D&D 4E 4E announcement, good for business?

[Ds Da Man]

I wonder if announcing 4E this far ahead was a good business decision for WotC? I mean, who the heck would buy anything else 3.5E that is currently on the market? If it was me running the show, I would have made and tested 4E, then hype up the release when the PHB, DMG, MM was ready for sale. Seems kinda stupid to have announced it, then make everyone wait for 6+months for the release.
Oh well, just random thoughts.

 

[pawsplay]

Well, if too many customers loaded up on 3.5 gear for the next month or three, they're probably not likely to buy 4e when it comes out.

 

[morbiczer]

I wonder if announcing 4E this far ahead was a good business decision for WotC? I mean, who the heck would buy anything else 3.5E that is currently on the market? If it was me running the show, I would have made and tested 4E, then hype up the release when the PHB, DMG, MM was ready for sale. Seems kinda stupid to have announced it, then make everyone wait for 6+months for the release.
Oh well, just random thoughts.

No, I think "one year warning" was necessary. Imagine the outcry, if they would have announced at GenCon that 4.0 is coming out in October. This certainly hurts their sales for the next year, but in the same time they now have one year to build up the hype.

Plus I guess (hope) there will be large scale playtesting in the next few months. How were there supposed to keep that secret?

 

[king_ghidorah]

I wonder if announcing 4E this far ahead was a good business decision for WotC? I mean, who the heck would buy anything else 3.5E that is currently on the market? If it was me running the show, I would have made and tested 4E, then hype up the release when the PHB, DMG, MM was ready for sale. Seems kinda stupid to have announced it, then make everyone wait for 6+months for the release.
Oh well, just random thoughts.

You do realize that several very vocal posters were lambasting WotC for giving "practically no warning" for 4th edition as it is, right? I would suspect that the kind of vitriol that would come as a result of making an announcement on such short notice would have been a huge public relations SNAFU.

 

[Jack99]

You do realize that several very vocal posters were lambasting WotC for giving "practically no warning" for 4th edition as it is, right? I would suspect that the kind of vitriol that would come as a result of making an announcement on such short notice would have been a huge public relations SNAFU.

Although I think that WotC did the right thing and gave a very decent heads up (9 months), I would just have loved them to have announced 4e coming out in september/october 2007. For one, I am all ready to upgrade, and second of all, the amount of whinging on the boards would have created lots of amusing reading during my breakfasts.

 

[Oldtimer]

I wonder if announcing 4E this far ahead was a good business decision for WotC?

Well, it's likely to be doing wonders for the sale of Star Wars Saga Edition. "We're not telling you any details yet, but SWSE is kind of a preview of 4th edition."

 

[Stalker0]

They've already said that the next few months will see a lot more fluff books instead of crunch books. Basically they've planned for the fact people aren't going to want to buy 3e books right now.

 

[Ds Da Man]

You do realize that several very vocal posters were lambasting WotC for giving "practically no warning" for 4th edition as it is, right? I would suspect that the kind of vitriol that would come as a result of making an announcement on such short notice would have been a huge public relations SNAFU.

Then they are whiners. 6+ months is plenty of time.
I doubt it would be that big of a SNAFU. What are going to do, not buy 4E? Doubt it.

 

[Vigilance]

4e will be very, very good for Wizards' bottom line.

Yes, this is a good thing, and no they shouldn't have surprised everyone with it.

They're doing it right.

Sony didn't "spring" the PS3 on folks. Sega *did* spring the Saturn on folks, and we know how that turned out.

Giving some notice on a big shift is good business.

 

[Ranger REG]

I wonder if announcing 4E this far ahead was a good business decision for WotC?

It was a good business decision when WotC announced 3e one year before the PHB release.

This time around, we only have 9 months.

I mean, who the heck would buy anything else 3.5E that is currently on the market?

Me. 3.5e wasn't that big a deal. It did make baby-step improvement but then they flip-flopped on the polymorph rules. And I'm still waiting for the corrected printing of DMG (not going to buy the leatherbound version for the most up-to-date errata that will not contain the flip-flopped polymorphed rules).

Throw in their mediocre Complete book series that features unappealing oriental-flavored classes and other lackluster 3.5e compatible products... *yawns* :\