Love the Game, Hate the Marketing

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Since I started the 'Former 4E Doubter now has High Hopes' thread, I thought I'd balance things out a bit.

I am really looking forward to playing 4E. But my thoughts are in spite of, not due to , WoTC marketing efforts and marketing-related decisions.

Everything about the 4E launch has been ham-fisted.

The lousy D&D promotion videos

The over-use of the word 'cool'.

The killing of Dungeon and Dragon prior to having an acceptable replacement.

And now we have playtesters and freelancers given permission to speak of 4E, but only in a positive way. The negative PR from this move , I think, must far outweigh any benefit to WoTC.

In the long run, I suppose none of this will matter, because eventually the game will sink or swim based on the strength of the rules and their ongoing support from WoTC.

But really, what's going on here?

Ken

 

[TerraDave]

Like the game, don't love the marketing.

 

[EricNoah]

And of course, they forgot to bribe me. Tsk tsk!

 

[Doug McCrae]

Personally I've had no problem with any of the 4e marketing. Didn't see anything wrong with the videos. I didn't think they were funny but I have very high standards for comedy. To me, OotS isn't funny, for example. I didn't even care about the cancellation of Dragon (a magazine I always thought was total pish) and Dungeon though I'm aware of the bad feeling it created amongst a lot of people.

On the use of the word 'cool' - those aren't marketing guys, they're game designers. I've seen a lot of their jargon, such as 'siloing' referred to dismissively as marketing speak but absolutely none of it is. It's game designer speak. Those guys are just geeks, talking about stuff they think is cool.

It's a generational thing. Geeks in their early 40s getting pissed at geeks in their late 20s cause they use slightly different language.

 

[Dragonblade]

Since I started the 'Former 4E Doubter now has High Hopes' thread, I thought I'd balance things out a bit.

I am really looking forward to playing 4E. But my thoughts are in spite of, not due to , WoTC marketing efforts and marketing-related decisions.

Everything about the 4E launch has been ham-fisted.

The lousy D&D promotion videos

The over-use of the word 'cool'.

The killing of Dungeon and Dragon prior to having an acceptable replacement.

And now we have playtesters and freelancers given permission to speak of 4E, but only in a positive way. The negative PR from this move , I think, must far outweigh any benefit to WoTC.

In the long run, I suppose none of this will matter, because eventually the game will sink or swim based on the strength of the rules and their ongoing support from WoTC.

But really, what's going on here?

Ken

Given the circumstances about having to keep the game under wraps, I think WotC's marketing has been ok with one major exception. They should have let Paizo continue with publishing Dragon and Dungeon until after the DDI had been well established. And even then, I think that Paizo should have been kept as the Dragon/Dungeon design studio for a lot of the online content.

Keeping Dragon and Dungeon in print would have provided a better platform for releasing 4e tidbits, it would have gotten more people on board more quickly by leveraging the existing subscriber base, it would not have upset a large portion of the existing subscriber base, and it would have guaranteed that Paizo would produce 4e products instead of continuing to support 3.5.

 

[withak]

Since I started the 'Former 4E Doubter now has High Hopes' thread, I thought I'd balance things out a bit.

I am really looking forward to playing 4E. But my thoughts are in spite of, not due to , WoTC marketing efforts and marketing-related decisions.

Everything about the 4E launch has been ham-fisted.

The 4E "launch" isn't until June. Or perhaps you could make the argument that the product "launches" at D&DXP, or when the first preview adventure comes out. What we're getting now is a trickling of information from the developers themselves. I suspect that the marketing machine will get into gear during/after D&DXP, and the floodgates will open. We'll be drowning in it, is my guess.

The lousy D&D promotion videos

A matter of personal taste. I liked the beholder one, but couldn't stand the tiefling/gnome one.

The over-use of the word 'cool'.

I really don't understand this complaint at all whenever it is aired. I might say it's a generational thing, but I'm 28. I'm far removed from "those kids today", I should think.

The killing of Dungeon and Dragon prior to having an acceptable replacement.

Killing them off surely made sense from a financial standpoint, but yes, it's clear that WotC does not have a suitable digital replacement for them now, and probably will not anytime soon. This, I feel, is the one big blunder they've made. I have no confidence in DDI whatsoever based on what we've seen so far.

And now we have playtesters and freelancers given permission to speak of 4E, but only in a positive way. The negative PR from this move , I think, must far outweigh any benefit to WoTC.

I rather think this is an overblown concern. After reading Andy Collins' explanation for the whole debacle, it's my opinion that only those that want to see a conspiracy will continue to see one. A bad PR move, surely, but I don't think it's a "credibility hit" or anything quite so serious.

In the long run, I suppose none of this will matter, because eventually the game will sink or swim based on the strength of the rules and their ongoing support from WoTC.

Indeed.

But really, what's going on here?

Wait a month. The amount and quality of information we get during and after D&DXP will change drastically. If it doesn't, then they'll have really screwed up.

 

[ChaosShard]

Wait a month. The amount and quality of information we get during and after D&DXP will change drastically. If it doesn't, then they'll have really screwed up.

Exactly. WotC has been talking about the 1st public demos of 4e being played at D&DXP, that will be where the rubber meets the road, as they say.

 

[FadedC]

I know with computer games (and particularly MMORPGs) it's very common for testers to be restricted in what things they can talk about because there are several parts of the game that are a work in progress. They don't want people for example complaining to the public about a bad crafting system when the crafting system is going to be completely redone before the game goes live.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Yes, and I think it's fine to ask that playtesters not talk about the game at all.

But it isn't very smart to tell your playtesters they can speak only about their positive experiences, then have said playtesters get online and gush about the game without disclosing their speech restrictions, then have said restrictions leaked after the fact.

It's misleading.

I suppose one can make a business case that it's OK to be misleading. But I seriously doubt that one can make the case that it's OK to be misleading, _then get caught at it_.

Ken

 

[Generico]

And now we have playtesters and freelancers given permission to speak of 4E, but only in a positive way. The negative PR from this move , I think, must far outweigh any benefit to WoTC.

Actually, people should be happy that WoTC marketing is probably preventing a lot of WoTC designers from coming on the forums to bluntly call all those people retards. Anybody with half a clue about the state of the game and the design process would see that negative feedback is far better used in the hands of the designers than in the hands of an information starved public. The fact that Andy Collins has to take time out of his work to inform these idiots of that fact just goes to show you that even the D&D community has a large population of idiots.

I think people are really just mad that they didn't get more crunchy details from these "insiders", so they're lashing out as a result of their frustration.