Why DO Other Games Sell Less?

[Cadfan]

1) It was first.

2) Good balance of generic fantasy gameplay and unique world design. On one hand, its generic enough to cover a lot of different types of gameplay, and it is easily modifiable. Shadowrun, as an example of contrast, can't be used for much besides the world of Shadowrun. On the other, it has worlds and character classes and archetypes that are entirely unique and unbased on anything mythological or historical. So, a wide consumer base is available.

3) Better design, especially in more recent editions. Good emphasis on simple and usable over complex, accurate, and unusable. Further, design complexity scales well depending on how much you want in your game. New players can enjoy the core rules and have a great time. Advanced players can add things like, oh, the new Tome of Battle, which requires a lot more rules knowledge (swift actions? immediate actions? free actions?) but which all vary off the basic core rules themes.

4) The SRD is free. I learned how to play out of it, and now I'm frequently the DM for our games. By reducing the entry cost to playing their games, WOTC lured me in sufficiently to convince me that their game was fun. Now I occasionally buy one of their books. Taking Vampire: the Masquerade as a contrast, the entry costs are very, very high.

 

[philreed]

I want to hear more of this opinion. What do you think we're transitioning to?

An industry in which only large companies, with excellent mainstream distribution, and smaller companies, with a strong direct sales business, are the only ones that can make RPGs profitable.

 

[Corinth]

The default D&D gameplay paradigm is actually the one that the majority of gamers want, prefer, and desire above all others. This contributes significantly to the generation-long hegemony of D&D over all other games and game engines.

 

[trancejeremy]

D&D is still pretty much synonymous with role-playing. Mention "Role-playing" and people might think a variety of things (from MMORPGs to psychiatrist stuff to kinky sex), but mention "D&D" and they know exactly what you mean.

I think it's just a really catchy name, and no one else has come up with a better one.

 

[Faraer]

The default D&D gameplay paradigm is actually the one that the majority of gamers want, prefer, and desire above all others. This contributes significantly to the generation-long hegemony of D&D over all other games and game engines.

With the proviso that 'gamers' is a group selected by the fact that most of them were introduced to roleplaying by D&D, because D&D is the only game that got mainstream advertising and press attention, which in turn creates inertia in the playerbase (you may personally like some other game, but are more likely to find D&D to play). (It helped that it was first, but there are lots of cases where an imitator jumps to mainstream popularity instead of the originator.) All versions of D&D are certainly very good games, but I think promotion and its lack are paramount.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

So, apparently D&D is a huge force in the RPG market. It's the big seller, and other games just sell less... Why is this? What gives D&D such a huge spot in the market? Is it just because it was first? Because of its history?

D&D was first and remained unassailably superior and more popular in the fantasy genre for the better part of two decades. It stuck. D&D is practically a brand name become generic term. Its creation formed the hobby in the first place and it having no credible competition in that hobby for popularity for so long it is inseperably linked as BEING the hobby first and foremost with all others being hangers-on and pale imitations. Other RPG's may arguably have superior rules but they get played less because they AREN'T D&D.

Would the RPG "industry" exist if D&D stopped existing?

I assume you mean, "If D&D were to cease being published in any form," rather than "If D&D materials wer to magically disappear from shelves and hard drives all over the world leaving only the human memory as proof of its former existence," and in that case the industry would simply carry on and if a new edition of D&D were not created/recreated then SOME other RPG would take the lead, albeit not a lead of such insanely commanding supremacy as D&D has/had.

Certainly so long as the OGL and SRD are not "rescinded" then I don't see how the industry would do more than skip a few heartbeats as publishers drool over thoughts of becoming the new 800 lb. gorilla. Short of the utter removal of the open gaming model and related data then D&D CANNOT be killed except by an equally inexplicable sudden and total neglect by gamers.

Would it have died out altogether if WOTC had not purchased D&D back in 96, and TSR went under?

No. Someone else would simply have bought the rights to the game rather than the entire company. If it should be suggested that this might have only occurred after many years of legal wrangling then in the interim some other game would have taken advantage of the delay and either recreated a thinly-veiled direct replacement for D&D or someone would have simply created what eventually became 3rd Edition by tearing down and rebuilding D&D from scratch, and when D&D itself emerged from the lawsuits it would finally have lost the market to a superior competitor by virtue of simply having not been present to actively compete.

At least that's essentially what I was predicting back in 96 before WotC DID purchase TSR and produce 3E and hindsight hasn't changed that view.

 

[Greylock]

Brand Name, it's like the the Nike of RPGs. Others may make game that are jsut as good but everyone knows D&D.

I'd flip that analogy. Nike is the D&D of sneakers. Back when D&D was new, everyone wore Adidas, Puma, and especially Converse.

 

[Conaill]

In my opinion, the continuing popularity of D&D is a great example of Metcalfe's Law in action.

In this sense, I consider RPG systems as essentially specialized communication protocols, which I think is not as terribly outlandish as it first may seem.

It's not just Metcalfe's Law, it's actually even more pronounced than that.

Metcalfe's Law states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of users, i.e. proportional to the number of pairwise connections that can be made across the network.

However, roleplaying is not just a 2-person game/communication. It's an n-person game. If we assume the typical roleplaying group is one DM and about 4 players, that means the value of the network grows with the fifth power of the number of players! It's not just that the rich get richer, the rich get richer far faster than the poor. This is what Ryan Dancey referred to when he mentioned "network externalities":

Here's the logic in a nutshell. We've got a theory that says that D&D is the most popular roleplaying game because it is the game more people know how to play than any other game. (For those of you interested researching the theory, this concept is called "The Theory of Network Externalities.")

[ Note: This is a very painful concept for a lot of people to embrace, including a lot of our own staff, and including myself for many years. The idea that D&D is somehow "better" than the competition is a powerful and entrenched concept. The idea that D&D can be "beaten" by a game that is "better" than D&D is at the heart of every business plan from every company that goes into marketplace battle with D&D game. If you accept the Theory of Network Externalities, you have to admit that the battle is lost before it begins, because the value doesn't reside in the game itself, but in the network of people who know how to play it.]

If you accept (as I have finally come to do) that the theory is valid, then the logical conclusion is that the larger the number of people who play D&D, the harder it is for competitive games to succeed, and the longer people will stay active gamers, and the more value the network of D&D players will have to Wizards of the Coast.

Put it another way, if game A has 10 times fewer players than game B, then it will be 10 times harder to find another "A" player, but 100 times harder to find two "A" players, and 10,000 times harder to find 4 other players! (In reality, it doesn't quite get that bad, because players do cluster into communities, but the scaling principle still applies.

 

[Glyfair]

Put it another way, if game A has 10 times fewer players than game B, then it will be 10 times harder to find another "A" player, but 100 times harder to find two "A" players, and 10,000 times harder to find 4 other players! (In reality, it doesn't quite get that bad, because players do cluster into communities, but the scaling principle still applies.

Of course, this ignores the ability to "convert" gamers. It's not unusual for groups to decide to try a new game because one or more members try to play it.

However, as the RPG community ages, it becomes less and less likely players will want to migrate to a new system. First, there is the "teaching an old dog new tricks" syndrome. Once you've played a game for ages, you are less likely to want to switch things. Secondly, many of us don't have time to be jumping from game to game. Real life intrudes, and just getting together a group to game on a regular basis can be a challenge. Learning a new game and experimenting is much, much less attractive.

I don't know exactly how the RPG population has changed over the years. However, I suspect it's been getting older. I hope it doesn't move the direction of contract bridge.

During the mid-20th century contract bridge was huge. It was the regular pasttime of married couples getting together for an evening. News articles were written on contract bridge. It was a regular past time on college campuses. Today, the median age of the ACBL is in the mid-60s. When I was playing in my early 30s, I would get comments about how nice it was for young people to be playing the game. It was interesting that I was put in the same category of as the 14-year-old playing at the next table.

While I don't think we are in danger of that any time soon, I can see it moving in that general direction. As senior citizens often have a lot of leisure time, I can see that group being attracted to RPGs, once it's part of their common experience. As younger gamers are attracted to a similiar, but more vicarious experiences such as WoW, I can see that age category dwindling in particpation.

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm of the opinion that the industry, as it once existed, is already dead. We're in a transitional period and it's only a matter of time before all mid-sized RPG companies no longer exist (or, no longer produce RPG products).

Yeah, the hobby was fun while it lasted. Now I know how it feels like to own an 8-track collection.