On the marketing of 4E

[mmadsen]

I hear a lot of criticism of the marketing of 4E, but given the substance of 4E as it has come to pass, would it really have made a difference?

The 4E marketing did not dissuade me from buying the 4E books, but the 4E rules did dissuade me from playing the 4E game.

1) No conversion guide. Admittedly, there are mechanical reasons for this, but in all honesty, there have been dozens of threads here by amateur game designers- IOW, regular players- about HRs to import 4Ed mechanics into 3.XEd and vice versa. The guys being paid to design 4Ed could have done likewise.

Instead, we were told to ditch old campaigns and start new ones.

I agree that it's bad marketing to tell D&D players who have invested mightily in their campaign to just start fresh, and it's both bad marketing and bad design to break not just the mechanics of backward-compatability but the flavor as well. Continuity is important in a game where you create an elaborate shared history.

2) There were pointed commentaries about how 4Ed did things better than 3Ed. The new game was constantly compared to the one it was replacing, which only highlighted how radical a change this would be.

That may be bad marketing, but I personally love a good design discussion, and I'm baffled by people who take offense. Of course, we see the same things here on the boards all the time, so it shouldn't' have surprised WotC at all.

3) Core classes and races were removed from the PHB. This didn't sit well for a lot of reasons.

This harks back to the earlier point about backward-compatability. Really though, what galls people is the inclusion of new races and classes, when old standbys get left out. That feels like a betrayal.

4) The rollout of 4Ed was either contemporaneous to or subsequent to the ending of several licensing agreements with Paizo, Weis and others. IOW, things that people liked- besides 3.XEd- were disappearing, and this created a perfect storm of anti-WotC sentiment.

None of that hit me personally.

 

[roguerouge]

There were people on these very boards who said they were unlikely to buy 4Ed because of the non-renewal of licenses to Paizo for the magazines, and the cessation of the Dragonlance license, etc. Some even called for a boycott.

A. As a player, my DM was not going to end Age of Worms half-way through, so the lack of a conversion kit made switching impossible in that campaign.

B. For me as a DM I didn't switch because I flat out do not trust WotC to write a decent module. I've read many of theirs and only Red Hand of Doom (by Jacobs) really grabbed me. Goodman Games does a great filler dungeon crawl, but they don't feature campaign worlds or town design. If I want to avoid DM burnout, I have to have access to solid modules and flavorful towns and I just don't trust WotC to do that.

So, when Paizo went its own way due to WotC bungling, that was the nail in the coffin for switching that campaign.

C. My third campaign ended a few months into the switchover, however. Why not switch there? "The economy, stupid." Our players were not going to shell out for new gaming supplies while they were either out of work, holding on to their jobs, or seeing their housing value plummet.

D. In a monthly campaign, we're in 4e, just to try it out. It's early, but some of the mechanics changes make for a problematic world-build.

But, as you can see, the actual game mechanics were the least important reason for my lack of support for 4e.

 

[SteveC]

I'm one of those people who adopted to 4E despite the marketing. It seemed like there were two schools of marketing: the official pronouncements, which there weren't very many of, and then the actual comments from the designers, which I respected and enjoyed, which there were even fewer of.

When Star Wars SAGA was announced there was a similar furor over the edition change, and I remember Rodney Thompson coming in and quelling a lot of the problems by essentially saying "I love Star Wars, I'm an RPGer that you all know, trust me." There were a couple of similar messages from Mike Mearls, but not nearly enough in my opinion.

There were a few articles about the changes in the new edition that really worked: the one on hit points and dying was a good example, since it talked about the rules and then said "here's how to use those rules in your 3X campaign now!" Why they didn't do more of that, I have no idea.

So I guess my take on it is that the marketing (or lack thereof) is one of the main issues with initial and ongoing adoption of the new rules. The people who are behind it are incredibly nice folks, but the 4E launch was made much worse by the lead up.

--Steve

 

[El Mahdi]

...would it really have made a difference?

Absolutely!

But, I honestly don't know if it would have been better or worse for them.

For me, I was hooked on the rules and edition philosophy/ideas leaks that were made prior to release. The end product ended up not being quite what I expected, and just isn't my cup of tea ... but I wasn't mislead (whether purposely or accidentally) by WotC by the leaks and previews.

However, the promises of features (DDI) that never appeared, the creation of the GSL (instead of remaining OGL), the pulling of pdf's and end of any support or occasional supplements for older editions, the sanctimonious and demeaning way they have treated requests and feedback from fans/customers, and the absolute boondoggling of most of their public relations attempts ... IMO adds up to, at worst, false advertising and straight up lying ... at best, absolute and inexcusable mismanagement.

If they had been honest and realistic about their abilities and what they would actually produce and release ... and had been up front about their intentions regarding the OGL and older edition materials ... I still would have bought the 4E core books, occasional supplements that I think I might be able to mine material from, occasional adventures, and most importantly - I would still be paying for a DDI subscription.

Because they didn't, I no longer purchase anything from them.

Whether I'm atypical in that regard, or whether a significant portion of WotC's possible customer base feel the same way, is the part open for conjecture.

But, I guess we'll never know what might have happened had WotC done the right thing instead.

 

[Shemeska]

I'm one of those people who adopted to 4E despite the marketing. It seemed like there were two schools of marketing: the official pronouncements, which there weren't very many of, and then the actual comments from the designers, which I respected and enjoyed, which there were even fewer of.

Honestly it was some of the designer comments that got under my skin w/ regards to what 4e was all about. Two quotes or series of quotes come to mind.

"Of course, these planes don't hold a candle to 2E's hilarious Plane of Vacuum, which is truly the antithesis of fun.)" - Chris Perkins

And from the D&D Podcast #16

"Guardinals - Bullet in the Head." - Mike Mearls
"What's a guardinal???" - Dave Noonan
"They're outsiders from the plane of neutral good!" - James Wyatt
"There's a plane of neutral good? Which one was that again?" - Dave Noonan
"...Bytopia? Maybe?" - James Wyatt (giving the wrong answer, which apparently none of the other guys knew was wrong)
"I'm probably going to offend a bunch of Planescape fans, but Bytopia sounds like a place where you'd go to buy a gimmicky hamburger..."
*insert laughter and jokes cracked about the plane*

What's funny is that the page for the podcast actually went back and added a printed correction for them botching what the NG plane in the Great Wheel was, and what Bytopia was.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

The Marketing did turn me off from 4E, but overall it was just the fact that the game was completely different and not what I am looking for in an RPG that made me not switch to 4E.

 

[Crothian]

Marketing didn't matter to me. Marketing rarely tells me if I'm going to like something; too much flash and not enough substance. It's the game I care about not the opinions of the people who make the thing.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

There is a pathology on the internet that I think we are all well-aware of: it amplifies and distributes anger.

This. It's funny, I was thinking pretty much exactly this before I scrolled down to your post.

The marketing had its problems. I also think that, from the outset, a lot of 3.x fans on this site and others willfully misconstrued/misrepresented the 4e marketing campaign in order to push their own agenda. So much, that I wonder if it may have actually impacted the game's success.

4e isn't my cup of tea, but that choice is based on the game, not the marketing, or the negative press of the game's instant detractors.

 

[Alzrius]

If they had been honest and realistic about their abilities and what they would actually produce and release ... and had been up front about their intentions regarding the OGL and older edition materials ...

I can't speak to WotC's intentions regarding 4E materials, but about the OGL I can tell you that WotC honestly had no idea what their intentions were.

I was at Gen Con 2007, when 4E had been announced, and there was a seminar about what 4E would mean for the third-party community. I attended, and so did a LOT of big players from various companies, such as Paizo, Green Ronin, and many others, and waited to hear what WotC had to say...only to find out that WotC was waiting to hear what we had to say.

See, the "seminar" was WotC asking for thoughts and opinions on whether or not - and if so how - 4E should be open. In fact, they admitted that this was because they weren't sure what to do yet and hadn't decided how to proceed. A lot of thoughts and ideas were tossed around, some good and some not so good, but the message was clear - WotC had no clear plan for how to proceed. It was nice of them to ask for input, sure, but it was still disheartening that they didn't have their act together.

That, I believe, is indicative of how the entire 4E launch was handled - there was only a vague idea of what they wanted to do, and almost no idea how to accomplish it.

 

[Elbeghast]

All their marketing choices definitely turned me off, but ultimately it was 4E itself that turned me away.

This.

The marketing failed to draw in people who *liked* 3.5 in the first place. It encouraged them to stay where they were and raised their doubts, to put it mildly. It's a lesson on what *not* to do when marketing a new edition of a very successful game/previous edition.

The game itself did the rest.