What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[renau1g]

This analogy does not apply here. A PS3 is EMPIRICALLY a better system that PS2. It can do more, better graphics, better gameplay because of the hardware. Windows 95 cannot do all the things Vista or MS7 can do.

4e did not improve anything on an empirical level, and there are those, such as myself that think anything it improved, degraded other areas. 4e does not have better art than 3rd edition. Find a person who would say the graphics on PS2 are better than PS3. The gameplay is no better in 4e than 3rd edition. The gameplay for a PS3 improved by leaps and bounds.

Anyone I know that insists the PS2 is better does not own a seventh generation system. Playing PS2 adamantly over PS3 is simply nostalgia. It is the same reason I rigged my Intellivision to play on my TV.

I can empirically demonstrate that it is far easier to plan adventures and create PC's for 4e than prior editions with DDI. I have access to every rule book published with the CB and with every monster created plus the ability to scale up or down levels with the click of a button, calculating hp, attacks, etc, in a fraction of a second. Therefore, I have more time available to game, or to pursue other parts of my life. To me that's better. Maybe everyone would rather spend hours and hours going through each MM and writing down stat blocks. Not me, I'd rather go outside and play some sports, go play video games, watch a movie, or play more D&D. YMMV of course.

 

[Wicht]

If I had to guess (and that is all this is, a guess), I would speculate that the cost of publishing Dungeon and Dragon magazine where considered a marketing expense. The goal was to promote gameplay and sell new product. Any revenue they made either helped offset the cost or was just considered gravy..

Considering another company was paying them for the right to license the mags and wanted to keep publising them I'm not sure what marketing expenses WotC had in regartds to them. I think it was a strategic decision more than anything: they had a plan and it involved bringing the magazines back in house and converting them to electronics.

 

[renau1g]

I don't think anyone is clamoring for this. The thread was what can WOTC do to get old customers back. People listed what WOTC COULD do.

I know what WOTC could do, but I don't care if they do it, because I don't want them around anymore. They make a game called D&D, that is great. I recognize the game I play as truer to Dungeons and Dragons than the current one touted by WOTC. So what do I care if they do something or nothing to get me back. I will however address hypotheticals in a thread.

Any reason why you're here then? I mean, why waste your time here if you a) don't care, and b) hope the company goes bankrupt?

 

[caelum]

First let me say that I find it a bit sad that this thread - which began as a (mostly) positive attempt to say what WotC could do to attract this "disenchanted" segment has degenerated into bickering. If you love 4e and aren't disenchanted, why attack people who are, and who are trying to be constructive? (Not that everyone is, I realize.)

Personally: I have nearly as many 4e books as Paizo books, and I hold no particular grudge either way. But I think WotC has made business mistakes, regardless of how well-designed their latest game is. It would benefit both sides of the community to recognize these - as well as good business decisions, and the strengths and weaknesses of the new version - because that's the only way to end the bickering. (A lost cause, I know.)

The fact that fans were kept for 30-ish years is definitely proof that they were "kept hooked". I'm not sure how many current 4e fans were alienated by the refusal to sell past edition source material.

As has been argued before, how well they've been hooked in the past is irrelevant to the present. If WotC's current policies alienate their consumers, that's a problem.

Fans of prior editions can be upset I suppose, but it's like being mad at Microsoft for not supporting Windows 95. Sure you can use it, but Microsoft is only supporting their current OS (and I believe a few generations back). Or say Sony for not supporting PS2 anymore, mine still works in my basement, but they're focusing on PS3.

I think that's a very poor analogy, because in fact Microsoft does support their old operating systems. We run Vista in our house, and there's a continual stream of patches and security updates. And, you will always be able to download those for old versions - there is no reason for Microsoft to remove them. They don't add new features, which is fine - again, I don't expect new 1e or 3e adventures. It would just be nice to be able to buy the existing ones.

Also, it's difficult to compare Paizo to WoTC, because they are not a similar size. Paizo is listed as 23 employees while WoTC is around 387 or so (according to Linked In), including freelancers. That means that Wizards is about 17x the size of Paizo. What Paizo might deem a success, Wizards may deem a failure.

The more relevant comparison is not total size but manpower devoted to the D&D/Pathfinder lines, which are much more comparable. Nevertheless, I certainly would not argue that Pathfinder is more successful than 4e - just that Pathfinder has clearly attracted lots of former 3e players, and it is a no-brainer that in an ideal world WotC would rather have retained them.

 

[caelum]

I can empirically demonstrate that it is far easier to plan adventures and create PC's for 4e than prior editions with DDI.

I think we need to separate DDI and 4e. I don't think DDI has alienated anyone; it is a great tool. It is the decisions in the 4e system itself which many find problematic.

On a tangent: is it really easier to make a 4e character, even with DDI, than a BECMI character? I'm not so sure. And, if you have to pay $8/month for the privilege, that must be factored in as well.

(Actually, the wave of initial promises, soon broken, did alienate some. As did the lack of Mac support. But still...overall, new tool = good, regardless of your game preference.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

I can empirically demonstrate that it is far easier to plan adventures and create PC's for 4e than prior editions with DDI. I have access to every rule book published with the CB and with every monster created plus the ability to scale up or down levels with the click of a button, calculating hp, attacks, etc, in a fraction of a second. Therefore, I have more time available to game, or to pursue other parts of my life. To me that's better. Maybe everyone would rather spend hours and hours going through each MM and writing down stat blocks. Not me, I'd rather go outside and play some sports, go play video games, watch a movie, or play more D&D. YMMV of course.

Hmmm.

I don't know about you, but prior to 3e, the biggest time sink for me was deciding which elements I wanted to use, and how they fit together. And I don't mean in a rules way....I mean in a "what should this area be like, and what lives here?" way.

Certainly, stat blocks in Holmes Basic or 1e were pretty short (even though I used an extended stat block).

I grant a priori that the DDI offers superior tools to 3e, because faster is a real factor in these cases. But that doesn't mean that "faster" is the only component of "better".

In video game consoles, processing speed, graphics, and user interface are big factors to look at when determining which is better. In some cases, I prefer a system with slower speed and worse graphics simply because I find the interface more intuitive. It is the interface on the Wii that gives it its market share, after all. So "better" might not be as objective there as some believe, either, but it is still less completely subjective than rpg design.

IMHO. YMMV.



RC

 

[Imaro]

Something's wrong with this, in that there's many magazines out there that can only dream of those sales numbers and yet still manage to keep going...

Lanefan

I think Hussar is doing a tad bit of inferring with his own bias, as I don't remember either company claiming the magazines weren't profitable, in fact I specifically remember Paizo claiming they were in fact profitable under them. I also wonder why it would matter to WotC as long as they are getting their licensing fee from Paizo. As I remember it, this was around the same time that WotC began pulling all of it's licenses back in-house.

 

[rogueattorney]

Or say Sony for not supporting PS2 anymore, mine still works in my basement, but they're focusing on PS3.

I can't speak to Sony. I'm a Nintendo guy. The Wii can play Game Cube games. You can download hundreds of NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and even C64 games to your Wii, starting for as little as $5. There are also new games in the 8-bit style being made and available for download, Megaman 9 and 10 being recent notable examples. Also, Nintendo is making "lost" Japanese-only classic games available for download, including lost Super Mario levels, Castlevania X, and the original Sin & Punishment.

Nintendo will often use a bit of synergy with their releases of old and new. i.e., They released the classic original Sin & Punishment via download a few months before the retail release of its sequel.

 

[renau1g]

You don't have to pay $8/month, you can pay like $12 right now and have access to everything to date. That should be more than enough for most people right? Plus, $8/month is less than buying MP2, AP, etc. and you get all the rules, so the cost savings should be taken into account

I don't believe I am attacking anyone, maybe I am, and if the mods believe I am, please PM me and I'll take care of it. I suppose any discussion of D&D is bickering as it is petty or trivial to most of us in the grand scheme of things, just a hobby. I don't really believe any of us are "bad-tempered" though with this discussion.

[sblock=definition]
ick·er (bkr)
intr.v. bick·ered, bick·er·ing, bick·ers
1. To engage in a petty, bad-tempered quarrel; squabble. See Synonyms at argue. [/sblock]

I'll agree the OS was a poor analogy (but I did also mention that they do support previous generations.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

I suspect that, had the VTT worked out as planned (and had, therefore, WotC been able to offer players of older editions a substantial reason for joining the DDI) we would have seen DDI support for "classic" editions about a year after 4e rolled out. And then, maybe, we would have had classic sprawling megadungeons hosted through the WotC site. Good business for them, and lots of money involved if every DM had 20+ paying players.

Had the VTT worked as planned, I could even see WotC allowing a profit-sharing model for some DMs, so that they made a % of their players' fees, allowing them to DM full time. Again, there is more than a small chance that WotC could have beaten WoW with such a strategy.



Sadly, there is no VTT.




RC