Got No Class, So To Speak

[rob_donoghue]

I will probably never make another 4e character class

Comments

[drivingblind]

Yep. This is pretty much why any class designs I might have had in mind have been stopped in their tracks.

[bryant]

I've been kind of amused by this as well. I would not have guessed that really excellent software would have been a primary hinderance on new rules material

[drivingblind]

What level of sales do you feel would have been necessary to make it sustainable?

[tcmneedler]

Do you expect to support Paizo's Pathfinder game?

[rob_donoghue]

Nah. It looks like it will be good, but I'm not excited by it.

[zigguratbuilder]

===
I don't care if I ever see another 3rd-party class, rules bolt-on, magic system, etc. Even in the heyday of OGL publishing, this stuff was hard to integrate, dubiously playtested, and often WAY more specific than I had any use for. But I would LOVE to see more creative and useful, practical game aids, adventures, encounters, traps, monsters, and background sourcebooks.
===

Word.

[drivingblind]

The problem, honestly, is that I'm not sure the sales numbers are there for ANY kind of 4E product. I'd like to see 300, 400 sales of top-line products, 200+ of the second-fiddles at One Bad Egg. Instead, our top-line products (all two of them -- Hard Boiled Armies and Hard Boiled Cultures) have managed to sell between 200 and 250 copies in the space of 3-5 months. The remainder (9 or so) are well below 200, some below 100 in number, and cover a big spread, short maybe only in adventures. Our most adventure-like product (The Purifiers) is our worst seller. Since October, we've spent $3,700 to generate gross sales of $3,500.

gmskarka's right: the sales aren't there, not in quantity. I do see us continue to do some things with OBE, but the market's weakness may make that a shorter term thing than originally anticipated.

[bryant]

Goodman Games reports an uptick: "I don't usually discuss business on these forums, but I will answer enough to say, '4E is doing well for us.' 4E is definitely smaller than the launch of 3.0 so many years ago, and people have a valid point in saying it's a smaller 'edition launch' overall. But compared to the trends of the last couple years, 4E has definitely caused a significant increase in sales."

But that's Goodman Games. They have a lot of good will to start with, they have the ability to get product out the door at a fairly speedy rate, and so on. They're also known for adventures, which is right in the third party 4e sweet spot.

[tcmneedler]

WOTC is to RPGs what Games Workshop is to miniature wargaming.