Advertorials with no game content in Dragon

[Jakar]

I tend to take the position that anything that takes page space away from the game is a bad thing. I am one of those rare gamers that do not care for computer games, so the two pages spent on the ad for the game was a waste to me. Just my personal opinion of course.

 

[JoshuaFrost]

3) We're not "boys and girls", we're your customers (at least I am as I have subscriptions to both of your publications)

I meant no offense. If you were offended, I apologize. Turn of phrase and such.

I'll let Paizo's history of customer service continue to speak for itself.

 

[sjmiller]

I meant no offense. If you were offended, I apologize. Turn of phrase and such.

Just as a reminder, some of us here are most likely older than every single person at Paizo. I know I am most likely able to call you one of the "boys and girls" and, at least from my perspective, you would be. Kids these days, I tell ya.

 

[Hjorimir]

I meant no offense. If you were offended, I apologize. Turn of phrase and such.

I'll let Paizo's history of customer service continue to speak for itself.

Apology accepted and as long as Paizo continues to publish the best RPG bang for my buck (and you do) you'll continue to get those bucks.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I'm hurt our fans don't trust us enough to make the right choice.

I think most do. Don't take a few internet postings too much to heart.

 

[Vigilance]

Hey, that's actually what I think many people have wanted to hear. They want to know there's a lveel of integrity in how these columns are done. As you well know, appearance is everything. If it appears that you are just "pimping for profit" and nothing indicates otherwise, that is what people are going to think.

You know, we all make mistakes. I am sure you guys had the best of intentions with this. It just seems that you missed the mark. Luckily (?) you have a fan base that will tell you this.

Yeah, "lucky" for dragon they have a fan base willing to freak out and accuse them of all sorts of ethical behavior because they ran an article you didnt like.

I enjoyed the article. As a RPG player and FF fan, the preview seemed like a natural fit to me.

God forbid every article in the magazine not contain crunch as well.

Chuck

 

[MKMcArtor]

Could this possibly matter less? This is a semantic difference consisting of exactly one letter.

Whoa man, did I step on your birthday cake or something? I was trying to address a misconception. I never once thought this was the main issue of the thread. I'm not sure what I did to warrant this treatment? :\

And again, this inane sidebar only distracts from (what I feel is) the much more relevant question of why these articles are going to be serialized, but there won't be any D&D mechanical content. Why is it that, in four posts from four different people at Paizo, none of them have addressed this?

The simple fact is, according to our market data, people hate Silicon Sorcery. But they love video games. And they love D&D. But apparently they don't love both together?

Is there another aspect to this that we, the readers, don't see? If so, Paizo, please enlighten us!

Well, there's our market data, but we can't share that.

For me, the question of video game articles with no D&D content is the real quandary here, and there's still no clear answer.

Well, it's a part of First Watch. It's part of the magazine where we tell people "here's something you might like to know about." And yes, you can then argue that First Watch has no direct D&D content, and you'd be right. We are hardly alone as a magazine in telling our readers about things we think are cool. Many magazines do something like First Watch, and for probably the same reasons: to share with fans and to try to attract potential ad revenue. And yes, it would be nice if we didn't need to do that, but the fact is we do, and we are far from alone among magazines in that regard. Alas.

Does that answer your question?

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Meh. When Silicon Sorcery first came out it was all the hot 8-bit games and there wasn't a whit of D&D useable content in them. I didn't care then and I don't care now. Or maybe I do, I have been waiting for FFXII for quite awhile now and would be very interested in the review (after I read the comics first). I've contemplated dropping Dragon, but this peaks my interest.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Since we have some of the Paizo guys checking in, I thought I'd take this opportunity to say, once again, that it'd be fantastic if the downloads for Dungeon adventures included the NPC and monster stats.

Just sayin,' is all...

 

[Alzrius]

Whoa man, did I step on your birthday cake or something? I was trying to address a misconception. I never once thought this was the main issue of the thread. I'm not sure what I did to warrant this treatment? :\

I'm sorry if it seemed like I was lashing out at you. I recognize that I went into rant mode there, but even then, I didn't try to direct it at you personally. It was just annoying to me that it seemed like a debate was opening up about how to classify the article when there were much more relevant issues (again, to me) that hadn't been touched upon by the Paizo people. Again, I didn't mean to attack you.

The simple fact is, according to our market data, people hate Silicon Sorcery.

Hm...I can't understand that at all. I ate those articles up.

But they love video games.

This is the part that makes me suspicious. I can understand market data suggesting that people love video games. I love video games. But did your market data just ask how people feel about video games, or did it ask how they felt about them in Dragon specifically? Because I have a very hard time believing that market research would come back with results saying that people hate Silicon Sorcery but love non-D&D video game articles in Dragon.

And they love D&D.

Natch.

But apparently they don't love both together?

That I could believe, though I personally don't agree with. As I said, it's the idea that "preview" articles like that could possibly be more popular than Silicon Sorcery is what I have a hard time believing.

Well, there's our market data, but we can't share that.

Well, it's a part of First Watch. It's part of the magazine where we tell people "here's something you might like to know about." And yes, you can then argue that First Watch has no direct D&D content, and you'd be right. We are hardly alone as a magazine in telling our readers about things we think are cool. Many magazines do something like First Watch, and for probably the same reasons: to share with fans and to try to attract potential ad revenue. And yes, it would be nice if we didn't need to do that, but the fact is we do, and we are far from alone among magazines in that regard. Alas.

I've always had a cool reception to First Watch, myself, but I never felt the need to say anything. Half of it always dealt with D&D/d20 directly, and the sections that didn't but still "came close" was usually only about a page in length, covering multiple things (many of which I did like). But then extending giving a single product an extra two pages, for which an entire article was written, seemed to be going too far. It's like if the editorial suddenly got an extra two pages; it's not bad unto itself, but it's detracting from the D&D content from the rest of the magazine. Add in that Dragon could have easily given it D&D-related material but chose not to, and it just seemed like a wasted opportunity to me.

To reiterate, my opinion is that anything that covers video games, and is more than a page in length (total, so next month's two single-pages reviews of Twilight Princess and Pox Nora still count in this regard), should either be Silicon Sorcery, or not be in the magazine.

Does that answer your question?

Partially. It's a step in the right direction, at least. Thanks.