Ah, the "Condition of WotC and D&D is critical for our hobby, so let's all rally behind the Former Illustrious Industry Leader!" fallacy.That's not really a fallacy. That's an, as yet, unprovable market prediction. It may be possible to measure its effect if or when it happens. Then, we'll know if it was a correct prediction or not.
I have no intention of rallying around the former industry leader simply because it sells D&D. If they make a good version of the game, I'll buy it. If they don't, I won't. But even in that case I wouldn't want the property shelved. Even a diminished D&D on the market is better than none.
The thing is that Hasbro may feel like the profit is not big enough and shelve the game anyway. They may not need to support a sustainable branch, but rather a very profitable one, so they shelve the game as not worth the effort, while companies that feel comfortable with lesser profit magins like FF, White Wolf or Paizo work just fine.
OP: Hasbro shelving D&D, would it change anything?
Answer: Yes. If Hasbro shelved D&D, then Paizo can raise its prices on Pathfinder.
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You mean, make people pay for open content? Not really possible :)
OP: Hasbro shelving D&D, would it change anything?Answer: Yes. If Hasbro shelved D&D, then Paizo can raise its prices on Pathfinder.
I'd just like to note that Paizo is under no obligation to make any of their future material open content, whether it be rules for the RPG line (usually released as open content) or support material for the Golarion setting (usually NOT released as open content).
They may not be able to shove the genie back in the bottle for the CRB, APG, GMG, UM, UC, ARG, B1, B2, or B3...but WotC showed us that anytime a company wants to put out a book without making it open content, they can (since only about 6 of their 3.X books had any substantial open content).
Oh, that's a common occurrence of generic trademark. Zipper, kleenex, aspirin, band-aid - all were originally specific brands. The question is - does the original producer of Zipper need to continue making Zippers to keep zippers alive? Does Hasbro need to pump out D&D for people to recognize what "dungeons & dragons" is?
I'm curious if "Dungeons & Dragons" would remain a genericized catch-all for RPGs if the RPG were shelved for a long period of time - especially if the brand wasn't shelved, and instead used for boardgames or other product.
I honestly don't think that people would continue to recognize it for an RPG for long...
Question is, do you really need Hasbro to keep D&D going?
We still play 3.5, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. (In fact, it is highly likely we'll quit and move on to other hobbies/entertainment options before we ever stop using 3.5.)
So... no. We haven't needed Hasbro/D&D for a little while now.
In contrast, I think someone like Fantasy Flight Games might be characterised as complacent. The Dark Heresy franchise seems to be plodding along with a tried-and-true format - when they do branch out into something new (like Black Crusade) it's the same old format as all the other sub-franchises.
... which makes me curious what's going to happen since they've acquired the Star Wars license.
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In contrast, I think someone like Fantasy Flight Games might be characterised as complacent. The Dark Heresy franchise seems to be plodding along with a tried-and-true format - when they do branch out into something new (like Black Crusade) it's the same old format as all the other sub-franchises.
Yeah, I have to admit disappointment that the upcoming WH40K game (Only War) is yet again focused on the human empire...I think a game based on the Orks would be amazing. At least they have avoided the temptation to make only Space Marine games, with each chapter having it's own RPG.
You can see a part of that in Scott's post above (Hasbro shelving D&D = terrible thing, decline in hobby).
Except without the whole "so let's all rally behind WotC!" bit. No one is saying that.
I see it every day on some D&D forum - folks saying that the future of our hobby depends on the success of 5e (or on survival of 4e).
I don't think the future of our hobby depends on any single edition so much as it relies very heavily on the brand trading and active, visible support that WotC brings to the table.
US car market didn't vanish when Detroit died.
That's because people still need cars, not to mention the national interest in keeping a strong automobile industry presence domestically.
Global phone market isn't dying just because Nokia is about to take a dive.
That's because people still need phones.
Kodak used to be something, now it's not, but cameras are alive and well.
That's because people still need cameras.
I'll be very clear here: People don't need tabletop roleplaying games. Some people like them very very much, but by and large gamers are pretty okay with latching onto another entertainment option, of which there are a zillion. Tabletop RPGs are already having to adapt at a breakneck pace to the transition to the digital space as the widely-accepted medium for games.
RPG won't die when the lords of the boards @ Hasbro decide to freeze D&D for 20 years.
No, RPGs probably won't. But the tabletop roleplaying game industry as we know it would likely experience a significant drop in participation that would only worsen as time goes on unless another company manages to turn a barely-known RPG product into a brand with 90+% national name recognition.
I doubt I would stop, but I would be disappointed that new material might not be published, with the exception of publishers who are using the OGL. But even if they stopped, I have enough resources to run games from now until I'm strapped into my rocker and put in storage until I eventually die from harassing the nurses.
I can't think of any move that would be more of an unmitigated disaster. I buy Paizo for PATHFINDER, to move forward, not backwards. IF WOTC were to announce tomorrow that they were going to scrub everything they'd done since, and restart 3.5 from where they'd left off, I wouldn't go back. I like Pathfinder as a game that much more.
Who said they'd have to go backwards?
The main effect would be:
1) They could call Pathfinder what it is, an iteration of D&D, an advancement on the 3.x engine. This does not mean they would have to go backwards in rules. That is a fallacious assertion.
2) Paizo would re-acquire many of the properties they designers themselves created.
3) They would acquire iconic names/settings, and such. To include, say, "Bigby" et al, and not having to tapdance around certain iconic monsters/lords of the lower planes/&tc. (this later part is more relevant from a crunch standpoint. I suppose not ever PF fan gives a rats ass about Bigby's hands and the like, and really wants to call the Magnificent Mansion the "Mage's Magnificent Mansion" - I suppose I understand to a degree, because I don't want someone's name attached to *every* fraggin spell or item, either. But getting all the monsters back under one roof? Yes plox).
4) Putting the band back together.
Anyhow it's simpleminded to conclude that if Paizo acquires the TSR intellectual properties, that means they'll automatically trash their current game/rule system and go back to publishing the 1974 rules set (<--- yes this is as accurate as encapsulation of that mindset as assuming they'd junk the PF system and use 3E, or 4E. No, this wouldn't mean that at all; all it means is that the TSR intellectual properties are once again in the hands of a company whose primary focus is RPGs, rather than a company, Hasboro, for which RPGs are essentially irrelevant).
No, RPGs probably won't. But the tabletop roleplaying game industry as we know it would likely experience a significant drop in participation that would only worsen as time goes on unless another company manages to turn a barely-known RPG product into a brand with 90+% national name recognition.
Scott, you don't think Paizo's gain of market share is indicative of a WotC losing significant fraction of their customer base? (I'm really asking, not being wise-ass.)
Scott, you don't think Paizo's gain of market share is indicative of a WotC losing significant fraction of their customer base? (I'm really asking, not being wise-ass.)
I think it probably is, absolutely. I also think that it's not safe to assume that any gain of Paizo's is a loss of WotC's. For instance, when I buy a Paizo product it's because I like what Paizo is producing, not because I don't like what WotC is producing. I'm happy to support both companies, and so are a lot of others.
But Paizo gaining marketshare within the hobby does not translate to the brand strength that D&D has. D&D literally has in excess of 90% national name recognition. I would be astonished if the Pathfinder RPG had 1%.
Well sure, but if WotC wants to ruin the hobby all on their own they can; look, don't ask me, I'm a Traveller man..
But Paizo gaining marketshare within the hobby does not translate to the brand strength that D&D has. D&D literally has in excess of 90% national name recognition. I would be astonished if the Pathfinder RPG had 1%.
Where is that stat from? I hazarded a guess at 50% once (in Australia) but I'd since decided I'd way overstated it.
Well sure, but if WotC wants to ruin the hobby all on their own they can; look, don't ask me, I'm a Traveller man..
I've always had a soft spot for games where you can die during character creation. :)
Where is that stat from? I hazarded a guess at 50% once (in Australia) but I'd since decided I'd way overstated it.
But Paizo gaining marketshare within the hobby does not translate to the brand strength that D&D has. D&D literally has in excess of 90% national name recognition. I would be astonished if the Pathfinder RPG had 1%.
It isn't positve name recognition in Australia either.... 99% of Australians don't know about and if you try and explain they don't care about it because it's not Cricket or Rugby or Australin Rules Football.
Of the 1% that do recognize the game about 50% would ask you if it was the Satanists game that crazy Americans played where they dressed up as wizards and killed their parents.
Out of the remainder most play Pathfinder followed by D&D, with WoD (old and new) The 40K games, GURPS, Cubical 7, Shadowrun, eating up D&Ds sales.
The death of D&D can be a good thing I don't mention D&D when say I play RPG games to people who might be interested. I compare role playing to a Skyrim or WoW board game but better. That way I avoid all the crazy fat beard D&D dorks stereotypes that complicate talking somebody in to trying the game.
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Well, good thing I opened this can of worms.
I figured we'd better tackle this on directly to see where this is leading. I felt that 5th Ed is the last edition of D&D. However, since everyone was scared about D&D being shelved and no body was talking about it, I thought we'd better start the conversation.
If we put all our feelings on the table, we can stop acting like scared little people and move forward and perhaps do things to prepare if it does.
And all of the above would be going backwards. Pathfinder has spent years establishing itself as a game...
Again, who said they'd drop Golarion?
You keep getting excited over straw-men of your own invention.
Plus, lets be serious - Pathfinder is an improvement on 3.5, but it's not and does not pretend to be an entirely separate game "on it's own right," created de novo. Indeed, Pazio deliberately marketed - and still markets it - as "use[img] the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the world’s oldest fantasy RPG."
Three guesses as to which game they mean by "the world's oldest fantasy RPG," but can't, for trademark/copyright reasons, specifically name.
Putting all this back together in one box would eliminate such hobbling. And of course no one would come to your house and force you to play in another setting.
I'm trying to picture how supporting multiple campaign settings would work with Paizo's business model. Seems to me like even just adding full support for one would double the work for no real gain. The only way that I can see it working for them is if they treated other settings as a fire-and-forget one-off, kind of like a board game.
That way, they could have a team that makes a nice big boxed set for Planescape, then one for Ravenloft, then one for Spelljammer, and so on. There would be some synergy with other lines, since they could make pawns and maps and whatnot that those players would need and others could use. If one setting was super popular, then they could revisit it later with a boxed set expansion, again kind of like a board game.
I guess my question would be, how many of the people exploring other settings would keep their Adventure Path, Campaign Setting, and Player Companion subscriptions? Would a line pumping out traditional settings be worthwhile financially, or would its success actually cost Paizo more in the long run?
On name/brand recognition of PF, or other D&D type rpgs, or any other rpgs come to that; I don't believe that's that big a deal.
People who've only vaguely heard of D&D and curiously seek it out to play will simply be pointed toward PF (or whatever) and told 'D&D itself is no longer published, however don't worry this here is D&D in literally all but name'.
If D&D falls (man we've come a long way in a few years haven't we, for even Scott to be seriously discussing this!), it will make zero difference to me. Indeed, it may make other companies shift their rpg output away from tabletop mini combat, setting light, loads of extra rulebooks, type game supplements and back towards setting rich supplements that I prefer. So it could even be a win from my point of view.
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Will you stop playing D&D if Hasbro shelved it?
To somebody who believed there already shelfed D&D when 4th ed came along...we already faced this. Most people I know continued playing the game they loved. (Sidenote: Hopefuly to head a potential Edition war thing...4th ed not being 'D&D' is from my personal perspecvtive. It just never felt like D&D to me.)
Which has been true of every edition changed.
So if Hasbro shelfed the D&D license...people wil still play the game they have enjoyed. That is proably the biggest reason RPG is such a hard industry to make lots of money at...once you get the books you can use them for the rest of your life...you treally never need to update it...or even expand it beyond the 'core rule books. Heck you can play D&D without ever buying any of the books.
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To somebody who believed there already shelfed D&D when 4th ed came along...we already faced this.
Problem is gamers already, well... game (and thus already have a finger or two on the pulse of the gaming industry)...
To a non-gamer looking to get into gaming however, D&D is a recognizable brand...
The other table-top RPGs out there? Not so much outside of most gaming circles...
There is a difference this time to way back though isn't there?
WOTC clearly think so and were concerned enough to drop 4e quicker than a Frenchman's trousers.
This time it isn't just a small, ultimately insignificant, percentage of the audience who felt the new edition wasn't what they expected or wanted from D&D.
I haven't bought a wotc published book since the 4e core books, and I used to buy half a dozen to a dozen a year. I'm not not buying because of some doctrinal philosophy, I'd buy a book if I picked it up and it contained stuff I wanted, but every time I pick up a 4e book it is clearly 'not for me'. I'm a miner, I rarely use published books whole cloth, but I do love mining them for fluff nuggets, ideas, good new monsters, etc etc - wotc's stuff over recent years just does not appeal to me.
I'm curious to see what they do with 5e, and most importantly how they support it. But if they continue into oblivion, well I haven't been buying their stuff for a coupla years now anyway, so no change there.
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There is a difference this time to way back though isn't there?WOTC clearly think so and were concerned enough to drop 4e quicker than a Frenchman's trousers.
This time it isn't just a small, ultimately insignificant, percentage of the audience who felt the new edition wasn't what they expected or wanted from D&D.
Well, they dropped 3.0 even quicker. As well as the original edition of the game. But of course, those facts don't suit your theory that 4E is the worstest edition ever, so you discount them.
And 2E to 3.0 had just as large and significant percentage of the audience who felt that the new edition wasn't what they expected or wanted from D&D.
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Yeah, the ten people still buying stuff from TSR probably didn't like the change. All of us who opted out of 2e really liked demons being demons again and not some Pulling friendly "ta'aanawha?" crap.
The mechanics were different, yeah, but when 3.0 first came out, it kinda felt more like D&D than the watered down 2e crap.
So, yeah, add me to the "brought back into the fold by 3x" crowd. Hadn't played D&D in nearly seven years when it was released.
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Yeah, we felt like 2e was a major step back from being an adult pastime, just as we were becoming adults (it was released the year I turned 18). Stuck with 1e for a while, then just lost interest all together as it got harder and harder to find players not playing 2e.
Thank goodness for Paizo. I'd probably be out of gaming again otherwise, as I, too, had similar feelings about a certain recent edition.
My FLGS devotes more space to Pathfinder than D&D. The only place I've found where D&D takes up more shelf space than Pathfinder is Barnes & Noble. I think the Pathfinder brand is getting to the point where it can stand on its own, at least out here.
I've made the same observation at my own FLGS recently. It didn't occur overnight, but progressively, and I just realized this a couple of weeks ago. I'm also convinced that today Pathfinder stands on its own in the RPG arena.
Yeah, the ten people still buying stuff from TSR probably didn't like the change. All of us who opted out of 2e really liked demons being demons again and not some Pulling friendly "ta'aanawha?" crap.
Anecdotally, 2e was my introduction to D&D and role playing overall. And I thought that 'baatezu' and 'tanar'ri' were cool names that lent D&D's supernatural monsters a certain authenticity; I still subconsciously associate these terms with Planescape's great prose and DiTerlizzi's awesome artwork. So when I picked up the 3e MM, I thought Demons and Devils? This doesn't feel like D&D!
But eventually I got over it, and I certainly understand how pandering to paranoid Christian parents ticked off pretty much everyone who was already playing D&D when 2e came out.
(It helps that I've come to hate words with superfluous apostrophes.)
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If we put all our feelings on the table, we can stop acting like scared little people and move forward and perhaps do things to prepare if it does.
Who's scared? All of this is a non-issue to me, really. I'm way, way more concerned with keeping and building interest in Pathfinder than with anything Hasbro is doing with D&D.
Part of that is the 4E rules, part of it is their total lack of trust in their customers ("If we sell you PDF copies of our books you'll copy them and post them on file sharing sites!"), their inability to deliver on promised DDI subscription features (virtual table-top, character designer), changing the functionality on software they already sold you (moving character generator to online-only), and canceling publication of (profitable) magazines to move them to a watered-down online-only version.
I've switched my interest from the people making D&D to the people making Pathfinder. It's not even about the company -- if Lisa & Vic retired today and sold Paizo to someone else, I would be very, very concerned about the future of the company.
I'd say that if this question had come up even 5 years ago, I would have said a great deal of impact, but now, not nearly as much, and if DnD Next fails to meet expectations, even less.
With the rise of DDI and the decline in their book sales, they have already lost much of their presence in both local game stores and the mainstream market, and they are increasingly dependent on older players actively bringing in new players directly with little or no support from the random purchases of nongamers or lapsed gamers. This means that it if the majority of the gaming community has no interest in supporting it, than even nongamers will slowly stop to care about whatever presence it still has outside the gaming community.
A brand like DnD can absorb one major launch that is perceived as a failure by most without losing a lot of clout, but not two in a row, and a perceived failure of Next would definitely cause the loss of a lot of clout that even nongamers would end up noticing. The industry has had a good decade to adapt the reality that WoTC and DnD are no longer the dominant player they once were. The impact would be noticeable if the brand was no longer actively supported in the RPG arena, but it wouldn't kill the industry or the other major players in it. There would be adaptation and life would go on, with the DnD name being a generic blanket label instead of a specific system.
While I wish all parties success, I would not be sad if Hasbro parted ways with D&D. In the early years (1970's-Mid 1980's), D&D was a small scale "Mom & Pop" operation/company. That worked well, and the game achieved a popularity that it has not repeated since. I would like to see d&d return to its roots. They simply can't do that as presently constituted, when they have to pay hundreds of salaries and answer to higher-ups who give them their marching orders.
Where is that stat from?
It's one of the results of some of the professional marketing done a few years ago, if I recall correctly. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a figure that I've seen even the Paizo staff throw around once or twice. It only applies to the United States, if memory serves.
EDIT: Found it. This link is from a liveblog of a seminar given by then-D&D Senior Brand Manager Scott Rouse, noting an 89% brand-awareness, higher even than World of Warcraft. It covered the US, Canada, and part of Europe.
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I think the name recognition is important. To people who have never played picking up something that has been recognized as the "world's oldest RPG" or "most popular RPG" is easier than buying the book that is based on improving an older edition of that same game. If they want to play the game, why not buy them game? Sure people who have played D&D and others know that D&D is no longer the be-all-and-end-all of RPGs, but for those who are not so knowledgable about the ins and outs of RPG hobby politics and preference, they are more likely to pick up a D&D book regardless of the general RPG community reaction to that particular itteration of the rules. D&D is the most recognized brand of RPGs in the English speaking world, if that brand were to be shelved then the hobby would lose a lot of media pressence. As has been stated before, RPG books would likely dissapear from a number of non-hobby oriented retail outlets, and if someone does wander into their FLGS and ask about D&D if they hear "D&D is no longer being published" they are more likely (imho) to think that since the flagship, most widely known, most popular, and only ones they've ever heard of by name is no longer being published, then they will probably think that all the hype they heard to make them want to try it was bunk, since obviously it isn't even good enough for the people who own it to want to keep it up.
Now, if they allowed the brand to be sold to another company, with all the settings, that would be an entirely different story. It's been sold before, it can be sold again.
Sorry for the wall of text, I rant sometimes.
The very reasons (perceived) why Hasbro purchased WoTC and D&D in the first place argue against them being willing to sell either IP for any amount any other RPG company is going to consider paying. As an overall toy industry leader Hasbro can afford to just shelve D&D rather than sell it for anything less than they bought it, and they bought it for a hell of a lot more than any actual RPG company could have payed.
As to the effect shelving D&D will have on the industry as a whole: if it happens, the industry will suffer, somewhat, for a while, then it will recover; differently than it has the other times such events have occurred, and there have been other, similar events in the RPG industry's past. We survived them, we will survive this. Yes, things will change, but remember people; the RPG industry, as an industry, is at best only about forty-so years old. We have faced at least one similar event every decade of those forty-so years, we have changed somewhat with every event; we will continue to do so.
That is my 2cp & this is pretty much all I have to say.
Where is that stat from?It's one of the results of some of the professional marketing done a few years ago, if I recall correctly. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a figure that I've seen even the Paizo staff throw around once or twice. It only applies to the United States, if memory serves.
EDIT: Found it. This link is from a liveblog of a seminar given by then-D&D Senior Brand Manager Scott Rouse, noting an 89% brand-awareness, higher even than World of Warcraft. It covered the US, Canada, and part of Europe.
The fact that you point out that it is higher than WoW shows how pointless to the conversation this trivia happens to be.
Yes, it is true. It seems quite obvious to me.
I'd also readily wager that is was no less true 5 years before WotC purchased TSR.
That recognition is based on what TSR did decades ago.
And it has no meaning whatsoever with regard to 21st century success or popularity. So it is meaningless to this conversation.
Purely for the sake of argument lets presume your 1% awareness for Pathfinder is true. (I think you are way low, but I agree that D&D as a brand is far far ahead, so whatever)
Now, lets say WotC shelved D&D. Who would know that? The same 1% that know Pathfinder. The other 98% don't know and DON'T CARE. They would still be minimally aware of the concept of RPGs and would know that "D&D" was the brand associated with that activity. They would be just as oblivious to the fact that it had been shelved as they are oblivious to the fact that Pathfinder is the new big kid on the block.
It is the industry fan base that matters.
And just as you said that the car industry still exists because the need still exists, the DESIRE for RPGs would still exist. Need and desire are not the same thing, but as far as comparing these two highly different industries is concerned, they play the same role.
Where is that stat from?It's one of the results of some of the professional marketing done a few years ago, if I recall correctly. Unless I'm very much mistaken, it's a figure that I've seen even the Paizo staff throw around once or twice. It only applies to the United States, if memory serves.
EDIT: Found it. This link is from a liveblog of a seminar given by then-D&D Senior Brand Manager Scott Rouse, noting an 89% brand-awareness, higher even than World of Warcraft. It covered the US, Canada, and part of Europe.
That's amazing, thanks. I wonder what it is here. Maybe I wasn't so over optimistic..