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An interesting rant from former WotC VP Ryan Dancey. As I read it, the following idea popped up:
What if WotC decided to divest itself of the D&D license? To many of us, Paizo would be an excellent candidate to take over the reigns of one of the oldest rpgs in the world. Paizo, though, has protested it has no interest.
But what could get Paizo interested? What about an alliance or even a merger? Could you imagine the possibilities if Paizo allied with White Wolf? Or Fantasy Flight? Or how about smaller but still well-known publishers like Green Ronin Publishing or Goodman Games? (Mongoose is overseas.) Would such an alliance be enough to tempt Paizo to handle D&D?
If WotC chooses to sell/license off D&D (which I highly doubt they'd do), its not going to happen anytime soon. I mean it'll happen in the order of 3-5 years from now (if not longer). I do agree that WotC is not longer the leader of the RPG industry (and I even blogged about it a full day before Stan! did), they are by no means about to implode in the immediate future. This may be the turnpoint, the point where things really start to go downhill for them, but they are not there yet.
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If WotC chooses to sell/license off D&D (which I highly doubt they'd do), its not going to happen anytime soon. I mean it'll happen in the order of 3-5 years from now (if not longer). I do agree that WotC is not longer the leader of the RPG industry (and I even blogged about it a full day before Stan! did), they are by no means about to implode in the immediate future. This may be the turnpoint, the point where things really start to go downhill for them, but they are not there yet.
Explain No longer the leader of the RPG Industry?... They still outsell all others by an order of magnitude..
Or are you using another definition to state that?
If WotC chooses to sell/license off D&D (which I highly doubt they'd do), its not going to happen anytime soon. I mean it'll happen in the order of 3-5 years from now (if not longer). I do agree that WotC is not longer the leader of the RPG industry (and I even blogged about it a full day before Stan! did), they are by no means about to implode in the immediate future. This may be the turnpoint, the point where things really start to go downhill for them, but they are not there yet.Explain No longer the leader of the RPG Industry?... They still outsell all others by an order of magnitude..
Or are you using another definition to state that?
As with all such statements, while it may be probable that they outsell all others by an order of magnitude, Joe Consumer (me) has no method of discerning anything along these lines with factual data.
If you have linkified goodness for the rest of us, please share! ^_^
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As with all such statements, while it may be probable that they outsell all others by an order of magnitude, Joe Consumer (me) has no method of discerning anything along these lines with factual data.
If you have linkified goodness for the rest of us, please share! ^_^
Come on... you are kidding me..?..
That is general knowledge... Every Other RPG publisher will even admit it..
Or are you using another definition to state that?
PDF sales maybe?
That is general knowledge...
I can tell you they're about to file for bankruptcy.
An interesting rant from former WotC VP Ryan Dancey. As I read it, the following idea popped up:
What if WotC decided to divest itself of the D&D license? To many of us, Paizo would be an excellent candidate to take over the reigns of one of the oldest rpgs in the world. Paizo, though, has protested it has no interest.
But what could get Paizo interested? What about an alliance or even a merger? Could you imagine the possibilities if Paizo allied with White Wolf? Or Fantasy Flight? Or how about smaller but still well-known publishers like Green Ronin Publishing or Goodman Games? (Mongoose is overseas.) Would such an alliance be enough to tempt Paizo to handle D&D?
where would the added value for Paizo be?
They have a great product out there which is gaining market share. The pubisher (mr Mona) has stated that he has no intrest in publishing products for 4e. The only way paizo would go forward with D&D is to relaunch Pathfinder as D&D 5.0 (or something). And be honest, why would they do that?
As with all such statements, while it may be probable that they outsell all others by an order of magnitude, Joe Consumer (me) has no method of discerning anything along these lines with factual data.
If you have linkified goodness for the rest of us, please share! ^_^
Come on... you are kidding me..?..
That is general knowledge... Every Other RPG publisher will even admit it..
No offense, but it used to be considered general knowledge that the Earth revolved around the sun ...
All I'm saying is that it may be true - it is even probably true - but that could well have been said about 2e before TSR effectively disintegrated. I remember those days quite well, so I dare not assume anything. :)
Perception often overshadows fact...
Err that's because it does.
No offense, but it used to be considered general knowledge that the Earth revolved around the sun ...
Don't believe everything they tell you.
Only the Shed Pixies can be relied on to always tell the truth...
Explain No longer the leader of the RPG Industry?... They still outsell all others by an order of magnitude..
Industry Leader - The company upon whom other companies pay attenction, react to, and a large percentage follow along with. The industry follows where they lead.
Market Leader - The company with the largest market share of products sold. The Market Leaders controls a large portion of the Market.
While these two tend to be the same company over long periods of time, losing Industry Leader status tends to mean that Market Leader status will eventually follow. Conversely, becoming the Industry Leader tends to mean that Market Leader will follow.
Example: In the early-mid 90's White Wolf became the Industry Leader by creating a product that opened a new sector of the RPG market with the World of Darkness. They brought in customers to the market that previously had no interest in RPGs (or were simply LARPers and didn't know it). In the late 90's White Wolf became the Market Leader, outselling TSR, for a brief period of time. But until that occurred, TSR was the market leader, but White Wolf was the industry leader.
Currently, there are 4 companies that could take the mantle of Industry Leader. They are (and my thoughts on each):
- White Wolf - The former industry leader has a large enough market share and advertising capability that they could reclaim that mantle. But I do not see them innovating in some way at the moment that could make the market follow them. Their business plan, as far as I can tell as an outside observer, appears to be the same as as it was 5 years ago. They are experimenting with PDF/POD publishing to supplement their traditional publishing, but they are not breaking any new boundaries at the moment.
- Green Ronin - The publisher of the first d20 adventure possess 2 qualities going for it: 1) True20, a single system that is easy to use and similar enough to d20 that plenty of former d20 material could be translated over and 2) Pirates Guide to Freeport. This really was rather innovative, a systemless setting and selling system books to support allow gamers to play in whatever system they preferred. Kind of like On Demand brought to RPGs. Unfortunately, they have not done much with this since. Had they created additional settings books (and subsequent system books) this idea could have really taken off. I feel they really missed this opportunity.
- Mongoose - Unlike most other RPG publishers, Mongoose has one thing going it that no one else does: diversity. No one has more product lines and more settings than Mongoose. While this normally means little support, when you compare it to Wizards 4E model of each setting is going to get 3 books, it looks like Mongoose puts out alot for each of their games. Unfortunately, Mongoose is being held back by their own quality control. The recent and highly anticipated Universe of Babylon 5 setting for their Traveller system was plagued with errors and required 29 pages of errata. This can be made up with customer service. Mongoose says they stand behind their books and offered to replace book with large errors in them such as when their own printing facilities went badly. While it is possible they may become the Industry Leader, I feel another is more likely ....
- Paizo - With Pathfinder RPG coming out soon to great acclaim, the game appears to poised to grab a sizable market share. Couple that with their subscription service that they perfected, their 2nd to none customer service, their high profile RPG Superstar Contest, their accessability on message boards, and the sheer volume of material they continually give away as open content, and you have the makings of an Industry Leader. The best proof of that is the rather lengthy list of publishers that signed the PFRPGCL without seeing the final rules.
Six months ago, I would have said DMcCoy was crazy; I'm not so sure any more. WotC has managed to screw up so badly that I think they've left the door open for someone to take leadership of the industry, and right now I can't see anyone in a better position to do it than Paizo.
If that happens I will have been as wrong as wrong can be; but oddly, I wouldn't mind at all.
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Imagine what would've happened had Wizards released 3rd edition and Kenzer created a new edition of Hackmaster to compete whilst 3e slowly and loudly died...
Change the names and you've got today's RPG world. Even if Wizards is still on top, they're no longer at the pinnacle. Where they were four years ago was far greater that where they are today. There was no real division in the D&D Community and the OGL made it so that 3PP didn't have to take drastic steps that may end up screwing WotC in the long run.
They've got LucasFilm support for some games (namely Saga and the Mini's line) which I think they've done quite well with, however. I don't think I'd count WotC out yet, but they've definitely done some stupid-leaning things that may cause them to dump D&D down the line.
To many of us, Paizo would be an excellent candidate to take over the reigns of one of the oldest rpgs in the world.
"One" of the oldest ?
Is there any obscure RPG older than D&D, outside of its ancestors, Chainmail and Blackmoor ?|
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White Wolf - The former industry leader has a large enough market share and advertising capability that they could reclaim that mantle. But I do not see them innovating in some way at the moment that could make the market follow them. Their business plan, as far as I can tell as an outside observer, appears to be the same as as it was 5 years ago. They are experimenting with PDF/POD publishing to supplement their traditional publishing, but they are not breaking any new boundaries at the moment.
Thanks you for explaining you definitions..
Though I do not agree that WotC will fall anytime soon.. I do think they have made a few mistakes..
I am highlighting White Wolf because they are my favorite developer..
I think their biggest mistake is lack of advertising.. even though their biggest seller is their RPG they still put more emphasis on advertisement on there other systems *LARP/Card Game*
I have brought up with them about their lack of a gaming society for their RPG while they do have one for both their card games and Larp, they said they had no interest in starting one.
Many conventions I go to, it is even hard to find a White Wolf RPG *Unless it is Dragon Con* because of their lack of support for the RPG system at conventions. It feels to me that they are not putting any effort to advertise their game even though it is their leader in sales and has a much larger audience..
This in itself I think may lead to the decline in there games.
To many of us, Paizo would be an excellent candidate to take over the reigns of one of the oldest rpgs in the world."One" of the oldest ?
Is there any obscure RPG older than D&D, outside of its ancestors, Chainmail and Blackmoor ?
I'm sure the ancient Egyptians had their versions. ;-P
They've got LucasFilm support for some games (namely Saga and the Mini's line) which I think they've done quite well with, however.
If Wizards was going to drop a full line, I'd expect that they'd drop Star Wars. Despite it being done well, how many times can you sell a Luke Skywalker mini before it gets old. Not to mention, Mark Hammel hasn't been on the big screen wielding a light saber in 25 years (13 if you count the the mid-90's touchup). The current generation of kids like the Clone Wars show, but I really can't believe its selling like hot cakes if it took Wizards 6 months to get any meaningful support book out the door for the SAGA system.
While reading through the complaint filed in the WotC piracy case against the defendant from Poland, I noticed that the complaint mentioned "Approximately 6 million people play D&D" and "The core 4th edition rulebooks have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and are now in their third printing."
This gives us an exceedingly general idea of how well WotC is doing, based upon their own report.
While reading through the complaint filed in the WotC piracy case against the defendant from Poland, I noticed that the complaint mentioned "Approximately 6 million people play D&D" and "The core 4th edition rulebooks have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and are now in their third printing."Interesting...
6 million D&D players - hundreds of thousands of 4e players = several million non-4e D&D players
Granted, I haven't read the primary source being quoted here, so I don't know if that's even remotely accurate, but it's food for thought.
Only if you want it to be.
The reality is that for every person who has gone out and bought him or herself a physical copy of the books, there are two or three people in that person's gaming group who mooch off that person's copy rather than going out and buying their own.
It isn't uncommon for entire D&D groups to rely on the single PHB owned by the group's DM.
And yes, there are still a lot of people playing 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D.
None of this is surprising information at all. In fact, the most surprising tidbit from the court documents regarding D&D was that the PHB2 has already sold out of its initial print run two weeks after release.
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Only if you want it to be.
The reality is that for every person who has gone out and bought him or herself a physical copy of the books, there are two or three people in that person's gaming group who mooch off that person's copy rather than going out and buying their own.
It isn't uncommon for entire D&D groups to rely on the single PHB owned by the group's DM.
And yes, there are still a lot of people playing 1st, 2nd and 3rd Edition D&D.
None of this is surprising information at all. In fact, the most surprising tidbit from the court documents regarding D&D was that the PHB2 has already sold out of its initial print run two weeks after release.
Plus you have to think of the people who bought the books and don't like what they did. Like my gaming group did.
In fact, the most surprising tidbit from the court documents regarding D&D was that the PHB2 has already sold out of its initial print run two weeks after release.So if PHB II sold out in two weeks, how could pirates have hurt its sales?
*snicker* sorry that was a good yet funny point. All I have to say is I hope 4e really is doing well, and I hope every other game gets the attention it deserves. That said, Wotc's anti-piracy spasm feels knee jerk and sudden and kinda looks bad, IMHO. Just saying...
DMMcCoy, thanks for the definitions. I always wondered what the difference between those two terms was, since I heard them bandied about so much in college(my white wolf years). I still enjoy reading white wolf stuff(I can't wait for Scion Companion!!)but I agree that it is EXTREMELY hard to find a white wolf game, organized or not. No matter what the title, in my experience the troupes all seem to thrive on a weird kind of secrecy bordering on arrogance. That attitude cost me my first white wolf troupe and I have yet to make/find another, despite the fact I own everything for Hunter(first edition) and almost everything for Werewolf(2nd and 3rd editions), and everything out to date for Changeling(nWoD).
What about an alliance or even a merger?
Please for the love of god not an alliance or a merger. Paizo vs Wotc (after Adkinson) show all too clearly the difference gamer management makes in terms of product quality. A merger with wotc would open the door to all kinds of nonsense.
Personally I hope Paizo hires Rich Baker and purchases the FR license. After that I would not care whatever happens to wotc.
Thanks you for explaining you definitions..
These aren't really my definitions, but business definitions.
Non-RPG related examples: Wal-Mart is the US's largest retailer. When they said that every single product sold through them must have a UPC, every company made it a standard practice to add one. During that time, they were the Industry Leader. Since then, Wal-Mart lost their Industry Leader status, but not their Market Leader status. When Wal-Mart said they wanted RFI tags on everything sent to them, the industry said no way. So RFI tags didn't take off.
When Netscape 3.0 came out, it could do some pretty nice things. People made web pages with Netscape in mind. Internet Explorer looked like a crappy piece of software that couldn't keep up. Netscape was the industry leader. Then Microsoft bundled IE with Windows and made it the default browser, hired some old Netscape programmers to overhaul their browser and gave away their browser for free. This gained them industry leader status. Netscape couldn't compete with that and got out paced by Microsoft. IE could handle a wider range of style sheets than could Netscape. Eventually Netscape went under (and later became part of firefox, which later became the industry leader).
Despite Windows controlling 80-90% of the Operating System market, Microsoft isn't the industry leader. OS's such as Windows NT and Vista is so buggy and self-conflicting that when a high performance piece of software is going to utilize the full capacity of an OS (like industrial X-Ray spectrometers, high end graphics/VR machines) then either use a specific version of Windows (like XP), use MAC OS X/Linus, or go with their own specialized operating system. That last option has been far less utilized since Y2K, but it still exists.
You should also notice that in both of those last two examples, the Market Leader isn't the Industry Leader. And now people are wondering if Microsoft will survive. They are not any industry leader, in any segment of the industry. It won't be long before they loose Market Leader of just about every sector of the computer industry (possibly including operating systems).
In the 80-early 90's J. Michael Straczynski tried to sell his little sci-fi series (Babylon 5) to every TV company possible. He was told the same thing over and over again: "Trek is King!" Roddenberry got wind of this and started Deep Space 9 as away to steal some of his thunder. JMS finally a company to say yes and the show quickly gained cult status. After 2-3 seasons of demonstrating its exceptional quality of CGI and presending a long term story arc, Trek started hiring some of B5's computer graphics people and implimented a long term story arc. Trek followed Babylon 5. Babylon 5 was the industry leader, Trek was the market leader. But because JMS broke the "Trek is King" rule, he paved the way for Farscape, Space: Above and Beyond, Battle Star Gallactica, SG-1/Atlantis, the Starship Troopers movie, and (quite frankly) the resurgence of Star Wars.
Is there any obscure RPG older than D&D, outside of its ancestors, Chainmail and Blackmoor ?
Elfstar! It's ancient. Has actual rules for magic and summoning the Devil. Ask Chick if you don't believe me :D
but are you a Reliable Source?..I can tell you they're about to file for bankruptcy.
That is general knowledge...
Of course he is. Look at his name. Doesn't get any clearer than that.
Is there any obscure RPG older than D&D, outside of its ancestors, Chainmail and Blackmoor ?Elfstar! It's ancient. Has actual rules for magic and summoning the Devil. Ask Chick if you don't believe me :D
Of course he is. Look at his name. Doesn't get any clearer than that.but are you a Reliable Source?..I can tell you they're about to file for bankruptcy.
That is general knowledge...
Of course the argument could also be made that 4e D&D is not the same RPG as Chainmail or Gygax D&D. The argument could be supported by the fact that while many other RPG's go through iterations and versions, changing and updating rules and mechanics, many provide a upgrade or conversion document so that a character or campaign existing prior to the update may continue play under the newer rules. WOTC has specifically said that no such update or conversion document is possible, and that 4e is too different to allow such.
Under this argument, D&D 3.0 was not convertable from 2, but was updatable to 3.5 via a conversion document. D&D 3 could then be said to have lived from 2000 to Monday of this week when all publishing of the product was halted.
So if you were to accept this argument (and you may very well disagree, but for the sake of discussion, go with the premise), what currently marketed RPG is the oldest, in that you could have a character that begun under its original rules set, and could be updated with rules updates to the current rules set, maintaining continuity?
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If Wizards was going to drop a full line, I'd expect that they'd drop Star Wars. Despite it being done well, how many times can you sell a Luke Skywalker mini before it gets old. Not to mention, Mark Hammel hasn't been on the big screen wielding a light saber in 25 years (13 if you count the the mid-90's touchup). The current generation of kids like the Clone Wars show, but I really can't believe its selling like hot cakes if it took Wizards 6 months to get any meaningful support book out the door for the SAGA system.
It took some time, yes. SAGA I think started more as a gauge of how people would react to a new system coming out the door. It seems the execs thought it would be a good gauge of how the 4e rules would be accepted. RCR --> Saga vs 3.5 --> 4e. Not many people were happy with the OCR and RCR materials since they didn't match the game Knights of the Old Republic. Playing catch up with KotOR and the prequels destroyed the last edition of the game. Saga showed up after the movies were done, so there was no constant updating of stats and materials.
Yes... Every set of minis contains a Luke and a Vader. I think that's stupid too. However, because of the ingraining that LFL has done with Hasbro (and that includes everything from action figs to monopoly and battleship) there is no way that Wizards will ever be able to dump Star Wars. Besides, even when left as a fairly small niche game it will have a lot of support simply because it is Star Wars. People do still eat it up like Darth-cakes, though I gotta admit its not nearly as fresh as it used to be.
I would imagine that LFL would be more likely to pull its support from Hasbro than WotC would be to dump the Star Wars license.
In fact, the most surprising tidbit from the court documents regarding D&D was that the PHB2 has already sold out of its initial print run two weeks after release.So if PHB II sold out in two weeks, how could pirates have hurt its sales?
A second print run is in production. If even one person downloaded a PDF illegally instead of waiting for the second print run to come through and purchasing it legitimately, that potentially hurt sales.
Of course the argument could also be made that 4e D&D is not the same RPG as Chainmail or Gygax D&D. The argument could be supported by the fact that while many other RPG's go through iterations and versions, changing and updating rules and mechanics, many provide a upgrade or conversion document so that a character or campaign existing prior to the update may continue play under the newer rules. WOTC has specifically said that no such update or conversion document is possible, and that 4e is too different to allow such.
Under this argument, D&D 3.0 was not convertable from 2, but was updatable to 3.5 via a conversion document. D&D 3 could then be said to have lived from 2000 to Monday of this week when all publishing of the product was halted.
So if you were to accept this argument (and you may very well disagree, but for the sake of discussion, go with the premise), what currently marketed RPG is the oldest, in that you could have a character that begun under its original rules set, and could be updated with rules updates to the current rules set, maintaining continuity?
Gygax disliked 3E, remember? There was alot of nods to old creators of D&D (Gygax & Arneson) in the creation of 4E to make it steamlined and feel like a throwback to older days of D&D (which I feel it does IMO). It does not have conversion material from 3.X but there was an article about converting older material (2E and under) to 4E which means it entirely skips over 3.x and therefore replaces 3.x in the line of succession. 4E is a viable system and will retain a major market share IMO which means that WOTC isn't likely to get rid of it however I do believe that Wizards shot themselves in the foot with the PDF outrage especially if other companies are capitalizing on it and even making veiled jibs at them.
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Of course the argument could also be made that 4e D&D is not the same RPG as Chainmail or Gygax D&D. The argument could be supported by the fact that while many other RPG's go through iterations and versions, changing and updating rules and mechanics, many provide a upgrade or conversion document so that a character or campaign existing prior to the update may continue play under the newer rules. WOTC has specifically said that no such update or conversion document is possible, and that 4e is too different to allow such.
Actually I would base any such argument on the credits.
PHB 3.5
Based on the original Dungeons & Dragons game created by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
PHB 4
Building on the Design of Previous Editions by
E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson (1st Edition and earlier); David “Zeb” Cook (2nd Edition); Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, Skip Williams, Richard Baker, Peter Adkison (3rd Edition)
A second print run is in production. If even one person downloaded a PDF illegally instead of waiting for the second print run to come through and purchasing it legitimately, that potentially hurt sales.Potentially hurting future sales and actually hurting recorded sales are two entirely different things.
While this is true, to understand it we have to enter "business logic," which sometimes defies common logic, that states things like "having stock on my shelves costs me money." When in reality, the stock isn't making you any money. (Either way you are spending the same amount for shelf space, if they are empty or full.)
Gygax disliked 3E, remember? There was alot of nods to old creators of D&D (Gygax & Arneson) in the creation of 4E to make it steamlined and feel like a throwback to older days of D&D (which I feel it does IMO). It does not have conversion material from 3.X but there was an article about converting older material (2E and under) to 4E which means it entirely skips over 3.x and therefore replaces 3.x in the line of succession. 4E is a viable system and will retain a major market share IMO which means that WOTC isn't likely to get rid of it however I do believe that Wizards shot themselves in the foot with the PDF outrage especially if other companies are capitalizing on it and even making veiled jibs at them.
Lots of interesting info, thank you for the post. What was it that Gygax did not like about 3E? Did these dislikes transpose to 3.x? Why is 3.x being skipped over/ignored in this fashion?
Err that's because it does.
No offense, but it used to be considered general knowledge that the Earth revolved around the sun ...
:facepalm: Ayup ... having a WONDERFUL week ... ayup ayup ...
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To many of us, Paizo would be an excellent candidate to take over the reigns of one of the oldest rpgs in the world."One" of the oldest ?
Is there any obscure RPG older than D&D, outside of its ancestors, Chainmail and Blackmoor ?
Playing Braunstein, the proto-rpg, is what gave Arneson the idea he ran with to the 1 yard line (Gygax punched it in for the six points). Before that, there was "free-kriegspiel", which is what gave the Braunstein dude the idea.
The idea of playing a role in a game has been around for a long time. They just weren't called "role playing games" until Arneson and Gygax got their mitts on it.
Have to agree with DMcCoy 100% on this. I was going to say the same thing but a little less clearly.
The only thing I'd change/add is that White Wolf's mistake was not in innovation rules wise, but in the lack of innovation for the settings. Not to be mean I think the new WoD rule set is an improvment, espically since the got rid of the "Humans: The Minority" midset of the old WoD but after palying the new Vampire game 5 times, my group swicthed back to the old setting. New rules old setting. Moreover I did not get many sub. because simply a lot seemed to repeat advise/info from older material. Maybe thats good for newbies, for me not so much. The low point was Werewolf, the old game was prob. the most innovative interpertation of the Werewolf ever, it needed it. The new game is at best ehh. On the other hand the new Changeling is truly great.
Also don't forget the guys who've done Iron Kingdoms/Warmachine, the only reason they haven't taken a leadership role in RPGs is because they simply don't seem intersted in that part of the gaming community, I can see them taking down games workshope some day, if they put their minds to it they could become a major factor in the RPG commnuity as well.
To the topic at hand. I actually see the idea of Hasbro paying another company to take over the DnD line to be that crazy of a thought. As the sales go down they'll only want the name and nothing else. In some ways we've already seen this with the OGL allowing all the other compines to take their version of 3.x and take it the way they'd like.
More realistic view however would be something like this.....
1. DnD 5e will be a video game only. Something like WoW but with the innovation of tech the way its going it'll have a lot of sims or spore influince to it. This might be better then one thinks as such a networked game might have mulitple worlds based on the settings that have come before. (Note however two things will always hold computer mmmmowhatever the hell you call a arcade game now'a'days, 1. If I can go back into a cave and kill the same dragon over and over again, something is lost in the Role Play and enjoyment of the game. 2. No matter how work is done on the world, it'll never feel like "your" world).
2. Because of #1 any book vesion of the RPG will only lip service product that Hasbro my have Wizards print, or simply kill the company and give the rights (as you say) to another company to print. To be honest I'm surpised Hasbro has kept the name WotC for as long as they have. My way of thinking was that it'd be changed when 4e came out. Just call it Hasbro.
3. More likely they'll simply cut a deal to sell the PDF or whatever form such things will take in the future to gain some income to a product that to them simply no longer exist (ie RPG's). By that point someother company will be regarded as the leader.
For the record all the things that WotC has done so far in getting the fan based angery at them will have no effect one way or the other on my predictions. Simply put they don't care about the game itself, only the brand name. The Brand name has sales numbers behind it, not the system. 4e may or may not be the best new thing since slinced bread (its not the game for me but others may enjoy it, good for them) but I don't think anyone can say that system wasn't developed with WoW infuinces. Many think that was computer games effecting roleplaying games. I see it more to the effect of Hasbro thinking that when they do come out with a new computer game players can say this is just like my table top game only better. In other words 4e system is the ground work for a computer game.
In any case at this point the 800lbs. gorrilla can do very little harm to anyone but themselves now. The brand name goes a long way outside the gaming community ( I had a group of players who wanted to play DnD and never heard of Rifts or Shodowrun or whatever) but anyone whos played awhile has and DnD quickly becomes just a face in the crowd. This is even more true when you take into account the larger gaming community, who may or may not role play.
TTFN DRE
P.S. for the recored I actually thing the gaming industry will do very well whatever happens. Lets face it folks, we were never that big anyways.
Lots of interesting info, thank you for the post. What was it that Gygax did not like about 3E? Did these dislikes transpose to 3.x? Why is 3.x being skipped over/ignored in this fashion?
GameSpy: Have you had a chance to play or even look at some of the current Dungeons & Dragons games?
Gygax: I've looked at them, yes, but I'm not really a fan. The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good.
Now, should I tell you what I really think?
IMO, I would say that 3.x is being skipped over/ignored because of the rules intensive nature making alot harder for conversion of statistical material. Older editions are just easier to convert from because of the similiar open nature of the Dungeon Masters ability to manipulate the game. Maybe open nature isn't the right word but anyways.
Lots of interesting info, thank you for the post. What was it that Gygax did not like about 3E? Did these dislikes transpose to 3.x? Why is 3.x being skipped over/ignored in this fashion?GameSpy: Have you had a chance to play or even look at some of the current Dungeons & Dragons games?
Gygax: I've looked at them, yes, but I'm not really a fan. The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good.
Now, should I tell you what I really think?
IMO, I would say that 3.x is being skipped over/ignored because of the rules intensive nature making alot harder for conversion of statistical material. Older editions are just easier to convert from because of the similiar open nature of the Dungeon Masters ability to manipulate the game. Maybe open nature isn't the right word but anyways.
That interview response reminds me of the Dork Tower comic on player's rights. For some, the increase in codified rules (to a point; turning D&D into Rolemaster would be a mistake) instead of relying so much on DM-fiat, house-rules, and on-the-spot interperetations is a feature, not a bug. The standardization really helps with tournament play, adventure/encounter design, and campaign building.
I don't think Gary Gygax would have had anything better to say about 4e, either.
As far as conversions go, it's just as easy to convert older material to 3.x as it is to 4e (in fact, WotC released a conversion guide when they published 3.0). Converting from 3.x to 4e is "a lot harder" not because 3.x is "rules intensive" and 4e isn't, but because there are substantial mechanical differences in the way classes work between the systems. Still, there are a good number of fan conversions of 3.x material out there, so it can't be that difficult.
To the topic at hand. I actually see the idea of Hasbro paying another company to take over the DnD line to be that crazy of a thought. As the sales go down they'll only want the name and nothing else. In some ways we've already seen this with the OGL allowing all the other compines to take their version of 3.x and take it the way they'd like.
I'd not really look at the OGL as being all that indicative of any current policy. OGL was another time and place and was meant to deal with a different strategic policy of revamping the D&D brand. Good or bad we are really just seeing them deal with the legacy of that policy at this time and not some continuation of a plan that was drawn up when the OGL was released. We can be fairly certain that this is so because...
#1: Their actions regarding the GSL do not seem to be in the same direction as their actions regarding the OGL. I.e. the policies feel disconnected as opposed to one building on the other.#2: The individuals that were responsible for the OGL are no longer part of the company.
#3: WotC has allowed employees to discuss what they feel was wrong with the OGL from their perspective.
That said I completely agree with your premise that Hasbro won't let go of the the intellectual IP of D&D. If their is even a 1% chance that they could, one day, turn it into a Blizzard Killer MMO then retaining the IP rights is more then worth it from their perspective. Especially considering that its highly unlikely that any other brand out there has as much chance of being a Blizzard Killer as D&D.
More realistic view however would be something like this.....1. DnD 5e will be a video game only. Something like WoW but with the innovation of tech the way its going it'll have a lot of sims or spore influince to it. This might be better then one thinks as such a networked game might have mulitple worlds based on the settings that have come before. (Note however two things will always hold computer mmmmowhatever the hell you call a arcade game now'a'days, 1. If I can go back into a cave and kill the same dragon over and over again, something is lost in the Role Play and enjoyment of the game. 2. No matter how work is done on the world, it'll never feel like "your" world).
While I could certianly see this as a possibility - if 4E flunks they may just decide to utilize the IP purely for a computer game I disagree that the evidence indicates that this is actually the current plan.
First off there is no real reason Hasbro can't try and have its cake and eat it too. The existance of online D&D does not preclude the existance of a table top version. In Hasbro's best case scenario they have both and they both make bucko bucks.
Beyond this I think that 4E is not actually a particualrly great base from which to make a computer game. Now I very much suspect that it can be done and I'd be a little surprised if it was not done but I think the 4E rules actually make it harder to create a computer program then the 3.5 rules.
The problem with making 4E into a computer game is the huge reliance on exception based rules, the general policy of stripping the rules down, and the move back to a system where the rules for the DM are not at all the same as the rules for the players.
In all these cases whats essentially been done is to make the task for anyone who wants to program the game a lot harder. Endless exceptions based rules essentially rely on the DM stepping in and saying how the rules will work in any specific situation. Computers can't make reasonings like this they need to be told, by the programmer, exactly how the rule works in every situation where the DM would make a call under the current rule set. The existance of two seperate rules systems for the DM means that anyone programming this now has to do a lot of work to create these two separate sets of rules. In 3.5, because the rules often worked the same for both the players and the DM the same code (tweaked to deal with any differences that did crop up) could be used. Finally the stripped down rule base essentially relies on the DM stepping in and filling in any gaps. Computers are very good at dealing with large complex rule sets but they can't 'fill in a gap' - if they encounter one the program crashes. Essentially all the places where the DM steps in to make a rules call in 4E now must be addressed by the coders themselves - coders that are not the games designers and hence will potentially unbalance the game with their made up rules interpretations. At a minimum that means more time play testing the program to see if what the coders have done actually works well with the game.
Hence a lot of the core features in 4E make creating a computer version of the game more difficult and more expencive. It'll take longer to code and play test and it therefore cost more.
Now I'm sure you can point to a wide array of things you know exist in WoW and note that they seem to also be in 4E. I'd agree with you on many of these but I personally believe your drawing the wrong conclusion from these elements.
What Hasbro sees in WoW is a phenominal player base - a back of the envelope calculation of Blizzards revenue is simply astounding. Now Hasbro, along with the other major international toy companies, uses a sales model thats similar to the sales model used by the book and record industry. The goal is to find a break out product and the major problem is that the vast majority of products are money losers. Its impossible to predict, ahead of time, which products will be the break out ones.
If you have deep pockets however you can work your way around this by essentially playing the odds. So, very roughly speaking, Hasbro picks 40 odd products they think have potential and they put a million dollars behind each. They know perfectly well that 39 of those products are going to be a bust and will probably loose them money - thats OK however because one of these products is going to become a phenomena...its going to sell like hot cakes and make them 80 million dollars. So they lose 39 million in backing products that didn't pan out but they still come out way ahead on the one product that sells really, really, well. They then go back and do the same thing again and again always putting big bucks behind a lot of products that have potential and cleaning up on the one exceptional one that breaks out.
I think thats what they have done with 4E. Blizzard just proved that fantasy can sell to tens of millions of consumers so the product identity is not going to stand in the way of it selling like crazy...that means the product has at least the potential of being a huge break out product. It is at least possible that there could be 25 million people world wide that are buying D&D material - the question then becomes "What steps are necessary to create a version of D&D that might be bought by 25 million people?".
If your trying to answer that question I suspect one of the first things you do is go look at the one product thats essentially already overcome this gap and made a sword and sorcery product that actually has millions of subscribers - and thats WoW. Somehow Blizzard made a fantasy game that literally has 100,000s of 14 year old girls playing it along with all sorts of other demographics that historically have not really gone in for D&D and RPGs.
I think its essentially here that we see a lot of the similarities and I don't think that the goal is to emulate 'Aggro'. No one believes that middle aged house wives are playing WoW because of how 'Aggro' is modelled. However Blizzard has done something fundamentally right with their product and WotC is copying aspects of this wherever they can both identify them and feel it makes sense to port the concepts over to a table top RPG. The big example is probably 'ease of use'. Rule number one, when making 4E, was likely something along the lines of "the game needs to be easy to pick up and start playing." If the rule books seem like a huge chore for the middle aged mom or the 14 year old girl then thats bad...very, very, bad. Beyond this, since you can't play without a DM, the rules for being a DM need to be as easy as possible to grasp. If your forced to completely depend on existing DMs doing all your recruiting you have less chance of gaining a huge customer base. To few existing DMs and most of them are not recruiting at any given time.
The other reason why some elements of WoW might appear in 4E would just be designer inspiration. The designers play WoW so some of its elements are going to inspire features of 4E. I strongly suspect that if you go through the powers list you'd probably find dozens that were inspired in one way or another from the Lord of the Rings movies as well. For 4E you have to come up with a heck of a lot of powers for the varous classes - RPG designers have always stolen liberally from any cool source thats come to hand.
2. Because of #1 any book vesion of the RPG will only lip service product that Hasbro my have Wizards print, or simply kill the company and give the rights (as you say) to another company to print. To be honest I'm surpised Hasbro has kept the name WotC for as long as they have. My way of thinking was that it'd be changed when 4e came out. Just call it Hasbro.
I see absolutely no indication that Magic The Gathering is not still selling phenomenally well. The Pro Tour seems to be growing by leaps and bounds and the new sets continue to do extremely well. Until Magic tanks WotC is unlikely to be absorbed by Hasbro - its bad policy to mess with the goose that lays the golden eggs.
As far as conversions go, it's just as easy to convert older material to 3.x as it is to 4e (in fact, WotC released a conversion guide when they published 3.0). Converting from 3.x to 4e is "a lot harder" not because 3.x is "rules intensive" and 4e isn't, but because there are substantial mechanical differences in the way classes work between the systems. Still, there are a good number of fan conversions of 3.x material out there, so it can't be that difficult.
If you have to convert classes its more difficult...but, in most respects, its actually likely easier. Quite simply most of the time a specific class is not integral to the adventure. If a specific 3.5 class feature is needed then the general 4E policy is that the DM simply gives that ability to the antagonist. If we need an evil wizard to use magic to fly over a chasm to warn the goblins that the PCs are coming then the wizard has the ability to fly - even in a professional product the author would simply state that the wizard can fly. He'd have the 'Scroll of Flight' Daily power or some such.
Is the 'Wizard' a Gnoll Shaman? Not a problem - the Gnoll Shaman can have the 'Scroll of Flight' Daily power. You don't need to make him a Mystic Theurge to gain access to arcane spells in order to give your Gnoll Shaman flight - the DM simply states that he has said power and then he does.
In fact plot based powers are really easy for the DM to input. Ones that involve combat are more complex because they have to follow rules meant to keep them balanced for a creature of their level but their are tables that provide guide lines for such rules - the more difficult part here is coming up with such powers that are not just play balanced but also cool and entertaining. Conversions however make this at least a little easier - you already know what the cool effects of the powers are supposed to be like - now just make sure that they are not widely unbalanced for a creature of this level using the provided guidelines as a starting point.
Lots of interesting info, thank you for the post. What was it that Gygax did not like about 3E? Did these dislikes transpose to 3.x? Why is 3.x being skipped over/ignored in this fashion?GameSpy: Have you had a chance to play or even look at some of the current Dungeons & Dragons games?
Gygax: I've looked at them, yes, but I'm not really a fan. The new D&D is too rule intensive. It's relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It's done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good.
Now, should I tell you what I really think?
IMO, I would say that 3.x is being skipped over/ignored because of the rules intensive nature making alot harder for conversion of statistical material. Older editions are just easier to convert from because of the similiar open nature of the Dungeon Masters ability to manipulate the game. Maybe open nature isn't the right word but anyways.
What really gets me about this quote is that I feel the EXACT same way about 2nd Ed save for the rules-intensive part. Maybe it's just my personal experience, but noone in any of my second ed games, whether I was in playing them or running them, showed any interest in doing anything other than create characters that played against type(Wizard with 18/00 strength means he's an interesting character!!!), focused on finding(or better yet, starting off with) magical items that got their THAC0 and AC as low as possible, refused to work with others (Why should I work with any of these people when I just met them, etc), refused to play any character class unless they were some kind of kit(groan..Myrmydon), and was always CN so they could justify any action they took. If anything I felt more like a referee in 2nd ed than I ever did in 3.x. Again, this may just be my experience. In the end, it wasn't SO bad- it pushed me into White Wolf games, which in turn pushed me back into D&D when 3.0 when came out. I just dont buy 3.x being treated like a red-headed stepchild in this fashion in the name of ease of translation.
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That said I completely agree with your premise that Hasbro won't let go of the the intellectual IP of D&D. If their is even a 1% chance that they could, one day, turn it into a Blizzard Killer MMO then retaining the IP rights is more then worth it from their perspective. Especially considering that its highly unlikely that any other brand out there has as much chance of being a Blizzard Killer as D&D.
That assumes they need to brand the D&D IP as a RPG type game.
They do not.TV shows, action figures, traditional board games, all can provide profit on the scale they expect.
While I could certianly see this as a possibility - if 4E flunks they may just decide to utilize the IP purely for a computer game I disagree that the evidence indicates that this is actually the current plan.
First off there is no real reason Hasbro can't try and have its cake and eat it too. The existance of online D&D does not preclude the existance of a table top version. In Hasbro's best case scenario they have both and they both make bucko bucks.
Except that would be a situation of Hasbro having their cake and you eating it too.
The simple fact is a TRPG does not make the kind of profit Hasbro expects. If an electronic product can that means Hasbro makes only the electronic product and passes on any other version.Beyond this I think that 4E is not actually a particualrly great base from which to make a computer game. Now I very much suspect that it can be done and I'd be a little surprised if it was not done but I think the 4E rules actually make it harder to create a computer program then the 3.5 rules.
The problem with making 4E into a computer game is the huge reliance on exception based rules, the general policy of stripping the rules down, and the move back to a system where the rules for the DM are not at all the same as the rules for the players.
Actually 4E would be a lot easier to program than 3.5. The options are massively more restricted than 3.5 allowing much easier programming.
As for exception based rules, that is what virtually all gaming is. The task is cutting down the exceptions to make programming them all easier. So yes, expect a lot fewer options overall. Perhaps each class only gets one design path in such a game.Essentially all the places where the DM steps in to make a rules call in 4E now must be addressed by the coders themselves - coders that are not the games designers and hence will potentially unbalance the game with their made up rules interpretations. At a minimum that means more time play testing the program to see if what the coders have done actually works well with the game.
Just because the coders are not game designers does not mean they will not wind up making the rules decisions.
Of course that begs the question as to whether coders are game designers or not. Looking at the credits of most CRPGs, they tend have very competent design crews on staff, they are just much smaller than most TRPG companies support.Hence a lot of the core features in 4E make creating a computer version of the game more difficult and more expencive. It'll take longer to code and play test and it therefore cost more.
Unless they cut things down until its workable like all the existing MMORPGs and CRPGs have managed over the years.
What Hasbro sees in WoW is a phenominal player base - a back of the envelope calculation of Blizzards revenue is simply astounding. Now Hasbro, along with the other major international toy companies, uses a sales model thats similar to the sales model used by the book and record industry. The goal is to find a break out product and the major problem is that the vast majority of products are money losers. Its impossible to predict, ahead of time, which products will be the break out ones.
Well, no.
Hasbro markets IP, not games.If the marketing results say make it a game, they make it a game. If they say make it a toy, they make it a toy. If they say make it a TV show, they make it a TV show. If they say make it a digital product, they license it or eventually create their own digital division.
And they have, typically, relied on letting others spend the R&D bucks while they just buy the product when it shows it has legs. That is why they bought WotC. Unfortunately the company that makes Pokemon pulled that license shortly afterwards leaving Hasbro to try and figure out how to make money from Magic and D&D.
I think its essentially here that we see a lot of the similarities and I don't think that the goal is to emulate 'Aggro'. No one believes that middle aged house wives are playing WoW because of how 'Aggro' is modelled. However Blizzard has done something fundamentally right with their product and WotC is copying aspects of this wherever they can both identify them and feel it makes sense to port the concepts over to a table top RPG.
If so, that is the problem.
Hasbro does not care about copying WoW as a game, they care about copying WoW as a cash cow.I see absolutely no indication that Magic The Gathering is not still selling phenomenally well. The Pro Tour seems to be growing by leaps and bounds and the new sets continue to do extremely well. Until Magic tanks WotC is unlikely to be absorbed by Hasbro - its bad policy to mess with the goose that lays the golden eggs
Magic does make money.
Magic is also making 30+% of its profits from Magic Online.If Hasbro can get Magic Online to function better and expand that, then cut physical card production to pump profits even higher, you can bet they will.
Just like if Hasbro recognizes that the various D&D novels make money the way the TRPG never does you will see the novels get a mega-boost while the TRPG quietly disappears.
Just like if Hasbro recognizes that the various D&D novels make money the way the TRPG never does you will see the novels get a mega-boost while the TRPG quietly disappears.
Here's the bazillion dollar question, from where I'm sitting at least- would that be a good thing or a bad thing?