> The short answer: No freaking way.
Which, in my opinion, is a damn shame for them. I really think that without some kind of innovative move on the part of DOJ, Silver Age Sentinels from GOO will crush them. (Not that I'm rooting against GOO, mind you - I just think that trying to revive something as out-of-step with modern gaming tastes as Champions is going to be a herculean task and DOJ needs all the help it can possibly get). Opening the HERO System would be a fantastic step for them. Does the world really need another closed-rights, point-based generic roleplaying system? My opinion is "no way". On the other hand, would the world be benefited by an open-rights version of the HERO System? My opinion is "absolutely yes". Even worse, I suspect that the "new" Hero Games will not even publish Champions as their lead-off product - they're going to do "HERO System 5th Edition" as a generic core book, and try to out-GURPS GURPs. "Champions" has huge brand equity, despite being trashed by various owners (intentionally and unintentionally) for the past decade. "HERO System" has almost none except among the hardest of the hard core. On the other hand, if they did "Champions 2001" or something similar, and had a "HERO System" brand identifier (serving the role of the d20 logo for D&D and Star Wars) they could start building up the equity in a licensable mark separate from their core brand identity. I am sounding to myself like one of those people who believes all problems are nails because all they have is a hammer, but the parallels between Champions and D&D are pretty eerie. On a related topic (from the www.herogames.com discussion board), I thought Woody's trashing of the d20/OGL concept was quite interesting. Woody runs a sales & marketing company that competes with Osseum and Wizards' Attic. He talks to a lot of distributors and retailers and has a relatively informed opinion about the state of the market. Here's how I think the d20/OGL market developed: 1) d20 products are a risk which few companies take; meaning there's not a lot of 3rd party stuff available for sale when 3e launches 2) A handful of new and existing companies take the leap, and are rewarded with big sales 3) A second group of fast-moving publishers who were either just late to the first wave, or acted fast to get into the second wave also earn a larger-than expected return from publishing d20 products 4) Seeing the success of the first and second waves, nearly 200 publishers jump into the market with both feet - announcing extensive product lineups, some projecting releases two and even three years into the future 5) As the third wave of products starts to hit retail shelves, it becomes obvious that the market for d20 products is not endless and there will be a saturation point; retailers begin to trim preorders and stop reordering many d20 products 6) Today: Distributors and retilers have a lot of unsold/unsalable d20 merchandise that they ordered between #4 and #5. That inventory has reduced the overal profitability of the total RPG business by some unknown amount. Woody assumes that the net is negative (that is, the total dollars trapped in the unsold/unsalable inventory exceed the total dollars of net profit generated by d20 sales). He then translates his opinion that the net is negative into an opinion that "d20 has been a disaster". His opinion on the matter is interesting, because his business sits at the nexus of payments between retailers, distributors and publishers. Its no secret that the cashflow in the RPG market has been tightening all year, and has reached a critical point for many publishers in the 4th quarter. Payments are being delayed at many points along the channel, and delayed payments almost always means delayed products (which delays cashflow even futher; creating a really bad negative feedback loop). My opinion is that d20/OGL products have contributed a sizable net profit to the RPG market this year. In fact, I think that the non-WotC d20/OGL business was probably about as big as the total non-WotC RPG business combined. I think that there is a lot of unsold inventory at the distribution level, but a much lower level at retail. Distributors, and to a lesser extent retailers are suffering a case of inventory indigestion brought on by an inability to accurately forecast demand for d20 products. We see this kind of problem all the time in hobby gaming - everyone is such an optimist at heart that when things are looking good, there's an institutional overreaction which packs shelves with product in anticipation of future sales. However, when those sales don't materialize, there's also a quick reaction to assume the worst. Here's the lessons I think we can draw from 2001: 1) There was/is a big market for d20/OGL products, but it is not infinitely big 2) There are too many short adventures, from too many companies, and too many of them are poor quality offerings 3) There are too many companies bringing products to market without adequately generating interest with customers 4) Retailers are going to become especially picky in 2002 about placing orders for d20 products, even from previously successful companies, and are going to be very reluctant to place reorders. 2002 should show a marked increase in total profit generated, because a lot fewer dollars will be lost to unsalable/unsold inventory. It will be interesting to see how long the pessimism in the middle tiers of the industry persists. Ryan _______________________________________________ Ogf-l mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/ogf-l
