Quote:
|
I would have fired the advertising department before skilled writers or PR people.
|
From my perspective, even though I don't care for 4Ed*, D&D itself is one of those products that should virtually sell itself. It has a huge base of invested consumers, and is the 800lb gorilla in its market niche.
To illustrate- in my case, I pre-ordered the Core 3 as soon as I could. However, as I saw the ad/promo campaign roll out, I was cringing.
1) They went 100% digital with their house magazines, generating some ill-will and mistrust.
2) They declined to renew or in some cases just ended certain licenses, again gaining bad PR.
3) They
highlighted which sacred cows they were killing (or delaying)- that may have cost them some sales right there. If they had kept quiet about the slaughter of the sacred cows, they'd probably have seen a 15%+ increase in pre-orders.
4) They announced changes in the
OGL that would eventually become the
GSL...and then didn't have it ready on day 1 of the product rollout. How
that was received is well documented.
5) On top of that,
WotC's track record with the electronic/programming side of gaming didn't inspire any confidence, so claims about the digital initiative were met with a lot of skepticism.
Its almost like they were trying to fail. It was both bad marketing and PR.
Developers, though, IMOH, should have been kept on.
*Its a well designed product, but its not what I want from D&D.
And yet another word from our sponsors
