Advertorials with no game content in Dragon

[Squire James]

As someone who bought a PS2 to play Final Fantasy 8 without regret, I did not regard the 2-page spread as that big a deal. Sure, it's the kind of thing that really belongs in video game magazines, but what if you never read those darn things?! I have very little need for most of the video game industry, which seems to me more about "monsters slaying people" than "people slaying monsters" these days (yeah, I'm looking at you, Grand Theft Auto)! I'm glad to see something about an old series I've always liked (even if they probably should have ditched the Gameboy Advance game and called THIS one Final Fantasy Tactics 2).

Paizo, don't let it grow out of hand (i.e. I don't want 20 pages of this stuff), but don't hesitate to use a couple pages once in a while to (p)review a game we might be interested in.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmm...faceless people on the internet whose job is to get my money are asking me to trust them again. No. I pay money for content, I put up with ads when they're not intrusive, and I don't like ads dressed up as content.

IT. WASN'T. AN. AD.

 

[GQuail]

Seriously, I wonder about the techniques being employed here. You say that Silicon Sorcery, in Bizarro-marketing-world, is the least popular of your articles. But was the preview put to the test under the same scrutiny? I can't but help see a gaming magazine article with gaming content being more popular than a similarly themed article without it.

Heck, the gaming material add-on might be half a page. I have great difficulty understanding how adding half a page of useful material to tie an article that, while it helps pay the bills, is going to be generally poorly received, can't help but make it better.

The vibe I got from earlier posts is that they can only get votes on an article being good or bad when it's published. They haven't done such a big non-RPG ad in this Dragon lifetime, so it's a test into uncharted territory: and as the comments seem to indicate, it's not without it's criticisms.

However, they DO know what people think of Silicone Sorcery, and it's clearly not a strong point. I certainly never used anything from it in the past, and while Novel Approaches have sometimes been to my liking, it's often depending on my familiarity on the source material - Dune and the Black Cauldron were great, whereas I can't remember another I found cool. (Chocobos had their moments, I guess. ;-) I guess too many people looked at them as "only interesting if you know the original game" and so it got lobbed?

As others have said, I buy Dragon for D&D stuff, and two solid pages on a computer game ain't what I pay the cover price for. but considering the nature of the game (one of the most popular computer game series ever) and that it has some clear connections to RPGs, I'm willing to let it slide. But would I rather see Twilight Princess complete with Epona and Master Sword stats? Yeah.

I'm willing to let this sort of article in every so often, as two dead pages is acceptable to me. Hell, if that's all I'm not using in the magazine, then it's a damn fine issue. B ut I agree with others that it's not, and enever will be, what I buy dragon for.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I actually really dug the old Silicon Sorcery articles that cleaved off a peice of the game in D&D terms.

/me shamelessly self-advertsises by pointing to his sig...


As far as the issue at hand, I think there is room for Dragon to be a "D&D Culture Mag" to a certain extent, focusing on things that are affecting D&D players other than rules and mechanics (which should always be the massive bulk of an issue).

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

IT. WASN'T. AN. AD.

It looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and I don't care if they're getting paid to push ducks on me or not. It comes across like an ad, so it's an ad. I suppose it would be less controversial to call it a "promotion". They're promoting it. I would rather they didn't promote video games at the expense of D&D content.

And contrary to what some posters have suggested, that doesn't mean more classes, races, or feats. I'm not sure when "D&D content" became synonymous with "crunch".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think part of the problem with Novel Approach and Silicon Sorcery was the format. Back in the day (he says, knocking dust off his lapels), Giants in the Earth was a very meaty character write-up that happened to be from a book, not a blurb about a book with some crunch off to the side. I think Silicon Sorcery could be great, if it was reformatted to be more like Giants worked.

But yes, having the material actually work with the game in question and highlight something truly interesting about the game, instead of some generic stuff only loosely related is also an important part of the puzzle.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It comes across like an ad, so it's an ad.

It's not an ad.

I suppose it would be less controversial to call it a "promotion". They're promoting it.

No, they're not. It's a preview of content they believed a fair number of readers would be interested in reading about.

Your point -- "D&D stuff, please, not other stuff in Dragon" -- would work a lot better if you didn't make up new meanings for established words like "ad" to help express your outrage.

 

[Alzrius]

(Chocobos had their moments, I guess. ;-) I guess too many people looked at them as "only interesting if you know the original game" and so it got lobbed?

As others have said, I buy Dragon for D&D stuff, and two solid pages on a computer game ain't what I pay the cover price for. but considering the nature of the game (one of the most popular computer game series ever) and that it has some clear connections to RPGs, I'm willing to let it slide.

Fair enough, but if what we're talking about here is the most popular series of all video game RPGs, in the magazine devoted to the most popular of all tabletop RPGs, isn't someone going to have a "you got chocolate in my peanut butter" moment? I can't imagine that there'd be nearly this much of a negative reaction if we'd gotten, say, racial stats for moogles with the article.

 

[Thurbane]

Being a Dragon-reader from the old skool days of other game reviews, book reviews, articles for games of different genres by different companies and the inclusion of non-D&D (or even gaming) short fiction - I don't see the big deal.

Unless, it is really an ad and not a fair review - in which case - it should labeled "advertisement".

Same here. there used to be a dedicated video game review section ("Eye of the Monitor", from memory), a novel review section ("The Role of Books") etc. I don't see a big deal...

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I liked Dragon better when it covered more than D&D. Then again, I don't buy it now, partly because it only covers D&D. Obviously current subscribers are happy with the narrow focus (or they wouldn't be subscribers), so of course they're going to complain if Dragon widens its coverage. Paizo just has to weigh whether they're more likely to gain or lose readers by broadening their coverage a bit.