Читать книгу Drachenväter: Die Interviews - Konrad Lischka - Страница 76

I don't think there's a schism between fourth edition and „Pathfinder“. I think there's a schism between fourth edition and third edition. „Pathfinder” is just essentially a second or third generation iteration of third edition.

There’s a schism between fourth edition and third edition because fourth edition didn’t address a need/gap for customers. It exists because of a need/gap for Wizards – the need to make a lot more money from D&D, and the inability of their team to figure out how to make that money with third edition.

Fourth edition doesn’t address any meaningful need that players have. So when given the choice between a robust network externality for third edition, and a sparse, risky network for fourth edition that doesn't solve any real problems for them, players chose third edition. Which was wholly predictable.

To overcome the inherent advantages of an entrenched externality, you have to make a product that is more fit – is a better solution to customer problems – than the existing network. Fourth edition didn't do that, so it was not successful.

Once Wizards of the Coast opened the door by making a failed attempt to move the community to a new network, it was inevitable that someone would rise up as the champion and steward of the third edition network. Paizo happened to be that company, but it could easily have been Green Ronin, or Fantasy Flight, or Mongoose, or any publisher with the visibility to see the problem, the ability to make a great third edition core book, and the tools to manage the community in search of a home. Paizo had a lot of advantages, and it used them, but if Paizo had not done it, someone else would have.

By the way, there are huge need/gaps that customers have that neither fourth edition nor third edition address. If someone figures out what those are, and figures out how to solve them, there's a good chance a new network could be created that would overwhelm the third edition network the same way third edition overwhelmed the first and second edition networks. There's nothing about „Pathfinder“ that guarantees it remains on top of the RPG pyramid forever.