Why did the Scarred Lands fail?

[Acid_crash]

I am asking this question out of curiosity because it seemed like the setting was really strong and when I heard of the cancellation I was surprised. I know they released a lot of support products for the world, so I don't know why they made the decision they did.

Anybody (Nightfall) know the reason why this happened?

 

[Mouseferatu]

Cancelation doesn't equal failure.

You're talking about the longest running, and perhaps the best supported, third-party setting since D20 hit the market.

Current sales of Scarred Lands weren't sufficient to support the setting by White Wolf's standards. WW is a larger company than most, and their overhead and required profits are higher. It was a decision made entirely on current market and financial reasons, and everyone involved still hopes to bring the setting back at some point in the future.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Could have also been creative reasons. Maybe they just thought they had fulfilled the original ideas they had for the product line.

 

[BryonD]

Cancelation doesn't equal failure.

Exactly correct.
SL was a big success.
X-Files was not a failure. They just don't make it anymore.

IMO, both X-files and SL were well ready to not be made anymore.......
But they were both very much a success.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I don't think it failed, it ran its course. Scarred Lands was an aggressive setting and one that was not dragged out in its release.

 

[Nightfall]

What Ari said. Besides it's never over until the last fan dies.

And I'm not going anywhere just yet!

(In fact I intend to live forever!! )

 

[Acid_crash]

sorry for using the word fail (I didn't expect all the tomatoes that were being tossed at me), I guess I should have used cancelled instead.

I was just curious as to why, and I do hope it continues eventually. I mean, if Midnight and Sovereign Stone, neither of which has done as well, are each getting a 2nd edition, so should Scarred Lands.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Perhaps a better phrasing would be 'Why did the Scarred Lands line fail?'

I really don't know, though I saw a lessening of interest even as the Player's Guide class books came out, perhaps because of a perception that 'Scarred Lands was not a strong enough draw to sell those books, why else would they only preripherally mention the Scarred Lands?' (I am sort of quoting somebody here, and I think the original was somewhere on these boards.)

And interest in Termanna seemed weak. (Despite it being home of my favorite Scarred Lands bad guy, the Jack of Tears.) The only Termanna book to sell more than 2 copies was CC3.

Each of the last few releases seemed to sell less than the ones before, to the point where my FLGS stopped ordering them, I had to special order my last few purchases in the line. The Penumbral Pentagon I did not even bother with.

*******************************************

That said, in truth I think that it comes down to White Wolf having spread themselves too thin over too many game and setting lines. And since they are focussing on their new World of Darkness setting, and the fact that D20 sales in general are slumping, now was a logical time for them to drop what they might well see as their least economically successful line. (Not unsuccessful, merely less successful than some of their other lines.)

The Auld Grump

 

[Darrin Drader]

I was just curious as to why, and I do hope it continues eventually. I mean, if Midnight and Sovereign Stone, neither of which has done as well, are each getting a 2nd edition, so should Scarred Lands.

Some companies in this business consist of three guys sitting at their own personal computers in their own seperate households, where they work on material, marketing, and the other ins and outs in their spare time. Other companies have a physical office with actual employess that are paid by the hour or by salary. A very few of these are multimillion dollar companies with a number of employees that could be anywhere between twenty and one hundred. White Wolf is one of the former rather than the latter, so when they put books out, they need to sell. There's nothing worse than paying the designers, the developers, the editors, the printers, the shippers, plus the business overhead (computers, office space, and salaries), and then not getting your money back on the investment.

I've seen fairly current Scarred Lands products in numerous book stores outside the hobby channel. In many ways, it very much was THE D20 flagship campaign setting line. Unfortunately, despite this, it simply isn't enough to pay White Wolf's bills. I'm almost certain that a smaller company would have an amazing success on their hands with it; and in fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a smaller 3rd party publisher picks up the license to keep putting out products for it. But such is the nature of this business. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

[Turjan]

Perhaps a better phrasing would be 'Why did the Scarred Lands line fail?'

Yes, in the beginning, it was quite a success, I suppose . I like the setting quite a lot, too. Anyway, I think lots of reasons came together for this recent development:

1) A lot of competition by "newer" campaign settings (e.g., Midnight) or OGL games (Conan).

2) A decline in the quality of supplements (I base this assumption on several unfavorable reviews).

3) A constant "rewriting" of the setting. This introduced inconsistencies.

4) The 3.5e cut (SL is 3.0, and 3.5e split the fanbase and the buyers).

All this lead to the point that the line was most probably not profitable anymore.