Dear Wizards of the Coast blog post...

[WarlockLord]

And, I hate to say it, but that's what we have here.

 

[Ranganathan]

For what it's worth, here's the person who did the post-mortem saying splitting the customer base is exactly what killed TSR:

Source

Cheers!
Kinak

Thanks for that link, I'll check it out.

But how is attracting new customers by releasing old product splitting the customer base? They're not customers. That's the point. Wizards is trying to regain the grogs by making an edition that appeals to them. Bringing in new customers, or bringing back lapsed customers. Releasing the back catalog only sells old product to new customers or lapsed customers, not competes against new product.

There are people who held their noses at every new edition since AD&D. Some may come over to 5th, many won't. Wizards can only make money from these people by selling them AD&D. Otherwise not a dime from them. Back catalog, not competing against new product. The same can be said for 2nd, 3rd, 3.x, and Pathfinder fans. Some will come, many won't. How can Wizards make money from them? Sell them what they want. They don't want a new edition, clearly. The love and identify with older editions, so sell it to them, a lot of them aren't going to buy into 5th anyway.

 

[n00bdragon]

Appeal to non-existent authority. Check.
Appeal to non-existent pity. Check.
Mistaking a torrent of verbiage for a capital truth. Check.

Mr. Blog Man is entirely correct that we have no reason to believe anything he claims as grounds for listening to him... which ends up being exactly why we shouldn't listen to him, because he certainly doesn't have a point based on logic, facts, or reason. Nice apophasis there.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's not a single business that does this. If this is really a big scary consultant, I'd fire him on the spot. Every single bit of technology, hardware, software, ANYTHING since the dawn of humanity has not been "sell junk to support your system", but "sell what you need to to support your current system until you develop a better one."

*blink*

"Sell junk to support your system" is precisely what the music, automotive, television, athletics, movie, agriculture, food service, retail, and publishing industries are built upon. Probably more where those came from.

I mean, just as an example, the reason High Fructose Corn Syrup even exists is because we were thinking up as much junk to make out of corn as possible to support the system of agribusiness.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you?

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Confucius says:

"Open letter" of more than 300 words will not be read by anyone who matters.
​

 

[CleverNickName]

I especially like the little accent marks over the letter "e," in the word résumé. *snicker*

What is the "situation you've (Wizards of the Coast) gotten yourselves in"? Is this person just angry that Wizards of the Coast is releasing a new edition? Or is she angry that they even wanted to do it in the first place? Maybe she's angry because they are soliciting player feedback?

I am curious about the author's intent. Does she expect Wizards of the Coast to "stop, just stop," and pull the plug on a project that they have already invested thousands of hours (and tens of thousands of dollars) developing? Because if that's the case, she obviously doesn't know as much about publishing as she wants us to believe.

Ah well, I've already spent more time on this than I had intended. My advice to the author of this blog post: don't spend the last of your days angry. Play the games you love, and ignore the rest.

 

[RedShirtNo5.1]

INot my post, but spot on as far as I can tell.

Since you agree with it and therefore presumably understand it, can you explain the argument in what you quoted in two or three sentences?

 

[patrick y.]

I don't particularly care about the blog, but I'd like to point out that it's not a him, or a "Mr. blog man". A woman wrote this. She points out she's a wife and a mother right in the second paragraph.

It doesn't make a difference for the contents of the blog, or for people's reactions to it, but I suppose it just bothers me for people to just automatically default to thinking a long blog post about D&D was written by a guy.

 

[nnms]

Is splitting the customer base as dangerous now given how the cost of small print runs has dropped dramatically? Thus solving the margin issue Lisa Stevens mentioned?

It simply isn't 1995 anymore.

 

[mkill]

If that woman was a top-class consultant like she claims, she'd know how to get to the point in the first paragraph. Instead, this crap sounds like drug-induced insane ramblings from the mental ward.
FAIL.

But okay, let's assume I'm a WotC manager and you want me to publish old modules as pdf or print on demand. Sure, show me the numbers!

As far as I would know, a new edition core book sells what, 1 million copies? The market for old edition books on ebay is what, a few thousand copies a year? The total of retroclones sold is what, 20.000 copies (assuming 1000 copies sold per game and 20 games out there). And yes, I've heard of the long tail, thanks.

Now you explain to me how I grow a $50m brand by selling reprinted collector's items to a niche audience.

But I'm not a bad person, at least I'll send you some flowers to the hospital.