Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Investigative Theory for "Wizards" Sour Quarter

With talk about Hasbro profits down, it seems to me that an obvious item has been missed.


RPG's only require some dice a pencil and paper, a set of rules and your imagination.  In a bad economy like this one RPGs are a great way to entertain yourself and your friends at very little cost. Extra expenses get cut first and supplementary products to RPG rules fit squarely into that definition.


Hasbro/WotC is a corporation. Its their business model to produce constant new product. This is a terrible idea as explained in the quote I made from the Lejendary Adventure preface.
WotC and even Paizo with their subscription model, are walking a very fine line with success and disaster.  RPG's are maybe twenty percent business and eighty percent hobby. These guys need to focus on giving us material and other products that help us with our hobby, not our book collection. That means useful product. Its no wonder sales are down for the number one RPG game, its got nowhere to grow and once the players have the rules, they don't need to keep buying more, they can make their own rules, adventures, campaign worlds and monsters if they like, in fact as a hobby they are expected to. 


TSR made "products of your imagination" and understood that these were hobby materials, not unlike balsa wood and model rocket engines. 


In 2011 I'd like to see everyone that plays an RPG publish at least one item as a PDF and release it to share with others, even if its just a copy of your character. I'm sure when we all have a little more disposable income we'll be buying more product, but lets hope that we're a little more choosey and show the large publishers that they need to create useful quality products with the idea in mind that every sale they make beyond the game rules is not to be expected but to be considered "gravy" because really its just a sauce to the meat and potatoes of our hobby.