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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Johnny Wilson" data-source="post: 376332" data-attributes="member: 6000">Frankly, we’re a little confused about all of this Dragon #300 bashing. We’ve built this magazine based on what our readers have told us that they like and dislike. Over the few years I’ve been associated with Dragon as publisher, I’ve seen lots of emails and letters indicating that: 1) no one would trust role-playing game reviews in Dragon because we are so closely tied to Wizards of the Coast R&D; 2) no one wants computer/video game reviews because they can purchase specialized information to get that; 3) book reviews in Dragon would be tainted by the fact that many of us on the staff write for WotC books; 4) coverage of other game systems than D&D is a waste of space; 5) convention information is better handled on the web and is both out-of-date and redundant in the magazine; 6) miniatures coverage is only appealing to a small minority; 7) theme sections are a bad idea; and 8) previews of upcoming products are the equivalent of advertorial. Add to these considerations the fact that almost 50% of our readers hate having humor in Dragon and you’ll see our quandary.As part of the #300 bashing, we are told that #200 is the watermark for which we should shoot. Earlier, I posted a warning that #300 was not going to be a super-fat issue like #200 was. Truthfully, #200 was the only perfect-bound issue of Dragon in the year it was published (has a spine instead of being stapled together). It was 172 pages long, but it contained 1.3 pages of convention coverage, two pages of puzzles (which always rank low in reader evaluations), 13 pages of comics (a roughly 50-50 split among our readership), five pages of computer game reviews, two pages of book reviews, 4.5 pages of RPG reviews, three pages of board game reviews, three pages of Star Wars RPG coverage, and five pages of miniatures reviews. Subtract this 40.3 pages of material that your reader surveys have told us you don’t want from that 172 pages and you’re down to 121.6 pages total. Subtract the 62.3 pages of ads and you’re down to 59.3 pages of useful content. Ironically, 17.3 pages of that is THEME coverage (29%).Since I was in that accounting mode, I decided to look at the two issues on each side of #200. I discovered that #199 had 124 pages. Of that, there were four pages of PC reviews, 4.5 pages of RPG reviews, 3.5 pages of book reviews, 2.5 pages of Shadowrun coverage, 1.5 pages of convention coverage, five pages of comics and five pages of miniatures reviews. That’s 26 pages of coverage that most people tell us they don’t want and reduces the theoretical usefulness count to 98 pages. Subtract out the 43.3 pages of ads and you’re down to 54.6 pages of useful content with, once again, 17.3 pages of themed content (31%).Dragon #201 had 124 pages. Of that, there were 3.5 pages of PC reviews, five pages of RPG reviews, four pages of book reviews, two pages of convention calendar, eight pages of comics, seven pages of miniature reviews, and three pages of King Arthur: Pendragon coverage. That’s 32.5 pages that most people don’t want even BEFORE you count the four pages of advertorial for the AD&D Historical Reference series. Since our readers don’t even like the .33 page we usually give to previews of WotC products or the tie-ins we try to provide with useful gaming material, we’re relatively certain that this is really 36.5 pages of unwanted material. That drops us to 87.5 pages of “useful” material. Take out the 32.5 pages of ads and you’re down to 55.2 pages. THIS time, there were 30 pages of themed content (54%) with only 25.2 pages of non-themed useful content.Okay, so much for counting the past. What’s the deal with the present? I looked at Dragon #300 and discovered that only 2.3 pages were devoted to comics and 2 pages to Silicon Sorcery, our attempt to cover PC and video games while providing useful spells, artifacts and ideas. None of the other stuff was in there. So, the 118 pages for the run of book were reduced by 4.3 pages for the non-useful stuff. That’s a count of 113.6 pages to work with, but 30 pages of those were ads (take note those of you who think today’s Dragon issues have too many ads—this is a lower ad count than in the glory years to which you refer), reducing us to 83.6 pages of useful stuff. There were 15 pages of sealed section material dealing with the Vile theme, a four page introductory article to the Vile theme, and two pages of prestige class material that probably belonged in the section. That’s 21 pages of themed coverage (25%--less than any of the other three) and left 62.6 pages for non-thematic goodness (or evil, as the case may be).Now, what this little accounting exercise tells me is that many of you are simply remembering the old Dragon with a heavy nostalgia factor that has colored your memory or the research we’ve been building the magazine from is faulty. DO you want reviews of PC games, RPGS and books in the magazine? DO you want non-D&D material in Dragon? DO you want miniatures coverage in Dragon? DO you want more pages devoted to humor? IF you do, you need to make sure you fill out the next readership survey (Spring, 2003). We take seriously what our readers say and, as you can tell by the very way we build the book, percentage-wise, our editorial philosophy reflects what you have to say.So, I’d just like to say that after comparing issues #200 and #300, I’m more convinced than ever that Dragon is doing a better job of meeting gamer needs than it was 100 issues ago. You are certainly welcome to your opinions, but I thought a few measurable quantifiers should be injected into the discussion.Johnny L. WilsonPresident of Paizo Publishing, LLC and Publisher Who Pays Attention</blockquote>

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