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Mat Smith's Writing is Unpleasant [RANT]
- Thread starter TrizzlWizzl
- Start date
Darrin Drader
Explorer
Kamikaze Midget said:
No, you can't be insulted by this, because I said so.
Seriously, I think that 21 would be on the top end of what I was talking about, and I'm sure everyone can agree that some 21 year olds have more depth than others. Obviously you, Kamikaze Midget, are a critical thinker and therefore won't buy into any advertising unless you want to. MY younger brother is a different story however, and I could actually see him getting not annoyed by the articles.
Frostmarrow
First Post
I always look forward to "In the works" for it does share some secrets of things to come and it's the only communication I have with WotC (save their actual products of course).
However, the writing reminds me a lot of how the marketing people at my company writes stuff. It's kind of beneath me, you know? I'm always thinking "Who do they think they can fool with this?" Of course I'm the guy who end up typing it in, printing it or publishing it on the web because the marketing people can't do it themselves. It does give me an opportunity to edit out the worst.
We sell fire-extinguishers and sometimes the marketing people get the "great" idea to show a picture of a burned out home in order to sell extinguishers to home owners. Mat Smith's writing leaves me with the same kind of feeling: "People already know that fire-extinguishers can help save their home so let's not go rubbing it in. Can we please try to do business on a more dignified level?."
However, the writing reminds me a lot of how the marketing people at my company writes stuff. It's kind of beneath me, you know? I'm always thinking "Who do they think they can fool with this?" Of course I'm the guy who end up typing it in, printing it or publishing it on the web because the marketing people can't do it themselves. It does give me an opportunity to edit out the worst.
We sell fire-extinguishers and sometimes the marketing people get the "great" idea to show a picture of a burned out home in order to sell extinguishers to home owners. Mat Smith's writing leaves me with the same kind of feeling: "People already know that fire-extinguishers can help save their home so let's not go rubbing it in. Can we please try to do business on a more dignified level?."
Last edited:
Numion
First Post
Olive said:just remembered another thing i've seen re: official monsters...
people complaining that they can't use bullywugs in their homebrew or greyhawk campaigns anymore, cos they're just for Faerun...
But wasn't there an outrage here at the ENBoards too, when the Monster Mayhem (a WotC site D&D feature) posted a Vampire that dealt ability damage instead of negative levels? People thought that was cheating, because they altered the (official) rules.
That was long a go, though.
Oni
First Post
People are nutty about what's official or not. Like it as much as I do, I blame M:TG for this mindset. What with the idea of keeping current to stay competative, and what was official under different tournament styles. Now I could be off base, but I started gaming with Magic and it is where I first witnessed this crazyness.
Larry Fitz
First Post
Oni opined:
WotC is selling you their books, not their website. Their website is a freebie, a perk, an extra. You may not like their website, or the content found there in, but you are not paying for it either. Just like eratta, WotC doesn't have to do these things. When you buy a book, you buy the content that is contained between the covers, nothing more.
Then I point out:
Wotc is a company endeavoring to make a profit. When you buy their books you pay for many things, you pay for the books, you pay for the advertising that got you to buy the books, you pay the salary on the nice underpaid receptionist, you pay for that huge space at GenCon, you pay for the R&D people who thought that a D&D movie was a good idea, and then got the worst people they could find to make it. You also pay for "free services" like the website. Mat Smith gets paid, he is not writing that ad copy for free. Yes, I called it ad copy, because that is what it is, it is not a review column, it is not news, it is ad copy. Wotc uses that space to promote sales, not actually inform the public. Because of the volume they do, Wotc has rudely low printing costs on a per book basis, this lower cost does not get passed on tothe consumer because they also have a much larger infrastructure than a small publisher like MEG or LI. The price of the books has to cover the price of that infrastructure and still leave enough left over to pay a profit to the people that own the company. They are not actually interested in your opinion of Mr. Smith's writing unless it actually affects how much money they make. The people who own that company are not gamers, they are businessmen. If the people running the company don't make them money, the people who own the company will find other people to run the company. It's that simple. Mr. Smith's campy ad copy is not going to become an economic issue to Wotc. Wotc still employs him even after it's layoffs because he is cost effective. They have research that tells them that spending X amount of dollars on advertising will increase the sales of their products by X+Y where Y>1. Mr. Smith is a small cog in that X. That being said, taking the point of view that when you buy a company's product the product itself is all you are buying is not entirely accurate. If you buy products from a compamny that tests it's products on animals, or makes their product in sweatshops with poor conditions, you are in effect endorsing that behavior with your sheckels, lucres, steel pieces what have you. No, having a company shill writing an inspid column is not the moral equivalent of animal testing or sweatshops, but it is a service you are paying for, even if indirectly.
Personally, if you realize that the column is a shill for the company, I don't see how you can get mad at the style. If you don't like it, don't buy the book it's hyping, and tell Wotc that is why you aren't buying the book. If a number of people do this, and the number does not have to be high, the column will be written differently.
WotC is selling you their books, not their website. Their website is a freebie, a perk, an extra. You may not like their website, or the content found there in, but you are not paying for it either. Just like eratta, WotC doesn't have to do these things. When you buy a book, you buy the content that is contained between the covers, nothing more.
Then I point out:
Wotc is a company endeavoring to make a profit. When you buy their books you pay for many things, you pay for the books, you pay for the advertising that got you to buy the books, you pay the salary on the nice underpaid receptionist, you pay for that huge space at GenCon, you pay for the R&D people who thought that a D&D movie was a good idea, and then got the worst people they could find to make it. You also pay for "free services" like the website. Mat Smith gets paid, he is not writing that ad copy for free. Yes, I called it ad copy, because that is what it is, it is not a review column, it is not news, it is ad copy. Wotc uses that space to promote sales, not actually inform the public. Because of the volume they do, Wotc has rudely low printing costs on a per book basis, this lower cost does not get passed on tothe consumer because they also have a much larger infrastructure than a small publisher like MEG or LI. The price of the books has to cover the price of that infrastructure and still leave enough left over to pay a profit to the people that own the company. They are not actually interested in your opinion of Mr. Smith's writing unless it actually affects how much money they make. The people who own that company are not gamers, they are businessmen. If the people running the company don't make them money, the people who own the company will find other people to run the company. It's that simple. Mr. Smith's campy ad copy is not going to become an economic issue to Wotc. Wotc still employs him even after it's layoffs because he is cost effective. They have research that tells them that spending X amount of dollars on advertising will increase the sales of their products by X+Y where Y>1. Mr. Smith is a small cog in that X. That being said, taking the point of view that when you buy a company's product the product itself is all you are buying is not entirely accurate. If you buy products from a compamny that tests it's products on animals, or makes their product in sweatshops with poor conditions, you are in effect endorsing that behavior with your sheckels, lucres, steel pieces what have you. No, having a company shill writing an inspid column is not the moral equivalent of animal testing or sweatshops, but it is a service you are paying for, even if indirectly.
Personally, if you realize that the column is a shill for the company, I don't see how you can get mad at the style. If you don't like it, don't buy the book it's hyping, and tell Wotc that is why you aren't buying the book. If a number of people do this, and the number does not have to be high, the column will be written differently.
Frostmarrow
First Post
Well, I don't mind Mat Smith writing that column. I'm sure he can write in a different style if he wants to. Perhaps the criticism raised here makes Mat Smith think about his column and the people he addresses a second time around, and maybe he will find that there is room for improvement.
johnsemlak
First Post
Olive said:
I don't hang out at the Wizards.com boards and I may not be that informed, but if WotC put a monster in Fiend Folio, how 'official' does that make it? My understanding is the any sourcebook, from WotC or otherwise, outside the three core rulebooks is 'none-core'.
In other words, is there a difference between 'official' rules and 'core' rules?
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