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[ Line of Sight ]
DATE: June 21, 2002

The Littlest Fish

People in the game industry talk all the time about the "mass market." They are (understandably) disappointed or frustrated that hobby games -- particularly roleplaying games -- are a small niche rather than something that could potentially attract everyone. Or at least attract a much larger percentage of the consumers of the world.

Everyone likes Star Wars, they say, so why aren't more people buying and playing the Star Wars Roleplaying Game? Particularly with the new movie. And speaking of movies, with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter still on people's minds, and Robert Jordan always on the bestsellers list, they say, "If Dungeons & Dragons could just tap into that fan base, roleplaying game sales could increase by an order of magnitude."

The problem here is really Magic: the Gathering. About seven or so years ago, a small game company came out of nowhere with a hobby game that few outside of Wizards expected to do all that well, and instead it made hundreds of millions of dollars. Millions of people played it. It caught the "mass market," or nearly did. It showed that if you do everything just right, a niche hobby-style game can appeal to nongamers. It can even turn them into gamers.

Then there was Pokémon. This craze went way beyond anything Magic ever did, and became -- seemingly overnight -- a household name.

So, surely, roleplaying games can achieve the same thing, right? They're fun, imaginative, and really not all that hard once you get over the "this is weird" hump and understand them. I've seen numerous attempts at making roleplaying games for everyone. Designers trying to incorporate cards or action figures or other weird little bits to create a synthesis of something approachable with roleplaying games. They try to attach a roleplaying game to a mass market licensed property, or change the focus of the game, or they try to make it much, much simpler. (And it's not just designers -- marketers attempt new campaigns in mass market magazines, artists try to make the covers of the products more approachable, sales people try to stock their games in more "normal" outlets, retailers try to lure in more average customers, and so on.) I'm not at all sure these efforts are in the publishers' or the players' long-term best interests.

A Little History

Let's look at Dungeons & Dragons specifically. Developed in the mid-seventies, it had a big boom in the very early eighties. The company that developed it, TSR, was bought out by Wizards of the Coast, which was already large and rich from the aforementioned Magic: the Gathering and got larger and richer afterward thanks to Pokémon. (But you know all that, right?)

Pity the poor D&D game, for even after its extremely successful relaunch in 2000 (successful by its own standards, even compared to the boom in the eighties), its earnings remained far below those of Magic and Pokémon. In fact, the Pokémon wave was still going so strong at the time that a lot of people at Wizards of the Coast paid no attention to Dungeons & Dragons. And why should they? It earned only a fraction of what the other games did. It's hard to work in that sort of atmosphere and not see D&D's success as a failure.

But Hasbro purchases Wizards of the Coast, and soon forces begin to come at D&D from within. "Increase sales!" corporate high-ups demand. "Increase profitability!" Now, just so you know, those do not mean the same thing. Basically, sales is number of copies sold, but profitability is how much is earned on each single unit sold. Both factors threaten the D&D that you know and love. Here's why.

Let's think about the things D&D would have to do to improve sales. Face it, the game is a little on the complex side -- and even if you don't think so, I can assure you that some corporate executive somewhere does. That means simplifying the game to appeal to a wider audience, reducing the complexity down to the level of a game like Trivial Pursuit or Monopoly. That means the game you played the other evening would be gone. And what's more, I don't think this drastic move would actually help sales. Call me a pessimist (and I really don't want to be one), but I just don't think the majority of people out there will accept an evening of roleplaying, even if it's wrapped up in an attractive, approachable package that they bought at Wal-Mart with extra-simple rules and a catchy slogan. (Computer RPGs, by the way, are a separate issue entirely.)

So then the logical thing for a big moneymaking corporation like Hasbro to do is to look to D&D to at least become more profitable. If it can't generate hundreds of millions, at least it can make its modest millions count for more by spending very little. But what would it take to increase profitability? Large expensive books are profitable as long as they sell (under the current sales paradigm), so you'd have to expect more of those. That doesn't seem so bad, until you see the little products completely go away and other books become artificially inflated to a larger size. What else? Well, it takes a lot of people to put a quality product together -- designers, developers, editors, managers, artists, layout artists, and so on -- and that means overhead. Cut some people (and cut the quality), and profitability goes up.

I'm not saying that this is happening now. I don't have any secret insider knowledge. This isn't a dire warning of things to come. Although with this week's news of changes at the company, who's to say?

I am saying it could happen, and it's far more likely to happen with D&D in the hands of a company like Wizards/Hasbro, where your favorite roleplaying game is the littlest fish in the big pond.

So I'll just come out and say it. D&D would be in better hands if it were owned by a smaller company.

A Smaller Pond

I'm not saying anything against the people working on D&D. I think they're great, and they're doing a fine job. But a smaller company would actually let them do their jobs better. Without the pressure of having to live up to the earnings of games with larger profit margins that far out-earn D&D, the creative folks overseeing the game could appreciate it more, rather than continually scheming for a way to make it more profitable. The game deserves the full attention of the people in charge, and I can definitely tell you that D&D does not have the attention of the people in charge of Wizards right now -- not to mention Hasbro.

Take, as just one example, the Dungeons & Dragons website. Now, arguably, a company interested in supporting D&D would pour money and resources into its website. So many D&D fans are online, and every one of us would like to see lots of new content, errata, updates, online products, etc. That sort of marketing and support would be tailored for the game's hard-core audience. But most trading card game fans are not nearly as interested in continual online content updates. So Wizards as a whole tends to think of its website only as a secondary resource. What a missed opportunity for D&D! At a smaller company, you'd probably see more funding going to the site to support the game -- because that makes sense.

Now, the people working on the Wizards website do a wonderful job and provide great content for D&D. They have at least one new roleplaying update every day, which is very cool. But think about it. Another company, with a tighter focus, could make those people's jobs so much easier by devoting more money and more resources to the website. The Wizards site is great, but it could be so much more. (In fact, its current quality attests to the fact that, with more resources and a bigger budget, the people working on it now could make it truly amazing.)

More online support, I think, is just one of the somewhat ironic changes that you'd see if D&D were in the hands of a smaller, more focused company. You'd also see a wider range of titles, and probably far less reliance on licensed products. And you'd never have to fear kooky corporate-imposed licenses like a Mr. Potato Head RPG. (Okay, that's a joke.) Seriously, though, you'd see more decisions based on what is good for the game overall, not what's good for the "corporate strategy." Not every new setting would have to be a potential TV show or movie property.

And it's not like I have a specific smaller company in mind that I'd like to see own D&D. In fact, just the opposite. What would be great is if it somehow magically became its own independent company: the "D&D Company." One not run by someone who publishes another set of games already, or someone with an agenda of change. D&D doesn't need a whole new paradigm. Just more empowerment.

I'd rather see Dungeons & Dragons allowed to be the game that it is, rather than see it put in a position where it must appeal to the mass market. I'd rather see its product lines determined by what makes the game better and what serves the audience than simply by what is most profitable. Forcing D&D to compete with larger and more successful (and completely different) product lines, attempting to make it unrealistically profitable, will only hurt it in the long run. I'd rather see the game in the hands of a company for whom it was the primary concern, rather than an afterthought.

Maybe I'm wrong, and everything will be just fine. But as a D&D player, I want what's best for the game, not necessarily what's best for Wizards of the Coast. More than I want to see the most profitable products, I want to see the very best products. And so should you.

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