Baldman Games & WotC On All Access Issues At Gen Con

There were a lot of complaints about the D&D All Access gaming at Gen Con this year. Charles Akins over at Dyvers Campaign has a great summary, so I won't repeat it here - but if you're interested, check that out. WotC and Baldman Games (who run the D&D events at Gen Con) appear to have heard those complaints, because they are taking action to address them - to the extent that they're giving All Access badge holders a free copy of the upcoming hardcover Out of the Abyss, and a free copy of Sword Coast Legends video game!

You need to fill out a form to get your goodies.

"I first want to thank everyone for the excellent feedback so far. We are gathering comments and discussing ways to improve all Baldman Games’ offerings going forward. We will have further posts this Fall asking for more specific feedback.

Baldman Games and Wizards of the Coast realize that we did not meet your expectations with our All-Access Program at Gen Con this year. The way production schedules lined up, it was difficult for us to provide the new products that had been offered in previous years. But have no fear! We want to make things right. We value your support of D&D and our programs at Gen Con and other shows. To that end, we have some stuff to offer to everyone who played in the All-Access program at Gen Con 2015.

Here’s what you’ll get:

One hard copy of Out of the Abyss, the TRPG adventure in the Rage of Demons story, before it hits store shelves, mailed directly to you
One code for a digital copy of Sword Coast Legends, the party-based RPG coming out on PC, Mac and Linux, on September 29th, sent to the email you provide.

If you are an All-Access player from Gen Con, please make sure to fill in the form below completely. The information provided will only be used to ship the book to you, send the code, and/or contact you if we have a problem doing so. It will be destroyed once shipping is completed.

Once again, we apologize for not meeting the expectations of the program this year, and we will work hard in the coming months to build a bigger, stronger, and more transparent program in 2016 and beyond.

David Christ
Baldman Games"

 

[Morrus]

If you order 10 widgets at $10 each, pay $100, but only receive 5 widgets, aren't you due 5 widgets or $50 back?

Sure. But nobody ordered 10 widgets!

That said, I can see why people were upset, and think Baldman Games is doing the right thing.

 

[tomBitonti]

But didn't they?

A difficulty here is understanding what should be provided by a $150 ticket as opposed to what should be provided by a $40 ticket.

If I break that down to:

* Basic play experience ($40)
* Swag ($50)
* Better play experience ($60)

Then, if the better play experience wasn't actually provided, wouldn't folks be due $60, or some other compensatory value?

The numeric breakdown might be varied, and will be different for different people. But, the $110 has to provide something more.

You could argue that what was provided was:

* Basic play experience ($40)
* Swag ($90)
* Better play experience ($20)

But I'm not getting a clear sense of that from what folks have written.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Jester David]

I unfortunately dont agree with Jester Canuck. If WotC wants to focus on gaming at Gencon then they need to make sure that they focus on gaming at Gencon.

Running around after the fact to fix the problems that they had at Gencon is not going above and beyond, it is just customer service damage control. Just like how replacing customers books that have fallen apart is not going above and beyond.

So if Baldman Games is promising things that they can not supply that makes WotC look bad then obviously that needs to be addressed by WotC.

Think of it like this:

Imagine if Sword Coast Legends really botched the collector's edition of the game and left the people who paid the most feeling comparable to the people who paid the least. Who's in charge of fixing that mistake?
Should WotC be *expected* to step in because someone who licensed an aspect of their name messed up? It might hurt WotC's reputation, and the upset fans are tangentially WotC's customers, but WotC didn't cause the problem and can rightfully direct the blame elsewhere. Their response could be yanking a licence or directing people to N-Space's contact line, or putting pressure on N-Space to "make things right". But they don't really need to do anything beyond that, because it's someone else's error.

But, in this case, as I said earlier, WotC is sending out books. They're almost certainly taking some financial hit for that. And they reached out to N-Space to also get people free video games.
Baldman Games' response is "just customer service damage control". WotC's and N-Space's is above and beyond.

 

[Mistwell]

But didn't they?

A difficulty here is understanding what should be provided by a $150 ticket as opposed to what should be provided by a $40 ticket.

If I break that down to:

* Basic play experience ($40)
* Swag ($50)
* Better play experience ($60)

Then, if the better play experience wasn't actually provided, wouldn't folks be due $60, or some other compensatory value?

The numeric breakdown might be varied, and will be different for different people. But, the $110 has to provide something more.

You could argue that what was provided was:

* Basic play experience ($40)
* Swag ($90)
* Better play experience ($20)

But I'm not getting a clear sense of that from what folks have written.

Thx!

TomB

They got better play experience. They got the dedicated DM for the entire weekend. They got the smaller table size for the entire weekend. They got the dedicated table space for the entire weekend. These are the three things they were told they would get, which are the things people summarize as "better play experience". How did they not get those things? Who has said they did not get those things?

As for swag, they got special Adventurer's League bennies (which alone are unique just to them, so hard to put a price on it), and they also now get a book and a video game.

 

[Dausuul]

From what I can tell, All-Access buyers shelled out an extra $110 for prestige and "surprises." So you can't exactly argue that Baldman made promises and failed to deliver. The buyers were certainly surprised.

However, it's reasonable to expect that when you pay $110, you're going to get something that could plausibly be valued at $110. It's very hard to argue that a certificate for AL benefits, plus a special area for gaming at the con, is worth $110! Now, when you throw in the advance copy of the book and game, it starts to look a lot more reasonable. Those things would probably set you back around $100 by themselves.

 

[DEFCON 1]

All-Access purchasers *expected* more than they got based upon what had been given to All-Access purchasers in the past. But they were not *promised* to get more than what they did receive. They technically received what they paid for.

If their *expectations* were not fulfilled, Baldman Games is not legally at fault for that. But that being said... Baldman Games also realizes that morally things were in a much grayer area, and that for their own personal reputation as a company they needed to do something more to bring the results closer to fan expectation. They didn't HAVE to (legally)... but they realized it was an extremely important thing to do from a business sense (and a "nice guy" sense) at the very least.

At the end of the day... their rep has taken a hit, and they might have lost a few All-Access customers for next year. But... if the All-Access program is as popular as it seems like it is, they shouldn't have much trouble filling in those open spaces anyway. Mainly because I suspect at least 250+ people who will come to GenCon have the cash, and will agree that a set table all weekend with a set DM with a smaller table size is worth the money, regardless of any extra bennies they may or may not get. So BMG could probably eliminate the idea of "surprises" from the event write-up (so they wouldn't have the same problem next year) and they'd still be able to sell the spots.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm working from what was written. Folks complained that the higher price did not provide the expected higher quality experience. Folks also complained about the lack of extra objects, but, as I stated, that was remedied. But that's only a partial remedy.

Whether the experience met the higher quality expectations is debatable. I can't evaluate that other than by what folks have written. However, there does seem to be some basis for that statement.

If it's true, my comments follow.

I find odd that the conclusion is thought overly strong or opinionated. I accept that a premise may be incorrect, and I'm very interested to understand more details of the experience, or to hear any statements to correct what was stated about the experience.

If you order 10 widgets at $10 each, pay $100, but only receive 5 widgets, aren't you due 5 widgets or $50 back?

The key here is that the only thing promised was the same DM for all 4 of the adventures, a group of tables dedicated to All-Access Pass players and less players at their table. I'd have to double check the writeup for the All-Access Pass but I doubt it even mentioned "surprises" or anything beyond those things. The surprises were just expected because they gave them out for the last 2 years. Though 2 years ago the price of All-Access Pass was lower(only $100) and the attendees got the Ghosts of Castle Dragonspear adventure as part of their purchase price. But in that year, they actually told everyone they were getting a copy of the book(along with a free set of Gencon Exclusive Dice) when they purchased their ticket(though not on the Gencon site, in a FAQ on Baldman Game's site).

Which is why last year a lot of people asked why the price went up so much and the amount of stuff promised went down(since the description didn't say anything about books or dice or anything) in the forums Baldman refused to say anything other than "Don't worry. It'll be worth it." Which is why I risked the money and felt that what we got was worth it.

This year, they went the same route as last year. Still $150 dollars with no promises of anything other than a dedicated DM, tables set aside just for them, and 6 player tables. A lot of people EXPECTED to get something really awesome when they arrived because of the awesome stuff that had been handed out last year. And I understand these expectations. After all, when you put down $150 for something, you expect $150 worth of value for your money. However, nothing else was ever promised.

I'd likely be very pissed when I showed up and that's all I got as well. Because even though nothing else was promised, there was the implication based on the price and the history of the All-Access program that you'd get something cool when you arrived to make that $150 worth it. When they didn't get the stuff they expected, the people were right to be angry.

However, now that Baldman has made it right and given out gifts worth even more than the gifts from last year, they've made it right. It doesn't matter that the gifts were provided by WOTC and n-Space. The stuff that Baldman has given out has always come from third parties. Should those things have been made available at the con? Probably. But the real problem is that it's hard to put an exact value on what WAS promised. It's possible that Dave Christ feels that $150 is worth it with no extra surprises at all. And for some people that value judgment will be different. I agree with him that "surprises" should be removed and in the future the All-Access Pass should simply have a certain number of things promised and see if people find those things worth the money that's being asked for it.

The only real argument I can see being made is that the one promise that they actually did break was that people got a "premium D&D experience". That one is MUCH harder to discuss though. What one person sees as premium another sees as horrible. DMing skill is rather subjective and what one table thinks is a great DM another might hate. Which is why having a dedicated DM for the whole weekend could be as much a hindrance as a benefit. Don't like your DM's style? Too bad, you're stuck with it for a whole weekend. I know that our DM last year was "alright" but at least once during the Special(and a couple other times) he obviously hadn't read the adventure close enough and the adventure got really weird because things he said 5 minutes before hand were suddenly contradicted. We muddled through and had fun despite the problems but at least a couple of my friends were a little disappointed that we paid for a "premium" DM and had to put up with that. We all decided that we mostly had fun and the problems weren't big enough to complain about, however.

I know from experience that some people REALLY hate my DMing style. On the other hand, during the couple of years in a row I ran games at Gencon, at least 3 times players came up to me to thank me for being the best DM they had all weekend at Gencon due to some poor experiences with other DMs(unfortunately, some of which I've shared when I've PLAYED at Gencon). So, how good your experience is can sometimes just come down to a match between players and DM. And Baldman can't sit down at every table at Gencon to see whether their DMs are giving poor experiences. The only thing you can do is give Baldman feedback about your DM and hope bad DMs aren't invited back.

 

[Mistwell]

This is the text of what people were signing up for: "Enjoy the best we have to offer at the show (along with some cool, unique perks) with one easy ticket. This track is levels 5-10. You will participate in DDEX2-15, DDEP-2, DDEX3-3, & DDEP-3.

Enjoy the best we have to offer at the show, along with some cool unique perks, with one easy ticket. You will run through all the Gen Con Special events with one of our best DM’s at a table of 6 (normal tables are 7). This track is for players with characters levels 5-10. You will participate in DDEX2-15, DDEP-2, DDEX3-3, and DDEP-3. Play times are Thursday 4pm-8pm, Thursday 8pm-Midnight, Friday 4pm-8pm, and Saturday 8pm-Midnight. Confirmed perks as of event registration is a special Adventurers League cert only for All-Access and private access to a Trading Post with unique certs."

 

[tomBitonti]

Hi,

Thanks for the text!

Can you post the same for the lower price ticket?

Thx!

TomB

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Technically the "lower price ticket" was 4 lower price tickets as you'd have to buy each event separately. Each of them just had the description of the adventure that you were signing up for.