D&D 5E (2014) Should D&D be marketed like Coke, Ketchup, or Spaghetti Sauce?

[Mistwell]

When I get an advanced degree in marketing and engage in marketing in this sort of market for 10,000+ hours, then I will feel qualified to really comment on this with any sort of educated opinion

 

[Roland55]

You don't make your own spaghetti sauce?

I don't think there is a best version of D&D. I am quite sure I could go back and play any of the earlier editions and have fun. It's like eating different types of beef steaks, all with different tastes and textures.

I do.

But when I can't, it's usually Rao's. That's some good sauce!

 

[Ahnehnois]

It's like crack. It had a meteoric rise to popularity in the '80's, but fell into a pack of competitors. People still do it now, but it's been replaced by things that are supposedly the same but are actually worse. And of course, it results in you babbling like a maniac at 3 am.

 

[Agamon]

When I get an advanced degree in marketing and engage in marketing in this sort of market for 10,000+ hours, then I will feel qualified to really comment on this with any sort of educated opinion

True enough. Most, if not all, of us are armchair quarterbacks when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

[Mistwell]

True enough. Most, if not all, of us are armchair quarterbacks when it comes to this sort of thing.

I am used to posting on sports message boards. I wish I could say opinions on RPGs were a different quality/tone than opinions on sports, but they're rather similar. Everyone has an opinion, everyone thinks their opinion is better than the trained and experienced professionals that have done this for a living for over a decade, and the goal of posting seems to be to criticize everything for not meeting some platonic ideal of (in this case) marketing/game design/public relations/distribution/art/copy editing/playtesting/whatever.

I can't say I am never a sinner in this respect, but it's starting to get me down. EnWorld used to be a place I'd come to for discussions of a game we all liked, ideas we wanted to trade, things that excited us. The idea that the focus of conversations would be the corporations producing the games was foreign. Not that it never happened (it surely did), but it was not the focus of most conversations.

 

[delericho]

I am used to posting on sports message boards. I wish I could say opinions on RPGs were a different quality/tone than opinions on sports, but they're rather similar.

Yes. Astonishingly so, actually - in Glasgow there is a nightly phone-in show dominated by the great Rangers/Celtic rivalry in the city. And the tenor of the show is exactly like the worst of the Edition Wars.

Everyone has an opinion, everyone thinks their opinion is better than the trained and experienced professionals that have done this for a living for over a decade...

In fairness, neither business management nor sports management (nor, for that matter, game design, or indeed politics) are exact sciences. And after some significant observation, I've been unpleasantly surprised by how few of those "experienced professionals" seem to actually know what they're doing, versus the great majority who seem to just be muddling through by intuition.

(And, incidentally, in the case of Rangers, as with TSR, with horrendous results. And, in both cases, it was the failures of the business that critically undermined the product the fans wanted to enjoy.)

I can't say I am never a sinner in this respect, but it's starting to get me down. EnWorld used to be a place I'd come to for discussions of a game we all liked, ideas we wanted to trade, things that excited us. The idea that the focus of conversations would be the corporations producing the games was foreign. Not that it never happened (it surely did), but it was not the focus of most conversations.

Fair comment. Though isn't the solution to read and contribute to those conversations that do interest you instead? Or, if no such conversations exist, to start them?

 

[delericho]

A couple of very interesting points here...

I still can't stand Ragu, but since I no longer have a garden for fresh vegetables and don't can things myself, the difference between what I can do on the stove and what a $2.99 jar of sauce can do is pretty small.

I've found much the same in a couple of areas. A couple of years ago I started making all my own burgers, because I found that the quality was much better than I got by buying them (and I was very glad of that when the horsemeat scandal hit!). I've recently made the same switch with fajitas, when I found a flavour combination that did the same. Conversely, I generally stick with store-bought curry pastes, because the difference in quality just isn't worth the difference in effort (thus far).

I think there's something similar at work with RPGs - I probably could put together a homebrew system that would suit me a bit better than D&D 3.5e, but the reward probably doesn't justify the effort involved. (And, equally, D&D 5e needs to not just be a 'good' game, nor even 'better' than 3.5e. It needs to be 'better enough' to justify the effort involved in switching. A test, incidentally, that Pathfinder has already failed.)

I still add to the concoction more herbs, more garlic, sauteed onions, beef, etc.

That's also a good point: D&D, like a store-bought spahgetti sauce, doesn't need to be the end product - the user can (and probably will) further work with it, adding his own settings, stories, house rules, etc. WotC should (and indeed have) acknowledged that this will be the case, so can endeavour to build a system that facilitates, rather than hinders, the DM who wants to add more 'stuff'. (And that's likely to be an advantage of 5e over 3e or 4e, both of which were resistant to changes, either due to the inter-connectness of the system (3e) or the extreme utility of the DDI tools which didn't admit (many) house rules.)

 

[Argyle King]

Thankfully, I live in an area where there are a lot of locally made sauces. It's the perfect combination of liking the taste of a fresher and homemade sauce and not wanting to go through the process of making my own.


This place is based near where I live: http://www.delgrossofoods.com/index.php


This place recently opened right beside the local tabletop gaming store: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Luccis-Little-Italian-Marketplace/249498601841323



As for what style of advertising D&D should use? I have no idea. I can tell you that, for me personally, their current approach isn't doing much for me. I couldn't point out what I feel they should be doing though. My best guess is that their method of advertising isn't what is putting me off; I'm just not sold on some of the newer art and package-art styles. The actual taste of the product isn't quite what I'd ask for either. It's not a bad taste; many people seem to really like it. I feel it could use some different spices, and maybe a different type of garnish.

 

[darjr]

love the analogies of d&d to coke and ketchup and the others.

also I must say that d&d is sold in the largest superstore if them all, amazon.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

RPG players and D&D players more specifically have been blundering through this conundrum for 40 years. I have seen only two immutable facts. First is that not everybody wants to play D&D. Second is that there is not now and never will be ONE version of D&D that will work for everybody. Using that spagetti sauce research analogy is probably most accurate. When you have D&D version X one segment of consumers may like it a lot but large portions of the rest dislike it much more. That applies for each version of D&D - there are fans and there are serious detractors of each. With 5E WotC seem to be gambling on the idea that they should publish only a version that has the most elements that please the most people, but I see that as most likely to result in a version that ALSO has the most elements that are disliked by the most people. The spagetti sauce research came down to three general forumulations that each could reach high approvals but had significant disaproval from afficianados of the other two. ONE formulation would not win high approval from all three and thus would seem doomed to sell worse than more specialized formulations. That's what I see happening with D&D.

The difficulties are that the market to sell to is very small, accurate research is difficult and expensive to conduct, variations of RPG rules are far more complicated to assemble and "taste test" than spagetti sauce, and the old brands and formulations are becoming resurgent (along with just making your own) every time a new one-size-fits-all formula that has been radically changed from the last formula is marketed. Add all that together and I believe that despite all the open beta testing it still amounts to simply making up a new batch and then throwing it against the wall hoping blindly that it actually sticks.