As for the comment that a MMO verson of the game being the downfall is vastly wrong. As DDO just celebrated 1 million players worldwide, more than PnP ( what the gamers call the book version) gathered in the years it was played.

I have heard many mixed reveiws about 4e, though i personally try things myself than take the words of another, no matter how trusted they are

Thanks for taking the time to write this comment and do the research on the sales figures.

If you check what I originally wrote, I did not say that Coke was doomed, other than the fact that all brands will ultimately die out.

The Coke versus Pepsi battle comment illustrates how even massively dominant and apparently safe brands can be threaten by outside factors. In 1950, Coke had outsold Pepsi by more than five to one, but by 1984 Pepsi had a 22.8 percent share of the market while Coke had a 21.6 percent share. It was this collapse of market share that made Coke introduce the ill-fated new formula Coke.

Comparing Coke to D&D is flawed because D&D cannot stick to the same formula for 100+ years. However it does highlight some key aspects of the brand life cycle.

All products / brands have to reinvent themselves. With Coke, the product remained the same for 80 years but the brand image, e.g. how it was marketed, changed. Only when the company felt it was on the ropes did it actually change the product and it went disastrously wrong despite all its market research saying New Coke would kick Pepsi’s butt.

Whenever a company changes it core product, it is running a huge risk but D&D as a product cannot remain the same. It has to reinvent itself every ten years or so with a new version of the game.

The laws of probability state that if you do something risky enough times, it will go badly sooner or later.

4e was a brave move by WotC because they radically changed the product formula and simultaneously tried to shift from a paper publishing house to a mixed paper / digital publisher. Unfortunately the digital side of things was badly managed and the rule changeres alienated a fair chunk of their audience.

However, it was not disaster in the way that New Coke was because fundamentally, 4e is a good product with its own distinctive feel. This has allowed WotC to move past the problems on the digital side and attract enough new customers to replace those it has lost (and then some).

I described 4e as a stumble in the D&D brand history and if you compare it with New Coke’s “arse-over-tip, flat on your face fall” I think this is fair.

The long term repercussions of 4e may be more serious. 4e in effect created Pathfinder as a rival brand. Whether Pathfinder can become Pepsi to D&D’s Coke remains to be seen, though my guess is that it won’t.

I think the real failure of 4e was the digital side. Had WotC delivered on their promises for 4e from day 1, D&D would of been assured of its dominance for another 10+ years. As it is, they have left the door open for another company to deliver an RPG that successfully marries the online world with the tabletop.

Whoever can deliver on this, will be the company that knocks D&D off the top spot.

Chris

4E is a failure in the minds of some folks at WOTC, but thier thoughts are very different from yours. It is a question of expectations. Pathfinder said they would sell (going from memory) 5000 copies, and they did. WOTC said they would sell 100,000 copies, and they didn’t. By expectations Pathfinder is a success and 4E is a failure. The fact that 4E has outsold pathfinder 16 to 1 is ignored in this analysis.

I know this original aritcle is old so comparisons may be unfair, but a look at amazon sales ranks compared to http://www.rampant-books.com/mgt_amazon_sales_rank.htm amazon ranks to sales estimates.

Current Leader in the Category
4E PHB 3 Rank 153 (225-249 copies sold this week.)

Core PHB
PHB 3.5 rank ~8800 (15-20 this week.)
Pathfinder 2113 (40-75 this week.)
4E PHB 6580 (15-20 this week)
(4E Gift Set Rank 2728 (40-75 this week))

3.5 PHB2 Rank ~73500 (1-5 this week)
4 PHB 2 Rank 6033 (15-20 This week)

What I see here is intersting, pathfinder at 6 months old is doing only slightly worse than 4E at nearly 3, in terms of new players. That seems good for both of them (pathfinder is a much smaller press, so has lower expectations). New 4E supplements are strong sellers, and the market for 3.5 beyond the core books is dead dead dead (and even the core is far from exciting).

I see things differently than you of course, I ran a game store that went out of bussiness shortly before 3.0 came out. 2nd ed, contrary to what the publishing figures might convince you of, was dead. Yes they released 500 (or whatever) books a year, but sales and interest were non-existent. The Alliance and Zocchi guys never told me how great the new AD&D books were selling, cause they weren’t.

3E, as much as I would never go back to it now, completely revitalized the archaic and stale D&D brand. 4E didn’t do the same, but it didn’t come out 5 years after the functional death of it’s predecessor. The 4E PHB undoubtably sold more copies in june of 2008 than a 3.5 PHB 3 would have. From a business perspective that is a success. For me it was also (mostly) a design success, but that is a more personal element.

If your predictions for D&D are as good as they are for Coke I presume we have a long long future to look forward to.

Take from that what you also will.

That said, I don’t think it is a death knell for one of the oldest brands in roleplaying, or even a stumble, but rather an attempt to take it in a new direction (simplified mechanics in an attempt to hit a larger mmo roleplayer market). The fact it has not clearly moved it upward in adoption rates in (as shown by the similar numbers compared to 3.5E) represents a tactical blunder imo. Strategically, they are still powerful enough to shrug it off (as shown by the fact the numbers remain similar) but the mmo-style market is not the market for tabletop roleplaying brands.

Yep, I agree. I believe that D&D as a brand is dying. When D&D came out the year I was born, it appealed to a certain audience — and it was so simple and so new that it held to its premise. It’s a game where you can literally do anything. The rules of OD&D were so scant that the DM was able to build his game from the scaffolding. I.e. put the meat on the bones.

Now, more than 35 years later, there are rules and more rules. And quite frankly, even though I haven’t bought 4e yet, this is killing the game. A person who plays D&D must be creative and have imagination to enjoy it. However, the mainstreaming of the game has really increased the pool of players and diluted the culture.

Massive marketing on this scale, and reengineering the game to appeal to a wider audience has changed the game from something for creative kids to something for the mainstream. And it boggles the mind.

Why play it anyway if the people who play with you can’t appreciate the game the same way you did when you were a kid? D&D as a brand is a dinosaur. D&D as a game can be revived, but under a different brand name. Hopefully, it will be something to attract creative kids back. We need a game we can call our own. :)
EltonJ´s last blog ..World Building, Pt 1

The majority of those who post on the WotC message boards moved over to the new Edition. Assuming that all have moved isn’t right since some people have moved back to Pathfinder.

Sales don’t matter, polls should be taken on who is playing the game? How many people are actually playing 4e is more important than how many people are buying it.
EltonJ´s last blog ..World Building, Pt 1