Why does WotC have to apologize for making money?

[Cadfan]

Fandoms like to believe that they own the thing they're fans of. And it sucks when someone charges you money for something that's already yours.

Now, few people would outright say that they object to WOTC making money. But, they do get hypercritical over how WOTC makes its money, and object to things that don't merit objection. You get into this bizarre loop, where something that lacks content is deemed worthless, but something with content is deemed an effort at extorting you into buying it so that you can have access to the content inside. We've seen it here.

Person 1: Product X is worthless, its all useless fluff! I hate it!
Person 2: Actually, Product X is going to contain Useful Crunch.
Person 3: They put Useful Crunch in Product X??? Its just extortion to force me to buy Product X in order to get the full game!!! I hate it!

 

[Ingolf]

Your premise is specious. I don't think most people have a problem with WOTC making a profit per se; rather, many seem to believe that profitability shouldn't be WOTC's primary goal.

If it isn't, they'll either be out of business or involved in a shareholder lawsuit in short order.

That D&D has a instrinsic value apart from being a engine of wealth creation. Whether or not this is the case is debatable, but I'm not really interested in discussing the ethics of corporate behavior, especially given your apparent conviction that the moral imperative to profit obviates all other responsibilities of societal membership (whether the member in question is a legal or physical person).

WotC has the same "responsibilities of societal membership" that any other corporation does. Compared to many other corporate entities I'd say they do a good job of meeting those responsibilities. Whether or not we, as a society, have a right to expect more out of our corporate members is open to debate (for the record, I believe we do) but with the status quo being what it is I'm hard pressed to see how WotC is being a bad guy.

 

[Xorn]

I just think that GameTable is going to be a piece of trash that Wizards will never be cheap enough to compare to existing VTTs out there already. I encourage WotC to make money (and intend to give them a significant chunk of mine), but that doesn't stop me from feeling it's a damned shame that with the power they could muster behind their VTT application, they don't even seem to have considered how much the alternatives cost. /shrug

Maybe 4E will do so well they'll just leave the VTT free.

One can dream, right?

 

[ki11erDM]

I personally think it has a bit to do with the crossing of certain streams of geek culture more than anything else. The people fighting to ‘good fight’ against WoTC basically copy and paste their comments on this board from /. and other ardent open software communities. They just take out M$ and put in T$R. If you REALLY want to see extreme anti capitalist views go read the /. threads on 4e.

I will never understand why it is so evil for people to protect their creative ideas and making a reasonable profit from them. Is it really so much to ask that the writers of the books we all love to get paid and have health insurance? Why is that so evil? It is not like Hasbro is making billions in profits or anything. Or holding back a life saving drug so they can make more money.
*shrug*

 

[wedgeski]

I agree. I shouldn't have to buy more books then the main 3 to play the "core game" and i shouldn't need to buy phb2 to get classes I had in phb1 in 3.5. Its just annoying. For that wizards had received my undying annoyance.

So every edition of the PHB should have the same classes in it? Or every edition should be a superset of previous editions, with the number of classes being added to the core game spiralling ever upwards to absurdity?

"I shouldn't have to..." is just an expression of your own opinion. There's no law that binds Wizards to what is, and what isn't, released in the big 3.

 

[Puggins]

We as consumers are also part of the capitalist equation. If you don't want the FR book enough- despite the swordmage- don't buy it. You'll be voting with your wallet, and it's something we do every day.

Capitalism at its core is amoral (not immoral, mind you). There's nothing right or wrong with printing the swordmage in the FRCS. WotC had multiple pieces of information that they used to make the best, most profitable decision possible: Books sell better with non-exclusive fluff. FRCS didn't sell as well as other books because it was distinct from other books. Voila! Presenting the new FRCS: less distinct, with generalized fluff. I would've done the same thing, and 9 out of 10 people on this board would have too if our job and profitability were on the line.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

WotC had multiple pieces of information that they used to make the best, most profitable decision possible: Books sell better with non-exclusive fluff. FRCS didn't sell as well as other books because it was distinct from other books. Voila! Presenting the new FRCS: less distinct, with generalized fluff. I would've done the same thing, and 9 out of 10 people on this board would have too if our job and profitability were on the line.

Thats with the assumption that the decision was the best most profitable one. Many companies make many decision every day that misread public opinion and result in failed products. Given the many past failures that WotC has done or tried, why is the assumption made that this given plan is the best most profitable one.

 

[Cadfan]

Given the many past failures that WotC has done or tried, why is the assumption made that this given plan is the best most profitable one.

Because many of us are willing to presume general competence on the part of WOTC, and criticism made against this decision seems to veil only naked self interest.

 

[Cabled]

Because too many people think brand loyalty and goodwill puts food on the table and a company afloat.

Money puts food on the table and a company afloat

 

[Ulthwithian]

BrownJenkin: I would say that you could read almost all theory about why WotC does something as 'something they think would be in their own best interest'. Since most people find that to be an obvious statement (only the insane willingly do something that is against their own best interest), people shorten that to 'in their own best interest'.

You do have a point regarding the ability of WotC to correctly read their audience and making the proper inferences thereof. However, I believe that the inference in question is valid, both from my own customer habits and those I have seen mentioned here and elsewhere.

The bottom line of this, though, is that if you don't trust WotC to be competent enough to make inferences based on data they have, I'm not sure why you would buy any product of theirs, especially in an industry as iterative as RPGs.