Rich Baker laid off from WoTC [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Psyren

2011-12-15, 01:23 PM

Link to Wizards forum. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/28769231/Rich_Baker_let_go_from_Wizards._What_does_this_mea n?pg=1)

Not a fan of this D&D tradition. :smallannoyed:

*checks blog*
Ooh, he's handsome.

According to his Wiki page, also PS Monstrous Compendium II, Tome of Battle, Complete Arcane and the Red Hand of Doom. Pretty impressive list.

He's also credited on the cover of Magic of Incarnum.

So they can't afford to keep the talent employed? Is 4e pulling its weight?

TheCountAlucard

2011-12-15, 01:25 PM

Yeah, similar stuff over at White Wolf; John Chambers lost his job, y'know...

Essence_of_War

2011-12-15, 01:31 PM

So they can't afford to keep the talent employed? Is 4e pulling its weight?

My thoughts exactly.

What a shame, easily one of my favorites. :smallconfused::smallfrown:

Kurald Galain

2011-12-15, 01:43 PM

Is 4e pulling its weight?
According to stores owners on e.g. Enworld, it's being consistently outsold by Pathfinder. Then again, being second place in the global market should definitely qualify as "pulling its weight".

Yora

2011-12-15, 01:57 PM

Wow, I just realized that he wrote for 2E Spelljammer. That's an impressive career, and a lousy time to get kicked out.

Oh, Steve Winter, another oldbie, is gone too.

Didn't he create Birthright?

Psyren

2011-12-15, 02:40 PM

According to stores owners on e.g. Enworld, it's being consistently outsold by Pathfinder. Then again, being second place in the global market should definitely qualify as "pulling its weight".

Does it? Even if they have high revenues, their costs are likely pretty high too.

I mean, the one fact we have from this is that he was "let go" i.e. it was involuntary. I'm not saying that I know RB from Adam or anything, but I doubt he was fired for malfeasance. Given his long tenure and portfolio of high-quality products, the most likely explanation is that they couldn't afford him.

Reynard

2011-12-15, 02:45 PM

Yeah, similar stuff over at White Wolf; John Chambers lost his job, y'know...

Wait, what? How did that come about?

TheCountAlucard

2011-12-15, 03:51 PM

Wait, what? How did that come about?Actually, it was a little while ago - if you wanna go ahead and check the WW forums, the other freelancers talked about it.

eepop

2011-12-15, 04:34 PM

According to stores owners on e.g. Enworld, it's being consistently outsold by Pathfinder. Then again, being second place in the global market should definitely qualify as "pulling its weight".

Even then the store owners only ever see 4E Books vs Pathfinder Books.

The real equation of if 4E is pulling its weight is 4E Books + DDI. And storefronts are going to know nothing more about DDI than any random one of us.

kyoryu

2011-12-15, 04:41 PM

Does it? Even if they have high revenues, their costs are likely pretty high too.

I mean, the one fact we have from this is that he was "let go" i.e. it was involuntary. I'm not saying that I know RB from Adam or anything, but I doubt he was fired for malfeasance. Given his long tenure and portfolio of high-quality products, the most likely explanation is that they couldn't afford him.

In my experience, it's equally likely that they are moving the line in a direction that doesn't really require his expertise. That, or internal politics. With Monte coming back, perhaps either those two have vastly differing views, or simply don't get along.

Arbane

2011-12-15, 06:51 PM

now Rich Baker and Steve Winter fired two weeks before Christmas (which is apparently a grand tradition at WotC)..

I really have to wonder which soulless bean-counter first decided that RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS was the best time to be handing out pink slips. :smallmad:

The Glyphstone

2011-12-15, 06:51 PM

I really have to wonder which soulless bean-counter first decided that RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS was the best time to be handing out pink slips. :smallmad:

The same soulless bean counters that have been doing this at WoTC for years, by all appearances.

kyoryu

2011-12-15, 07:07 PM

The same soulless bean counters that have been doing this at WoTC for years, by all appearances.

Maybe they should change the beginning of their fiscal year from 1/1?

Arbane

2011-12-15, 11:08 PM

The same soulless bean counters that have been doing this at WoTC for years, by all appearances.

I know, I meant the first one to come up with the whole idea, not just at WotC.

(Remember something called "job security"? .... Me neither.)

ShneekeyTheLost

2011-12-15, 11:13 PM

According to stores owners on e.g. Enworld, it's being consistently outsold by Pathfinder. Then again, being second place in the global market should definitely qualify as "pulling its weight".

Wait... it's being outsold by what started out as a bunch of houserules for 3.5 and it's considered to be 'pulling its weight'?

I can't wait until Legend gets on Enworld and see what that does to the numbers...

Seriously, when a third-party group of houserules that turned into an 'edition fix' of your previous edition is out-selling your current edition... you know you went the wrong direction...

Wyntonian

2011-12-15, 11:41 PM

Seriously, when a third-party group of houserules that turned into an 'edition fix' of your previous edition is out-selling your current edition... you know you went the wrong direction...

The force is strong with this one. Couldn't have said it better myself.

kaomera

2011-12-16, 09:01 AM

Wait... it's being outsold by what started out as a bunch of houserules for 3.5 and it's considered to be 'pulling its weight'?
DDI has become the 4e ''core book''. Not a big fan of that idea, but it's the way WotC has gone. Pathfinder has the SRD, but not only is it not the same thing, but I think that at least some of the players who really prefer actual physical books probably looked at their 3.5 collections and at the very least decided that they would just give 4e a try rather than immediately switching everything over. 4e may have more appeal to new players (in some ways), but there are few enough new players coming in to the hobby right now, an I think a lot of them come in via established play groups.

Kymme

2011-12-16, 12:51 PM

Wow, honestly, just wow.
Way to go, WOTC :smallamused:.

pendell

2011-12-16, 01:16 PM

I really have to wonder which soulless bean-counter first decided that RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS was the best time to be handing out pink slips. :smallmad:

The same bean counters, no doubt, who are charged with showing a profit at the end of the fiscal year and of the quarter. Gotta get the numbers as far into the black as possible for that end-of-the-year report.

No doubt the accounting has already been subcontracted to a shop in Mechanus, so "soul" doesn't enter into the equation.

Sadly,

Brian P.

JaronK

2011-12-16, 02:33 PM

As a note, it's better to fire someone before Christmas than after. Many people accumulate debts and base their present spending on their jobs... if you fire someone right after, they've often overspent. Also, suicide season is right after Christmas and New Years (January-Early February) so firing someone then is especially bad. So a bean counter with a soul would insist on firing him now instead of in a month.

With that said, Monte Cook is a fool and Tome of Battle was amazing.

JaronK

Seerow

2011-12-16, 03:01 PM

Could be worse, they could have fired him on Christmas Eve.

Psyren

2011-12-16, 03:41 PM

With that said, Monte Cook is a fool and Tome of Battle was amazing.

As was MoI.

*continues raging*

Narren

2011-12-16, 04:13 PM

I really have to wonder which soulless bean-counter first decided that RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS was the best time to be handing out pink slips. :smallmad:

Though it will dampen the festivities, it might not be AS bad as it sounds to be let go right before Christmas. Most companies will give their employees a severance package, so money will still be coming in for awhile. Of course, I have no idea if that happened in this case, but I'd be a bit surprise if it didn't.

Tiki Snakes

2011-12-16, 05:29 PM

According to stores owners on e.g. Enworld, it's being consistently outsold by Pathfinder. Then again, being second place in the global market should definitely qualify as "pulling its weight".

As someone who was very positive about the edition and it's direction shortly after the dust had settled on the Dark Sun book (with website based shenanigans and an inexplicable drought of products following that), I'd be facinated to see some kind of timeline style comparison of the two, to be honest.

Eldan

2011-12-16, 05:44 PM

As was MoI.

*continues raging*

Wait, he did ToB and MoI, as well as Birthright and Spelljammer?

Can this man please be given his own company?

Kurald Galain

2011-12-16, 06:47 PM

As someone who was very positive about the edition and it's direction shortly after the dust had settled on the Dark Sun book (with website based shenanigans and an inexplicable drought of products following that), I'd be facinated to see some kind of timeline style comparison of the two, to be honest.

As near as I can tell...

Pathfinder was officially released in summer 2009, but took some time to pick up steam, so to speak. In summer 2010 they took off with the Advanced Player's Guide and Gamemaster's Guide, with more books planned to follow, and organized play being set up.

At the same time, in summer 2010, WOTC released the Dark Sun books and then quietly dropped pretty much all of their books in production, including the entire line for 2011. At around the same time, the content of Dragon magazine hit an all-time low, they replaced the popular character builder with an inferior product, and they withdrew support from the Living Forgotten Realms. Then a few months later they came up with HOFL/HOFK, which had a rather mixed reception; announced some other 4.4 books that were quietly withdrawn; and finally ended up with the impopular HOS.

So it strikes me that 4E had a number of issues right at the time when PF really took off. It is not hard to imagine how these issues could cause fans to either stop buying WOTC books, or to jump ship to PF; or how they could encourage new players to start with PF rather than 4E. It's conjecture, but it explains pretty well why PF would be outselling 4E.

Lappy9001

2011-12-16, 07:07 PM

How unfortunate...

The guy had his name on half the sourcebooks I own. He certainly knew his stuff, and I wish him the best of luck in this hard time :smallfrown:

deuxhero

2011-12-16, 08:18 PM

snip

Wonder what the odds of him showing up at Pazio are then.

Metahuman1

2011-12-16, 08:29 PM

Wait, he did ToB and MoI, as well as Birthright and Spelljammer?

Can this man please be given his own company?

Motion Seconded! Anyone wish to vote to carry?

Also, I saw mentioned on this topic something called DDI? What on earth is DDI, I do not recognize that term/acronym.

Mercenary Pen

2011-12-16, 08:37 PM

Also, I saw mentioned on this topic something called DDI? What on earth is DDI, I do not recognize that term/acronym.

Short for D&D Insider- being the WotC paid-for monthly subscription including online Dungeon and Dragon magazine as well as various tool programs for character/monster creation etc.

Metahuman1

2011-12-16, 08:42 PM

Ah. I vaguely remember when 4E first hit shelves checking it out and hearing form some people who at that time were embracing the edition change about a D&D Insider character builder on the web-site.

So, look's like WotC's strategy of going for the lowest common denominator and then trying to compete with WoW might be starting to come undone?

Aron Times

2011-12-16, 09:58 PM

So, look's like WotC's strategy of going for the lowest common denominator and then trying to compete with WoW might be starting to come undone?

Seriously, don't turn this into an edition war with this elitist statement. Not playing 4e or WoW does not make you somehow "superior" to those that do. We're all nerds, and we should be celebrating how mainstream nerd culture has become instead of bashing others' preferences.

I dislike WoW myself, but only because its presence makes us old school Warcraft fans lose hope of ever seeing Warcraft 4. This is still not an excuse to bash WoW players.

Edit: Back on topic...

It almost seems like the Magic division of Wizards is an entirely different company from the D&D division. Wizards has an excellent reputation among Magic: The Gathering players, and the developers are on good terms with the game's creator; they have an open seat for Richard Garfield whenever he wants to get involved in a set.

Compare this to the D&D division, which has seen a lot of talent laid off and bad business decisions abound.

Really strange if you ask me.

TheCountAlucard

2011-12-16, 10:33 PM

and we should be celebrating how mainstream nerd culture has becomeI'm not sure if I agree with this. :smallconfused:

I mean, I'm fine with not breaking out into an edition war, but I dunno if geek culture turning mainstream is a good thing.

raxies94

2011-12-17, 02:11 AM

This is pretty saddening. I'm a pretty big fan of his work. With any luck, perhaps Paizo will pick him up. I can only imagine the goodness of Tome of Battle in Pathfinder.

Tiki Snakes

2011-12-17, 11:04 AM

Yeah, looking at it laid out in a rough timescale like that, Kurald, it doesn't seem so suprising. It may be conjecture, but it also looks like a pretty safe bet.

Metahuman1

2011-12-17, 01:17 PM

This is pretty saddening. I'm a pretty big fan of his work. With any luck, perhaps Paizo will pick him up. I can only imagine the goodness of Tome of Battle in Pathfinder.

Again, Motion Seconded, who's for voting to carry?!!!!

Maybe will also get a better laid out version of Magic of Incarnum? (A little better organization would fix the lions share of the problems with that supplement. And a bit of splat book support wouldn't go amiss either. )

Arbane

2011-12-17, 04:44 PM

As a note, it's better to fire someone before Christmas than after. Many people accumulate debts and base their present spending on their jobs... if you fire someone right after, they've often overspent.

I hadn't thought of that. Good point.

Also, suicide season is right after Christmas and New Years (January-Early February) so firing someone then is especially bad.

Can't help thinking the Firing Season being followed by Suicide Season may correlate...

With that said, Monte Cook is a fool and Tome of Battle was amazing.

Yep.

Infernalbargain

2011-12-17, 10:08 PM

Seriously, don't turn this into an edition war with this elitist statement. Not playing 4e or WoW does not make you somehow "superior" to those that do. We're all nerds, and we should be celebrating how mainstream nerd culture has become instead of bashing others' preferences.

I dislike WoW myself, but only because its presence makes us old school Warcraft fans lose hope of ever seeing Warcraft 4. This is still not an excuse to bash WoW players.

Edit: Back on topic...

It almost seems like the Magic division of Wizards is an entirely different company from the D&D division. Wizards has an excellent reputation among Magic: The Gathering players, and the developers are on good terms with the game's creator; they have an open seat for Richard Garfield whenever he wants to get involved in a set.

Compare this to the D&D division, which has seen a lot of talent laid off and bad business decisions abound.

Really strange if you ask me.

It seems to me that 4th is a result of WotC getting Hasborg'd. MtG is not all peachy keen upon close analysis. Compare U/G madness from Oddessy and Goblins from Onslaught to the modern decks such as Sunfire Titan. It will be interesting to see what happens to see if Baker's share of Faerun will get armageddoned.

turkishproverb

2011-12-17, 10:13 PM

So long Rick. You were one of the good one's there. Hopefully you'll find a new and successful position.

Kurald Galain

2011-12-17, 10:40 PM

MtG is not all peachy keen upon close analysis. Compare U/G madness from Oddessy and Goblins from Onslaught to the modern decks such as Sunfire Titan.

Okay, what do you mean by that?

Infernalbargain

2011-12-17, 11:14 PM

Okay, what do you mean by that?

Compare Thoughtseize to duress to despise. It gets worse if you're looking for card advantage. The analysis is much too long for a forum post.

Pink

2011-12-18, 12:25 AM

Why all the hate on the accountants? All we do is crunch the numbers and create the reports. It's management that then decides what to do with those numbers. ;-;

Arbane

2011-12-18, 12:33 AM

Why all the hate on the accountants? All we do is crunch the numbers and create the reports. It's management that then decides what to do with those numbers. ;-;

And then, you can trace the blame to stockholders who insist on not just profits, but MORE profits every year. :smallmad:

kpenguin

2011-12-18, 03:19 AM

Why wouldn't they insist on them? Investing in a company's stock is a monetary venture. They would hardly invest if they did not expect an increase in profits and, thus, an increase in stock value.

VanBuren

2011-12-18, 03:38 AM

I'm not sure if I agree with this. :smallconfused:

I mean, I'm fine with not breaking out into an edition war, but I dunno if geek culture turning mainstream is a good thing.

Please don't. As a Seattleite, I often turn to Geekdom in an effort to escape from my hipster overlords. :smallfrown:

Gnorman

2011-12-18, 03:48 AM

Please don't. As a Seattleite, I often turn to Geekdom in an effort to escape from my hipster overlords. :smallfrown:

Stay away from the Hill and you should be fine.

Tvtyrant

2011-12-18, 03:50 AM

It almost seems like the Magic division of Wizards is an entirely different company from the D&D division. Wizards has an excellent reputation among Magic: The Gathering players, and the developers are on good terms with the game's creator; they have an open seat for Richard Garfield whenever he wants to get involved in a set.

Compare this to the D&D division, which has seen a lot of talent laid off and bad business decisions abound.

Really strange if you ask me.

I think they suffer from many of the same mistakes, with the difference that they simply eliminate all the older cards each year so the problems are in a state of flux. I know of at least a half dozen infinite loops in MtG, and at least 2 that existed in a self-contained release. There are infinite token loops, infinite damage, etc.

VanBuren

2011-12-18, 05:22 AM

Stay away from the Hill and you should be fine.

They're worse in the Fremont/Queen Anne area which, unfortunately, is where I am. Luckily, they don't know how to respond if you tell them that they're too mainstream for you.

Gnorman

2011-12-18, 01:23 PM

They're worse in the Fremont/Queen Anne area which, unfortunately, is where I am. Luckily, they don't know how to respond if you tell them that they're too mainstream for you.

Maaaaan. When did that happen? I used to like Queen Anne.

Fremont, however, is still (and always was) the butthole of the universe.

kaomera

2011-12-18, 01:42 PM

Why wouldn't they insist on them? Investing in a company's stock is a monetary venture. They would hardly invest if they did not expect an increase in profits and, thus, an increase in stock value.
Because constantly increasing profits is not a sustainable goal. Stocks are either short-term, risky, high-profit ventures (invest in a start-up, sell off stock once it's worth multiple times what you paid for it because it fills a newly-recognized need) or longer-term, reliable, small-profit ones (blue chip stocks; companies that are good at fulfilling an already-recognized need). The problem is everyone wants ongoing high-profit investments, with the results of ever-increasing prices for consumer products and rising global economic instability. (It's kind of like D&D - you get to a higher level, but all of the DCs go up as well, so you're fighting to keep your head above water.)

The stock market is headed towards becoming nothing more than gambling and a giant sham. When money and not products or labor makes money, then none of the money has any value. Fortunately, as bad as things look now, we aren't really to that point yet (at least IMO). Unfortunately the people who either believe that this can never happen or that it's too far gone to stop could push us over that edge.

Lateral

2011-12-18, 05:54 PM

I think they suffer from many of the same mistakes, with the difference that they simply eliminate all the older cards each year so the problems are in a state of flux. I know of at least a half dozen infinite loops in MtG, and at least 2 that existed in a self-contained release. There are infinite token loops, infinite damage, etc.

See, though, that isn't really so much of a problem in Magic, because Magic is, fundamentally, a competitive card game- unlike roleplaying games like D&D, the purpose is to win. As long as those infinite loops aren't ridiculously easy to pull off, they're fine- usually, they require drawing several specific cards, are late-game, require cards from very different sets (making them only viable in formats like Extended, Vintage, or Legacy), and/or utilize already-expensive (price-wise) cards.

For casual play, this isn't a problem, since you either build a deck around a trick- making a fun, but specialized, deck- or else they're too expensive for most people who just play the game casually to bother with. For tournament play, these almost never come up unless it's a constructed-deck tournament, and infinite loops rarely pop up even then unless you're playing Vintage, Legacy, or sometimes Extended. Most of the fun of Vintage/Legacy is the crazy early-game win strategies, anyway.

Pokonic

2011-12-18, 05:59 PM

To be fair, I am sure that there is a seat open for him in Pazio.:smallamused:

I think we could go with a new adventure path, amiright?

gooddragon1

2011-12-18, 06:36 PM

The same bean counters, no doubt, who are charged with showing a profit at the end of the fiscal year and of the quarter. Gotta get the numbers as far into the black as possible for that end-of-the-year report.

No doubt the accounting has already been subcontracted to a shop in Mechanus, so "soul" doesn't enter into the equation.

Sadly,

Brian P.

I know some accounting majors in some of my economics classes and they're alright people. It's just that some people aren't very nice.

Also, I think WoW is a great game that I'd play if it weren't so expensive. However, it is not a substitute for a PnP and any PnP endeavoring to move in that direction will lose out to something already there quite handily.

Leliel

2011-12-18, 06:47 PM

I'm not sure if I agree with this. :smallconfused:

I mean, I'm fine with not breaking out into an edition war, but I dunno if geek culture turning mainstream is a good thing.

Oh, go cry me a river.

Mainstream can only be good. It does not mysteriously devalue if the laymen like it.

I really don't see where this line of reasoning comes from.

Mephit

2011-12-18, 06:56 PM

It almost seems like the Magic division of Wizards is an entirely different company from the D&D division. Wizards has an excellent reputation among Magic: The Gathering players, and the developers are on good terms with the game's creator; they have an open seat for Richard Garfield whenever he wants to get involved in a set.

Compare this to the D&D division, which has seen a lot of talent laid off and bad business decisions abound.

Really strange if you ask me.

M:TG is just an extremely well run product, I don't know how they do it. Everyone who can compare their game of choice to M:TG, either by it being another WotC product or another TCG is envious of those guys.
The base of the game is really well designed with a mana resource system that puts limits to what you can play in one turn. The set rotations in standard keep the game interesting, limit the amount of silly combos, and remove the need for powercreep. Finally, the sets themselves are really well designed.

Weezer

2011-12-18, 06:59 PM

Oh, go cry me a river.

Mainstream can only be good. It does not mysteriously devalue if the laymen like it.

I really don't see where this line of reasoning comes from.

As long as there continues to be products that cater to people willing to put in an effort and deal with a steep learning curve, I won't complain.

However that gets really hard to do if you are chasing after the mainstream audience. The same thing can be seen in film, small, independent films are able to experiment and pull off things that no studio searching for mainstream profits would ever do. Mainstream, to an extent, can eliminate risk taking behavior due to the simple fact that risks have a good chance of not returning on investments if what you need for a return is mass appeal.

Leliel

2011-12-18, 11:50 PM

As long as there continues to be products that cater to people willing to put in an effort and deal with a steep learning curve, I won't complain.

However that gets really hard to do if you are chasing after the mainstream audience. The same thing can be seen in film, small, independent films are able to experiment and pull off things that no studio searching for mainstream profits would ever do. Mainstream, to an extent, can eliminate risk taking behavior due to the simple fact that risks have a good chance of not returning on investments if what you need for a return is mass appeal.

Ooohhh.

That...makes more sense.

The sad part is, the mainstream likes the experimental, risky stuff. It's just that shareholders are divorced from the reality around them.

Knaight

2011-12-19, 12:41 AM

However that gets really hard to do if you are chasing after the mainstream audience. The same thing can be seen in film, small, independent films are able to experiment and pull off things that no studio searching for mainstream profits would ever do. Mainstream, to an extent, can eliminate risk taking behavior due to the simple fact that risks have a good chance of not returning on investments if what you need for a return is mass appeal.
Film is one of the most mainstream art forms there is, and yet both the very large companies producing to formula and smaller companies experimenting exist - along with the occasional major director who produces experimental work, and the numerous small companies producing to formula. Then there are books, which are also incredibly mainstream, where we see repetitive genre fiction in all genres, and actual innovative work (in all genres). Then there are video games, in which we also see the exact same thing. Do you really think that would change when RPGs get major? Particularly given the existing dynamic of a few gigantic companies (WotC and Paizo, with SJG, White Wolf, and smaller d20 third parties being the second tier of big) that produce mostly according to formula, and a huge amount of smaller companies producing independent work?

Weezer

2011-12-19, 01:06 AM

Ooohhh.

That...makes more sense.

The sad part is, the mainstream likes the experimental, risky stuff. It's just that shareholders are divorced from the reality around them.

I don't know if I would go that far, if that were true why do Michael Bay films gross so highly whereas with stuff from people like Kubrick you're lucky if your mainstream audience would sit through 10 minutes of it, let alone enjoy the whole movie. That's not to say if you don't like Kubrick you're less than me, tastes are subjective, just had to use an example.

Film is one of the most mainstream art forms there is, and yet both the very large companies producing to formula and smaller companies experimenting exist - along with the occasional major director who produces experimental work, and the numerous small companies producing to formula. Then there are books, which are also incredibly mainstream, where we see repetitive genre fiction in all genres, and actual innovative work (in all genres). Then there are video games, in which we also see the exact same thing. Do you really think that would change when RPGs get major? Particularly given the existing dynamic of a few gigantic companies (WotC and Paizo, with SJG, White Wolf, and smaller d20 third parties being the second tier of big) that produce mostly according to formula, and a huge amount of smaller companies producing independent work?

I just think it's something to be careful about, to use your examples there was a time in the video games industry, not too many years ago where it was hard to find a decently produced game that wasn't formulaic schlock. Of course recently the rise of indie games has filled that niche nicely, but for a bit my 'doomsday' scenario of mainstream degrading riskiness/experimentation came to pass.

I think in many ways my big problem with this is the process of seeing what I enjoy about a medium (be it mechanically complex rule sets in RPGs or actual good, experimental cinematography in film) pushed from the center of the medium to the outskirts in an attempt to attract a mainstream audience.

VanBuren

2011-12-19, 04:22 AM

What.

People love Kubrick. I've yet to meet a person that didn't enjoy Dr. Strangelove.

TheCountAlucard

2011-12-19, 05:36 AM

Mainstream can only be good.I beg to differ.

Like a previous poster pointed out, mainstream does not take risks; it is non-threatening. Mainstream stuff is, generally speaking, not intelligent.

Now, some of this stuff is going to vary depending on what exactly you're looking at, naturally, but generally speaking, when something makes the transition from small-time, it gets dumbed-down. Dark story elements that the public might not immediately understand? Cut loose in the process. Years and years of complicated backstory? Dropped.

The sad part is, the mainstream likes the experimental, risky stuff.That's why Serenity and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World were so successful. :smallannoyed:

Kurald Galain

2011-12-19, 05:53 AM

The sad part is, the mainstream likes the experimental, risky stuff.

No, they really don't. Almost all of the expirimental, risky stuff is a big flop; it's just that these are flops that most people will never hear of, whereas there are just a few well-known exceptions that everybody does hear about.

Sir_Mopalot

2011-12-19, 06:01 AM

Exactly. If most of them didn't flop, it wouldn't be risky. The problem is they haven't found a way to balance it kind of like the music industry, where only one out of every ten or so "discoveries" makes money, but that one makes enough money that it pays for all of them. With movies, even short films can cost well over a million dollars, not counting distribution costs. So you need to be able to guarantee not just that your hit will be a hit, but that it will make dozens of times its own costs.

gbprime

2011-12-19, 01:11 PM

No, they really don't. Almost all of the expirimental, risky stuff is a big flop; it's just that these are flops that most people will never hear of, whereas there are just a few well-known exceptions that everybody does hear about.

Exactly. Look at the book publishing world. The mainstream publishing houses are constantly on the search for the Previous Big Thing.

Overused example... Harry Potter. This got bounced around between lots of places until Scholastic decided to try it. Boom. Now every publishing house is trying out 2 or 3 knockoffs to cash in on the Previous Big Thing. But are they looking for new things that push the envelope even further? Of course not, those don't even get past the submission pile.

Same thing happened with MtG. Magic took the world by storm, and within 4 years, the world was flooded with pale copies.

No, experimental risky stuff grabs all the headlines, but it is actually the rarest of the rare. People only like it after it has become successful.