Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
It does now. It didn't when the first Iron Man movie came out - the actor who played the role was far more important than the role itself, which most hadn't heard of, and those who had didn't much care about it.
D&D 5E D&D Next: Let's discuss it's mass multimedia goal.
- Thread starter ForeverSlayer
- Start date
It does now. It didn't when the first Iron Man movie came out - the actor who played the role was far more important than the role itself, which most hadn't heard of, and those who had didn't much care about it.
But at no point did Marvel draw the people. Its the same with D&D. Outside of PnP games people do not care if it is D&D or not. Also, D&D lacks characters to draw people in also. At best they have settings.
So what is left is marketing to draw people and based on previous performances I doubt that Hasbro will spend enough money on it so that whatever gets promoted reaches critical mass.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
It is now. You think people will see Guardians of the Galaxy because they like the characters?
And it did to some extent for Iron Man, and definitely Blade before that.
I already debunked that myth earlier in the thread. In fact, every point you've raised has already been raised and responded to in this thread.
No, you just said that it is not the case without any argument why that is and a lot of people already pointed that out to you.
Why will people see Guardians? Have you seen the Trailer? Characters and Humor are the two drawing points + famous voice actors. They don't even capitalize by linking it to Avengers by now (only to Thor and only recognizable by those who watch after credit scenes).
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sunshadow21
Explorer
For the final audience, neither means much at all. Where they mean a great deal is with the investors and people funding the projects, and this is where WotC has a problem Marvel never really had. Marvel has always been a producer of multiple comic books, each with it's own level of success and publicity over the years. For them to leverage a character like Iron Man into a profitable movie was not all that challenging; the investors understood why the better known characters weren't available, and they understood that the only real difference between Iron Man and those more popular characters was the amount of resources spent on getting and keeping them in the public eye. The core Iron Man product was already there; the core Marvel brand was already there. It just took some dollars to infuse the Iron Man product line. D&D is not nearly as easy to work with. There is no single definition of the core brand that WotC can sell to investors, and no really strong product line (in this case, world or character) inside the brand that would be attractive enough to an outside game developer or movie producer to justify selecting it over their own original story or world that they wouldn't have to pay a licensing fee for. When you take away the rpg from the center of the wheel, there is nothing left in the center to solidify the brand. A few interesting, but far from truly great, worlds, a handful of specific monsters, and the concept of a party taking on dragons is not a sellable product; all of those things are things that any decent developer or producer could replicate on their own. Forgotten Realms is the closest thing that they have to being a sellable subbrand, and even that falls well short of what is needed unless WotC is willing to take a formal "D&D=Forgotten Realms" stance, and even that would be a hard sell without WotC first producing a true hit of a game or movie to show that there is a built in audience for that particular world. The biggest problem with the comparison with Marvel is that Marvel simply needed a bit of extra cash to get an already refined story out while D&D needs a great deal of shaping before it's ready to be effectively put before the eyes of the general public. A smash movie right now that happens to include the D&D logo would do very little to help the brand as a whole, either for the final audience or the investors that WotC needs to be come knocking at their door asking for licensing deals.
For better or for worse, at least initially, Next as a tabletop game must still sit at the center of the brand; there is simply nothing else that can occupy that space right now. For WotC to be able to shift that away from the center and create something else in it's place at the center, the tabletop game itself first has to be truly beyond a shadow of a doubt successful, which right now has a 50/50 chance of happening, and something that D&D fans see as being truly D&D, something that 4E never really achieved, and they must have a solid plan in place from the very start on how to capitalize on Next's success to allow them to shift the perception of the brand away from the tabletop game to something else. This usually requires a consistent management team to design and implement, something that WotC has not had for a great while now. It is entirely possible that they finally have all the pieces in place that they need, but it's a little premature to say that it will happen as planned, given their past record on that very same goal with past editions.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
No Derren, that's not what I said. And I listed more than a half-dozen known characters. It's fine if you don't want to read the thread, but then don't claim to know what people have said if you can't be bothered to do so.
Yes people will see Guardians, and while "Characters" are the drawing point, they're all UNKNOWN characters to 99%+ of the population. More people had heard of Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster, Raistlin and Tasslehoff, Gord the Rogue, Mordenkainen and Bigby, etc. than have heard of most of the Guardians of the Galaxy characters. You think more people have heard of "Groot" than any of those guys? Heck just compare novel sales numbers to Guardian comics sales numbers and it's easy to see the D&D characters are known by more people.
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Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
Wow I disagree strongly. At the time of Blade, nobody believed in Marvel anymore in Hollywood. They had a massive problem with funding, they had to outsource a bunch of it, their comics were in danger of total collapse, and their only prior film was Howard the Duck, known to be one of the biggest disasters in movie history. Even after Blade's modest success, Iron Man was a real challenge to get funded, and as I mentioned earlier they went with an indie director who had already retreated to television (and not well known television at that), and a lead actor coming out of rehab.
Meanwhile, Hasbro has a track record of 6 films: Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra , Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Battleship, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation (and all those involved three different major studios). They also had two other animated films (a My Little Pony film, and a Transformers one).
They currently have nine other films in development (9 different production companies including 5 major studios).
That is a HUGELY better position to be in, funding-wise, than Marvel was for either Blade or Iron Man 1. Investors trust Hasbro a whole lot more than they did Marvel at that time. They already have the investor relationships and track record they need.
Except for decades of best selling novels? Novels which sell more copies than Iron Man was selling, and 10 times more than Blade was selling?
And that's just what people were saying about Marvel right up until it wasn't true - that it had to be centered on comic books.
sunshadow21
Explorer
WotC is not Hasbro, and the novel line is for all practical purposes it's own product and brand, the success of which has little to no bearing on any other part of the brand. And the fact that Iron Man shifted the focus for Marvel away from comic books is great, but WotC has nothing in the pipeline aside from Next for the D&D name, so whatever is going to come after Next's release will be effected by Next's relative success or failure. At the end of the day, WotC still has no real sellable product to sell under the D&D brand right now aside from Next. The novels belong to the author's as much as they do WotC, and the boardgames are a modest success at best. That means that whatever long term plans they may have, Next and the tabletop game is still what has to be front and center because it's the only thing they have to sell right now. Take away Next and the tabletop game, and you have just another generic fantasy concept. This is not to say that the tabletop game is always going to be the only thing they have to sell, but for now, it is. Until WotC themselves can create a truly sellable product outside of the game itself, no one else is going to bother, and that no one includes Hasbro, which doesn't need or care about D&D at this particular point and won't until WotC gives them reason to. That means that WotC needs to focus a lot more resources than what they have been, and that requires the current product, Next, to do well enough to provide a good chunk of that additional money. Even if you treat the novels as a fundamental part of the brand right now, Drizzt wasn't created under WotC's watch, nor has any notable new authors emerged during WotC's ownership that would strengthen the ties between the novels and the other product lines. WotC has completely failed to anything with the novel line aside from sustain what they inherited, and you're expecting them to suddenly turn around and not only suddenly capitalize on the novels, but expand even further. While not impossible, it's not going to be something that they do in a single step, and Next must be a noticeable step forward in order for the other steps to even happen. It doesn't have to be a smashing success that knocks Paizo to the ground, but it does have to have a sustained level of support in order to attract the attention of the people it needs to at Hasbro.
The key with both Transformers and Iron Man is that while neither had been particularly smash hits prior to their breakout movies, both were easily recognizable IPs that had a dedicated fan base that simply required the right combination of money, talent, script, and timing. Not easy tasks, but far easier than what WotC faces with D&D, which lacks clear ownership of any world or character they might try to use on top of the fact that the D&D brand means completely different things to different people. WotC cannot expect to get others, including Hasbro, to invest in the D&D brand until they themselves do, and that has yet to really happen, and until they can define what the brand actually is in terms of sellability. Both of these could happen with Next if Next does well, and it sounds like they are really trying to do so this time around, but it's no sure bet, and they have to be careful not to skip over the critical first steps of the process because they are too focused on the end goal. This is where most of my concerns come in. WotC has never particularly shown an ability to develop and sustain a long term plan when it comes to D&D and without that, no outside investor is going to bother. They also haven't shown much ability is creating and sustaining a business plan that has a lot of moving parts, which a multimedia brand inevitably has. Marvel may have had some work in convincing people that their long term strategy was good, but it is very clear that even at that early point of trying to sell Iron Man, they had at least a solid outline of long term strategy and goals that they could use to market their ideas; I'm just not convinced yet that WotC has anything similar or that if they do, that the people there today will be there long enough to implement it properly.
A smash hit of a game or a movie along with Next being at least mildly successful could go a long ways toward getting the D&D brand where WotC believes it should be, but at this stage, no single success, no matter how big that individual success is, will be enough. They need repeated successes in order to establish the core D&D brand as something more than a table top rpg. That means they have to convince enough of the current team to stay around long enough to sustain the implementation of the current vision of how to move forward until it reaches critical mass. The failure of 4E as well as their decision to basically go it alone with that edition, all of the more recent movie attempts, and the lukewarm response to the more recent computer games has put the onus of success completely on WotC, and WotC does not have the kind of experience in marketing and long term brand development to easily do what needs to be done. Relying on Hasbro to fill in gaps or provide resources, name, and/or expertise is folly, because D&D isn't owned and controlled by Hasbro directly, and Hasbro probably has at least a dozen similar IPs to D&D that could be the next best thing if the people directly in control of them could get their act together. WotC's best chance for success is to reach the level that Blade did with Next; enough to prove that the underlying IP could be worth enough to support the next project, and continue the pattern as needed with modest successes until the right circumstances give them the big break they are looking for. To that end, Next, for the time being, must still be at the center of their efforts, because that's all they actually have right now as far as sellable products go (the novels really don't count at this point, being basically their own brand), with solid plans in place of how transition Next to a less central role as circumstances change. Relying on a big movie or game that may or may not ever materialize while marginalizing Next's overall role will not help the brand any, but that is exactly what they have tried doing since they bought the brand more than two editions ago. Until their overall business strategy and understanding of the markets that they are currently in evolve, their chances of greater success range from zero to nil. We will see how well they learned their more recent lessons this summer when they release Next, but as of right now, there isn't a whole lot of reason to be overly optimistic about their chances on the multimedia front.
The key with both Transformers and Iron Man is that while neither had been particularly smash hits prior to their breakout movies, both were easily recognizable IPs that had a dedicated fan base that simply required the right combination of money, talent, script, and timing. Not easy tasks, but far easier than what WotC faces with D&D, which lacks clear ownership of any world or character they might try to use on top of the fact that the D&D brand means completely different things to different people. WotC cannot expect to get others, including Hasbro, to invest in the D&D brand until they themselves do, and that has yet to really happen, and until they can define what the brand actually is in terms of sellability. Both of these could happen with Next if Next does well, and it sounds like they are really trying to do so this time around, but it's no sure bet, and they have to be careful not to skip over the critical first steps of the process because they are too focused on the end goal. This is where most of my concerns come in. WotC has never particularly shown an ability to develop and sustain a long term plan when it comes to D&D and without that, no outside investor is going to bother. They also haven't shown much ability is creating and sustaining a business plan that has a lot of moving parts, which a multimedia brand inevitably has. Marvel may have had some work in convincing people that their long term strategy was good, but it is very clear that even at that early point of trying to sell Iron Man, they had at least a solid outline of long term strategy and goals that they could use to market their ideas; I'm just not convinced yet that WotC has anything similar or that if they do, that the people there today will be there long enough to implement it properly.
A smash hit of a game or a movie along with Next being at least mildly successful could go a long ways toward getting the D&D brand where WotC believes it should be, but at this stage, no single success, no matter how big that individual success is, will be enough. They need repeated successes in order to establish the core D&D brand as something more than a table top rpg. That means they have to convince enough of the current team to stay around long enough to sustain the implementation of the current vision of how to move forward until it reaches critical mass. The failure of 4E as well as their decision to basically go it alone with that edition, all of the more recent movie attempts, and the lukewarm response to the more recent computer games has put the onus of success completely on WotC, and WotC does not have the kind of experience in marketing and long term brand development to easily do what needs to be done. Relying on Hasbro to fill in gaps or provide resources, name, and/or expertise is folly, because D&D isn't owned and controlled by Hasbro directly, and Hasbro probably has at least a dozen similar IPs to D&D that could be the next best thing if the people directly in control of them could get their act together. WotC's best chance for success is to reach the level that Blade did with Next; enough to prove that the underlying IP could be worth enough to support the next project, and continue the pattern as needed with modest successes until the right circumstances give them the big break they are looking for. To that end, Next, for the time being, must still be at the center of their efforts, because that's all they actually have right now as far as sellable products go (the novels really don't count at this point, being basically their own brand), with solid plans in place of how transition Next to a less central role as circumstances change. Relying on a big movie or game that may or may not ever materialize while marginalizing Next's overall role will not help the brand any, but that is exactly what they have tried doing since they bought the brand more than two editions ago. Until their overall business strategy and understanding of the markets that they are currently in evolve, their chances of greater success range from zero to nil. We will see how well they learned their more recent lessons this summer when they release Next, but as of right now, there isn't a whole lot of reason to be overly optimistic about their chances on the multimedia front.
