[WotC's recent insanity] I think I've Figured It Out

[JoeGKushner]

One of the things I think WoTC is failing at, to engage it's customer base at least, is in providing print copies of adventurers of various sorts set in a world that is well supported.

When people talk about older editions of the game, they're not necessarily boasting of how innovative Thaco was, but rather, what a great game they had playing on the Isle of Dread or exploring the Caves of Chaos.

The DDI is one method of redeeming that but it's still not a print product and the quality...

Paizo seems to have done well by supporting actual game play through APs and individual adventurers and setting support.

WotC insistance on reguritating rules and making people buy them all over again will work in the short term. It may even work extremely well in the short term.

But unlike say Games Workshop, WoTC does not sell its own product directly, does not make its own product directly, etc... Their ability to react to the market as GW has by doing 'one man shops', or focusing on retail sales, etc... is zero.

The DDI may be able to overcome that if enough people subscribe but as long as WoTC continues to make physical copies of books, people will continue to steal them. Even were WoTC to make electronic copies easily accessible, it might reduce the theft and provide them some profit, but...

WoTC has a lot of opportunities to improve, or at least improve in the areas I think they are deficient.

Rules focus and reprinting rules with errata and calling it something new? That isn't the way.

 

[mudbunny]

If you simply want more players, you just target youth and work at it. You will get a lot of casuals and the regular mix of hardcore will be there as well.

But if you want to really grow your hardcore base, you need to make certain that your product appeals to people more inclined to be hard core players.

But people don't go from never played before to hardcore players.

You start out never having played before, then become a casual player, and then end up a hard core player.

 

[Shemeska]

Step 3: Profit!

But people don't go from never played before to hardcore players.

You start out never having played before, then become a casual player, and then end up a hard core player.

Speak for yourself, I kinda skipped that middle step you have as obligatory

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Speak for yourself, I kinda skipped that middle step you have as obligatory

Seriously! When people say stuff like that I'm like "Huh, What!?!"

I went from finding a copy of THE KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS at a friends house (it was his big brothers and he had no interest in it and told me I could have it) to attempting to figure out the rules (just based on the Module) to saving money to get the Red Box from Forbidden Planet in the Village to learning the game to running games for my friends at lunch and then to AD&D, MArvel Super Heroes to Star Frontiers to Top Secret to, well you get the idea.

There was no CASUAL PLAYER phase for me or most of the people I played with back then. We were ALL pretty into it.

 

[Dice4Hire]

There certainly is a big difference between the minimum you NED to play and the maximum you could pay to play this game. It is a shame the minimum is so high, though. It would be better if it were lower.

 

[Nagol]

Speak for yourself, I kinda skipped that middle step you have as obligatory

As did I.

 

[Dice4Hire]

As did I.

Ditto.

 

[Shemeska]

Ditto.

Of course, this is Enworld, and as a whole those of us here are probably a bit more on the hardcare side of the spectrum. But that hardcore spectrum probably buys a majority of the books. Or I could be totally off base. Without paying for market research none of us will know beyond informed speculation.

But I do see in my experience, that for a lot of players that if they stay playing and active, they didn't pick up the game and go 'ok that's cool' and tinker with it on and off. It swallowed them, they went 'zomg awesomesauce', and they hurled themselves into it as a major interest.

 

[Ariosto]

But this new generation WotC is trying to reach is mostly video gamers.

Unlike us kids back in the '70s and '80s DURING THE HEYDAY OF THE ARCADES, eh?

People who prefer video games are not likely to drop 'em in favor of something that's somehow sort of kind of like a video game, I think.

On the other hand, some people who prefer the computer games that are basically interactive Hollywood movies with "3-d" digital graphics might in the '70s and '80s have settled for D&D as the closest approximation then available. Imagination always takes a bit of work -- but not too much to beat the presentation capabilities of early computer games, with brainpower left for rich game play to boot.

 

[Ariosto]

I disagree with all of the doomsday prophecies about rpgs.

Me, too. I think the fad ended years ago, and the hobby is probably pretty well established at post-heyday size.

The industry might be changing, and the changes might involve changes in the names of the industry leaders. This is hardly new. Avalon Hill turned down D&D, which led to the formation of TSR. TSR ended up buying AH rival SPI. WotC, once a "little guy" getting pushed around by Palladium, bought TSR.

Little fish become vigorous young big fish, eat fat old big fish, and become fat old big fish, then another bunch of little fish hatch.

And Hasbro eats them all up.