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Originally Posted by tbone
Interesting... though I wonder how seriously the industry pros, like the good SJG people, take survey results like that. After all, it's easy for 39% of respondents to say now that they won't switch, but not so easy to continue to resist the pull of a shiny new game... I'll bet a lot of those people do end up switching! (Just a guess, of course.)
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Absolutely, and I should have considered that in my initial post. I was just really surprised by the figures the author of the article had given.
To have two people out of five say, "No, not interested" before they even look at the new rules seems pretty significant. WotC doesn't seem to have gotten enough people excited about the new rules (and a lot of the people who are excited are excited because they're annoyed, something else that doesn't sound like good news for WotC).
Actually, I've played using the new rules (a friend had a demo; I think it's a download from the WotC site). They're okay. I think they streamlined the combat system a little so gameplay is a bit faster. So I suspect a lot of people who do try the rules out
will eventually switch.
But if even half of those who said "No," keep saying it, then WotC has lost one fifth of its customers. Ouch.
Now, most of those people will just keep playing 3.5. But some of them, especially since settings like Greyhawk may no longer be supported (or are supported but changed significantly), might decide it's just time to try out a new game. Who will get their money? In many cases, the most interesting setting...the rules, as long as they're not stupid or too hard, will be less important than whether or not the setting looks like fun.
So maybe this is a good time to get some third party publishers interested in developing a "Powered by GURPS" setting.
Mark