Wizards aiming younger audience

[avin]

I understand that this can possibly open a can of warms but it's not my intention so, please, let's try to be civilized here.

A big argument concerning 4th edition was always that art direction and tone seems to aim a younger audience.

Now, with the release of the Player's Strategy Guide (cartoon style) and Monster Slayers - https://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/monsterslayers - it feels that Wotc decided to really focus on kids and teenager.

While this won't be of use for me, on the long run, it can attract more people to D&D and maybe, 5E, would have a more mature tone.

What's your thoughts about this kind of books?

I still think that a new D&D cartoon would attract more kids, you know, like GI Joe and Transformers.

Please, be civil

 

[Crothian]

I like it. They should try to produce books for different groups and I'm not expecting everything them to produce to be useful for me.

 

[ggroy]

This is something they should have been doing all along.

 

[Klaus]

I understand that this can possibly open a can of warms but it's not my intention so, please, let's try to be civilized here.

A big argument concerning 4th edition was always that art direction and tone seems to aim a younger audience.

Now, with the release of the Player's Strategy Guide (cartoon style) and Monster Slayers - https://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/monsterslayers - it feels that Wotc decided to really focus on kids and teenager.

While this won't be of use for me, on the long run, it can attract more people to D&D and maybe, 5E, would have a more mature tone.

What's your thoughts about this kind of books?

I still think that a new D&D cartoon would attract more kids, you know, like GI Joe and Transformers.

Please, be civil

Lovelovelove Monster Slayers! Can'tr wait to try it on my soon-to-be 6-year-old!

 

[avin]

My daughter is just 2 1/2 years old, so I'd rather have a new Cartoon for her (and me!) to watch

When she grows up I'll make some GURPS games for her. D&D is for sissies (jk)!

Now they have a very specific product to younger (and future) D&D players wouldn't be interesting if Wotc create a few more mature tone books, heavy on fluff (maybe a bit edition neutral) and see what happens?

 

[Mark]

There's no need to make this edition-specific or even game or game-type specific since the trend to gear some of the visual appeal of packaging and artwork particularly toward younger audience has been a concern of game companies since the eighties, but I would argue that they just weren't as good at it back then (the industry had smaller, less-experienced businesspersons running the hotter companies, e.g. TSR and on down). Since the tabletop hobby gaming establishment of that period was really learning not just how to market to young people but simply to market to a wider audience this wasn't such a problem; new customers of any age could boost the bottom line and the (primarily) wargaming hobby whence it genesised was never hugely populated in the first place. It's really the CCG producers of the nineties that showed tabletop hobby gaming companies the way toward rapid growth through more youth-targetted artwork and, aside from some streamlined clever mechanics, a large percentage of their products' appeal was predicated on the artwork itself. It's no coincidence that when the company that produces some of the hottest CCGs acquired the rights to the hottest.tabletop.rpg.brandname.evar they synergized their marketing techniques and complaints about spikes were born. The corporation that then acquired the company with the hottest.tabletop.rpg.brandname.evar then lengthened the reach of this technique and it is now largely an industrywide practice by those who know which side their bread is buttered on. So, in a roundabout way, and although the RPGing product lines aren't where things began, the thread title does point toward one of the main progenitors of this marketing trend.

 

[Raven Crowking]

WotC aiming products at younger people is a good thing. I just wish there were more comics choices for younger kids.


RC

 

[ggroy]

WotC aiming products at younger people is a good thing. I just wish there were more comics choices for younger kids.

How many kids read and collect comic books these days?

At several local comic stores, the owners mentioned most of their customers are people in their 30's or 40's who still collect comics. Less and less kids and teenagers, as the years went by. A general "graying" of the audience.

 

[airwalkrr]

Quaint. Kind of like The Orc and the Pie, but with no orc and no pie.

I approve.

Although I still don't understand why a fearsome warrior moves his enemy two spaces away whenever he is hit. Seems kind of cowardly to me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

How many kids read and collect comic books these days?

At several local comic stores, the owners mentioned most of their customers are people in their 30's or 40's who still collect comics. Less and less kids and teenagers, as the years went by. A general "graying" of the audience.

Largely because good kids' comics are few and far between, IMHO.

When I was co-owner of Golden City Comics, we had a lot of people looking for comics for their kids, but the available selection wasn't what a lot of them were looking for. There are a few good kids comics; most of these are put out by DC. Then there are a few good "feeder" comics, like Owly, that are put out by small presses.

Though if by "kids" you include teens, then things are a bit better. Golden City sold quite a lot to teens.


RC