The ineptitude of the WotC/Hasbro marketing machine

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The old question: why is it never advertised?

I wonder how many people who don't visit the 'net regularly even know about 3.5.

 

[Henry]

A few comments:

Why is there no cross marketing? Why is there no seemingly no communication between WotC and Hasbro? Why do fabulous marketing opportunities seem to be totally missed?

Because we don't see the market quite like they do, and vice versa. I agree that some Hasbro properties would be excellent to marchandise, but not all of them would appeal to their core audiences.

You don't need the D&D adventure game, you need a tactical Hero Quest style board game that can be mass marketed through toy and hobby stores everywhere and especially through the existing chain of WotC stores.

This may well be their strategy with their proposed D&D introductory game, but not enough details are currently known.

The secret to cartoon show success is to treat the material seriously with mature themes and stories. Kids can handle it. Transformers and GI Joe were hugely popular because the stories were cool and weren't dumbed down.

I hate to disagree, but looking back upon all the episodes of Transformers and GI Joe I used to see as a kid and a teen in the 80's, I realize just how dumbed down they really were. With soldiers firing laser popguns with almost zero chance of causing casualties, and giant robots whose exploits that didn't cause ecological disasters on a titanic scale, their story lines, once golden to the nostalgic eyes of youth, have given me a somewhat rosy hue to acknowledge that I used to watch them.

4) Lets see WotC heavily promote the fact that the Knights of Old Republic game for Xbox used the d20 rules system. Why the hell is the d20 logo not on the back of that game box?

Because a computer game running the d20 logo would have to follow some very strict, very peculiar strictures; The effects of experience could not be applied or explained, the rules data would have to be in human-readable format, etc. Ask the worthies at Codemonkey Publishing and at the PCGen Yahoo group about the amusing strictures with d20 compliant software.

At best, they could acknowledge that the rules are "compatible with the third edition of the world's best selling RPG" or something similar.

...Create a special d20 license for software that lets game companies use the d20 ruleset and requires them to slap the d20 logo on the back of their game box. Sure, Infogrames has the rights to the "D&D" brand, but to the "d20" brand? I think not.

I DO think this would be a good idea; the d20 license does need some more clarification as to computer product releases.

 

[Arnwyn]

Probably because doing could provide un-necessary restrictions on the Authors when writing fiction. Not every major character in a Novel is likely to translate well into a combination of character classes and levels. Also, by not putting levels and classes on their characters, they can get away with a given characterbeing credibly threatened by an Orc with a Dagger.

Despite using the same source material, there is a substantial difference between writing good game material and writing a good story.

Sure... (this has been espoused many times on REALMS-L for years - often as an attempt to try to gloss over inept writing - but I digress).

I think you're getting the timing mixed up. Let the author write the story, then add the game statistics afterwards. Game stats for characters are written anyways (see the myriad of FR books and magazine articles), so one might as well put them in the back of the novel for marketing purposes - after the novel is written, of course, so the author isn't hamstrung by game rules.

With 3e, I have yet to see a character (from a novel written during 1e, 2e, or 3e times no less) that couldn't be reasonably statted out and *still* be entirely consistent with the novel. (Classed humanoids certainly help in that regard, for example.) The 3e rules are kind of slick, that way.

 

[francisca]

The old question: why is it never advertised?

Got me. Heck, I've seen the PHB in a GE commercial for washers and dryers, but not in Hasbro commercials.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

You guys are expecting marketing innovation from the company who brought us a collectible, randomized version of JACKS, for crying out loud.

 

[Arnwyn]

You guys are expecting marketing innovation from the company who brought us a collectible, randomized version of JACKS, for crying out loud.

Please don't make me sob.

 

[Mystery Man]

Re: Re: The ineptitude of the WotC/Hasbro marketing machine

Thus, if neotextual construction holds, we have to choose between the neotextual paradigm of expression and the semioticist paradigm of reality. Until these issues are resolved, the current situation is likely to persist.

 

[Greatwyrm]

You guys are expecting marketing innovation from the company who brought us a collectible, randomized version of JACKS, for crying out loud.

To quote StrongBad, "WHAT THE CRAP?!"

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

You guys are expecting marketing innovation from the company who brought us a collectible, randomized version of JACKS, for crying out loud.

Damn, I knew these guys were smart, but I didn't know they were geniuses! Why didn't I think of this?

Talk to any economics professor about "conspicuous consumption", and show them this- it applies just as much to kids buying toys with their allowance as it does to middle-aged men buying luxury cars.

(Which is exactly why WotC needs to bring out the core rulebooks with leather covers, and sell them for $80 a pop, but I digress)

All of the suggestions sound quite good though, especially the ones about making a Hero Quest like game as an intro to D&D, doing TV-show tie-ins, and so on.

 

[Christian]

Re: Re: The ineptitude of the WotC/Hasbro marketing machine

... If one examines Derridaist corporate planning of Hasbro, one is faced with a choice: either accept modern Marxism or conclude that culture is intrinsically responsible for sexism. Thus, if the neotextual paradigm of expression holds, the texts of D&D 3.0 are modernistic. The subject is interpolated into a neotextual desituationism that includes reality as a whole ...

Dangit, I waited too long to drop out of philosophy grad school. While most of my brain was laughing at the nonsense, there was this little piece of me that was pleading to write a counter-essay ...