Do you agree with WotC selling errata?

[Mistwell]

By the way, this topic is now being discussed over at Circvs Maximvs. I thought I'd give you fair warning, so you have the opportunity to respond if you wish:

http://www.circvsmaximvs.com/showthread.php?t=4441&page=16

 

[Ranger REG]

I also think it's odd when people complain about WotC books containing poor grammar and spelling in a message board post that contains poor grammar and spelling. I'm not trying to single anyone out here, because I see it happen all the time.

Now you know where WotC hire their proofreaders.

 

[Storm Raven]

For example, if I buy a PS3 and I bring it home and it doesn't work, does Sony turn to me and say,"Sorry. If you want the bugs and problems fixed, you'll have to wait until an upgraded PS3 comes out and buy it all over again. Oh, and by the way, the newly upgraded PS3 will come with 2 new games and a Sony coffee mug! Next!"

No, they take it and give you a new one that should work the way it was supposed to work.

The same goes for spells that needed errata. Instead of posting errata a good month or two after a book comes out, they wait until a million spells come out while ignoring the cries for fixes. Then they decide to make a book that simply takes those spells and puts it in one place for easy use and make changes on over 50% of them.

There is a significant difference in these examples. In the case of the PS3, if it doesn't work, it is valueless. In the case of spells that people would like to have tweaked, they are still usable as is. In other words, the product is perfectly acceptable for play - you may not like the results of play, but the rule books work fine without the errata.

That's what I don't understand. It just sounds like a cheap ploy to get more money from gamers. And then ya got a fan-boy based group on here brainwashed into thinking otherwise and bashing me for it.

I'm not a fan boy here. I think WotC's errata and rulings track record is lousy. But that is because it is a cash sink for them. Any effort they put into making errata - which they don't need to do in the first place - is simply money and effort thrown out the window. Making errata pay for itself, in my opinion, would result in companies like WotC paying more attention to it.

 

[Storm Raven]

No....their incentive is money. I.e., so that it sells.

I don't think many people would agree that

"[M]aking the book...so that it sells...means doing the best job they can up front."

I think most people would agree that, instead,

"Making the book so that it sells means meeting a minimum standard of usefulness up front."

Your assumption requires that you think that WotC is run by black-cloaked villains twirling their mustaches as they type up the books.

Now, if you knew that you were going to sell your errata afterward, then it makes sense that you would want the errata to be as important as the book itself. You would want, in essense, to ensure that sales on your errata as well as sales on your book would be as strong as they could be. You may classify this as "evil"; I would classify this as no different than the car salesman selling you add-on products after you've agreed to the price of the base model.

The life cycle of a RPG supplement is very short. Ninety days or so and sales effectively stop. Which means that, as it stands now, for a book more than three months old, there is no incentive whatsoever to even think about making errata. From WotC's (or any other game company's) perspective, it is a huge money sink. Some companies, like SJGames, are willing to pay into the money sink of errata. Most are not. WotC is currently better than most other RPG companies in the market on this score. But it remains a money sink, and they have no incentive whatsoever to do anything on the errata front, since they could be spending their time working on the Complete Book of Left-Handed Ogres or something else that will sell and make money instead.

Right now, with errata being "free" we get error laden books, and an almost nonexistent trickle of errata to fix one or two things a couple years after the fact. We have FAQ entries that make no sense. We have customer support rulings that are inherently self-contradictory. Exactly how do you think this would be worse in a situation where they have a financial incentive to produce fixes?

On the other hand, I think (and WotC seems to think, based on their publishing errata free on their website and in the SRD) that the "selling your errata" model hurts the goodwill you have from your customer base, and since you want to sell to them considerably more often than Joe Average buys a new car, it is better to not charge for your mistakes.

Except in the current situation, WotC isn't providing errata free on their webstie, at least not errata for anything published in the last couple years. Their errata is so hopelessly out of date that it might as well not exist.

 

[Felix]

And then ya got a fan-boy based group on here brainwashed into thinking otherwise and bashing me for it.

You won't make friends by whitewashing everyone who disagrees with you as "brainwashed fan-boys". Nor will you support your argument, or encourage others to dig further to see if your ideas have merit.

Almost like how Bush likes to say the word "terrorism" a million times to draw people away from the true dilemmas going on.

You've been a registered user here since 2002. By now you should be familiar with ENWorld's policy against politics. If you'd like to illustrate your point, there are plenty of metaphors available to you that arn't political in nature.

---

I bought the Spell Compendium because it put 1000 spells in one book. Handy. So I don't consider it anything near errata. I might otherwise be persuaded, but I found your tone and language (cited above) off-putting; any argument following those statements would have to be quite rigorous to convince me. Certainly more rigorous than the arguments you have already presented.

 

[Sejs]

Apparently, WotC has this nerve with selling us errata. For example:

I don't agree with your basic premise at all.

For example, I didn't buy the Spell Compendium because I thought I somehow needed it to have my spells be 'current'. I bought it because it's a convienant resource, having spells from all over the place in one book.

If you somehow feel you're being taken advantage of because you think a compilation book is somehow marketed errata, then by all means don't buy it. There is no gun to your head.


And if it were JUST errata... they kinda offer that for free on their website. Amazing, I know.

 

[eyebeams]

Exactly. Steve Jackson Games has done very well with their commitment to books with a high text quality - and thus their books get bought regularly even by people who despise GURPS, their house system, merely because they know that these books are well-researched, well-written, and well-playtested.

SJG has existed and owned by the same guy for more than 25 years know. Which should tell you something.

Perhaps I never should have read GURPS books on topics I'm familiar with so I can agree with you. Unfortunately, I, like many people, have bought such books on the assumption that I can get new tidbits and useful, gameable stuff. Thus, to my regret, I have at times owned GURPS Japan, GURPS China, GURPS New Sun and GURPS Martial Arts. GURPS Martial Arts told me that Bodhidharma invented Qi, which was a frickin' hoot, let me tell you. So was the fact that you could only create a realistic pro boxing bout with cinematic rules. I owned GURPS Supers too, and the less said about that, the better.

The conclusion I've come to is that GURPS writing is very good at projecting a sense of authority about a subject, whether such authority is warranted or not. I far prefer the line's original settings (Yrth, Cabal) to its attempts to gameify factual things, where the authoritative voice gets extremely irritating.

 

[Sejs]

Yay, response post!

Apparently only a few here understand where I am coming from in this. A lot of people here really don't and simply bash me for expressing a very solid opinion.

Or, you know, they understand your very solid opinion, and simply disagree with you. That is known to happen. The options arn't exclusively A) Agree With You, or B) Simply Don't Get It.

For example, if I buy a PS3 and I bring it home and it doesn't work, does Sony turn to me and say,"Sorry. If you want the bugs and problems fixed, you'll have to wait until an upgraded PS3 comes out and buy it all over again. Oh, and by the way, the newly upgraded PS3 will come with 2 new games and a Sony coffee mug! Next!"

No, they take it and give you a new one that should work the way it was supposed to work.

An... interesting analogy. Shame it doesn't fit in the slightest.

The same goes for spells that needed errata. Instead of posting errata a good month or two after a book comes out, they wait until a million spells come out while ignoring the cries for fixes. Then they decide to make a book that simply takes those spells and puts it in one place for easy use and make changes on over 50% of them.

That sounds a lot like the old 'the silent majority agrees with me!' argument. Never has, nor never will, fly.

I have looked through my Spell Compendium and compared it to their original sources. Most of them have been altered, and significantly. The fixes or changes that should've been done for free online has all been put in one place and you have to cough up $40 to do it.

Aah, and you just drove straight past the main premise. "...and compared it to their original sources."

Spell Compendium takes spells from a wide variety of scattered sources and puts them all in one place. Sort of like a reference book. Your argument's about on part with being pissed off at an encyclopedia.

That's what I don't understand. It just sounds like a cheap ploy to get more money from gamers. And then ya got a fan-boy based group on here brainwashed into thinking otherwise and bashing me for it.

Again with the "if you don't agree with me you're an idiot" nonsense. Drop it if you want to be taken as anything other than a petulent whiner venting their spleen.

They're about to do it again with Rules Compendium. I'm just surprised many people think you should have to pay for errata (though the poll states otherwise). I am glad most businesses don't run that way or our economy would fall really quickly.

The poll is manipulative at best, masturbatory at worst. And I'll go so far as to say you know it, too.

If people want to buy a reference book, that's their option. It's not compulsory. You don't have to pay for anything. You have the option of paying. Subtle but important difference.

It's also really hard to talk to a fellow gamer outside your D&D group about something with he/she saying,"This is what it does." and I go "No it doesn't, it does this." And they appear confused until I tell them there was errata for it. "Where was the errata? On their website?" they ask.

"No, it's in this book. If you want the errata to this and some other stuff you'll have to purchase it."

You should've seen the looks on some of these people's faces.

Next tell them that the fluoridation in water makes your teeth visible to spy satelites, and compare reactions.

Again. Compilation, not pay-for-errata. Errata, free on website.

And here's the ironic part!

The Spell Compendium itself needs errata. A lot of it, from what I've seen and many others have been crying for. Yet has WotC released one yet? No. Will they release one? Yes. When? Most likely when they're trying to sell you Spell Compendium II. You'll have to buy a book that has errata to a previous book that had errata to previous books.....where does the line get drawn, really?

Sooo, just so I get your position straight - you foresee the SC as forever snowballing. SC2 will have the re-re-revised material from SC1, plus maybe a handfull of new spells. And perhaps SC3 will just be SC2, which was in turn just SC1, plus a few.

...gotcha.

Yeah. Mercy. The outright gall of it all. You absolutely should be choked with rage over that, should it ever happen. Let me know how that works out.

 

[Sejs]

And now they're about to do it again with Rules Compendium. They hide it behind the highly anticipated "All rules in one book" gimmick to draw attention away from the customers. Almost like how Bush likes to say the word "terrorism" a million times to draw people away from the true dilemmas going on.

If you have to pay for a rules compilation, then the terrorists have already won!

...goddamn it, where is that *roll eyes* smiley when I need it most?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Wow, I disagree with Razz, so I must be a brainwashed fanboy? And if everyone disagrees with Razz then Razz is the only person in the entire world who has true vision into the villainous reality of WotC R&D.

Somehow I have my doubts as to the veracity of that statement. Looks like some Stupid and Stubborn pills may also have been overdosed. :\

The Auld Grump