Gamers vs Companies

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Well, I imagine that if some company bought baseball, added a 4th base, and tried to make everyone throw out their old bats, gloves, and uniforms and buy new ones from them, that there might be a similar response from baseball fans.

 

[Zaukrie]

Ah, edition wars, all this anger comes down to edition wars?

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Ah, edition wars, all this anger comes down to edition wars?

Just to clarify, for me it doesnt.

I dont like 4E as D&D. But that doenst mean it's not a well put together game.
Much of the design philosophy agree with, I just dont care for parts of the implementation. As such I don't support Offical D&D anymore with my cash dollars.

Hey, I like alot of Apple's products and I support them with my dollars. But if they stopped making things that I liked I'd move on as well. Hell I've been a D&D fan waaaaaaay longer than I've been an Apple fan and it was hard for me to walk away from the game I've been playing since I was 12. But I did it.

 

[mlund]

Here are my observations. Take them with a grain of salt.

When it comes down to the money, yes, the motivations between the consumers and WotC are indistinguishable in any way that counts. Both parties want as much as they can get. Neither WotC nor their consumers have any altruistic imperatives at work. The consumer doesn't think he owes the FLGS a living. WotC doesn't think they owe consumers anything more than whatever it takes to get their money.

The limit to each party's ambitions is the point of diminishing returns. When their penny-pinching starts to actually cost them they change strategies. The consumer who starts getting worse products and services changes his buying patterns. The publisher who starts losing sales changes his content development, distribution patterns, and price points.

Neither the gamers nor WotC have any moral high ground to hold over the other, in my opinion.

And yes, a lot of the angst is derived directly from Edition Wars, whether people admit to it or not. Frankly, some people I run into want WotC to fail so 4th Edition will be labeled a failure and a dead game so their friends and associates will come back to their "one true edition of D&D." I see similar behavior with over-aggressive Pathfinder fan-boys. They want to make room for their own game by artificially restricting what other consumers have access to. It is a very aggressive way of using marketing to eliminate rival products from a market.

Paizo isn't really an "acceptable target" or a prominent one like Hasbro-WotC, so I don't see the same direct tactics being used to try and herd people into 4th Edition. There are plenty of 4th Ed "Edition Warriors" out there flaming away, though typically in a derivative discussion role - attacking people who criticize 4th Ed rather than attacking alternate systems and publishers.

- Marty Lund

 

[Calico_Jack73]

As far as my lack of support for my FLGS goes it has more to do with time than anything else. In my teens and early unmarried 20's I went the the FLGS all the time. It was one of my favorite places to hang out (until I was of legal drinking age ). Once I got married I had less time to go to the FLGS and now as a parent I have almost none at all.

WotC like all other businesses is competing for our dollar. White Wolf, Palladium, Chaosium, etc are their competitors. Each of them have marketing advantages... WotC just so happens to have "Brand Recognition" and "Market Dominance" as two of them. I don't play D&D because it is my favorite game, far from it. I play D&D because it is the easiest game to find a group or players for and I don't think I'd be speaking false if I said that I am sure a lot of other people feel the same way. The other companies compete with products that are dissimilar from D&D or are priced less. Besides the core rulebook most of the Palladium Fantasy RPG books are under $20. The World of Darkness books are a total setting departure and in general cost less than most WotC products. We have options to give our money to other companies yet we continue to pay more for D&D products. We have a choice and because we choose not to purchase games from a different publisher I don't see that anyone has any right to complain. If the roles were reversed and Chaosium had the greatest brand recognition and market dominance I have no doubt that WotC would try to fight back by also pricing their products differently.

 

[Estlor]

People think it’s ok to go to amazon for cheaper books, but if wotc:
+has a short page count on PHB2
+publishes dungeon delve such that it uses dungeon tiles
+changes the nature of DDM
+even simply CREATES the subscription based DDi online service
Then they are an evil, greedy, money-grabbing corporation.

Maybe I'm alone on this, but I don't give a rat's hindquarters about pagecount or words per page or whitespace or recycled art. None of that equates to value in a RPG book. That's like ordering a hamburger and obsessing over the number of sesame seeds on the bun. To me, value in a RPG book is measured in creative ideas for my PC/campaign and bits of rules I can use. If I was playing a Warlock, I'd pay $30 alone for a book just to get the Sacrifice to Caiphon, Twofold Pact, and Student of the Atheneaum feats that were in Dragon a few months back.

 

[kitsune9]

Eh, in my experience a lot of FLGS tend to fall bit bit short on the "F" front (and, on a more practical front, aren't very "L", either).

I would agree with this sentiment. In my personal experience, we use to run RPG tables at a FLGS, but they switched to price-charging model and setting up CCG tournaments so they kicked us out. Being a financial analyst, it makes perfect business sense, make all your real estate generate revenue. As a gamer, I feel like I was let down and unconcerned with that even in a FLGS, role players have a bad stigma of being unwanted dorks.

A couple of other stores that I would frequent switched to the same model so that only wargames and ccgs ran on the tables, and rpgs were definitely out. Since the FLGS was no longer a place for me to go game, then there was no point in driving over there to browse through books when I can order them online at Amazon or pick up a used copy at Half.com.

Again, I don't fault the owners for doing it. It doesn't make them bad people as they got to do what they can to put food on the table and keep their employees paid each week.

I will go to a FLGS every once in a while to see if they have a clearance or used rpg bin, but I also do that at used bookstores and Half.com too.

 

[Herschel]

So you are essentially equating frugality and greed? That's a new one!

Not really. But when someone goes to the game store, reads through a bunch of books and nabs free stuff at their promotional events and then goes online to buy what they just sampled/previewed, I will say yes. You are using a service offered by a buisiness without reciprocating by purchasing from them.

When you want to buy two books instead of/for the price of one, yes, that's greed. Heck, when you want one book it's a bit greedy becuse this is an entertainment item, not a necessity. But if you feel the need to own everything (or nearly) that is greed.

There was a thread on a minis board a while back about a guy who was mad his FLGS didn't turn in their paperwork for a qualifier. Yet he bought his minis online, as did the regulars who played there, and they expected prize kits for tournaments.

Personally, I feel society has gotten away from valuing service the way we should. Too often comments are more wanting something for nothing rather than actual service and price as the sole component of value. It's a symiotic relationship that all too often seems to be viewed as asdversarial instead.

 

[Herschel]

To add to my last post, this is on BOTH ends. Look at trying to get customer service from many companies any more. That's not a "revenue generating" department so they tend to be underpaid and/or understaffed (or outsourced to non-native tonguers).

 

[Mournblade94]

I think the Gamers vs Companies tag is a misnomer. WotC isn't really against anyone. They have just decided that the new version of their game isn't going to cater to the OGL-worshipping crowd anymore. They decided that D&D being part of the OGL-community wasn't good for D&D or RPGs as a whole, and I would have to agree with that.

Quite obviously the OGL was good for the RPG industry as a whole. Great games like true 20, mutants and masterminds, and pathfinder arose from it. It also gave companies like MOngoose the rocket boost they needed to make more great products.

Traveller ands Runequest, and MAYBE even WFRP was revived. If that is not good for the gaming industry I do not know what it.

The OGL was not good for WOTC. The OGL allowed other game companies to make better products. Now WOTC has to deal with them.

The people that do not play 4e left WOTC behind, for more gamer friendly companies. The OGL allowed good small companies to get a foothold, and make great products. Now it easy to leave WOTC in the dust without looking back.

Except they still make that pesky star wars which I always need to buy.