When Ryan Dancey set up the OGL and the d20 System license (which allows people to use the Dungeons & Dragons rules system for free), he relied on the idea that a game isn’t just a set of rules. It’s a network of people who know and play the game. When you buy a copy of a game, you’re buying into that network.
The larger the network, the more valuable it is. Dungeons & Dragons already had the largest roleplaying game network around, but the d20 System license cemented its position by letting any publisher or fan legally tap into the network (and, by doing so, growing the network too).
One perhaps unforeseen side-effect of this is that anyone who publishes OGL/d20 System material produces a commodity, defined in economic terms as “a physical substance which is interchangeable with another product of the same type.”
Clearly, I’m oversimplifying matters, but work with me for a moment. From across the store, one d20 product is pretty much like another. Once you get closer and start to examine them, loads of variables crop up, like the quality of the writing, the concept, the artwork, the rules, and so on.
If you have five different d20 products in front of you, you can easily pick out the differences. If you have 500, though, many of the more subtle differences are lost in the vastness, like stars in the night sky.
Most consumers don’t have the time to examine each of the products available, so they rely on certain shortcuts instead. They might follow a particular publisher or (more rarely, it seems) a writer.
Many people, for instance, only purchase official Dungeons & Dragons products from Wizards of the Coast. As the originator and keeper of the “official” flame, Wizards has established a position that gives them a huge advantage over everyone else. The rest of the publishers have to rely on the time-tested method for distinguishing one brand of a commodity from another: marketing.
It used to be that traditional marketing (advertising) didn’t do much for a roleplaying game publisher. Advertising the next Deadlands supplement didn’t mean a whole lot, since if you wanted another Deadlands supplement, you didn’t have anywhere else to go. You had to buy it from Pinnacle.
If you want a new d20 supplement, though, you have an overabundance of choices. How can a consumer even start to weed through them all? Marketing can show them the way.
Before d20, all the roleplaying game publishers developed competing game-networks, not all of which overlapped. Today, most of those publishers are battling it out over pieces of the same network. When you’re selling essentially the same thing as everyone else, positioning in the market becomes more important than ever.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the companies that regularly and aggressively market their d20 products (through advertising, conventions, internet presence, fan clubs, and so on) are those who are rising to the top of the d20 heap. It’s one of the few ways to stand out of the roiling crowd. Quality is another, of course, but you have to get someone to actually pick up a book–or even buy it–before they can make a solid judgment about its quality.
The corollary of this is that quality doesn’t matter as much as you (or I) might want it to. I’d like to think that the best products always make the best sales, but that’s patently not so. Good marketing can build access to the network of players that’s hard to beat by any other means. Ideally you get quality products and top-level marketing together. Then there’s little stopping you.
February 4th, 2004 at 1:30 am
Interesting article. I’d say that while the market is a bit saturated at the moment in the end it should lead to a better quality product all around.
When Wizards first put the d20/OGL out there I can’t even begin to guess at the number of absolute garbage that was pumped out in an attempt to make money on it. I’m one to always read through a book before buying it, so I didn’t get stuck with any of the books that really weren’t worthy of money, but I know a few people who liked the premise of a book and got it home only to find it not even worthy of a full read, let alone use.
We’re going to see a lot of good, as well as bad, companies have trouble keeping afloat, but hopefully, in the end, it will lead to stronger products. You’re right, we’re going to see a lot of companies get a pretty hefty market share just by good advertising alone. It’s been that way with every business type.
To me a choice is always better then no choice. I’ll weather the storm of bad companies overspending on marketing for now. In the long run if they release shoddy products they’ll lose whatever following they garnered from the marketing blitz.
The only question is will the industry survive and flourish during that time? I surely hope so. If it withers a bit then it will go back to like it was in the late 70s and early 80s, just a group of us gamers hunting down the books we want and making up whatever else we require.
One thing that I’m unsure about, not working in the industry yet, is if Wizards is gambling the whole D&D line on Eberron. I really hope they aren’t overextending for it as the buzz is very against it. Sounds like they’re just trying to do something different for the sake of doing something different, as opposed to a solid fantasy world. Sounds like a Hong Kong action flick, not a D&D world. They have already stirred up a small frenzy about the 3.5 release, not so long after the 3.0 release.
Sorry to ramble on, it’s a bit late and my tired brain took over. Just found your site from a link on http://www.gamingreport.com. I plan to read a lot more tomorrow once I’m a bit more awake.
February 4th, 2004 at 2:58 am
Just a quick note, I noticed after I posted my Eberron comments, that you’re working a novel series based in the world. I really hope you don’t take offense to what I said, as I really didn’t mean it that way at all.
Well off to bed for real this time, sorry again for the Eberron comments. Hope you don’t think I was making them towards you at all.
February 4th, 2004 at 10:20 am
Re: Eberron, I’d have a lot less respect if WotC’s new setting was yet another “solid fantasy world.” FR, DL, and GH have been done already. Kudos to them for trying something new. And it’s not like Eberron’s potential failure would hurt D&D in any way.
I dunno. I’m amazed how much bile has been spewed over Eberron based on a few pages worth of preview material. I look forward to the finished product. The incorporation of Action Points into D&D has me sold on it already.
February 4th, 2004 at 10:53 am
Blake:
No offense taken. Wizards is clearly not gambling D&D on Eberron any more than it staked the future of the game on the release of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Eberron is simply another way to play the game.
I’ve read everything developed for Eberron up to when Wizards sent me a draft of the campaign setting book a few weeks back. It’s great stuff with plenty of material for adventures and (fortunately for me) novels. Like Buzz, I’m happy Eberron isn’t another generic fantasy setting. Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk pretty much have that covered.
The people griping about Eberron so far haven’t seen much of anything about it yet. When the book finally comes out this summer, they may change their tune.
February 4th, 2004 at 4:39 pm
Thanks Matt for not taking what I said as something meant towards you. I hope it’s better then it sounds, which I agree is only based on a very small amount of information. I hope I’m totally wrong and find myself buying it, honestly I do.
I’m being a bit old school when I say this but I was hoping for a total revamping of Greyhawk, kind of in the way they did FR over the years. I think that a redone Greyhawk, new boxset with tons of information and books released supporting it, would go over very well. Especially considering it’s been so long since even a map has been released.
I will say this, as I did with FR (which I loved), I’m going to try and look at the new world with an open mind and perhaps I’ll enjoy it. Though so far I’m not liking the action point thing myself, but as usual a good GM can filter things out they don’t like. Not that I have a group to play with anymore, having moved from my home state of NJ to Michigan.
The main reason for my comments on them betting too much on it is based more on a mistrust of Hasbro, then WOC. I don’t know if it would take too much for them to cancel a line honestly, they have a pretty bad history behind them.