Thursday, 27 November 2008
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D&D Fails in Germany?
So yesterday Settembrini made a report in a comment on this blog that:"The German Publisher for D&D products has announced they´ll stop producing anything D&D.
4e failed over here, in several ways. You can´t even make money with it. Shelves are full of that brainfart in bookform.Not even Amazon.de can, they are, at the moment, offering the three core books together for €38. That´s about half of what you have to pay for a used 3.5 PHB on ebay these days."
If this is true, its serious news. The German market is probably the largest non-English RPG market around, and if 4e has basically been a total flop there, it may be a very telling sign as to how it goes in the rest of the world.
Anyone got any stories about how 4e is doing around their necks of the woods?
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Comments (10)
The actual announcement:
"Wir möchten Sie darüber in Kenntnis setzen, daß ab dem 1. Januar 2009
in unserem Hause keine weiteren D&D-Rollenspielprodukte mehr
erscheinen werden. Das Spielleiterhandbuch 4E ist damit der letzte
D&D-Rollenspieltitel aus dem Hause Feder&Schwert, womit die
Trilogie der neuen Grundregelwerke abgeschlossen ist.
Dieser
Schritt gibt uns die Freiheit, uns ganz auf unsere Romanreihen, unsere
Produkte aus dem Warhammer-Universum (Warhammer Fantasy-Rollenspiel und
Warhammer 40.000) und neue Projekte, über die wir Sie bald in Kenntnis
setzen werden, zu konzentrieren."
Translated that means:
"We would like to inform you that our house will not publish any further D&D RPG products from the 1st January 2009 onwards. The Dungeon Masters Guide thusly will be the last D&D RPG title from Feder & Schwert, completing the trilogy of the new core books.
This step gives us freedom to concentrate on our lines of novels, our Warhammer-Universe products (WFRPG & WH 40kRPG) and our new projects, about which you´ll be informed in the near future."
So, technically, somebody else could pick up the license.
F&S has a tradition of killing unsuccessful lines altogether. This happened with nWoD and Eberron for example. I also have inside information as well as huge amounts on anectdotal evidence that neither the German version nor the english version is being moved through the distro chain in any satisfying manner.
Even the staunchest 4e-lovers don´t see the possibility of someone else picking up the license as a real one.
If WotC has plans, they better announce them rather quick.
Sett, could I get a link? I'd love to see what the response to this is over on the Wizard's boards. :)
I also wonder if this has anything to do with why Scott Rouse was in Europe of late. (he made a comment on EnWorld about being there, apparently on business.) He also commented that he was hoping to get back to working on the GSL very soon. (seeing as how he is the only person still on the project)
Here´s a link:
http://www.feder-und-schwert.com/news.php?id=138
Elaboration on why a new licensee seems highly unlikely: The biggest earner, the core books, are covered. So who would support 4e, to drive F&S corebook sales?
Interesting news. I suppose the design decisions to cater to a narrow subset of the total player base to the exclusion of everything else may have had a hand in this -- along with the overall attrition of RPG players. Is this a fluke, or were problems just faster to surface in Germany because it is a smaller market?
Settembrini, is there an appreciable movement towards adopting different sytems among German gamers, are they just playing with older editions, or dropping out altogether?
Well, those who play D&D are still playing 3.5, which got momentum the last two years. The coolest thing to happen would be if WotC allowed someone to continue translating 3.5
Pathfinder is being translated right now (by the company that also does DSA, Warmachine & GGs DCCs, among others), and at least the internet savvy D&D gamers are totally pledging their allegiance with Pathfinder.
As for the general German situation, we are in a Silver Age. Never have there been more lavishly produced DSA products, never have there been more (true) independent games (even some old-school efforts, like those from Glgnfz), never has the community been more active. Safe the early eighties, which might have been the golden age, when there still were TV commercials for DSA. DSA is slowly opening up to more diverse playstyles too, while still strongly catering to their main audience. For example, they are pushing the boundaries with competitive tournaments, manor rules, another continent that´s way less ren-faire and without metaplot. They even announced they´ll bring back the gonzo Hollow World of Tharun as a boxed set.
What lies fallow is the German Battletech scene, which used to be big. Shadowrun is still big too, although the sloooooow supplement feed is hurting. The license is now with Pegasus, and everybody hopes for a revival. who have the licvense to print money e.g. Munchkin cards.
I´d say as they now weathered the "WoW-drop" (50% decrease in sales after WoW was introduced!), there never was more money to be made than now. There´s a lot of gamers with lots of cash now, think of Germany´s core audience being 8 years younger than the US one.
Warmachine is THE big thing with miniatures, after Confrontation was found to be sucky with rules.
Now is the time, if anybody cares.
Thank you, sett, for this update on how things are going in your neck of the woods.
It would be interesting to see the current sales figures for D&D 4e since its release worldwide. In my neck of the woods (Indiana, US), it seems to be a love it/hate it reaction with more than half of the players I know declining to play 4e any further after a month of gaming with it. Of course, I still know people that are totally loving it. I simply took what I saw as improvements and imp'ed them in my 3.x games.
What I am glad to hear is that The Dark Eye is still doing well and it is nice to see that Warmachine is big too (I'm a WN fan). Thanks for giving us some insight into the German gaming culture!
What a letdown.... *sighs*
Thanks for the overview, Sett!