Why I think D&D is losing market share...

[Steel_Wind]

Drop the subscription fee and I will.

For most people, $15 a month, given their WoW playing habits - is between .10 and .35 per hour of entertainment.

That's not exactly a lot. My guess? Even on a total basis - it's significantly less than most D&D players on EN World spend a year on books etc. On an hourly basis, not much competes with that fee. Indeed - you'd be hard pressed to find *any* major entertainment medium with a cost that cheap. It's even cheaper than cable tv.

Hell, factor in what you don't spend doing something else when you are playing WoW all that time? Probably pays for itself in the savings. (Yes. I'm quite serious.)

It's all how you look at it. Your monthly fee does go into major updates and bazillion designers adding crap left right and centre. It's a theme park where the park owners spared no expense - and it shows.

The rest? Goes in to making Activision/Blizzard obscenely wealthy



soap box_mode_off

 

[Rel]

And the subscribing gamers are okay with that? Man, I grossly overestimated their intelligence.

Ranger REG, next time you make a blanket insult of MMORPG players, I'm going to ban you for a week.

 

[Mark]

WOW is a video game, which for one does not have the social stigma attached to it, you can play by yourself and you don't have to invest in any prep time. No one is going to make fun of you for playing a video game.

I have to chime in to concur with those who find these statements to be untrue.

 

[mmadsen]

It seems like we're discussing two very different topics: Is D&D losing marketshare?, and Would repackaging RPGs increase their popularity? I don't have marketing data, but D&D is still the big kid on the block, as far as P&P RPGs are concerned. If it's losing momentum, that's not surprising, since we're experiencing the calm before the 4E storm.

The second question, Would repackaging RPGs increase their popularity?, is a popular topic, with people already entrenched on both sides. I see the key point as this: Those who are already well served by 3.5E are a different, smaller market from those who could be brought in via a "repackaged" D&D. If you say to yourself, "Why would anyone want a new D&D without aboleths?!" you're not in the broader market.

 

[Sunderstone]

Ranger REG, next time you make a blanket insult of MMORPG players, I'm going to ban you for a week.

Thanks for this, I had to bite my tongue not to reply myself.



I think im bleeding...

 

[Modin Godstalker]

I have to chime in to concur with those who find these statements to be untrue.

Ok. I agree with you here. Unless you are a casual video game player. Video games are more mainstream. If you are obsessed and play video games all the time, most people will think you are strange.

If you play casually they will think nothing of it.

If you play D&D even casually a lot of people are still going to think that you are strange. They just can't get past the nerd stigma.

Another example, if you go see a Star Trek movie, its perfectly socially acceptable. If you go to a Star Trek convention the typical person thinks you are a freak.

I'm not saying this is what I think, I'm just saying if you randomly polled people on the street that is what you would come up with.

 

[Modin Godstalker]

Except maybe South Park...

http://southpark.comedycentral.com/video_by_episode.jhtml?episodeId=103797

Playing WoW is just as geeky as playing D&D. Just letting you know...

I agree. The difference is that its a bit easier for people who play WOW to disguise their geekiness. They don't have to talk out loud.

If you took the talking part out of RPG's and it was more of a wargame where you just moved your little guys around a board, people wouldn't notice it as much.

They probably would still think its childish, but maybe not as much geek factor.

 

[Clavis]

I agree. The difference is that its a bit easier for people who play WOW to disguise their geekiness. They don't have to talk out loud.

If you took the talking part out of RPG's and it was more of a wargame where you just moved your little guys around a board, people wouldn't notice it as much.

They probably would still think its childish, but maybe not as much geek factor.

Agreed. The fact is there are A LOT of people who do geeky things, but are in the closet about it. Also, I think we need to appreciate just how many activities really are geeky, everything from fantasy football to the BDSM scene (which is really just an elaborate LARP after all).

If Hollywood and Madison Avenue decided tomorrow that Tabletop D&D was cool, we'd be amazed how quickly all the sheeple of America would be playing it. Of course, gaming consoles are obviously expensive, and therefore status symbols. They are more profitable than RPG books, and therefore more media dollars are going to be spent on removing the stigma from using them. Using them a lot (as opposed to merely owning them) is still considered geeky, however, because it can cause one to ignore all the many other ways the corporations want you to spend your money.

 

[Gentlegamer]

2) One word: Heroscape. Figures and maps are essential. In the visual 3-D gaming world, flat tokens and imagination aren't cutting it.

If this is true, nothing will save Dungeons & Dragons as a role-playing game.

 

[SiderisAnon]

Of course, gaming consoles are obviously expensive, and therefore status symbols. They are more profitable than RPG books, and therefore more media dollars are going to be spent on removing the stigma from using them.

I recognize this is splitting hairs a bit, but there is a point: It's not the consoles, actually. In fact, some of the companies take a loss on consoles at times. Where they make their money is on the games. You only buy one X-Box, but you might buy twenty games over the next few years, plus rentals from your local Blockbuster, plus strategy guides, plus whatever other consumables they can sell you.

And that's the point. Video games really are a form of consumable. They get used up. You get bored with them, or you finish them, or whatever. You go get a new one. Sure, you might go back and re-use them occassionally, but they're basically "used up".

With gaming, the consumables are primarily in the adventures. You go buy the "console" when you buy the PHB, DMG, and MM. After that, you can play without every buying anything else. If they sell you adventures, you buy them, use them up, and then have to go buy a new one because you're adventure group has already seen that one and you can't reuse it. (I'm generalizing, I realize.)

Some things are a bit more gray area. Miniatures get used over and over, so they're not really consumables. They're more like buying a really cool controller for the consoles. (I'm showing my age. I actually typed "joystick" instead of "controller", and then remembered they don't call them that anymore.)

This is a marketing model that WORKS. You make more money off of the consumables than off of the original product. It's why printer companies are willing to sell printers at a loss in order to get you to buy the ink cartirdges. (HP ran a line of Apollo printers for several years in an experiment. They lost money on EVERY printer they sold, but could make that up within a few ink cartridges.)

I think that WoTC getting back into the adventure market is a GOOD thing. It will help keep up the profits. When profits are up, they can afford to do high quality game books for our favorite hobby, which is important to us. It also means Hasbro will let them keep doing their thing, which is also good for our hobby.

Now wrapping back to the original post on market share, I think that consumables are important. People want pre-packaged goodness from their purchases. They want fairly quick and easy use. Sell them the console (single core book/box set) and then have a plethera of adventure modules and other add-ons ready for them to use so they can keep playing anytime they want. Make it as easy as going down to the FLGS and there will be something I can pick up and run for my next game, WITHOUT massive prep time and WITHOUT having to buy two other splat books because of material used in the module. (Splat books could then have their own line of modules.)

If you make it easy to game, more people can do it. New audience increases the total market, and allows you to grow your piece of the pie, even if the percentage never increases. It would also allow D&D to gain a bigger share of new gamers if D&D was soemthing that could be played easily if you don't know what you're doing, as opposed to GameX which might not have any ready adventures for you to pick up and run.

I honestly think that we older players forget the value of adventures to new gamers. Not everyone knows how to wing it yet, nor how to write their own. Too many adventure modules that I've read have been over-complicated and hard to prep, too expensive, or both.



As a clarification: I realize that WoTC cannot sell the three core books at a loss and hope to make money on the later products. Unlike an X-Box, you don't need to buy any more than the "console" because you can write your own games easily.

... to the BDSM scene (which is really just an elaborate LARP after all).

Really? No.

Well, okay, in both groups we wear too much black.

(And I'm hoping this counts as grandma friendly): Besides, do you know how hard it is to do that whole rock-paper-siccors things with someone who is chained up?