It's interesting to think about D&D's evolution from assuming you were selling adventure materials almost exclusively to DMs (at a presumed 1:20 player ratio! OD&D Vol. 1, p. 5), to selling lots of player-boosting aids (2E and 3E), to recommending that DM's be removed from the game entirely (Ryan Dancey in August '07).
It's like the business case for finding some way to sell stuff to the big end of the 1:20 DM/player ratio being a superpredator that consumed the whole idea of the original game.
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Yeah.
ReplyDelete& I think there's a couple of fallacies in the "go after the players" strategy.
1. That player-products can be equally compelling purchases as DM-products. Products aimed towards DMs, IMHO, are naturally likely to attract more $s than products aimed towards players. Enough to make up the difference in ratio. Especially when you consider...
2. The frequency of DMing, IME, has little correllation to how much money the individual spends on gaming stuff. There are people who DM almost all the time but who buy very little. There are people who seldom DM who buy everything they can.
A company is much better off simply focusing on coming up with compelling products rather than distracting themselves by searching for a hidden pot-of-gold.
But, of course, I've got only anecdotes & no market research to back up my assertions.