To those who see it as a curse-Stop producing crap.
Here endeth the lesson.
Do we know if the example in the article was crap? After the change in strategy, was it successful?
What is the alternative? Do you have some plan for getting people to stop being jerks? The way I see it, you can:
a) not condone people being jerks, not accept it, and be unhappy about it, and people will continue to be jerks, or
b) condone and accept it, come up with strategies for dealing with the reality of the situation, and people will continue to be jerks, but they will not bother YOU as much
Take your pick.
It seems like what Malcolm is saying is that many companies have taken option b, but he'd like it if Tabletop RPGers were more pleasing to marketeers. Given that he seems to be both a gamer and a marketeer, this is unsurprising.
I read something more like this:
1) Here is a story of something that happened to a client of his. He wanted to sell a product to gamers, but as those he ran into among the online crowd were hostile to this product and difficult to sell this product to, it was a better direction for the company to try and move entirely away from them.
Yep.
1a) The gamers, rather than the product or the marketing, were to blame.
I agree with this point in the post, if group A doesn't want someone's product, then that person isn't going to market to that group. Blame seems kind of strange word to use, but whatever.
2) His experience is not unique. There is a perception from the outside that marketing to the RPG demographic is, in many ways, toxic.
(At this point, note that marketing a shoddy product to a critical audience is toxic. Marketing a superior product to a critical audience, however, is not. "Shoddy" and "superior" may be subjective, but if you have failed to understand what your target market wants, the fault lies in you, not your target market.)
Sometimes, it's easier to change your target market.
3) Those who have caused these perceptions are not the majority of gamers, but they are the most visible, and their behavior undermines the appeal of the gaming community to marketers.
I think your on to something. (Or maybe your just on something. But since I agree with your reading of the post, what am I on?)
4) It would be really cool if we could change this.
(This is where I ask Why?)
Great question. The answer can, I think, be found in this sentence from the Malcolm's article:
original article said:
Meanwhile, the tabletop’s anti-intelligentsia are roaming Outer...Space complaining that they don’t get enough respect, service and other super-good stuff that nobody with a good long term business plan should be especially eager to provide.
There are, apparently, people who aren't you or Corinth that complain that marketeers don't market to them. Then when marketeers market to them, they spend the least amount of money they can on the product and act in a way that drives off other customers.
It seems to me that there are two rather obvious exceptions. One, is that if you make tabletop rpgs, then you need to listen to the complaints of tabletop rpgers. It's still a good idea to market to other people, to expand the customer base though.
The other exception is people like you and Corinth. You don't care if people market to you, so you don't need to change this.
5) How can gamers be nicer people to marketers? Here are some ideas.
At which point, "'You gamers should shut up and drink the corporate kool-aid like everyone else" becomes a very understandable reading. If you ignore that marketing lens, then the blog entry may look spiffy keen. If you do not ignore that marketing lens, it may look less spiffy keen.
Call me crazy, but it seems like some people
like to be marketed to. If a person likes to be marketed to, it would behoove them act like an attractive audience. Since you don't seem to derive any enjoyment from being marketed to, this wouldn't apply to you.
Like you, I believe that a health dose of cynicism towards marketing is a good thing. Like all things, I think it can be taken to far.
