mearls: A Prediction

Mearls (

mearls) wrote,
@ 2005-07-04 14:30:00

A Prediction
Mongoose has announced that they are bringing back Runequest. IMO, this signals a touchstone event in the timeline of economics of the RPG business.

These are my predictions for the next few years in the RPG business.

1. The first wave of print d20 companies are mostly gasping for air. Simply put, with one exception they failed. Nobody in the RPG business understands how open source works. I can count on half of one hand the number of people who understand d20 enough to build products for it.

2. Non-d20 companies have been locked in an ever-downward spiral. We haven't seen a bump up in their sales as the d20 companies have failed. Oddly enough, d20 companies seem to think that leaping over to non-d20 games (or d20 crippleware) is the way to go. There hasn't been any evidence (aside from message board chatter) to suggest that this strategy is working.

3. The time period from this summer and into the next year or so will be the last stand for most of the "industry."

4. After that period of collapse, the RPG industry will slide into a situation similar to what we see with miniatures, TCGs, and CMGs - one major player, one to three mid-tier players, and no one else of economic consequence.

5. If a theoretical 4e is open sourced, we'll see a much healthier growth of the industry around it. The growth curve will be shallower but longer.

To paraphrase Ryan Dancey, a madman is anyone who keeps doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result (though never seeing it) every time.

The RPG "industry" is chock full of madmen.

(77 comments) - (Post a new comment)

rob_donoghue
2005-07-04 09:37 pm UTC (link)

Only one? Just looking at it, there appear to be maybe 2-3 robust players in that space. Certainly, it does not change the principle of most of the d20 market not getting it (and virtually all of the d20 market certain that nobody else gets it), but you say 1 and I admit, I can't tell if you mean Malhavoc? Green Ronin? Mongoose? Or are you saying RQ == Kiss of death. Hell, you could just as easily be talking White Wolf. Sure, sword and sorcery may no longer produce their own stuff, but a model based on producing and distributing other people's material seems like it may be the truest understanding of what d20 is really about out there. :)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	rob_donoghue 2005-07-04 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	And I note, genuinely asking, not just snarking. I may simply not have enough visibility to see the one clear winner. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-04 09:53 pm UTC

(no subject) -

mearls, 2005-07-04 10:18 pm UTC

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2005-07-05 02:50 pm UTC

(no subject) -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-05 08:09 pm UTC

(no subject) -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-04 10:20 pm UTC

Mongoose Mularkey -

pwca, 2005-07-05 12:23 am UTC

Re: Mongoose Mularkey -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-05 12:28 am UTC

Re: Mongoose Mularkey -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-05 12:31 am UTC

mearls
2005-07-04 09:46 pm UTC (link)

I'll draw an analogy.

Why did TSR release the SAGA system? Think back to that time - 2e was sinking, TSR was in dire shape. Why do you think they released SAGA?

The interesting thing about the RPG business is that, as the d20 experiment made painfully clear, even as the market conditions change the thinking behind business decisions is the same now as it was in 1995.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-04 11:06 pm UTC

(no subject) -

rob_donoghue, 2005-07-05 11:53 am UTC

	jeffwik 2005-07-04 10:02 pm UTC (link)
	d20 crippleware? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	mearls 2005-07-04 10:17 pm UTC (link)
	Taking wonderful, lovely, open source material, and using it to design stuff that's as open source as a book buried under a rabid pile of cobras. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - (Anonymous), 2005-07-05 01:22 am UTC

(no subject) -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-05 01:35 am UTC

(no subject) -

rob_donoghue, 2005-07-05 05:19 pm UTC

(no subject) -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-05 07:58 pm UTC

(no subject) -

thebitterguy, 2005-07-05 01:22 am UTC

blakesrealm
2005-07-04 10:04 pm UTC (link)

I think that the problem, and in a lot of cases the best part, of the RPG industry is that for the most part the companies are started by lovers of the hobby that want to put their vision of the game(s) out for others to play. Same thing can be said for FLGS, Comic Shops, etc ...

So they enter into businesses without the basic knowledge of how to run them properly, at least when compared to someone opening a franchise type store, or a publishing venture. The few that do it correctly, that have a good product to back up their business smarts, are the ones that make it to be successful (Monte and Malhavoc rings a bell). The others fade away, even if their product was far superior to the bigger fish in the pond.

Just my .02.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

mearls
2005-07-04 10:20 pm UTC (link)

"The others fade away, even if their product was far superior to the bigger fish in the pond."

I completely disagree with this part. We've seen time and again that tiny companies with good products succeed and become big boys, even if they make lots of business mistakes. The companies that fail invariably have bad products from the get go or make colossally bad business decisions (the company that published Shadowfist is the only example that comes to mind.)

A lot of the companies that become successful and grow eventually kill themselves with bad decisions.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

blakesrealm, 2005-07-04 11:14 pm UTC

(no subject) -

merricb, 2005-07-06 03:19 pm UTC

	danbuter 2005-07-04 10:42 pm UTC (link)
	I figured Green Ronin was still chugging along pretty well. Not the big fish, but still profitable. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	rentagurkha 2005-07-04 11:12 pm UTC (link)
	Green Ronin is not exactly a money-making machine. I'm not saying they're going under but I know that margins are tight. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	blakesrealm 2005-07-04 11:14 pm UTC (link)
	I know I'm looking forward to Theives World. They had a couple of sample copies that taunted me at Origins. Bastids! (Reply to this) (Parent)

brand_of_amber
2005-07-04 11:24 pm UTC (link)

Last I heard GR had been doing pretty well, until their distributor went tits up. Now they're surviving, and starting to regain ground, but having a rough time making it through.

Which is another part of the RPG industry that kills many small companies: the evils of the fulfillment house or going with the single distributor. If the house falls down, so do you. And yet it's a very common business model for newer and smaller publishers. (Although reading this journal makes me wonder how many of them were doomed anyway, and just took the collapse of their distribution network as a chance to bow out with public outrage on their side.)

I wish all luck to GR, I really like them and love their products, and the Superlink was good to me, but yea… they're having a spot of trouble ATM.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

entsuropi
2005-07-04 11:21 pm UTC (link)

It already looks that way. Kennith Hites, back in 2002, posted this column:
http://www.gamersrealm.com/store1/outofthebox.php?article_id=48
It goes into the exact sales figures of RPGs.

An overview, in his estimation, of the companies and their percentages:
Wizards of the Coast: 45%
White Wolf: 19%
Palladium Books: 8.8%
Alderac Entertainment Group: 7.8%
Steve Jackson Games: 5%
FanPro: 4%
Everyone else: ramen

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	djtiresias 2005-07-05 02:32 am UTC (link)
	His statistics are basically meaningless. Major bookstore sales and direct internet sales are not in his figures, but they probably make up the majority of the market. From the industry people I've talked with, it looks like most companies are going out of business or cutting down to "a guy in his basement" level. I dunno though, my sources are limited. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

rentagurkha, 2005-07-05 03:08 am UTC

(no subject) -

djtiresias, 2005-07-05 05:07 am UTC

wordwill
2005-07-04 11:29 pm UTC (link)

"Simply put, with one exception they failed."

Again, they failed to meet your definition of success. I contend that part of the trouble for RPGs as an "industry" (that is, as a body defined by not any but all outfits who have printed a product) is that a lot of companies in the business aren't in the business to succeed by common standards. They're in it to print one book or two books; they're in the vanity press business. By counting them and their mistakes in with companies with other goals, you're doing a disservice to your definition. You're weighting the "industry's" record by including fringe operations. In our business, the proportion of producers on the fringe to producers inside the walls is pretty odd, but I think it's important to keep that in mind.

A publisher whose goal is to buy as many meals as possible with money from their RPG days can still to be said to have succeeded. They just haven't done what you wanted them to do.

Also, unless Ryan Dancey was a formative member of AA, I don't think attributing AA's definition of insanity to him is really right on. Just saying.

word,
w

(Reply to this) (Thread)

brand_of_amber
2005-07-05 12:44 am UTC (link)

To add to wordwill's words, I think this part of the post is significant: "one major player, one to three mid-tier players, and no one else of economic consequence."

Not being of economic consequence does not mean being of no consequence in other ways: innovation, stupidity, pride, Forgism, or whatever. I know a lot of hobbiest publishers who just want their games to cover their printing and distribution expenses, and they're happy being econcomically inconsequential.

Some few of them are even making damn fine games at the same time.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

sailor_tech
2005-07-05 01:15 am UTC (link)

With the increase of e-books, do people think the older material will stay in print at least?

I know that with paper books, it's not worth running another print run if the book didn't sell well initially. As such, older books fade away to not available.

With e-books, the storage space is essentially non-existant, and selling only a few copies is profit for somebody. There would seem to be no reason, so long as the company is in business, that say all the 1st edition AD&D modules wouldn't still be in print in e-book format.

There were plenty of games from the 1980s or later that I'd like to have again. True, mostly to convert some small part to d20 game use, but still.

(Reply to this)

	djtiresias 2005-07-05 05:09 am UTC (link)
	I want to understand how d20 works well ennough to build products for it. I'm willing to work hard. What do I do? (Reply to this) (Thread)

mhacdebhandia
2005-07-05 07:50 am UTC (link)

Your comment in Mike's other post about not liking what D&D does and not knowing how to make it do what you want it to leads me to ask this:

How many other roleplaying game mechanics have you come to grips with?

I ask because I've seen dozens of people try to turn D&D and/or d20 into something it's just not meant to handle. I agree with Mike that generic games aren't the answer, but that means that the answer is designing something to do exactly what you want it to do, more or less from scratch.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) -

djtiresias, 2005-07-05 08:03 am UTC

	the_gneech 2005-07-05 12:51 pm UTC (link)
	I dunno, I'm beginning to suspect that 4e is already here, and it's called D&D Miniatures. Certainly Star Wars has gone that route. -The Gneech (Reply to this) (Thread)

merricb
2005-07-06 03:30 pm UTC (link)

D&D Miniatures is a separate beast from the RPG, even though many people both play the RPG and get the minis.

D&D Minis doesn't replace the RPG at all. It is either its own strategy game, or a supplement to the RPG. For some people, it is both.

The Star Wars RPG has run into a bunch of licensing issues, quite possibly due to low sales. Note that there are no RPG stats on the SWM cards.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	The answer? buzzmo 2005-07-05 05:50 pm UTC (link)
	Any chance mearls might reveal who the "one exception" is, or whot he "half a hand" worth of d20 designers are? I want to know who I should be emulating. :) (Reply to this)

Industry Impact

rsdancey
2005-07-05 09:15 pm UTC (link)

A number of companies have flourished in the post-d20 era that likely would not have existed without the OGL to enable them.

In addition, the two dozen or so d20 companies that were able to get more than one or two books into distribution were training grounds for a whole new generation of designers - even if the work they did was less than stellar, the feedback their work engendered likely taught them some important design lessons. Sturgeon's law will apply: Most of everything is crap - including new designers. But the non-crap percentage of the people who got a shot they might not otherwise have ever had will add value to our industry for years to come. Like you, for example.

RPGs are suffering right now from two problems of their own creation and four problems not of their own creation, and the combination of all six factors are stressing the business of RPG publishing nearly to the breaking point.

RPG's own problems:

1) RPGs in their current format are still "20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours".

2) Too few RPG designers regularly play the materials they write, and too few RPG publishers insist on effective playtesting of the materials they publish.

External problems:

3) The War On Terror has sucked several hundred thousand people in our core demographic out of the country, and put another several hundred thousand people also in our core demographic in the affected families into financially challenging circumstances.

4) The "new engine" of growth in our industry was organized play. Unfortunately, a whole new "organized play" format has taken the world by storm and it doesn't help the gaming industry at all. That storm is poker.

5) MMRPGs are finally starting to have an impact on tabletop RPG play patterns. World of Warcraft boasts more than a million active players. For the first time, I believe ther are more on-line RPG players than there are tabletop RPG players. People are making the decision to forgo tabletop game sessions in favor of on-line play sessions.

6) E-commerce is taking away a sizable share of traditional brick & mortar revenue. This revenue is being concentrated in a handful of brands like Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh! and D&D rather than being more liberally spread to middle tier publishers - because shoppers are less and less likely to see or become interested in a product they were not already shopping for.

These problems are all contributing to immense pressures on the local game store. Those pressures in turn are revealing what many of us in the industry have feared for several years: That the traditional game store model is not successful enough to generate enough profit for ownership to be worth the struggle to operate the stores. So the stores are closing.

The death spiral goes like this:

--> RPG publishers make product that isn't good enough to capture and keep a large player network.

--> Retail stores, undermined by forces beyond their control, and lacking effective products to fight back with, start to close in increasing numbers.

--> Publishers, seeing their traditional sales channels evaporating either fold as well, or attempt to change their model of distribution - likely by agressively embracing e-commerce. Which in turn makes it even harder to justify running a brick & mortal retail store.

--> With the local hub of the network severed, the acquisition engine also falters and new players stop being recruited into the hobby.

--> The total number of active RPG players declines as normal attrition is not replaced by sufficient new acqusition.

At this point, one of three things must happen:

1) RPGs cease being a viable business.

2) A new generation of outsiders, unshackled by the conventional wisdom of the original publishers arises with all new games, new customers, new play patterns and new channels of distribution.

3) Wizards of the Coast single-handedly keeps the RPG industry viable through an effective mass market acqusition strategy and the efforts of the RPGA, although it is a "viability" consisting only of small one and two person companies without much profit. At some point, an element of #2 (the new guys) may show up anyway and start growing the hobby without WotC's help.

I'm betting on WotC, but it won't be easy, and it won't be pretty.

Ryan

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Industry Impact bcwalker 2005-07-05 09:44 pm UTC (link)
	"20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours"? I probably do know what you're talking about, but I don't follow your use of terms. Could you please rephrase? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Industry Impact -

rsdancey, 2005-07-05 11:14 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

maliszew, 2005-07-05 11:22 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

rob_donoghue, 2005-07-06 01:37 am UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

rob_donoghue, 2005-07-06 01:43 am UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

rsdancey, 2005-07-06 02:32 am UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

rob_donoghue, 2005-07-06 04:31 am UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

andrewe, 2005-07-06 03:08 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

lucafabbricotti, 2005-07-13 10:31 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact - (Anonymous), 2005-07-08 12:48 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

die_kluge, 2005-07-08 06:09 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact - (Anonymous), 2005-07-13 10:22 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact - (Anonymous), 2005-07-25 03:01 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

andrewe, 2005-07-06 03:31 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

rob_donoghue, 2005-07-06 03:42 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact - (Anonymous), 2005-07-07 03:03 pm UTC

Re: Industry Impact - (Anonymous), 2005-07-17 04:02 am UTC

Re: Industry Impact -

the_never, 2005-07-11 04:00 pm UTC

Re: Twenty Minutes of Fun in Four Hours - (Anonymous), 2005-07-28 11:09 pm UTC

Vagueness
(Anonymous)
2005-07-05 09:23 pm UTC (link)

The claims made here are frustratingly vague. In addition, they appear to be mere assertions. Is there any data to back them up?

What does it mean to claim: "The first wave of print d20 companies are mostly gasping for air. Simply put, with one exception they failed."

What is meant by "failure" here? Mongoose's "Conan" game appears to have been a great success -- at least as far as I can tell (i.e. it appears to have a lot of support, new products, etc.). Green Ronin's "Mutants and Masterminds" game also appears to have been extremely successful. Is Mearls claiming that these companies, despite the success of these games, are in serious economic trouble? And is this because they 'do not understand' d20? I would think that Steve Kenson has a pretty good grasp of the underlying principles of the d20 system.

Also annoying is Mearl's assertion that non-d20 games have not been successful.

Is the new Warhammer RPG a failure? As far as I can tell, it appears to be doing quite well -- at the very least, it is being supported with a vigorous product release schedule. What about the NWoD series? (I don't play WW games, but every time I go into the game store there appears to be quite a bit of support for their games, incl. Exalted.)

Is it really true that Black Industries (the GW publishing house for the WFRP game) and White Wolf are in a "downward spiral"? I find that hard to believe.

In short, the claims being made seem to be so vague as to be meaningless.

-- Akrasia

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Vagueness (Anonymous) 2005-07-05 09:30 pm UTC (link)
	"In short, the claims being made seem to be so vague as to be meaningless." Sorry about that comment. I didn't mean to sound so snarky. ;) -- Akrasia (Reply to this) (Parent)

Re: Vagueness -

buzzmo, 2005-07-05 11:39 pm UTC

Re: Vagueness - (Anonymous), 2005-07-06 04:02 am UTC

Re: Vagueness -

buzzmo, 2005-07-06 02:10 pm UTC

Re: Vagueness - (Anonymous), 2005-07-07 12:24 am UTC

Re: Vagueness -

buzzmo, 2005-07-07 12:29 am UTC

Re: Vagueness -

danbuter, 2005-07-06 03:32 am UTC

Various comments
(Anonymous)
2005-07-06 05:39 am UTC (link)

I had thought the way to go was to make one's own version of a D20 Fantasy game, so you weren't dependent on WoTC. You really feel that's a dead-end route?

2 industry things I'm surprised hasn't happened:
1) The publishers of Dragon magazine haven't created their own D20 fantasy game or at least world, in some form.
2) Hasbro hasn't done a DC Comics and started imprinting other RPGs or D20 games. Examples: Have Mike bring over his Iron Heroes D20 system (like that Image comics guy did with his publication); or print a limited release re-print of AD&D and open source it.

I'm curious also to know which company you mean.

2004 market shares:

44% WotC (D&D, SW, Modern)
22% White Wolf (S&S, incl. A.U)
5% GURPS
4% AEG
3.5% FanPro
3.5% Pallidium
3% Mongoose
2% Green Ronin
1% (each)the rest......

- M.V.

(Reply to this)

IMO

_grimtales_
2005-07-06 11:21 am UTC (link)

D20 is going to be responsible for as big a game crash as GW pulling out of roleplaying in 1990 or the TCG bubble bursting.

Its going to take a lot of people down, then, perhaps, we'll see a resurgence of system-specific games - which is a good thing.

Despite the open nature of the OGL and d20 it really doesn't model anything other than dungeoneering very well, without big modifications. Moving to a central mechanic isn't new, just new for D&D and classes, levels, hitpoints are all clunkingly ancient.

IMO we're going to see a fracturing somewhat, the audience has grown up and grown into different tastes. Its not 'sad' to still be into computer games, SF, Fantasy etc at an older age any more so I think we'll move into the same sort of model as comics have.

We already have 'special editions' and collectables and we're already seeing a split between populist (WOTC = Marvel, White Wolf = Wildstorm) and artistic/independent.

You talk against reissuing the same thing but you're missing the appeal of Nostalgia. Re-releases of Planescape, Darksun or even Spelljammer would be hits. Paranoia XP has done well, HeroQuest seems to continue on just fine, the new Empire of the Petal Throne has gotten critical acclaim and I bet you anything Skyrealms of Jorune would do alright.

What's been lost in all this corporatisation is the art and soul, the inspiration. Money might be healthy for the industry but it tends to stifle creativity with financial concerns. Just look at Hollywood or television production.

The only real legacy is going to, probably, be a more open model amongst many companies - outside of the OGL. A way to legitimise and include fan material and to support a line without massive personal expenditure and effort.

Doing the same thing, when the audience and market has changed, isn't necessarily madness. Especially with higher production values and greater skill.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: IMO merricb 2005-07-06 03:25 pm UTC (link)
	Nostalgia is great, as is critical acclaim, but it doesn't always translate to continued sales. One factor to consider is how many supplements a game has, and how strongly they sell. When you start talking about supplements to a supplement (as is the case with Planescape and Spelljammer), then things really get troublesome. (Reply to this) (Parent)

crap is crap

ross_winn
2005-07-06 01:41 pm UTC (link)

the death of the RPG industry has been greatly exaggerated. when customers are excited about what we have to offer they spend wild amounts of money like they did when D&D 3e came out and the OGL world exploded. companies that offer compelling play and solid products sell. companies that simply offer more of the same workman-like shit go broke. too many of the companies in the OGL world are offering shit. how many books on dwarves do we need? how many prestige classes? make crap and get what you deserve, but when we make good products we do well.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: crap is crap
(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 12:40 am UTC (link)

The issue with gaming industry is the same as the issue with movie industry and the music industry - if there is something that excites the customers, the customers buy. If not, the customers don't buy. It's that simple.

We are in a major creativity lull in movies, music and games, and the result is a major lull in customer spending. There will be something coming up some time that will be as hot as Magic: The Gathering. When, where, or what, I don't know, but it will happen. Then, there will be everyone hopping on the band wagon, and companies will come and go because they produce crap and think it is just as good as the other guy. Unfortunately the reality is, 90% of everything is crap (thank you Mr. Sturgeon).

The killer for the gaming industry is not the crap, it is the razor thin margins. While a $35.00 game may look expensive, the publisher barely breaks even with that. E-Books may be the best solution. Publishing costs for a few thousand (or even tens of thousands) of books in full color is prohibitive. However, electronic publishing may actually get the margins back to reasonable levels. Because of the low margins there is no funding available for full testing, there is no funding for market research, and no funding for competent marketing. On top of that, there are way too many gamers with a word processor who think they can write a game and sell their crap cheaply, keeping the good games low price to compete.

The result is a case where too much competition has resulted in a worse and worse situation for the customer as businesses fail to figure out how to compete correctly.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	First wave? merricb 2005-07-06 03:08 pm UTC (link)
	Mike, what are (were) the "first wave" d20 companies? One of the oddities in CCG sales is that you have the old warhorse, Magic, that continues strongly, year after year, and then you have the games like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh that are very faddish in nature. Thus, extremely strong sales for a brief period, then a large drop-off in interest. (Reply to this)

Non-d20 Sales
(Anonymous)
2005-07-06 09:19 pm UTC (link)

> 2. Non-d20 companies have been locked in an ever-downward spiral. We
> haven't seen a bump up in their sales as the d20 companies have failed.

FWIW, we have seen a significant upsurge in sales of Ars Magica since the release of 5th Edition in November. The new edition itself is doing well (and has sold better than any RPG title we've released, including all our d20 books, since 2001). More revealing, though, is that the supplements we've published since 5th edition have sold 50%-75% better than the last of the 4th edition supplements. They've also sold substantially better than the last few d20 books that we published -- both in initial sales, and even more dramatically in terms of ongoing reorders. (d20 reorders = negligible; Ars Magica reorders = consistent and healthy.)

Overall, I do think that the RPG market is very challenged right now. Based on some data I see (including the growing strength of our RPG sales through Warehouse 23 -- our mail order partners -- and Amazon.com), I suspect that a lot of the problem is the fundamental poor financial health of the industry. Lacking a big cash cow (like Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh/clicky-games in their heydays), there has been a major ongoing contraction, doing a lot of collateral damage. One distributor (now out of business) told me that his sales in May were down 50% versus 2004 -- and that includes all categories. Stores that close up because their overhead was determined at a time when the market was flush with a series of hot products are no longer stocking anything...

> The RPG "industry" is chock full of madmen.

By Ryan's definition, madmen would still be churning out generic d20 rules crunch supplements that would compete, unsuccessfully, with the large WotC D&D catalog that now exists.

I suspect that the strategy of staking out market niches where WotC won't or can't compete (Mutants & Masterminds for superheroes, for example, or licensed settings) is the most viable approach to the d20 market right now. But smart survivor publishers have been diversifying into non-d20 RPGs and beyond RPGs entirely, too.

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
(who came from a link in a thread on RPG.net)

(Reply to this)

oh, and...
(Anonymous)
2005-07-06 09:55 pm UTC (link)

> I can count on half of one hand the number of people who understand
> d20 enough to build products for it.

I can't help but wonder...are you rounding up or down? If down, would Monte, Skip or Jonathan be the one not on the "understands" list? ;-)

How can D&D now be the best game in the RPG world, if no statistically significant portion of its users really grok it, even after 5 years of play? If essentially no one in the subset of players/GMs who became d20 writers really understand the game, how many of those who didn't become writers do? Or is just that they only can grok it well enough to utilize published materials written by the select handful that truly understand how the machinery works underneath the hood?

I've seen/heard you make this observation before, and it sort of makes me scratch my head. Sure, at the outset, a lot of d20 products were written by people who'd barely had time to read the rulebooks (me included)...but five years later, you're saying that still essentially no one has moved up from the vast pool of players to bring an understanding of the game (which, presumably, they would have been using in building materials for their home games) into the commercial arena.

If substantially all of the hundreds of thousands of active players are going along their merry way without "understanding," how useful is this definition of the term?

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

(Reply to this)

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