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MtlGuy
2013-07-29, 03:55 PM
Why is D&D like Kleenex? They're both brands of products that have become synonymous with the product itself. Tissue paper is often referred to as 'kleenex' the same same way D&D is synonymous with 'Fantasy themed RPG.'

D&D is inarguably the most popular and best known brand of fantasy RPG across the world. But what distinguishes D&D from other fantasy RPGs? What makes the D&D brand, D&D? Is it the rules? Is it the publisher? The setting and theme? Until someone can provide a better answer than "the brand makes it the brand" I'll leave it as they simply got there first, bringing their product to market, or it might have been called Monsters and Mazes (Dexter's Lab parody version). I may not be able to define its unique character, but I can define the product:

D&D, a fantasy themed RPG, is comprised of three core rule books (PHB/DMG/MM) that use a set of polyhedral dice as random number generators to determine the outcomes of actions taken in accordance with said rules. The three core rulebooks may be supplemented by additional rulebooks, campaign settings, miniatures, table maps, adventure modules et al. The product is promoted in and by other media such as video games, a cartoon, movies, and novels.

These questions are interesting to me because of the competition between Paizo and WotC over TSR's legacy. For TSR, it wasn't D&D's core book sales that did the company in, it was the saturation of the hardcover fantasy novel market that caused TSR to fail a saving throw vs. death by massive financial damage. That's important to point out, because if it was the core books that didn't sell, that would suggest that the core product itself had lost value, instead of the spin-off products that supported same. That being said, the lesson is the success or failure of the company that published the game had little to do with publishing the game. It also didn't help that TSR's response to WotC's MTG (Dragon Dice) was also a wash.

I think WotC's biggest problem isn't version wars, it's brand integrity and ownership. When someone describes Pathfinder as D&D 3.75 or 3.5/with a facelift and not "a fantasy RPG" WotC risks losing precisely what they bought from TSR. People aren't distinguishing the brand from the product and if Paizo's claims are to be believed they're not even buying WotC's brand.

Grinner
2013-07-29, 04:19 PM
Nothing is just one thing.

A religion is not just a set of beliefs.
Food is not just a pile of chemicals gathered for incorporation into an organism's body.
A computer is not just a device for performing complex calculations.

Actually, these things are just as described. Realistically, they are so much more.

D&D as a product is just like you said; it's a fantasy game played with polyhedral dice. D&D as a pastime is something else altogether, and it's different for each person.

Tengu_temp
2013-07-29, 05:18 PM
Actually, the supreme dominance of DND, where it's synonymous with RPGs and a lot of people aren't even aware non-DND RPGs exist, is a mostly American thing. In most European countries, the RPG scene is much more varied. Here, for example, DND only started growing to prominence in the early oughties, and was a small, niche game before that - and even now it covers maybe half of the market, not 90% of it. And there are almost no people who only play DND or use the word "DND" to mean "all RPGs".

Totally Guy
2013-07-29, 05:32 PM
I have only seen a handful of D&D games being run at RPG cons. Then again I've not attended cons where Paizo or WotC are directly represented.

Actually I now remember WotC were at NYCC when I was there in 2010 running some D&D. But that's not primarily an RPG con. I think that D&D have the brand recognition on their side to put in an appearance in such a situation.

Zombimode
2013-07-29, 06:00 PM
I have only seen a handful of D&D games being run at RPG cons. Then again I've not attended cons where Paizo or WotC are directly represented.

In my experience D&D is seldom played at convention not because it is unpopular, but because people come to conventions often for experiencing something new (or to promote lesser know games on the DM's side).

Also, D&D is normally played (and designed for) continuously over many month or even years with the same characters. The one-shot nature of convention adventures doesn't suit D&D very well, but there are LOADS of system that DO work very well under those conditions.

Eldan
2013-07-29, 06:07 PM
Actually, the supreme dominance of DND, where it's synonymous with RPGs and a lot of people aren't even aware non-DND RPGs exist, is a mostly American thing. In most European countries, the RPG scene is much more varied. Here, for example, DND only started growing to prominence in the early oughties, and was a small, niche game before that - and even now it covers maybe half of the market, not 90% of it. And there are almost no people who only play DND or use the word "DND" to mean "all RPGs".

Yeah. I know a dozen or so people who play RPGs. They play the Dark Eye, Vampire and Shadowrun. One has played D&D, once.

Alejandro
2013-07-29, 06:13 PM
D&D does cause its gamers to go through a lot of Kleenex when they argue about editions. :D

Felhammer
2013-07-29, 09:05 PM
I think WotC's biggest problem isn't version wars, it's brand integrity and ownership. When someone describes Pathfinder as D&D 3.75 or 3.5/with a facelift and not "a fantasy RPG" WotC risks losing precisely what they bought from TSR. People aren't distinguishing the brand from the product and if Paizo's claims are to be believed they're not even buying WotC's brand.

That's the risk WotC ran when they invented the OGL and its a legacy they will be dealing with for, well, ever.

Berenger
2013-07-29, 09:53 PM
Why is D&D like Kleenex?

Both are used by teenagers during some kind of wish fulfillment that is awkward to explain to your parents? :smallconfused:

Arcanist
2013-07-30, 08:23 AM
Both are used by teenagers during some kind of wish fulfillment that is awkward to explain to your parents? :smallconfused:

Stop. Please for the love of Mystra, stop.

OT: I'd imagine it was because of all the controversy it caused, thus elevating it's notoriety and making more well known amongst the RPG circuit to the point where, in the eyes of the mass American public, the game is the ONLY table top RPG in existence (despite games like Monopoly and Chess having more fame technically qualifying as table top, but are referred to as "board games".)

Inviting a random person on the street to play a game of Pathfinder or Call of Cthulhu and they'll most likely not understand what you're talking about, but invite them to play D&D and they'll ask to roll up a Bard (not in such a term). Hell, most non-dedicated players aren't even aware there was an edition war, the OGL, version wars, and cross company politics so this might lead people to believe that any game involving polyhedral dice is D&D.

Prospero7
2013-07-30, 08:31 AM
In my experience D&D is seldom played at convention not because it is unpopular, but because people come to conventions often for experiencing something new (or to promote lesser know games on the DM's side).

Also, D&D is normally played (and designed for) continuously over many month or even years with the same characters. The one-shot nature of convention adventures doesn't suit D&D very well, but there are LOADS of system that DO work very well under those conditions.

Excellent point. At GenCon, the D&D Open is still relatively popular as well as many of the 'living' games but I play enough D&D outside of cons to get my fill. I'd rather try something my group doesn't normally play whether it be Warhammer, Call of Cthulhu, Star Frontiers (yeah, I still love that game), etc. :smallsmile:

Larkas
2013-07-30, 08:42 AM
That's the risk WotC ran when they invented the OGL and its a legacy they will be dealing with for, well, ever.

I think that WotC also believes that. I also think that it's a mostly flawed belief. The problem isn't that OGL was ever made. The problem is that they abandoned it. If, instead of issuing 4E as they did, they had made an OGL 1.2 (or 2.0, or what have you, and I'm not even saying that they should've made "D&D3.75", I'm just saying that they should've made the core of 4E freely available, as they did with 3E), they wouldn't have lost such a large player base. Pathfinder continues to show us that. It also has something to do with "backwards compatibility", though. Every D&D edition up to 3.5 has had a way and advice for converting previous edition's characters to the newest game. I know some people who are playing the same campaign for the past 25 years, and they've updated their rules up to 3.5. 4E is explicitly incompatible; Pathfinder isn't. That group is seriously considering updating for PF.

But I digress. D&D is certainly the face of RPG here in Brazil, but it is by no means its synonym. People who never played RPG probably know the acronym, but have no idea what D&D stands for... Until you bring up the cartoon, of course.

Jay R
2013-07-30, 09:20 AM
And there are almost no people who only play DND or use the word "DND" to mean "all RPGs".

I've never met such a person. I have met a few (non-gamers) who haven't heard of any others and use the term "DnD" to mean, not "all RPGs", but "the only RPG".

MtlGuy
2013-07-30, 03:42 PM
I think that WotC also believes that. I also think that it's a mostly flawed belief. The problem isn't that OGL was ever made. The problem is that they abandoned it. If, instead of issuing 4E as they did, they had made an OGL 1.2 (or 2.0, or what have you, and I'm not even saying that they should've made "D&D3.75", I'm just saying that they should've made the core of 4E freely available, as they did with 3E), they wouldn't have lost such a large player base. Pathfinder continues to show us that. It also has something to do with "backwards compatibility", though. Every D&D edition up to 3.5 has had a way and advice for converting previous edition's characters to the newest game. I know some people who are playing the same campaign for the past 25 years, and they've updated their rules up to 3.5. 4E is explicitly incompatible; Pathfinder isn't. That group is seriously considering updating for PF.

But I digress. D&D is certainly the face of RPG here in Brazil, but it is by no means its synonym. People who never played RPG probably know the acronym, but have no idea what D&D stands for... Until you bring up the cartoon, of course.

From the encouraging responses I've read, I think I ought to have specified that my perspective is that of a Canadian gamer. My gaming and market watching experiences may not be congruent with those of others. So as a typical Canadian... Sorry. I also should have distinguished between 'expert' gamers and the mainstream. Of course, an expert is going to have a higher degree of knowledge than a non-expert. As Tengu_Temp and Jay R comment, a dedicated D&D player will distinguish between D&D and other RPGs, but a casual player generally will not. For the casual player, I would stand by my assertion that the brand captured the product, much like Kleenex tissue paper example. Say Kleenex and you know what product is being discussed even though a brand is all that has been mentioned, (again this may be more true to North America than other places with respect to this specific example.)

Conspiracy theories in general are crap, but its hard to read over the history of the OGL and not imagine it as a premeditated bait and switch. I see it as a business decision by WotC that has ultimately backfired. The brand's image is probably safe with casual gamers who as Arcanist writes are likely unware that D&D has even experienced edition wars, let alone a change in ownership. 'Pathfinder' wouldn't mean anything to a casual player until someone interjects that "Pathfinder is the new D&D" (which is precisely the scenario WotC doesn't want happening). More dedicated players each have their preferences, lets leave it at that. Lastly, the backwards compatibility issue is a really good point to bring up, especially as PCs may live longer than editions of the game. I haven't noticed any character conversion PDFs for 5th edition yet, but I have not updated my packet since June 2013.

Aron Times
2013-07-30, 06:11 PM
Perhaps WotC could compromise and release a partial SRD for D&D Next. Perhaps covering only the first ten levels? This will allow the game to spread without giving away everything for free.

As a devoted 4e fan, one of the biggest mistakes WotC made with this edition was to eschew releasing a free SRD. This really hurt the adoption of the then new edition because people could continue playing 3.5 and Pathfinder for free, whereas they had to pay to play 4e.

Larkas
2013-07-30, 09:46 PM
From the encouraging responses I've read, I think I ought to have specified that my perspective is that of a Canadian gamer. My gaming and market watching experiences may not be congruent with those of others. So as a typical Canadian... Sorry. I also should have distinguished between 'expert' gamers and the mainstream. Of course, an expert is going to have a higher degree of knowledge than a non-expert. As Tengu_Temp and Jay R comment, a dedicated D&D player will distinguish between D&D and other RPGs, but a casual player generally will not. For the casual player, I would stand by my assertion that the brand captured the product, much like Kleenex tissue paper example. Say Kleenex and you know what product is being discussed even though a brand is all that has been mentioned, (again this may be more true to North America than other places with respect to this specific example.)

Now you've made me think. I guess that around here, RPG is merely RPG to the uninitiated, D&D is RPG to the casual players and RPG is RPG to the more dedicated players. If that made any sense.


Conspiracy theories in general are crap, but its hard to read over the history of the OGL and not imagine it as a premeditated bait and switch. I see it as a business decision by WotC that has ultimately backfired. The brand's image is probably safe with casual gamers who as Arcanist writes are likely unware that D&D has even experienced edition wars, let alone a change in ownership. 'Pathfinder' wouldn't mean anything to a casual player until someone interjects that "Pathfinder is the new D&D" (which is precisely the scenario WotC doesn't want happening). More dedicated players each have their preferences, lets leave it at that. Lastly, the backwards compatibility issue is a really good point to bring up, especially as PCs may live longer than editions of the game. I haven't noticed any character conversion PDFs for 5th edition yet, but I have not updated my packet since June 2013.

Hmmm, I don't believe so. It would have been a TERRIBLE miscalculation if they really considered a bait and switch strategy. I'm more inclined to think that the Hasbro overlords pressed for a more "profitable" model without any regards for the medium and the real target market. Which would ALSO be a terrible miscalculation, but one that we see made all the time by companies that haven't adapted to this "Internet age" we're living in.

Regarding 5E's backwards compatibility, I haven't seen anything about it either, but it was purportedly one of the goals of the project, long before playtesting began. If that's still a goal, your guess is as good as mine.

Felhammer
2013-07-30, 10:15 PM
I think that WotC also believes that. I also think that it's a mostly flawed belief. The problem isn't that OGL was ever made. The problem is that they abandoned it. If, instead of issuing 4E as they did, they had made an OGL 1.2 (or 2.0, or what have you, and I'm not even saying that they should've made "D&D3.75", I'm just saying that they should've made the core of 4E freely available, as they did with 3E), they wouldn't have lost such a large player base. Pathfinder continues to show us that. It also has something to do with "backwards compatibility", though. Every D&D edition up to 3.5 has had a way and advice for converting previous edition's characters to the newest game. I know some people who are playing the same campaign for the past 25 years, and they've updated their rules up to 3.5. 4E is explicitly incompatible; Pathfinder isn't. That group is seriously considering updating for PF.

But I digress. D&D is certainly the face of RPG here in Brazil, but it is by no means its synonym. People who never played RPG probably know the acronym, but have no idea what D&D stands for... Until you bring up the cartoon, of course.

I completely agree. The OGL was what made 3.x so wildly popular. Managment sees it as an albatross around their necks but when you get down to it, even if people are buying other companies products, they are still, in the end, buying products for your game.

4E floundered for a lot of reasons, not least of which was it abandoning the OGL. If 4E had been just as open as 3.x, I think the system would have been hacked by third party companies and made better. About the time WotC was looking to make 5E, they would have been instead looking at 4.5, which would have incorporated all the best ideas the third party companies had generated.

Grinner
2013-07-30, 10:39 PM
I completely agree. The OGL was what made 3.x so wildly popular. Managment sees it as an albatross around their necks but when you get down to it, even if people are buying other companies products, they are still, in the end, buying products for your game.

4E floundered for a lot of reasons, not least of which was it abandoning the OGL. If 4E had been just as open as 3.x, I think the system would have been hacked by third party companies and made better. About the time WotC was looking to make 5E, they would have been instead looking at 4.5, which would have incorporated all the best ideas the third party companies had generated.

Then again, I think Hasbro cares only for its own bottom line, not that of other companies.

Kaiisaxo
2013-07-30, 10:58 PM
Well, here on my country (as in not-america) or at the very least on the general area I live (including the big city across the neighboring state), roleplaying games aren't specially popular. (wargaming and Tcgs are more well known and spread), but until recently roleplayers were a very distinct sect among geeks and in some cases bordered on being a urban tribe, and while not many get into it, it still has an special aura attached to this day. Every time you spot a roleplaying group on a convention or a hobby store, it catches everybody's attention.

Sadly my country got stuck on the 90's, Call of Cthulhu and Vampire the masquerade are the synonimous for rpgs here, with few people ever being aware about D&D on itself, and many gamers will still look down on it. To the date I only known of two stores in the whole state that actually house supplements, one only does it on request and the other one has very limited quantitites of anything on there that quickly ran out. Dice on the other hand are more easilly obtained. In fact my first roleplaying was on an entirely homebrewed system (a cool one that mixed dice with tarot cards, it was lots of fun). So yeah, replace D&D with vampire and you get the situation for my country.

Felhammer
2013-07-31, 12:00 AM
Then again, I think Hasbro cares only for its own bottom line, not that of other companies.

Their bottom line is good for your bottom line when everyone is playing your game. When everyone is playing your game, it means consumers are far more likely to buy the products you produce rather than than if they were playing another company's game.

For example, if a consumer was playing a d20 fantasy based game, then he would be far more inclined to purchase The Complete Warrior from WotC than if he was playing World of Darkness.

However, the bean counters at Hasbro saw the OGL as "we are supplementing the income of other companies. We need to stop that!"

Which is completely the opposite of the attitude one must take when dealing with Open Licenses.

TheOOB
2013-07-31, 02:19 AM
D&D, a fantasy themed RPG, is comprised of three core rule books (PHB/DMG/MM) that use a set of polyhedral dice as random number generators to determine the outcomes of actions taken in accordance with said rules. The three core rulebooks may be supplemented by additional rulebooks, campaign settings, miniatures, table maps, adventure modules et al. The product is promoted in and by other media such as video games, a cartoon, movies, and novels.

None of that is what makes D&D D&D. D&D is a crunch(rules) heavy combat focused fantasy roleplaying game with heavy wargaming roots and a very strong class and level ability based advancement system when-in character abilities and actions have clearly defined rules.

One of the things that, ironically, makes D&D easier for a lot of people to grasp is how rules(and combat) heavy the game is, it feels more like a video game or board game as answers to questions like "What happens when I hit that with my sword" or "What can my wizard do with magic" are clear cut and in the rules(for the most part.). The system empowers the players, giving their characters, and the dice, more influence over the flow of an encounter than the DM in many situations. It also does not require really any roleplaying at all to function properly.

This is also why there have been dozens of successful D&D video games, and like 2 Vampire the Masquerade games, neither of which were successful.

Larkas
2013-07-31, 07:21 AM
Their bottom line is good for your bottom line when everyone is playing your game. When everyone is playing your game, it means consumers are far more likely to buy the products you produce rather than than if they were playing another company's game.

I'm not so sure the guys at Hasbro got that either...

DeltaEmil
2013-07-31, 07:41 AM
Then again, I think Hasbro cares only for its own bottom line, not that of other companies.For Hasbro, D&D is just a rounding error, if they even know about the D&D brand at all. Wizards of the Coast can do whatever they want with D&D, as long as it doesn't impact the more valuable Magic: The Gathering Franchise.
So long as Magic: The Gathering makes money, WotC can try to make a D&D 6th edition if D&D 5th edition would be a financial failure, and a 7th edition, and an 8th, and so on. Also, all two-and-a-half D&D editions that WotC created have made most money at the beginning of the cycle, so D&D has never really been a financial failure for WotC. It just makes less and less money after a while, until they fan the flames with a new edition.

WotC could make a hundred D&D editions, as long as they always make some profit at the beginning. The profit is negligible for Hasbro, but they won't say no to a little pocket money.

Larkas
2013-07-31, 08:02 AM
For Hasbro, D&D is just a rounding error, if they even know about the D&D brand at all. Wizards of the Coast can do whatever they want with D&D, as long as it doesn't impact the more valuable Magic: The Gathering Franchise.
So long as Magic: The Gathering makes money, WotC can try to make a D&D 6th edition if D&D 5th edition would be a financial failure, and a 7th edition, and an 8th, and so on. Also, all two-and-a-half D&D editions that WotC created have made most money at the beginning of the cycle, so D&D has never really been a financial failure for WotC. It just makes less and less money after a while, until they fan the flames with a new edition.

WotC could make a hundred D&D editions, as long as they always make some profit at the beginning. The profit is negligible for Hasbro, but they won't say no to a little pocket money.

Yeah, that's not how these corporations work. If D&D was really so negligible, they would've already made WotC sell the brand, probably to Paizo. The brand has some serious recall, and as such, enjoys some solid value. Besides, developing and printing a new system costs money. If the business, small as it supposedly is, doesn't turn a profit, production of newer editions would be forcibly abandoned.

It doesn't matter if D&D is just pocket change (hint: it isn't), most big companies want to have profit from ALL their projects (and those that don't usually have, and show, a very good reason for it), otherwise they will be discontinued, regardless of how little they cost. See Google and its recently discontinued Reader: all it cost was the maintenance of an old server and a little bit of Internet band. It didn't stop Google from pulling the plug.

No, 4E was clearly a (shortsighted) shot at maximizing revenue. WotC was led to believe that, by centralizing all supplement production for the game (or rather, denying the production of supplements by other publishers), they would achieve a bigger profit. That's why they decided their contract with Paizo for making Dragon and Dungeon wasn't in their best interests anymore, for example.

DeltaEmil
2013-07-31, 08:28 AM
It doesn't matter if D&D is just pocket change (hint: it isn't)In the dimensions that Hasbro is dealing, it is. It's not even worth being mentioned in WotC's financial report. Neither D&D 3.0, nor 3.5, or 4th edition is. D&D 5th edition will be a new attempt at breaching that 50 million dollar mark to be noteworthy. If it fails, but still recuperates its cost like its predecessor, there will be a new attempt with D&D 6th edition, D&D Vista edition, D&D 7th edition, so long as they make enough money to pay back whatever has been invested in Research, Development, Advertisement and Production to make D&D whatever edition.

Hasbro bought WotC for Magic: The Gathering. That's what matters for Hasbro. D&D is a nice extra, and only really worth for its ability to be licensed to Atari (or whoever is renting those licenses) for making video games.

Larkas
2013-07-31, 08:49 AM
In the dimensions that Hasbro is dealing, it is. It's not even worth being mentioned in WotC's financial report. Neither D&D 3.0, nor 3.5, or 4th edition is. D&D 5th edition will be a new attempt at breaching that 50 million dollar mark to be noteworthy. If it fails, but still recuperates its cost like its predecessor, there will be a new attempt with D&D 6th edition, D&D Vista edition, D&D 7th edition, so long as they make enough money to pay back whatever has been invested in Research, Development, Advertisement and Production to make D&D whatever edition.

Hasbro bought WotC for Magic: The Gathering. That's what matters for Hasbro. D&D is a nice extra, and only really worth for its ability to be licensed to Atari (or whoever is renting those licenses) for making video games.

Honest question: do you have access to Hasbro's financial report? I'd really like to look at it.

Be it as it may, I won't dispute that D&D is very small when compared to the whole of Hasbro's business. It doesn't change any of what I said, though. And one thing that most people don't realize: WotC bought D&D while already a subsidiary of Hasbro. This means that, in a sense, Hasbro itself has bought the intellectual property. I don't think they'd spend the money if they didn't see the potential in it.

You are mostly ignoring the most important objective of any enterprise: maximizing their profits. If D&D was operating at a loss, small as it is, and expected to keep operating like that, it would have already been sold, MtG's results nonwithstanding. It would probably be the same even if it was operating at a small profit or just breaking even. Subsidiaries are allowed some autonomy, but you're not allowed to utterly ignore your stakeholders like that. If Hasbro didn't expect D&D to be profitable, WotC would already have abandoned it.

In other words, MtG isn't a "screw up however you like" card given to WotC by Hasbro. WotC must strive to maximize its profit, present and future, or see itself in some serious dire straits.

Jay R
2013-07-31, 12:55 PM
Honest question: do you have access to Hasbro's financial report? I'd really like to look at it.

Of course I do. So does everyone else in the world. Publicly traded companies have public financial records (http://investor.hasbro.com/annuals.cfm).

Alejandro
2013-07-31, 01:01 PM
Agreeing with Larkas, as a businessman and major myself. It doesn't matter how small it is, or how big another part is. Companies care about one thing: maximizing revenue from resources invested. D&D is no different.

Felhammer
2013-07-31, 02:20 PM
Yeah, that's not how these corporations work. If D&D was really so negligible, they would've already made WotC sell the brand, probably to Paizo. The brand has some serious recall, and as such, enjoys some solid value. Besides, developing and printing a new system costs money. If the business, small as it supposedly is, doesn't turn a profit, production of newer editions would be forcibly abandoned.

It doesn't matter if D&D is just pocket change (hint: it isn't), most big companies want to have profit from ALL their projects (and those that don't usually have, and show, a very good reason for it), otherwise they will be discontinued, regardless of how little they cost. See Google and its recently discontinued Reader: all it cost was the maintenance of an old server and a little bit of Internet band. It didn't stop Google from pulling the plug.

No, 4E was clearly a (shortsighted) shot at maximizing revenue. WotC was led to believe that, by centralizing all supplement production for the game (or rather, denying the production of supplements by other publishers), they would achieve a bigger profit. That's why they decided their contract with Paizo for making Dragon and Dungeon wasn't in their best interests anymore, for example.

As with comic books, D&D's profit comes from peripheral products and licensing. Even at its height D&D (the game) only made 30 million a year. That's nothing when you compare it to all the novels and video games produced with D&D's logo.

Larkas
2013-07-31, 02:53 PM
Of course I do. So does everyone else in the world. Publicly traded companies have public financial records (http://investor.hasbro.com/annuals.cfm).

Yeah, I found that shortly after I asked about it. I wasn't sure if Hasbro was publicly traded, and I'm not too familiar with American laws regarding financial records. Should've googled it first. :smallredface:


Agreeing with Larkas, as a businessman and major myself. It doesn't matter how small it is, or how big another part is. Companies care about one thing: maximizing revenue from resources invested. D&D is no different.

Exactly. If there's one thing I learned from all the years spent studying for my bachelor's at Economics, it was this. Specific companies might have a few lesser objectives (quality of service, offering small bits of free stuff, social responsibilities, etc.) that might compromise the bottomline a little, but you don't last long operating at a net loss, and you don't want to have a business that does just that all the time. Since we're talking about D&D here, just look at TSR.


As with comic books, D&D's profit comes from peripheral products and licensing. Even at its height D&D (the game) only made 30 million a year. That's nothing when you compare it to all the novels and video games produced with D&D's logo.

Hmmm, interesting, I never thought about it that way. That only makes the miscalculation made by WotC/Hasbro even more terrible: if the game isn't as important for revenue, what's the real problem about offering the core rules for free?

MtlGuy
2013-07-31, 03:39 PM
Honest question: do you have access to Hasbro's financial report? I'd really like to look at it.

Be it as it may, I won't dispute that D&D is very small when compared to the whole of Hasbro's business. It doesn't change any of what I said, though. And one thing that most people don't realize: WotC bought D&D while already a subsidiary of Hasbro. This means that, in a sense, Hasbro itself has bought the intellectual property. I don't think they'd spend the money if they didn't see the potential in it.

You are mostly ignoring the most important objective of any enterprise: maximizing their profits. If D&D was operating at a loss, small as it is, and expected to keep operating like that, it would have already been sold, MtG's results notwithstanding. It would probably be the same even if it was operating at a small profit or just breaking even. Subsidiaries are allowed some autonomy, but you're not allowed to utterly ignore your stakeholders like that. If Hasbro didn't expect D&D to be profitable, WotC would already have abandoned it.

In other words, MtG isn't a "screw up however you like" card given to WotC by Hasbro. WotC must strive to maximize its profit, present and future, or see itself in some serious dire straits.

They must certainly strive for profit, their shareholders cannot tolerate it otherwise, however... If one part of a business operates at a loss, but that activity enables higher profits for other aspects of the business that results in higher net profits overall, one may consider the part operating at a loss to be a viable component of the whole. A necessary cost of doing business.

For instance, people who work in movie theaters tell me the price of a movie ticket is insufficient to make a theater profitable. They have to get you with the concessions. However, without the film no one is going to come in to buy overpriced junk food just because you've got air conditioning.

Does the example above apply? I think it's working for Paizo better than WotC, if Paizo's sales claims are to be believed... Paizo basically says, "Here are the core rules, for free, up on our website, don't get us wrong, we have lots of stuff for sale but here's enough for you to get going." WotC says "We also offer a range of products and services for your pleasure, but you gotta buy these three books (PHB/DMG/MM) before anything can really happen." Paizo's approach, even though they may sacrifice some sales of their core books, creates a lower financial threshold for the consumer to meet in order to get going compared to WotC's 4th edition. If they get invested in the product, spending is likely to follow. The openness of the playtest for D&D Next suggests that WotC are acutely aware of this and has reversed the position it held last cycle.

IMHO the competition between Paizo and WotC will bring out the best of the creative process on each side and make the content for each game better. It will however also continue to erode the supremacy of the D&D brand (at least in North America where it has traditionally reigned supreme). That may not be so bad, Pepsi didn't make Coca-Cola disappear after all.

MtlGuy
2013-07-31, 03:43 PM
As with comic books, D&D's profit comes from peripheral products and licensing. Even at its height D&D (the game) only made 30 million a year. That's nothing when you compare it to all the novels and video games produced with D&D's logo.

If I had a gold star to give you, I would. You hit the nail on the head. TSR's success and failure actually had little to do with publishing the game itself. It boiled down to a lot of unsold hardcover novels.

Larkas
2013-07-31, 05:05 PM
Oh, of course, I'm talking more about the aggregate. As you said, Fellhammer hit the nail in the head.

Hyde
2013-08-01, 03:28 PM
I started skimming, because it didn't seem like anyone had touched on it.

Dungeons and Dragons isn't just one of the most popular RPGs, it literally invented the concept of "leveling up". The modern RPG wouldn't exist without Gary Gygax and David Arneson.

Why is Xerox the name in copies? they invented the photocopier. Why is every adjustable wrench a Cresent Wrench? They invented the design. Why is using any search enging called "Googling" something? probably because of the sleek minimalistic design in an era of relatively weak computers and slow connections (and Yahoo! is just awful).

Dungeons and Dragons isn't just a reference to RPGs in general, it is the foundation upon which the entire concept is built. Pen and Paper, or video games (which makes video games based on Pen and Paper a little recursive, I think).

Stubbazubba
2013-08-01, 06:13 PM
Most people I know aren't aware of any RPG outside of D&D. My wife, a complete non-gamer, knows that I have a "super hero D&D" (Marvel Heroic Roleplaying), a "Lord of the Rings D&D" (The One Ring), a "Mistborn D&D" (Mistborn Adventure Game), etc., but refers to playing any of them as "playing D&D."

On the business aspects, I also agree with Fellhammer that D&D's value to Hasbro is not from sales, but from the IP: Video games and novels get people far more effectively than the game itself. They need to buy the rights back from whoever made those horrible D&D movies and make a new one. Heck, just make a new D&D cartoon, sans the strange "kids-stuck-in-a-game" angle of the old one and just let kids grow up loving the brave knights, cunning wizards, and sneaky rogues of the Forgotten Realms. You could even call it that: Forgotten Realms, or Adventures in the Forgotten Realms or something, and it would be awesome. Just think of the toy sales. Hasbro would like that. Then there would be Legos and other stuff for it, too. D&D is an amazing property, infinitely exploitable for massive profit, just not in its original product.

WotC should be releasing the game for free, as a sheer PR move to buy nerd cred so they'll buy their kids lots of FR cartoon paraphernalia. Then sell the nice, hardcover books in smaller volumes. Like musicians, make money off of events; convention play and some kind of Encounters tour where world-class professional DMs go around and host games at local stores, which requires a ticket to play in, would help to off-set the cost, or, as I've previously said, buy up local game shops, clean 'em up and brighten 'em up, and fill them with competent workers who facilitate great gaming. There are many ideas on how to make the game itself at least a bit more profitable, but WotC refuses to spend the capital to build the infrastructure; they want the books themselves to pay for anything, which is just ridiculous.

I blame Mike Mearls for this. I think he's responsible for engendering the notion that a better edition will sell better. It's not true. No one cares about your game rules; it's all about the presentation, both in the product and in your marketing. D&D has to expand its portfolio of mediums to get to the actual potential, and heck, they could even license out the game to some small-scale game company who isn't paying their designers a full-time salary to make a new edition. That would do wonders for their image in the community, and they could get rid of the un-profitable D&D R&D department.

Anyways, at the end of the day, everyone talks about how D&D is this struggling little game with no future, that's just a burden on WotC's cash cow, M:tG. This is purely because of WotC's conservative decisions with it. D&D, as a brand, is far more valuable than M:tG. The potential for TV shows, movies, action figures, etc., is much much bigger there. They just refuse to tap it.

kidnicky
2013-08-01, 08:57 PM
To be fair,they do kind of give out the game for free. The website has the pared down pdf version where you use premade characters. The books or Essentials starter just expand the game.

Really though in my opinion the rule and sourcebooks need to be free for iPad,Kindle,etc. People who dled the book because they were curious would end up buying minis,dice,maps,etc. Nobody buys a 30 dollar hardback that requires other purchases to use out of curiosity,but they would DL that book on their ereader out of curiosity.

BWR
2013-08-02, 02:53 AM
This premise doesn't hold true in Norway. At least not in my experience. Most non-gamers (not including ex-gamers) have not heard of roleplaying at all, or they have heard of the term 'roleplaying' and have little or no idea what it's about. D&D is entirely unknown to them if they are unfamiliar with the term 'roleplaying'. Even if they have heard of roleplaying, D&D is not likely to be very well known.

The Rose Dragon
2013-08-02, 10:07 AM
Dungeons and Dragons isn't just one of the most popular RPGs, it literally invented the concept of "leveling up". The modern RPG wouldn't exist without Gary Gygax and David Arneson.

Considering how few of the RPGs I play actually have leveling up, it doesn't seem to have been very influential there.


Why is Xerox the name in copies? they invented the photocopier. Why is every adjustable wrench a Cresent Wrench? They invented the design. Why is using any search enging called "Googling" something? probably because of the sleek minimalistic design in an era of relatively weak computers and slow connections (and Yahoo! is just awful).

Fun fact: none of those are universal nicknames for the concepts they refer to. Very few people in my country have even heard of Xerox or Crescent Wrenches, and even those that have don't refer to making photocopies as xeroxing. In fact, telling someone to xerox something will be met with blank stares (Google fares better, but most people will say "look it up on the internet" than "google it").