Are we fair to WotC?

[Gundark]

WotC seems to be one of those companies that people love to hate/dislike/gripe about. Granted, one can make a pretty solid arguement about mistakes and mishandling of IP/bad PR moves that have upset the community, and that WotC have brought it on themselves.

And yet I could name some really concrete examples of things done by other companies that very closely mirror decisions WotC made that proved to be VERY unpopular.

So while WotC have done some boneheaded thing over the years, are we being fair to WotC?

Discuss

 

[Morrus]

Anything done in public has a spectrum of responses. And the larger you are, the higher the volume of those responses is - in both directions. Partly it's because people care about D&D (so it's a good thing); partly it's just because it's the internet, and that's what people do on the internet.

 

[billd91]

WotC seems to be one of those companies that people love to hate/dislike/gripe about. Granted, one can make a pretty solid arguement about mistakes and mishandling of IP/bad PR moves that have upset the community, and that WotC have brought it on themselves.

And yet I could name some really concrete examples of things done by other companies that very closely mirror decisions WotC made that proved to be VERY unpopular.

So while WotC have done some boneheaded thing over the years, are we being fair to WotC?

Discuss

Fairness is generally determined by the criteria with which you judge the company. And nobody can really answer whether or not they're being fair with their criticism or praise of WotC except the person making the statements because they're the only ones who really know the criteria they're using or the weight with which they are measuring the company against those criteria. One hopes that, with a bit of introspection, people will faithfully provide their own honest feelings and assessments rather than just make statements to troll, balance accounts, or otherwise represent themselves insincerely.

 

[Kinak]

I'm honestly not really sure what it means to be fair to a subsidiary of a publicly traded company.

Obviously, we should endeavor to be fair to the people who work for WotC, just as we do with people in our private lives. But, if anything, that requires assigning the blame for mistakes to the group when we're uncertain who made the mistake... which is to say basically all the time.

For example, I really liked the ideas behind the sorcerer back when it appeared for one packet. I was explaining it to a friend last weekend and gave Mike Mearls props for the design, because it felt like one of his to me.

But there's no way I'd blame Mike Mearls for pulling it without proof. If I'm annoyed with that decision, as I will be if we end up with a watered down sorcerer when it comes up, I'll blame WotC.

I'd rather incorrectly compliment a human being and incorrectly slam legal fiction than the other way around. I'm not sure if that's fair, but I think it's a good way to live life.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

A pattern of not learning from mistakes puts a target on your back.

WotC keeps repeating basic mistakes. They don't know how to market. They offended large swathes of their audience when making 4e (losing a lot of fans to Pathfinder), and now they're insulting their audience when making 5e (4e fans can go elsewhere is the attitude I'm getting from them). It's not the same set of fans being insulted, but you don't need a marketing course to know that this isn't a good move. It's also the same mistake they made only five years ago, and they have many of the same people now as they had then. Maybe their position in Hasbro makes it nearly impossible to hire a marketing guru, though I find this hard to believe (someone is marketing their books, someone is marketing Magic the Gathering, someone is looking up marketing techniques on Google, etc).

Then there's the playtest, which is being botched. I don't know why. Maybe it's not Mearls's fault, but he's acting like it's going just fine and it seems like he has to be publicly embarrassed before he will acknowledge a problem. Witness the "ghoul incident". (Yes, there's people who think ghouls should be that way, but even so, Mearls shouldn't be surprised, considering the issue is the "core" of the game system.) The upset fans left, leaving a smaller group that are generally happy with the way things are and skewing the results, drowning out the remaining unhappy fans' survey responses. I don't think the surveys are particularly good at collecting information, either.

WotC isn't the only company that goes through this. Companies and organizations I deal with a lot (Blizzard Entertainment, Wikimedia) go through the same thing. I generally only get upset if a mistake is repeated, or if a blatantly obvious mistake is being made. WotC is doing both.

 

[Warbringer]

WoTC love it when we gripe, complain and whine. Seriously, they do. You know why? Because we are being passionate about what they are doing. When we gripe, we generally say in what ways it could be better and improved, and that is gold, especially for a creative publisher. Further, Mearls and co have done a great job in being personable and engaged. We feel like we have a personal relationship with them, and to a large extent feel like they listen

Trust me, if we stop posting and sharing our feelings then they will know they have a real problem on their hands.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

So while WotC have done some boneheaded thing over the years, are we being fair to WotC?

Perhaps, perhaps not, but if you want to be the lead dog, you have to get used to people snapping at your tail.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Personally, I remember WotC producing a good quality game, an open license, ample free material, ample non-free material, and having decent customer service. All of this was the norm during the early 3e era. And then they started deteriorating. Obviously their product quality and business practices took a huge dive with the 4e release, but they've been in decline for a while.

My expectation for WotC is only based on what they've actually done. I expect them to produce an open game sold in stores at reasonable prices, using the existing pre-4e game as a base, but doing the same kind of market research they did to create 3e in the first place, and building a better game from lessons learned. Anything less than that would be a disappointment in my eyes.

There may be behind-the scenes forces making it difficult for them to reduplicate their best days, but I don't think it's unfair to expect them to do what we know they can.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, WOTC has been a prime target for geek angst for quite a while, and I do not see it changing. It sees that everyone who has found a new game considers it a point of honor to declare why they stopped supporting D&D.

That said, I think

WOTC could do a far better job connecting with the fanbase. No one form WOTC posts anywhere any more (except their own forums, which I avoid) and that is not how it used to be.


WOTC need to tell us what products are coming out. I have heard much more, and much earlier from Amazon product pages than from WOTC itself.


These are a couple of my gripes, though I still support WOTC overall.

 

[Stormonu]

All I can say is WotC isn't - and hasn't for the past 4-5 years - been producing content I'm interested it, and that includes the 5E playtest. I'm not trying to bash, but they're just not offering what I want. While I took 4E for a test drive, about all I've bought from them in the past few years were Dungeon Tiles. I don't even buy those any more because I've got more than I can ever use now.

WotC used to have catalogs that would tell you what was due out at least three months in advance, if not further. Do they still do articles of what's coming down the road or have they clammed up like Games Workshop (where you learn 3 days before they release new content, it seems)?

As for WotC posting on their own forums instead of here, I say good. It used to annoy me they would post on other forums, but never on their own. That's just a horrible way to treat your fan base by not posting on your *own* forums. I've got nothing against posting here as well, but any "news" sort of info *should* come from their own forums first.