Why di WoTC lie to us?

[kobold]

I’m not upset by 4E- we knew it would come, probably sooner rather then later, and it’ll probably be a fun game earning my money and time.
What miffs me is the flat out denial that 4E was coming and hinting that we where foolish and worried for nothing all the way up until Thursday the 16th.
Maybe I missed it, if so please point me to it, but has there been any word from WoTC on why they lied to us?

 

[Fifth Element]

(A) This should be in the new 4e forum, I guess.

(B) See said forum for explanation. Short version: stop taking business personally.

 

[Vigilance]

I think it's likely a case of new management changing directions.

Wasn't the statement that 4e wasn't coming soon under the old management team?

I think it's likely Wizards' just changed their mind since that press conference, and didn't feel the need to say "hey, though we have nothing to announce at this time, we changed our mind about 4e not being imminent".

I mean, that would have been a little silly, no?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

One thing I heard was Scott Rouse was quoted as saying that WotC had product in the line "through 2008". This was a misquote and Scott did not want to correct the error for fear it would start the pre-4e furor.

In this case, it wasn't a lie, it was someone else stating a falsehood and WotC didn't correct it. I'm not sure about other instances people may have in mind.

 

[Hammerhead]

Well, considering how often people asked about 4e, assuming WotC wanted a surprise announcement at GenCon (which they did, for obvious reasons), they needed to lie to keep an element of surprise.

It's a marketing tactic. Why does this miff you?

 

[Jdvn1]

My guess is NDAs, and fear of hurting third parties in the last few months they can make a profit without having to buy a license.

But, if you provided specific examples, we could actually look at them, since they may not have actually lied anyway.

 

[KingCrab]

It does make sense for them to do things this way if you think of it all as business. Fewer copies of MM5 and other recent books would have been sold had they announced things sooner.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Because it doesn't matter that they lied, since everybody will say: "Oh, it is just business, so that makes it okay. They wanted to surprise us so they lied. It was a good lie. Ha ha."

--fje

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Because it doesn't matter that they lied, since everybody will say: "Oh, it is just business, so that makes it okay. They wanted to surprise us so they lied. It was a good lie. Ha ha."

--fje

Haven't you heard? This is the 21st Century. For any X, if X=business then X=okay.

 

[Victim]

What'd you expect them to do? If they plan on announcing 4e on X date, then if you ask them about 4e before then, what can they do? They can say yes, at which point they aren't actually announcing 4e on the planned date, they're announcing it whenever someone asks. They can say no comment, which will be interpreted as yes but worse. Or they can lie.