crystal balls at the ready......

What's gonna happen - winners, losers, which games will make it to 2009, which company is gonna be the dark horse, who's gonna fall from grace, will the kids look to 4e if a cool Wii hack 'n' slash game is released, what's the new theory on the rise, , what forgotten classic will be reissued and rock your world ??

Ok, here are my predictions for 2008.

• D&D 4e will be published. It will be a twisted blessing as was AD&D 2e.
• Base of new RPG paradigm will be laid, though it won't be recognized as such until later on.
• Publishers will be bitching about the reduction of sales as usuall. This time it will be severe.
• Few minor publishers will leave the field.
• Few minor publishers will enter the hobby.
• White Wolf will come with some online model like WotC, but more "fancy" one.
• RPG.net will find its new hit... it will be really unexpected choice.

Should I go on?

4e will be published and the hammers of a thousand rumor mills will finally fall silent.

Seanchai

• Mongoose Traveller will be released and I'll keep right on playing CT.
  
• Troll Lord Games' Castle Keeper's Guide (for Castles & Crusades) will be announced for GenCon, and I'll go and they won't have it yet, but I'll buy one when it comes out anyway.
  
• Secrets of the Surface World will come out for HEX, and it'll be swank.
  
• A bunch of nerds will whine incessantly at each other on the internets and I'll tell them shut the fuck up or I'll punch 'em in their goddamn asses.
• OK, that last one not so much.

• No matter what happens, gamers on the Internet will bitch, whine, piss, and moan.

Quote from: Old Geezer

• No matter what happens, gamers on the Internet will bitch, whine, piss, and moan.

Also known as golden rule of internet.

Quote from: Seanchai4e will be published and the hammers of a thousand rumor mills will finally fall silent.

Seanchai

Yes. Then the informed bitching will begin!

If its well-marketed, the big news of 2008 will not be D&D 4e; it'll be the Doctor Who RPG, which will lead to a huge resurgence of gaming with lots of young people getting into the hobby in Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and everywhere else where Doctor Who is really popular (not so much in the U.S., and this will also have some interesting repercussions).

Again, IF its well-marketed.

RPGPundit

Doctor Who is more well-watched here than you might think. Also, Americans seem to be VERY picky which doctors they like to watch.

 The current one is pretty okay with me. The writing is damn excellent at times.


- Ed C.

In a forbidden rite read off the skin of a clubbed baby seal, standing in a circle etched with the blood of Hitler's second cousin's great-niece's daughter, I shall merge the world's game forums into one giant, gibbering monstrosity named Bitch-Bot 2008, and lo the horror! I shall wreak havoc upon the world and hold the heavens at ransom.








Or I'll just buy some more stuff.

-=Grim=-

• The combination of Mongoose Traveller and T5 will create enough buzz to bring new people to the game.  Those new people will butt heads with the Traveller grognards who have been playing for decades.
• D&D 4e will sell well but the online subscriptions will do less well and many people will stick with whatever version of D&D they are currently playing.
• If it gets completed in 2008, Bruce Baugh's book about minorities for Spirit of the Century will be less well received than the idea of it was (pretty much exactly what happened with his Gamma World).  I say that less as a specific criticism of Bruce and more because it's often easier to love an idea like that than a specific implementation of it.

• No one currently not engaged in gaming or geekdom will give a flying fuck about Traveller (no matter in what incarnation) or Dr. Who (no matter if TV series or RPG).
• Lots of fanboys will buy 4e, Warhammer and nWoD products and be excited about them, regardless of their overall quality (while continuing to be the main cash base for WotC, BI and WW).
• A minority of roleplayers will continue to play what they like and be critical of each new release (these numbers may grow, but it will always be the minority).
• Hopefully Slipstream for Savage Worlds will (finally) be released and alexandro will be a very happy gamer (since he is waiting for it since 2003).
  

Quote from: alexandro

• No one currently not engaged in gaming or geekdom will give a flying fuck about Traveller (no matter in what incarnation) or Dr. Who (no matter if TV series or RPG).

You do realize that overall, Dr.Who the TV series is easily the most popular sci-fi series in the world right now, right?
And that there's not really a geek/non-geek line in Doctor Who fandom anywhere outside the US, right?
In the U.S., it might be only geeks who bother watching Doctor Who. In Great Britain, every schoolchild in the country watches it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYou do realize that overall, Dr.Who the TV series is easily the most popular sci-fi series in the world right now, right?
And that there's not really a geek/non-geek line in Doctor Who fandom anywhere outside the US, right?
In the U.S., it might be only geeks who bother watching Doctor Who. In Great Britain, every schoolchild in the country watches it.

And Great Britain has about one fifth the population of the US. Regardless, if you have figures for how many viewers Doctor Who has, I'd like to see them. I'm not disputing what you say, I'm just genuinely curious. Besides, number of viewers =/= RPG success, or the Lord of the Rings RPG, even with its lousy marketing, would have had more than 3 players.

My prediction: 4e D&D will be released and do well, but not as well as WotC had hoped. If they do any research into it, they may find that getting younger players into the game is very difficult due to the competition from video games (no duh, right?) and the learning curve being too steep. They may also find that essentially ignoring, and thus alienating, older gamers wasn't worth the gains they made elsewhere.

Quote from: RPGPunditIn the U.S., it might be only geeks who bother watching Doctor Who. In Great Britain, every schoolchild in the country watches it.

That might have something to do with the fact that Doctor Who is shown on the BBC while in the US, it's shown on the Sci-Fi Channel on cable television.  ADDED:  It might also have something to do with the fact that Doctor Who is very British on purpose.