Why D&D is slowly cutting its own throat.

[gizmo33]

Celebrim - any sales figure data to support your argument? GURPS is a tough place to reason from because there are so many variables. With too many variables, I would say it would be fairly easy to pick and choose the facts to fit a number of different arguments.

Also - what exactly is IP? One of my uneducated options about this is that DnD continues to hold onto gamers because of some fairly basic ideas and a sense of familiarity. Magic missle, vorpal blades, drow elves. These tiny things, taken as a whole, are probably as significant as more grandiose ideas like Dragonlance. Whether or not the small things constitute IP in some legal sense, I think they create a culture that is familiar and sought by gamers.

Finally (and I save the best to last) - please comment upon the "Network Theory of Usefulness" as it relates to RPGs (and I'm making this term up from some half-remembered idea of someone elses). The "Network Theory" says that an items usefulness (in this case an RPG) is related to the number of OTHER people that also own the item. Ie. a telephone is only as useful as the number of other people that own telephones.

IMO this plays a huge part in the popularity of DnD. The bulk of the players in my current campaign joined because they had heard of DnD and that I was running a game. They were gamers that had played some other systems, but had I been DMing something obscure, I wonder if they would have been as comfortable. I'm pretty sure, all things being the same, that they would have chosen a DnD game over another one. So I think popularity breeds popularity. That's my gut feeling as to why DnD has managed to survive some pretty horrible product IMO.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I must now quote myself from an earlier post...

OMG! The SKY IS FALLING!

 

[Crothian]

along with a pile of refuse to rival the million monkeys working a million years on recreating shakespears works.

I was high lighhting the postives

 

[Erik Mona]

Modules may be what nostalgic players remember, but they aren't what earned the big $$.

I don't really want to get into this arugment, in the main. It seems to me that D&D is in a strong business position currently, much to the credit of the current business team.

But I think it's worth pointing out that the quoted passage above, while certainly true now, is most likely untrue across the whole spectrum of D&D's life cycle. Early adventures like Vault of the Drow and Isle of Dread sold in the hundreds of thousands (in the millions in the case of "Isle," which came with the Expert Set), and there is no question in my mind whatsoever that the most popular old modules were also terrificly profitable.

I think, at a certain point in the game's publishing history, that modules _became_ unprofitable, or produced profit margins unattractive to large corporations, but I find it very, very difficult to believe that this was the case during the 1980s "heyday" of D&D.

Just a point of clarification. You may now return to the doom and gloom.

--Erik Mona

 

[Templetroll]

Even if I'm calling myself an idiot?

He said

other posters

so you are free to call or not so subtly imply about yourself all you wish!

 

[Victim]

Now, no modules will have sufficient market penetration to generate the IP value you think is required. Back in the 1e, there weren't all that many DnD products in general, and there weren't too many modules (especially at first). It's one thing for a module to be a near universal experience when there are only 4 other ones. Now there are not only bunches of new modules, but those also have to compete conversions of older adventures. Not to mention that adventures more tailored to the PCs have become a more common style, making the traditional module a bit obsolete. The module market is also more segmented, by campaign setting, rules expansions, 3.0 v 3.5, and the far wider range of typical levels (and differences in PC power by level).

 

[Storm Raven]

But I think it's worth pointing out that the quoted passage above, while certainly true now, is most likely untrue across the whole spectrum of D&D's life cycle. Early adventures like Vault of the Drow and Isle of Dread sold in the hundreds of thousands (in the millions in the case of "Isle," which came with the Expert Set), and there is no question in my mind whatsoever that the most popular old modules were also terrificly profitable.

Didn't the fact that the Isle of Dread was packaged with a set of rule books have a lot to do with it selling millions of copies? In any event, the question is not "does X sell", it is "how does X sell compared to Y, when we can put our resources into publishing one or the other".

 

[Morte]

oops

 

[Janx]

Intellectual Property is any idea I can make money off of (as the owner of said IP). Additionally, preventing the competition from making money by controlling IP is kinda the same as making money.

As some one who gets paid for his ideas, I can say with some certainty that that's pretty much what IP is. Some of my ideas are patentable, some are trade secrets (ex. we don't want the competition to know about). Of the patentable, we might license out some of those ideas, or patent to direct prevent the competition from finding an advantage in that space.

In D&D's case, pretty much all the books probably counts as IP. The OGL/SRD content would be ideas that are given away freely, to stimulate the industry and provide some benefit to Wotc, beyond direct sales to customers. The D&D brand is valuable, but is a TradeMark and probably not technically considered IP (IANAL).

Now the D&D concept is IP. And that IP has a history from the beginning to the present. That means, while 1E had memorable adventures, and 2E had memorable settings, the D&D concept contains all of that. It's the history, that supports the brand, and that is the concept that is valuable. Tome of Horrors isn't worth a hill of beans as a product, but its value is the memories of the older players have and the attraction it generates to the current D&D products.

What are those products? As Phill and somebody else said:
Novels (everybody can read)
video games (some number of non-gamers play, free exposure)
RPG system (all RPG players)
players add-on books (mostly players which is 4/5 of a group)
Campaign settings (mostly DM's which is 1/5 of a group)
modules (dm's only which is 1/5 of a group)

To maximize profit, WotC is likely to put the focus on what's got the most people that are candidates to buy it. Novels, Video Games, and player add-ons win that.

Now celebrim may be questioning how long player add-ons will last, before all that's doable has been done. Certainly feeding the less profitable components supports the system, but WotC is going to try to find the balance so they can get the best bang for buck (least development to most sales ratio). Companies always have a hard time figuring out how much time to spend in the less profitable pools, because the direct sales value is minimal, but it's hard to measure the indirect impact those products have on the major products.

For example, a computer company makes money selling servers and options. They may sell desktop machines because it gets brand recognition out there to increase the chance you'll the good stuff later. They don't make money on the desktops (at least not much if they do). So one PHB may decide the desktop group doesn't make money, so they spin it off or shut it down. What's hard to measure is the value the desktop line provided to sales of other products. Same problem in D&D, just a different industry.

Janx

 

[TerraDave]

Congradulations. You've made the one of the first really intelligent responces to me on this thread, and believe me I appreciate it.

smooth