Why does WotC have to apologize for making money?

[That One Guy]

Why are so many people so ready to assume the most irresponsible money-grubbing motivation in absence of any other evidence?

Wizard's First Rule? Allusions aside, I think most people who place such complaints believe that the exchange of money for information is not a fair exchange, or that WoTC is specifically trying to release books that have small amounts of useful content that do not fully justify their cost.

I've always been the type of person that if I walk into a bookstore, and there's a D&D book that seems useful, I wait a couple of weeks (unless I'm sure a lot of my group could use it right then), consider its price and value of information and then purchase it if I feel the exchange is fair (apologies for the run-on).

In summary, I think I understand the resentment, but do not agree.

 

[Dedekind]

The margin for your standard brick and mortar book retailer is somewhere between 41-43%, depending on your distributor (Ingram, Baker&Taylor, etc.). At first glance this number seems really high, but considering a bookstore will hope to turn over its inventory 1/year, it's not outrageous.

Cool. Let's examine a $40 book. If their mark up is 40%, then the $40 book must have cost the retailer $28.57. If the margin for WotC is 13.5%, then the book cost them $25.17 to make, a mark-up of $3.40. (This is using operating margin. The net margin was much less but I think we can ignore interest and taxes for this discussion.) If they sell a million books, then they will make $3.4 million.

I'm pretty OK with spending $3.40 per book to encourage Hasbro to keep WotC around. That sounds neither gratuitous or money-grabbing. Obviously, this ignores the debate as to whether the book is worth $40 to the consumer, but the fact that they are sold in the first place speaks for itself.

 

[Terramotus]

Look out! The capitalists are attacking....and their brought their straw men! RUN!

Your premise is specious. I don't think most people have a problem with WOTC making a profit per se; rather, many seem to believe that profitability shouldn't be WOTC's primary goal.

First of all, I was originally going to respond to a couple of posts in another thread with this, as I mentioned before. My lack of cited posts doesn't mean that it's a strawman argument. Furthermore, I don't post here that much, so I don't think I could have required much of a reputation for mendacity here. I have an opinion, but I wanted to hear that of others. And yes, the title of the thread is sensational. That's how this thread didn't get buried.

But actually, I think you're pretty close on about the crux of the issue when you say that...

That D&D has a instrinsic value apart from being a engine of wealth creation. Whether or not this is the case is debatable, but I'm not really interested in discussing the ethics of corporate behavior, especially given your apparent conviction that the moral imperative to profit obviates all other responsibilities of societal membership (whether the member in question is a legal or physical person).

It seems to be a very similar sentiment to this...

Part of the issue is that many of us hearken back to the day when there was no "RPG industry" and the companies producing the games etc. did so in hopes of making some money rather than in expectations of making a lot. The suits hadn't got involved yet.

I think that's an interesting point. But my question is why does D&D as an "engine of wealth creation" automatically negate some or part of its intrinsic value? Why can't it be both? Or, in other words, were the products really better in an objective sense before RPGs became a business? To my mind, not really. RPGs going large mean that books are easier to come by a nd cheaper, players are more plentiful, and books are, theoretically, useful to a large number of people, motivated by a desire to make this money.

On other other hand, I think that there are some idiosyncrasies that get "ironed out" when profit is more of a motivating factor. So there are some losses, but on balance, I don't think there's much comparison between the end products. I'd be interested in hearing a counter-opinion. Is it the state of the products that people miss from that era, or is it more the atmosphere of the hobby group?

As to the "moral imperative to profit", I can assure you that it's not moral at all, but quite actual. I have a wife, and will have kids in the future. I have an obligation to work to support them. If I stop doing that, bad things happen. It's no different from a pre-industrial farmer - if he stops farming, he starves. It's quite simple. I would love quit my job to sit around creating all day, but that's just not realistic.

As someone who intends to, hopefully, make a career of creative works, I also intend on profiting by them. I feel no "responsibilities of societal membership" to do anything other than sell my work at the prices people will pay. Moral obligations are personal. I can't have a moral obligation to someone I've never met, because they've done nothing to invoke it. Any "moral imperative" that is attempted to be imposed on individuals who one has never met seems to me to take on more of the character of a mafia protection racket making an offer one can't refuse. Or the tax man. And I think this holds true whether one chooses to be self-employed or to work for a corporation.

If you meant another kind of obligation I apologize, but any other interpretation doesn't really seem germane to the discussion.

I personally think it has a bit to do with the crossing of certain streams of geek culture more than anything else. The people fighting to ‘good fight’ against WoTC basically copy and paste their comments on this board from /. and other ardent open software communities.

I think there's probably a lot of truth to that as well.

Wizard's First Rule? Allusions aside, I think most people who place such complaints believe that the exchange of money for information is not a fair exchange, or that WoTC is specifically trying to release books that have small amounts of useful content that do not fully justify their cost.

You know, it's ironic that you mention that in this thread, considering that Terry Goodkind is known to be heavily influenced by the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, who was known as an ardent capitalist.

 

[Lanefan]

I think that's an interesting point. But my question is why does D&D as an "engine of wealth creation" automatically negate some or part of its intrinsic value?

Design influence, pure and simple.

For any given design element or innovation, where the basic questions once might have been "Does this add to the game? Is it playable?", a third has been added: "Will it sell?". I'm not at all suggesting the first two questions have been forgotten, but I am concerned that a 'no' to the newer, third question is trumping positive answers to the first two...and that. if true, is a shame.

I'd be interested in knowing, sometime after the fact, what design ideas were proposed and rejected for 4e (some of which were probably excellent); and how many of those rejections were based on "it won't sell".

Lanefan

 

[Yaezakura]

Design influence, pure and simple.

For any given design element or innovation, where the basic questions once might have been "Does this add to the game? Is it playable?", a third has been added: "Will it sell?". I'm not at all suggesting the first two questions have been forgotten, but I am concerned that a 'no' to the newer, third question is trumping positive answers to the first two...and that. if true, is a shame.

I'd be interested in knowing, sometime after the fact, what design ideas were proposed and rejected for 4e (some of which were probably excellent); and how many of those rejections were based on "it won't sell".

Lanefan

I think you miss a very important part of your own little scenario.

Answering "Yes" to the first two questions above automatically means the answer to the third is also "Yes".

In the RPG world, if something adds something positive to a game and is readily playable without bogging down the experience by adding undue complexity, it will sell. In fact, the very way you ensure a "Yes" for "Will it sell?" is by ensuring the first two questions can be answered with a "Yes". After all, useless books that don't add anything to the play experience, or books that add things but are hard to implement simply don't sell.

So in the end, the third question is a moot point.

 

[Lanefan]

I think you miss a very important part of your own little scenario.

Answering "Yes" to the first two questions above automatically means the answer to the third is also "Yes".

In the RPG world, if something adds something positive to a game and is readily playable without bogging down the experience by adding undue complexity, it will sell. In fact, the very way you ensure a "Yes" for "Will it sell?" is by ensuring the first two questions can be answered with a "Yes". After all, useless books that don't add anything to the play experience, or books that add things but are hard to implement simply don't sell.

So in the end, the third question is a moot point.

I'm not sure it's as cut-and-dried as that. I'm going to hazard a guess that Tieflings, for example, were put in core 4e because their "coolness" would sell more books, rather than for anything they might actually add to the game.

And the success of 1e back in the day shows people will buy (and buy into) something complicated if it suits their needs...I suspect a great deal of interesting design has been tossed away due to the proven-inaccurate-by-1e theory that "complexity doesn't sell".

Lanefan

 

[Green Knight]

Honestly, I think one of the better examples of why I'm irritated is this: count the number of Core classes in 3.5. Count the number of those in 4e. No, I don't mean paragon or heroic or any of that stuff - I'm talking the core base classes you start at.

That's why people think WotC is money grubbing. Because, in terms of actual playable content, they feel they're getting a much smaller return for their money.

That may not be the case, though. Are there less classes? Yes. But less content?

The Classes chapter in the 3.5 PHB is 40 pages long. Add in the Spells chapter, and you have 163 pages of playable content for your character.

By comparison, here's what we know of the 4E PHB. 1) The Classes chapter starts on page 50. 2) The Paladin ends on page 102. 3) The classes are in alphabetical order, so Paladin is third on the list. So on average, each class probably gets about 18 pages. Assuming that holds true for the last five, that's 144 pages worth of playable content. That's 19 pages less then the 3.5 PHB. Is that really so bad in comparison? Neverminding that that's not all there is. We also have Rituals to take into account, as well as Epic Destinies (which're far more integral than Prestige Classes). All of that could easily take up those 19 pages.

Not to mention that the playable content is spread about evenly between all the classes. You can't say the same about the 3.5 classes. The 3.5 Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue just have two pages each, while the Monk has about three. And those 123 pages of spells are pretty much useless to those four classes. The Bard, Paladin, and Ranger have more playable content, but nowhere near to the degree that the Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard have. So even if one wanted to disregard the Rituals and Epic Destinies, and claim that 19 fewer pages for classes is a money grab, you can't deny that most of the classes are getting far, far more then they ever have in any prior edition. Has the Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue ever seen as much playable content as they'll be getting in 4E?

Odds are, the playable content in the 4E PHB will very nearly match the content in the 3.5 PHB, and possibly surpass it. That's pretty impressive when you're comparing eight classes to eleven.

 

[Mouseferatu]

And the success of 1e back in the day shows people will buy (and buy into) something complicated if it suits their needs...I suspect a great deal of interesting design has been tossed away due to the proven-inaccurate-by-1e theory that "complexity doesn't sell".

This argument falls apart on a number of different levels.

1) The market is different today. It includes different people, and (more importantly) it faces a lot of different competition for the gamer's entertainment dollar. What sold in the days of 1E won't necessarily sell now.

2) The market has a wider array of choices. The question is not "Will complex stuff sell?" vs. "Will simple stuff sell?" The answer to both is "yes"--to a point.

The question is, which sells better, and to what order of magnitude.

3*) TSR did very little market research, and had very poor business practices. Would 1E have sold better if it had been simpler to grasp and had a more unified structure? We'll never know--but it's certainly at least a possibility.

*Or maybe this is a subset of 2, but either way...

Ultimately, claiming that 1E proves or disproves anything about sales of D&D today, or about the state of the market today, is a lot like saying that sales patterns of the Model-T should still drive Ford's building and marketing decisions.

 

[hong]

I'm not sure it's as cut-and-dried as that. I'm going to hazard a guess that Tieflings, for example, were put in core 4e because their "coolness" would sell more books, rather than for anything they might actually add to the game.

Exactly. They add their coolness to the game.

 

[Orius]

This isn't a politics forum, and I seriously doubt that WotC hate is a capitalist/anti-capitalist debate.

To be honest I think that some of the money complaints are rooted somewhere in capitalist hate, but the whole politics ban pretty much prevents me from really expressing my view on that matter. A lot of people simply lack a good working knowledge of economics, and don't realize that a company needs to make money to stay in business.