely crosses my eyes when I'm in prep mode. With eTools the way it is, some things are easy to put in (new races, monsters, spells, magic items, feats to some degree), and some items are hard to put in (new classes). And a few things are almost impossible to put in (a really new "system").

If DI's character generator is to meet my minimum needs, it will have to allow for me to tweak what is already there, easily add stuff that's not there, and hopefully allow bulk import of stuff from a 3rd party in some fashion. Possibly pie in the sky, but that's what I would want.

 

[Vigilance]

I'm of the opinion that 4e will be good for 3rd party publishers.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think the ones that have survived this far will probably get a boost from 4e. Although I have to feel somewhat sorry for companies like Goodman who are just putting out a rather expensive boxed set for 3.5. This has to hurt sales of it somewhat, I'd think.

 

[Roudi]

Of all those mentioned so far, I'm surprised no one mentioned TheLe. He's like a cockroach... he'll be publishing supplements long after Armageddon, much less 4e.

 

[SavageRobby]

Troll Lords I wonder about. If WotC makes a move with 4e to get back more grognards, C&C will take a major hit.

Troll Lord Games is not a third party publisher. It's a C&C first party publisher.

It will survive.

I think they serve two mostly different markets, and not a lot of the folks that are big on C&C are going to switch over to 4e. C&C is basically a 1e clone with updated mechanics and many inconsistencies cleaned up. 4e is ... not. So, while the marketing-speak says that 4e is going be simpler (like C&C) the similarities between the two pretty much end there. C&C may be an OGL game, but it is far more old school than new school - and 4e is ALL about being new school.



More on topic, I think the big ones will survive profitably, and the little ones that are still around will continue to exist. I'm less interested in the question of who will survive, and more interested in seeing what each will do to survive. Who is going to go 4e only? Who is going to continue to produce 3e materials? Who is going to keep their 3e-based OGL games (True 20, for example) 3e based, and who is going to update them to 4e-based OGL?