Actually, our opinion does matter.

[NoWayJose]

But, honestly, I'm a volunteer - I don't even get paid by Morrus. Getting paid by WotC? Not gonna happen.

I meant something like a free preview or something with no significant monetary value, but more 'geek' value. But never mind, I see your point.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

When you have a bunch of self-selected, highly vocal, energetic participants in a series of discussions on a broad topic -- the main information value is in the exceptions. This is not to be confused with topics that are essentially setting brainstorming, which have a different kind of value.

If a topic breaks down into two or more sides, gets contentious, and goes on forever, it may or may not have value. It probably has a low signal to noise ratio (though better here than a lot of places). OTOH, given this is the norm, if a topic starts changing minds, however slightly, and then starts to produce some agreement, you can bet it is valuable. Why may be unclear, and the participants may not even be correct in their agreement, but something in that topic has insight.

It is a huge, flaming marker that someone ought to look a little deeper. People that do focus groups have to work really hard to get that sort of thing, and here they can let it happen, then harvest it.

 

[TheYeti1775]

What do you mean by "important"?

I remember when I was 13 or 14 having no idea whatsoever that there was a world of RPGs out there. Me and my friends, with our pencils and graph paper and tattered 1E books pretty much existed in a bubble of our own (in RPG terms). We certainly didn't feel important - but more importantly, we didn't feel any need to feel important. We just wanted to play this cool game we'd stumbled across.

I'd agree that the internet has taken some of that mystery and magic away. Sometimes piercing the veil is not such a good thing.

Morrus when we were 13/14 many of us didn't even know what the squelch of a modem sounded like.
We got together via word of mouth alone and through 3"x5" index cards we would drop at the local book store. And than a kid seeking me out from that card.
It was a long cry from when I moved back to the DC area, and within a couple of weeks of being here found a game via EnWorld to attend.

For me places like EnWorld matter highly in my opinion of trying a new game, or a new product for an existing game out.

I could bet if I went to the General Discussion right now and asked questions about the world of 'Game of Thrones' (HBO Series), within a few minutes someone would post up there is a D20 Setting book available for it as well as a novel series by George Martin. (I bought both the D20 and book series already.)
Its things like that bring me to message boards. It's the word of mouth feeling they give nearly instanteously for anyone searching for information.

So even if we never matter to places like WotC more than a gnat on a 800lbs gorilla behind, it will matter to players like myself.

Didn't buy 4e, so no.
Won't buy 5e if it is like 4e, so no.

WotC probably thought that I would buy anyway, but if so then they were wrong.

We 'all' won't buy it.

Some of us, perhaps many of us, will. But all? Not the chance of a soggy snow cone on the flaming tombs of Dis.

The Auld Grump, we 'all' here are not all 'die hard fans'. Some of us think that 4e is just not D&D anymore. Generalities, by their nature, are almost always false.

I did break down and buy a 4E product the other day. I bought the 4E version of Tomb of Horrors. I had a gift card and it appealed to me to complete the set of ToH versions I had already.

For me not buying 4E was a mixed result of not wanting to blow through more money and not liking the direction they took the game.
It was easy in this day and age to walk away from WotC's current version.

I was still a customer though as I would spend the book money on mini's and Star Wars stuff.

Now they rarely get anything from me except through secondary markets.
And no I didn't go Pathfinder (though I did buy the base book a few months ago).

 

[MrGrenadine]

getting back on topic, the notion that the opinions of message board die-hard players means anything at all to the shareholders / board of directors of hasbro Inc is laughable.

See Plane Sailing's post #44 for a reason why you may be wrong.

 

[TheUltramark]

See Plane Sailing's post #44 for a reason why you may be wrong.

How many people have to complain about a car's side mirror placement before Ford (or gm or crystler) does a recall?

Now, this is an apples to bowling balls comparison, I know, I understand that, please, don't bombard me with the obvious. But what should Hasbro do? A re-call (or in this case a re-work) would be seen as 5.0 and I would speculate that a huge number of their customers would back off from buying a re-launch so soon after 4e's original launch. Maybe I am way off, maybe nobody wouold see it that way, but I saw the movie fight club and I know the cost of a relaunch has to be less than the cost of lost customers before they will consider doing anything.
[MENTION=114]Plane Sailing[/MENTION] brings up something interesting though, the company she works for bent over backwards for a small segment of dissatisfied customers. That's awesome, but I have two points, #1 did they find out the customers were unhappy by perusing message boards? and #2 Do people who, by their own admission, "would never buy 4e" fall into the category of dissatisfied customer, or just dissatisfied?

 

[Dedekind]

... They would be foolish not to, because every customer counts.

I think this view is greatly mistaken. There are lots of successful companies without this level of customer service; I disagree with your implication that companies ought to provide it. Some companies must make a trade off between customers. BMW cannot satisfy both the sports sedan customer and the pick-up truck customer and still be perceived as "the ultimate driving machine."

Frankly, the opportunity cost of satisfying a handful of customers is incredibly high when there is work to be done with the core products that have mass appeal.

This is all generalities, of course. I can agree that feedback is useful. I just disagree that all feedback is useful.

 

[Plane Sailing]

...the company she works for...

She ?!??

 

[GreyLord]

NOT every customer is important. Yes, there I said it.

I read an interesting article recently (though the article isn't that recent) that makes a good point. The ONLY important customers are those that are PAYING customers.

I'd modify that to be, the only important customers are those that WILL pay you money to purchase the goods you provide.

Those that pirate, or won't even consider buying anything you provide, and you wouldn't attract anyways...aren't important.

So, what you cater to are those that are buying your items, as well as the possible customers who are out there that you can entice to buy your products.

If you only cater to those that pirate your items and will never buy a single product from you, or hate your company so much that they won't buy anything from you...you aren't going to get any money.

I see WotC as trying to fullfill the first idea, of supporting the paying customer.

I see WotC trying to fullfill the second idea of creating products to bring in new paying customers (those who haven't bought anything yet, but can be attracted to buy items) with their Essentials incentives last year.

I see WotC failing miserably in other areas. Instead of continuing to create a better and easier access experience for those who would pay for such an experience with the DDI, PDFs, and electronic items, they instead are so worried about piracy and sharing that they alienate customers chasing away possible revenue instead of attracting it. Right now I see them on a maintaining schedule, one that maintains the current numbers, but doesn't really build on them in a significant manner (that's my OPINION by the way, not fact) that matters to Hasbro. Maintaining is a good thing...but if you glitch up in a way, it's easy to lose the balance and suddenly go into a deficit.

So, if you are a paying customer, I'd say you DO matter. If you hate 4e and state you'd refuse to ever buy anything from 4e, then as far as WoTC is concerned, I'd say paying attention to you would be a waste of time.

I think that WotC is actually paying MORE attention to you then you think though, and even those that hate 4e (waste of time in my opinion) are being paid attention to HEAVILY.

Edit: By the way the article I referred to is this...

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/...ing-pirates-start-targeting-paying-customers/

 

[Plane Sailing]

NOT every customer is important. Yes, there I said it.

I read an interesting article recently (though the article isn't that recent) that makes a good point. The ONLY important customers are those that are PAYING customers.

Customer retention is vital. Washing your hands of an ex-customer and saying 'good riddance' isn't a pathway to success for most organisations.

Oh, I suppose there will be certain cases where it might be true, but I'll reiterate - I'm now working for company which is hugely successful, and the primary reason that has happened over the last 15-20 years is that they are utterly customer focussed. How do we get them, how do we retain them, how do we create lifelong loyalty.

Once an organisation decides who it wants for its customers (a legitimate business decision - everyone doesn't want everyone, diamonds are marketed at a particular customer group for instance ) then the most successful organisations will normally be those that retain and build their customer base.

Cheers

 

[TheUltramark]

She ?!??

what an egg on face moment - please forgive me

I looked back at every post, I was sure someone referred to you as "she" or "her" - but instead I suffered a dumbass attack

I am VERY sorry