John
> I personally see 'focusing on what you do best' as a formula for success.
Yeah, instead of chasing the illusive (and I deliberately did not type the
standard "elusive") latest "what do people want TODAY?" Sound reasoning,
but for GDW, bad timing.
And we felt in TNE that we were putting out some really good stuff like
RSB which our customers never saw, because the distributors and retailers
were so busy stocking and restocking MTG that RSB literally never got onto
a great many shelves.
It's just that what we did best was going through a period where it was
going to be eclipsed by some other stuff, and we were weak enough for some
other reasons that we couldn't wait out the drought.
Dave
> I personally see 'focusing on what you do best' as a formula for success.
> case in point Apple with Jobs at the helm the second time around.
>
> They went from a dozen products down to 4 and made them so well everyone
> else was left wondering what passed them by. (I don't like apple products
> personally but its a good example for what I am illustrating)
>
> IMO company's often substitute diversity for quality because they lack the
> capacity to innovate. This is why many companies get large and bloated
> producing over priced products with only incremental changes to try and
> tease consumers to the next version.
>
> It seems to me that this is a long cancerous death of companies.
>
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 8:44 AM, <> wrote:
>
>> **
>>
>>
>> John--
>>
>> In your excellent discussion you got at something that I should have
>> made
>> clearer.
>>
>> The "put them out of business" list was so foreign to the gaming cottage
>> industry at the time not because it was evil (it may or may not be), but
>> because it was pure capitalism/corporate thinking. That's what you do
>> when
>> you're a competing company: seize market share. You don't sit around and
>> wait for the pie to grow so everyone's slice gets a little bigger. And
>> that focus on market share is what distinguished the Real Businesses
>> like
>> WOTC when they arrived. Until then, the industry was, by-and-large, what
>> I
>> called a "cottage industry," or you called a "quaint sub culture hobby
>> thing." Mom and pop shops.
>>
>> And don't get me wrong, I thought MTG was brilliant. It combined the two
>> great addictions: collecting mania (and gamers were very much already in
>> the collector mindset) and power-gaming, where the more you buy, the
>> better you can play. Honestly I don't recall in time where MTG fell out
>> compared to Pokemon, but MTG was certainly a tidal wave within the
>> "wargame" industry proper, as opposed to larger gaming where Pokemon
>> might
>> have been.
>>
>> As you observed, because MTG succeeded, it generated money, which
>> allowed
>> them to behave the way they did, and of course attracted the attention
>> of
>> Big Business and Big Business Practices. Like running competitors out of
>> business for market share.
>>
>> One of the things I hate about the Big Business model is that so often
>> the
>> non-creative types set the vocabularly. Everything is called generic,
>> undifferentiated "product," like it's a brick of concentrated protein,
>> or
>> a 55 gallon drum of toxic waste. I don't give a hoot in hell for someone
>> who doesn't care if something is a "book" or a "game" and why that book
>> is
>> important. And maybe that's partly why I was one of the ones swept away.
>>
>> In a sense, the industry went through a huge evolutionary extinction
>> event. 1993 was the end of the Triassic and GDW was one of the great
>> archosaurs that got swept away by the asteroid (or whatever else it
>> might
>> have been).
>>
>> GDW DID consider attempting to put out a CCG, but our decision was no,
>> and
>> for two reasons:
>>
>> 1. We figured that most of the late-comers jumping onto the CCG
>> bandwagon
>> would get lost in the backwash, and instead of doing a "me too!" change
>> in
>> direction, we should stick to what we already did best. Call that
>> artistic
>> integrity of a sort.
>>
>> 2. In order to compete with what MTG already was, you had to have
>> really,
>> really high production values. If not, you'd fail immediately. We
>> realized
>> we did not have the money to completely change direction, put out all
>> these slick, high-quality, cut-edge card stock things. Call that
>> economic
>> realism.
>>
>> So we went down. (and yes, there were other factors, but that was the
>> final blow)
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> > I have two minds about my hobbies and the industries that make them.
>> >
>> > I recall well the time Dave refers to and with honest reflection back
>> that
>> > far gaming was a quaint sub culture hobby thing.
>> >
>> > When business folk figured out how much money there was to be made
>> from
>> > it,
>> > that is when it became an industry. Obviously not over night or all at
>> > once
>> > but it did happen over a decade.
>> >
>> > I do not begrudge anyone trying to make a buck or lots of bucks, if
>> > someone
>> > thinks there is a market god bless go forth and try.
>> >
>> > But in the story of WotC/TSR circles it seems that a couple of key
>> factors
>> > play into this. While I am an outsider to both companies I live 15
>> minutes
>> > from WotC HQ in Seattle and over the years in Computer Games have
>> worked
>> > with designers and artists that have worked at both companies on and
>> off.
>> >
>> > A couple of facts about them are clear and are pretty much undisputed
>> by
>> > former employees. WotC would not have been the beast it was without
>> MTG
>> > and
>> > the Pokemon phenom that propelled CCGs into the craziness it because.
>> This
>> > level of widespread acceptance gave WotC the 'money' to basically curb
>> > stomp competitors wholesale. Without the successful MGT they wouldn't
>> be
>> > the company they are today for good or ill.
>> >
>> > The corporate culture at WotC as odd as it sounds is controlled by
>> their
>> > R&D department because they created MTG originally. Because of this
>> they
>> > have been stuck in a rut for over a decade, at least imo.
>> >
>> > TSR for all its troubles simply failed to transition from a publishing
>> > business model (making books) to a service model. Perhaps this is
>> still a
>> > struggle they experiencing today under WotC not so gentle 'eye of
>> sauron".
>> >
>> > And while it may not of been indicative of the game industry back in
>> the
>> > day to have a 'competitor list' to crush its pretty common in other
>> > industries where there is a lot of variety.
>> >
>> > And at the end of the day, business' are in it for the money otherwise
>> > they
>> > fold. We can have all the romantic thoughts we like but this however
>> it
>> is
>> > the true in today's world.
>> >
>> > Its a sad state of affairs but its an inevitable truth of capitalism.
>> >
>> > On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 7:46 AM, <> wrote:
>> >
>> >> **
>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> We got independent accounts from a number of people in the gaming
>> >> "industry" that the WOTC staff were keeping a list of the other
>> gaming
>> >> companies they hoped to put out of business, and GDW was on it.
>> >>
>> >> If true, that sort of thinking was so foreign to the way the gaming
>> >> "industry" ran it was ridiculous. We were all each other's biggest
>> fans.
>> >> One of the best things about the cons was getting together, seeing
>> each
>> >> other, trading copies of our newest games to each other, etc. The
>> last
>> >> thing any of us ever wanted was to put any one of us out of business.
>> We
>> >> did grate a little bit under "the 800 pound gorilla" of TSR, living
>> in
>> >> the
>> >> shadow of their castle at the cons, but we all had friends working
>> >> there.
>> >> One of the reasons I took the "putting out of business list"
>> seriously,
>> >> aside from the fact that so many reputable people came to us with it
>> >> (Mayfair, for example) is that it was so foreign to the thinking in
>> the
>> >> game "industry" that how would anyone even think to make that up?
>> >>
>> >> And that's when the game "industry" became the game industry. Might
>> as
>> >> well be working for Lockheed-Martin.ill
>> >>
>> >> "Brilliant Lances" was nominated for best SF boardgame of the year,
>> but
>> >> lost to MTG. The next year they had a new category for CCGs so they
>> >> wouldn't beat boardgames in the boardgame category, but by then, MTGs
>> >> and
>> >> CCGs were beating down entire companies. And they eventually bought
>> out
>> >> the TSR castle.
>> >>
>> >> I may have said that before here, but I'm talking to lots of people,
>> so
>> >> I'm not sure.
>> >>
>> >> Dave
>> >>
>> >>
>> > If the world was fair then every bad thing that has ever happened to
>> you
>> > would have been deserved.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> If the world was fair then every bad thing that has ever happened to you
> would have been deserved.
>