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View Full Version : Why Did They Switch Editions? (NON-D&D)



Zeta Kai
2008-11-25, 02:38 PM
Note: this is NOT about Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, OGL/GSL, or any related topic. If you are here to discuss solely those topics, then slug it out somewhere else. This is a NON-D&D thread, for good reason.

Caveat
Alright, so this not intended to disparage/praise any particular edition of any particular game. I am seeking genuine insight into an issue which has recently affected the gaming community at large, in order to put the whole thing in context. As we all know, of course, Wizards of the Coast decided to create a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, releasing 4th Edition (AKA 4E). My opinions on the subject are probably common knowledge, & as such need not be repeated here.

Query & Sub-Queries
My question is this: Why did the developers of a particular game switch to a new edition? Why did Shadowrun 3E give way to 4E? Why did Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Edition come out? Why did the Old World of Darkness end & the New World of Darkness begin? Why did these changes take place when the did?

Expansion & Explanation
I realize that change is inevitable, & I'm fine with that. I just want to know how these changes have come about & why they happened when the did. I am honestly not trying to troll or otherwise stir up bad sentiments by this question. I believe it to be a legitimate issue that should be understood by gamers. An answer of "Those people at that company just wanted more of my money" doesn't really solve anything, is partially-untrue, & is partially-irrelevant. I'm looking for the cultural/social/mechanical shifts that occurred for each edition switch, & what caused them.

valadil
2008-11-25, 02:44 PM
Get attention and sell new books.

hamishspence
2008-11-25, 02:51 PM
Baggage buildup- setting accumulates weight of info till it becomes intimidating. Then they cut it down and start rebuilding.

Project_Mayhem
2008-11-25, 02:52 PM
Get attention and sell new books.

/thread.


Seriously, it normally falls somewhere between that on one extreme, and to improve the product on the other. Big companies often tend to the first.

AKA_Bait
2008-11-25, 02:56 PM
Well, the best I can do is speculation, but here are the reasons that I would expect to be involved when making the decision to release a new edition of a game:

1. Major design problems with the older edition- There are serious flaws with the older edition, either inconsistancies or mechanics that are just horribly unwealdy. Depending upon who you ask, the 3.0 to 3.5 D&D change was partly because of this.

2. Freshness- sometimes an old rule system can get, well, stale and players simply start migrating to other systems just to try out something new. Releasing a new system can keep them buying products from your company. To some extent, splatbooks with signifigant mechanical changes (In D&D terms I'm looking at ToB, ToM, Incarnum, etc.) can serve this same role, at least temporarily. It also allows designers who have really innovative new ideas to release them in a way that that most of market might actually notice.

3. Marketing- similar to freshness. It's hard to get the market interested in buying a product once the product ages enough. If they re-released the third edition rules with a spiffy new cover, do we really think that it would generate as much interest as a new edition? Once something is around long enough, people tend to, well, forget about it. New products, particularly major ones like new editions, prevent this.

4. Market Saturation- Similar to marketing but not the same. It means that essentially, everyone or close to everyone that is going to purchase the old edition of the game already has. As a company, that essentially means the product is dead. A new edition reopens all those consumers.

Jasdoif
2008-11-25, 02:57 PM
As an edition goes on, it acquires more and more supplementary material (official or not), building off of the core rules directly or indirectly (through other supplementary material that builds off the core rules directly, or supplementary material that builds off supplementary material that builds off the core rules directly, ad nauseam).

As a result, if a flaw (real or perceived) is discovered deep enough within the core rules, any attempts to address it directly would almost certainly violate/ruin legions of supplementary material. Indirect approaches are available, such as new classes or such that are meant to replace the broken pieces, but don't really solve the underlying problem.

So the resolution, then, is a new edition that will be unfettered by the existing material for the last edition. At some point a marketing decision is involved, to the degree of how many changes are necessary before it's worth anyone's time to support a new edition, but at the core the idea is to make an edition that improves the intended experience.


Ideally, at least.

Fax Celestis
2008-11-25, 02:58 PM
So the resolution, then, is a new edition that will be unfettered by the existing material for the last edition. At some point a marketing decision is involved, to the degree of how many changes are necessary before it's worth anyone's time to support a new edition, but at the core the idea is to make an edition that improves the intended experience.

Between this and AKA Bait's post, I think the point is made.

hamishspence
2008-11-25, 02:59 PM
changes between editions can vary in complexity. 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of Warhammer 40000 are much more similar than 2nd and 3rd editions were. Last 2 editions of warhammer are much more similar to each other than to the edition before them.

Tadanori Oyama
2008-11-25, 03:00 PM
Things change editions because rules for the games change over time and have to be published seperately. If everyone published online digitially than material could be accessed from a main source and there'd never bea need for "editions".

It's the same reason anything with an underlying system changes, eventually things should change, even if they function well as they are.

Project_Mayhem
2008-11-25, 03:03 PM
Last 2 editions of warhammer are much more similar to each other than to the edition before them.

interestingly, the last edition of Warhammer didnt happen. I retconned it.

CarpeGuitarrem
2008-11-25, 03:03 PM
One reason is the reason why we keep getting new operating systems: bugfixes. I.e., errata. A company keeps releasing errata as problems/"bugs" are found in a system, and eventually they get to the point where you may as well just make a new edition, because you'd have to change so much.

Theodoric
2008-11-25, 03:03 PM
Get attention and sell new books.
Yes, and that's what a company's got to do to stay alive. Releasing a new edition is the perfect moment to expand the consumer base, and keep the game current (and most old consumers will switch over eventually).
It's frickin' basic company economics.

Mordar
2008-11-25, 03:15 PM
Hi all -

Well, there are many reasons, both "within-game" and "outside-game" to generate new editions.

The easiest, off-the-cuff answers are:

1) A new company has purchased the rights to a game, currently active or otherwise. This led to new editions of Shadowrun and Earthdawn, as well as many others, I'm sure;

2) Sales/public opinion has stagnated, so a fresh new release is mandated by management, regardless of current level of quality. Games Workshop and their artificial shelf-life for editions of 40k and WHFB are an excellent example of this one...a huge spike in sales follows every new edition and creates a situation that helps draw in new players;

3) Advancement of the state of the art. Old games, often viewed as "basic" by the more even-minded critics, or "old and lame" by the harsher, still may have a lot to offer the genre, but in their current iteration are viewed as non-marketable. A reworking of the rules and new presentation/production quality can return the game to marketable level;

4) Compilation of rules/errata/revisions. Some "new editions" are really just a compilation of all the fixes and errata that were generated by the previous edition. D&D 3.5 might best be viewed in this light. Similarly, a product may need...

5) Distillation. If a system and all its supplements has grown so large as to be unwieldy or unattractive (fiscally) to a new player, it may be time to reset the world/design and start fresh. Clearly, this is D&D 3.5 to D&D 4;

6) Finally, changes in the design or creative development team, management or company ownership might lead the remaining personnel to want to change the game and in effect put their own mark/stamp on things. I think this is one of the driving forces behind the new World of Darkness - the team wanted to keep some of the spirit of the game (and its many fans) but wanted to move away from the system and setting designed by Mark Rein-Hagen all those decades in the past.

Clearly different rationales can lead to new editions, and some might generate much more hostility on the part of consumers than others - 2, 5 and 6 might be the biggest culprits on this issue. Knowing that a new edition and all its enforced obsolescence has been created just/primarily to increase revenue can use up a lot of consumer goodwill. Games Workshop for a while had really cornered the market on this one, counting on a continuous stream of new players to make up for all the established players pushed away by the tactic.

Conversely, issues 1, 3 and 4 are likely to be more heralded or eagerly anticipated as improvements (or at least the return of a lost game), but there will always be those who, rightly or otherwise, insist that the original version was loads better.

Just some thoughts -

- Mordar

EDIT: Wow, I swear all those other posts weren't there when I started this reply...there were only two or three replies when I started typing. Sorry for any redundancy

AKA_Bait
2008-11-25, 03:50 PM
Things change editions because rules for the games change over time and have to be published seperately. If everyone published online digitially than material could be accessed from a main source and there'd never bea need for "editions".


I actually disagree with this. Sometimes a game wants sweeping change that really doesn't work as edits or eratta to an older version. In the case that a new 'edition' were simply a rewrite of an electronic main source, when editions changed it really would be an example of the old system being wiped out by the new one rather than simply being a new system.

Imagine if the 3.5 SRD were updated to 4e without warning or all the 2ed books suddently had AC instead of THAC0.

Zeta Kai
2008-11-27, 03:04 AM
Well, that just about answers my question. Thank you guys very much for keeping the discussion civil & academic. It's much appreciated, & I'm glad that this didn't start a flame war like last time.

Kurald Galain
2008-11-27, 04:54 AM
I know at least two examples where an RPG was paired with a lot of history, background, and other world fluff, and eventually this got so large that the universe needed a reboot. This, of course, is best done via a new edition.

The most obvious example being the entire World of Darkness, and the second being Paranoia. Both also got their rules streamlined.

Friv
2008-11-27, 11:25 AM
I know at least two examples where an RPG was paired with a lot of history, background, and other world fluff, and eventually this got so large that the universe needed a reboot. This, of course, is best done via a new edition.

The most obvious example being the entire World of Darkness, and the second being Paranoia. Both also got their rules streamlined.

Although, in a weird sort of inversion, the folks at White Wolf were pretty adamant that their World of Darkness reset wasn't a new edition, it was an entirely different set of games that happened to have some similarities to their previous games.

(Weird, because that's what a lot of people say about some other revised editions, despite denial from the companies in question.)

Greg
2008-11-27, 12:07 PM
changes between editions can vary in complexity. 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of Warhammer 40000 are much more similar than 2nd and 3rd editions were. Last 2 editions of warhammer are much more similar to each other than to the edition before them.
I played 40k through 2nd and 3rd edition. The change between the two was vast, and the game became more playable. The fact that the 3rd edition codices were reusable in 4th edition actually put me off, as it seemed like I would be buying a new rulebook where the system was mostly like the previous one. I believe WFB 5th edition was far different to 6th edition (which I played), whereas the 7th iteration was not so different to the 6th. It seemed like they could just have published an errata and bundled it with the old rulebook and sold it separately.

The major difference between GW games and games by WotC (as an example) are the miniatures. If you play D&D, you buy the books (usually from a bookshop - not owned by WotC) and play at home or school with whatever you want - minis, pen lids or online with drawn maps. With the GW games, sure you can play at home - but they've got the gaming tables in their stores, so why not? What's that? You need to buy their minis or make your own to play in store? Can't use older versions of the rules? Bummer. Better shell out for the new book. And those minis? Turns out you can't use the Carnifex with a square base in 40k now? Buy one of the new ones, only £20!

Knaight
2008-11-27, 01:23 PM
That said sometimes its done just to provide more options. The best example of this is Fudge switching to Fate, which then switched to Spirit of the Century, with Fudge being more standard(attributes and skills) Fate merging gifts, faults, and attributes to create aspects, which means that people rarely switch entirely, and then Spirit of the Century extended the trait ladder, meaning that it works best for big damn heroes. This was all for major different options. Then there were the three fudge books, the free PDF and wild mule edition(same book), which was about 100 pages, then the Expanded Edition came out a bit later, which had the same stuff in it, with quite a few more options and sub systems which could be used, and after Expanded Edition came the 10th anniversary edition, which had a huge amount of optional stuff.