Excellent point on WotC mishandling

[GreyLord]

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in the comments I read something that I think freaking pinpoints what I think is mismanagement at WotC. From their handling of how they do their electronic stuff (DDI, etc...or the complete failure in MY EYES of the gaming table concept), to how they completely FAIL to market boardgames (no advertising, rely on fans to actually say anything since WotC says nothing, even on their website many times), to their total lack of marketing D&D to anyone but the core players (when was the last time you saw a D&D advertisement on Cable TV for example...maybe the late 80s?).

Heroscape had FANTASTIC production. It just wasn't selling, mostly due to some problems in the distribution channel that eventually sunk it. I still believe that the mutli-SKU nature of Heroscape was a bad fit for a mass-market retailer, who would re-order based on whatever SKU was available at the time. Not a great way to get a diverse product line that is very release sensitive."

In other words, Ken, mismanagement? I guess I should elaborate more on the Heroscape portion of my rant. First, the line was mismanaged from Jump Street as soon as it went to Wizards. I know the whole, sordid history, and I don't need to get into that. Suffice to say, as Uba said, it was "foisted" onto Wizzies because it wasn't hitting HAS's margin ideals. Wizards wanted NOTHING to do with it, and it was met in-house with disdain and animosity.

Fast forward: The corporate masters at HAS told them to make it a priority, and they put a "line manager" on the job. Note that this guy, who we'll call Paul, knew little about it, although he did a good job of getting onto Heroscapers.com to get it going, for the most part. Here's what was missed, though:

1. If you want to grow a product line, any product line, it needs to be known by the consumers. There was no advertising, there was no effort put into marketing, and they simply used a third-party FANSITE as the primary information channel. Why the would you advertise to the FANS as a primary channel when it's obvious they already know about it? Advertise on websites like BGG. Advertise on Wargame sites. Advertise in GTM. Put a lot of effort into marketing to the distributors. Make nice displays for "key" FLGSs that are big Magic sellers to leverage the relationship. This is marketing 101. They did NAUGHT.

2. Ask what the consumers want, and not just your core constituency. Nobody ever held "focus groups" at Gencon, nobody was walking with clipboards and promo figures to ask people who DIDN'T know Heroscape what they'd like to see in a light wargame. Nobody asked anything, except to the core customers, which apparently weren't enough to keep the line alive.

3. Don't flood the market. Why produce 100,000 units when you know you have 40,000 sitting on Wal Mart clearance aisles? It alienates your sales channels by forcing them to buy enormous lots and then stock dried-up product.

4. Be mindful of your channel. You need the channel far more than they need you, and if Wal Mart is pissed, remedy it. Don't pull product from Target and K-Mart, renegotiate.

In short, it was mismanagement and then crossbranding that killed the line. Had they raised the price point by 10-15% (2.00-2.50 US) it would've made an impact and still sold well. Also, sell to countries with a greater currency (ie. Britain) where you already have a market footprint (Hasbro is a multinational). Why not leverage that?

It seems that they have ONE business model they know how to work, and that's the Magic model. Anything else they botch miserably, damage their brand, and piss off consumers.

It's just my take, just how I see things, and it's not law, I may be wrong on all of this, but it's what I see as a lifelong marketing and sales guy. The lines they've had have merit, but they squander the goodwill they had at every turn, and now that they're not being subsidized by the HAS amortization (being able to write off some of the purchase price over time) they're going to need to stand on their own. I foresee them being in deep, deep , as I noted in my article, because they simply do not have anything to offer other than Magic, which is waning due to the anti-CCG mentality in the market, and Dungeons and Dragons, which used to be an RPG but is now, apparently, closer to a miniature skirmish game with RPG elements.

Don't get me wrong, I disagree with what he stated about D&D 4e, I actually typically play it without a grid or minis (and yes...those who say it can't be done simply don't have the capacity...read imagination, but trying not to slander them...to do that)...BUT I think he's frikken spot on with his analysis of WotC marketing. Those guys don't have a CLUE. You don't alienate a games base (like D&D) by doing not just one (and one sometimes is bad enough to kill the base...look at New Coke vs. Classic...aka...3e vs. the REAL D&D...but it had the opposite effect which also happens and reinvigorates a hobby...like 3e did partially...one million reinvigorated players out of 25 million isn't really a reinvigoration...but it's better than 25,000 players out of 25 million that they had going before 3e)...but THREE FRIKKIN revisions in the past 10 years (some might say 4 with essentials).

Each time you revise something you stand a chance of killing it...and they've done THREE!!!??? (or 4 as I already mentioned depending on who you talk to).

I seriously think Hasbro ignores it's basic marketing that they do with their other toylines...or put idiots in charge of marketing at WotC...

Anyways...back to your typical reading...

 

[RangerWickett]

Setting aside any rules or gameplay preferences, I think it's perfectly justifiable to release an entirely new game every 2 to 4 years. Almost no video game is expected to last that long before being supplanted by something else. Board games likewise don't get huge shelf lives -- most people get bored of Settlers of Catan after a few dozen games, so they switch to, like, Dominion or Small World.

From what I've seen, D&D marketing is actually pretty good these days. I think they stumbled a bit in that the Red Box, which made it into toy stores, doesn't have much replayability or customization options, but it's still getting the brand out.

So I disagree with your assertion that WotC is mishandling things when they release rules updates. You need to keep things fresh to keep people buying.

 

[GreyLord]

I disagree. They are doign complete revisions of D&D, with at least two full revisions, and one small revision (3.5) with another one that's debatable whether it was a small revision or not (essentials). With brand names, revision is typically bad. D&D is NOT a boardgame...though it is a game and DEFINATELY NOT a videogame. A brand is more comparable to books in general...or fiction. Take the Lord of the Rings. Now imagine if the booksellers wanted to perk up sales...so they rewrote it...to make it up to "current" trends and standards along with "current" writing styles.

You'd probably anger about 90% of the fanbase. So there are about (no idea real numbers) a one hundred million LotR fans worldwide. You were only selling about 20,000 copies a year. With this rewrite...you suddenly sell 10 million copies in ONE YEAR. Sure that's nothing compared to the 100,000,000...but that's a heck of a lot more than 20,000 copies. Plus of those 100 million, 99% probably hadn't read it in years anyways...

Win/Win...right? You've revitalized a brand...

Of course it could go the opposite way as well...instead of 10 million copies sold...you could end up with 5,000 copies sold...which is WORSE then what you had before...AND you have the ill will of everyone you just peeved off.

Furthermore...you say you will discontinue publication of the original. Now going with a positive slant...you've permanently lost that 90 million who may or may not have ever gotten another copy of LotR. But you DO have 10 million other pleased customers...and with those you can use a new way of printing out books...so the trilogy now becomes an ongoing extended universe (like the Star Wars extended Universe) that you can keep selling more and more books. Suddenly that 20,000 copies a year that you were selling is selling as a brand upwards of ONE MILLION books a year.

However...8 years down the line...you sink to selling only One Hundred thousand copies a year. Still better than what was originally, but you want to get back up to at least that One Million copies a year.

So you decide another complete rewrite is in order and to stop publishing the revised ones. You also decide that though you had been publishing PDF's of the originals for the truly desperate...that it's possibly cutting into the bottom line...so you'll kill all PDF sales of the original LotR AND the revised one that was written.

This one WILL take elements of plot hooks that have been working in video games, TV series, movies, and boardgames as well...using the most current trends in gaming. In addition, we see the movies sold well and still have a large following, so we'll actually base this new Generation Edition off the Movies...at least some of it. Other parts we'll base off of what seems popular in culture right now with fiction... This version is the Generation's edition...and with it we lose 50% more of the fanbase. So now we only sell 5 million copies...still doing well...and that's a heck of a lot better than the 1 million copies we sold per year...or the 100,000 copies we were selling at the slump.

Furthermore we've introduced an electronic idea where we can sell updated ideas to customers in regards to LotR trilogy (though it's also an extended universe now) book series. The next year sales are at 50,000 copies a year...and we know we have to do something cause our bosses aren't happy.

Then we realize...with all these revisions we've alienated 95% of those who loved the original LotR. Perhaps if we figured out a way to get the other 95 million into this new fangled Generational LotR series. Perhaps we could rebrand it as the elementary books to LotR and put it out with covers exactly replicating those of the Blue/Green/Red solid color trilogy of the 80s????

Perhaps you get my point...revisions can revitalize...but sometimes they kill things off just as much or right at the start. Sometimes it takes time.

 

[Umbran]

Setting aside any rules or gameplay preferences, I think it's perfectly justifiable to release an entirely new game every 2 to 4 years. Almost no video game is expected to last that long before being supplanted by something else. Board games likewise don't get huge shelf lives -- most people get bored of Settlers of Catan after a few dozen games, so they switch to, like, Dominion or Small World.

Yes, well, you note how quickly one "plays through" a video game, or Settlers of Catan? A single campaign of D&D can take a year, and that may only get a given player the experience of a single class/race combination.

So, 2 to 4 years may be a little quick. But I'd agree with 5 years for RPGs. It is still probably a major win on the cost to entertainment hours ratio.

 

[Filcher]

With brand names, revision is typically bad. D&D is NOT a boardgame...though it is a game and DEFINATELY NOT a videogame. A brand is more comparable to books in general...or fiction. Take the Lord of the Rings. Now imagine if the booksellers wanted to perk up sales...so they rewrote it...to make it up to "current" trends and standards along with "current" writing styles.

Not to refute your point, but when publishers reissue a book, with a new cover, annotated bits and what not, this is exactly what they are doing. Call it a revision or not, but this is how they "perk up" sales.

 

[Dausuul]

Not to refute your point, but when publishers reissue a book, with a new cover, annotated bits and what not, this is exactly what they are doing. Call it a revision or not, but this is how they "perk up" sales.

Hardly a fair comparison to a D&D edition change. What you're describing is more like when the 1E Player's Handbook went from having the famous "thieves and idol" cover to the "wizard and demons" cover. The accessories get changed but the core content of the book--the text--does not, beyond cleaning up the occasional typo or minor error.

In rare cases, a book might see one "revision" in the sense of substantially changing the text and taking the old version out of print. When it happens, it's usually the literary equivalent of a director's cut, where a highly successful author feels that one of her early books was gutted by editors, and now she has the clout to reprint it in a form closer to what she originally had in mind. ("The Stand" is a good example.) And even then, the changes are nothing like what we saw with 2E to 3E, or 3E to 4E.

 

[billd91]

Not to refute your point, but when publishers reissue a book, with a new cover, annotated bits and what not, this is exactly what they are doing. Call it a revision or not, but this is how they "perk up" sales.

They do, to a certain extent, but for a lot of books this ends up being little more than changes in cover art and some minor formating changes, not major rewrites.

 

[GreyLord]

Not to refute your point, but when publishers reissue a book, with a new cover, annotated bits and what not, this is exactly what they are doing. Call it a revision or not, but this is how they "perk up" sales.

Uh, no, that's as someone else pointed out, more like the change of covers in 1e, like the theives combat to the wizard at the front covers. Even the slight revisions is more like the 2e version where they had the original with the warrior on horseback, and the revision with changes in text and such with the black cover.

An entire edition change is more like what they did with some of the series books (Tom Swift is one where they had a total change of character and setting in the early 80s, from simply scientist on earth, to space traveller) (another is the Hardy Boys, who have had series that go into the current time...but they always keep the originals in print since the tend to be more successful in the long run, with the revisions typically dying out. The only revision they had that remained more popular in the long run was the original revision of the 40s -60s where they took out a lot of the racist ideas and other types of items which may be offensive) (a more likely agenda of revision would be the rewrite of Heinlein's Starship troopers from the novel, to the movie, to the tie in movie novellas and books.)

Going off of the parenthesis above, Heinlein's book Starship troopers would be the closest. The movie had it's rewrite, and had some books off of it come out. These books were MORE POPULAR then the original for a while...and then slowly died off.

WotC IS a book publisher, but they don't seem to learn what some of the others did (BEYOND THE ENTIRE going to E-book for D&D format other's have already learned to do with their books in print...) where you may revise something to a totally different story to make profits...but you NEVER completely desert the original as in the LOOONG RUN you can make money in some way or fashion off of the older versions of books as long as someone someplace out there wants a copy.

Star Wars is a pretty good example as well with the original Trilogy, though the changes there would probably be more akin to 1e Unearthed arcana to 2e core (so nothing more then the PHB, DMG, and MM for 2e, and 2e even had a grandfather clause for 1e!). There are many that decry the changes that Lucas made for his creative vision...and that was not as drastic a change as that made from 2e to 3e or 3e to 4e.

Most book revisions that go all out are complete fiascos though. People get used to the writing and books a certain way, so when someone says they can improve...it typically meets a LOT of resistance. The key is if you can increase your sales to make up for the loss of good will that you gain from some of the hardcore fans...and with those sales perhaps make it up with new fans.

A key success would be the Conan revisions of the 70's. They ran out of Conan stories by Howard...but needed more...what to do...but make them up! It turned out to be a blazing success...and led to even more success with movies...comics...etc.

A major failure was the attempt to rewrite the Hardy Boys into adults in a series of Hardy Boys...where Joe's Girlfriend get's blown up, Joe becomes a drunk womanizer, and Frank starts packing (a gun) with a much more violent overtones. Some liked it, but overall it was an abysmal failure.

Revisions of character and tone can be a success...but equally can be a failure. WotC has done TWO MAJOR and one MINOR in the space of 10 years...which overall is unprecedented in a MAJOR line (with the exception of maybe Warhammer, as that's a tabletop game, and another example of how to tweak success from revisions...but they haven't really had ANY REVISION being as drastic as the two major changes in D&D...their's would amount to changes like 3e to 3.5).

Tom Swift has had at least two major successful revisions...one from the 1910 version to a more 20th century version...and then the 20th century version to the 21st type version...though the second (much like I would categorize 4e) wasn't as popular as the first revision. The final revision, or last one I didn't follow much as it did some stuff I wasn't interested in...and I'd say most of the fans had the same view as Tom Swift has sort of died off these days.

I'd say the original post on marketing holds true with book marketing as well...and RPG's ARE books...even if those books have games in them. They are not video games. You don't normally do well with a lot of revisions...and you normally don't want to upset your core audience too much too often or you risk losing your only guarantees of who is actually going to buy it. You don't only cater to your core audience because they eventually either die or move onto new things...unless you can bring in new blood your book is bound for the burn pile because no one is going to eventually read it.

 

[delericho]

I'm frequently amazed, with all the abysmal mis-handling of D&D by WotC, how the game remains so amazingly profitable.

The only problem is, I don't know which part of that should be sarcasm.

 

[TerraDave]

Greylord, at least we can agree that it is a 4th revision...or can we. Your post are kind of long..

Setting aside any rules or gameplay preferences, I think it's perfectly justifiable to release an entirely new game every 2 to 4 years. Almost no video game is expected to last that long before being supplanted by something else. Board games likewise don't get huge shelf lives -- most people get bored of Settlers of Catan after a few dozen games, so they switch to, like, Dominion or Small World.

RW: have you heard of scrabble? diplomacy?

I can get up from where I am sitting, walk 3 blocks to the same bookstore I buy D&D books, and buy Settlers of Catan. What I am buying is, with a few small changes, the same game I first played in the 90s. If I go to a toystore, especially this time of year, it will have games made years ago, in some cases decades ago. These games may have some small changes in appearance or rules, but very much the same game.

With D&D, campaings can last years, and replay value should be huge. I mean, people on these boards have played one version or another for decades.


But getting back to Greylords point (I think), each one of these revisions further fractures the fan base. I think I can say this is a fact, that ENWorld varifies. And it is the same fan base: the millions who played in the last 25 years or so, and that tiny trickle of new blood that depends on those existing players.

WotC should try to pull more of those guys together...maybe they can do a new edition.