Dragon covers and sensationalism

[psionotic]

The "Is 3rd edition dead?" headline kinda pissed me off, too. That headline gets attention by inspiring fear in the reader, which is manipulative and cruel. Its also misleading, because the article itself tries so hard to spin the changes in a positive light. It may have worked if the editors hadn't sabotaged the attempt from the get-go.

If the editors wanted to draw attention to the story, something like "Exlusive 3rd Edition Revision Info Inside!!" would have been sufficient for me. Building positive buzz for a product is a better marketing tool than inspiring fear in your audience. Its nobler, at least.

 

[Mark]

These are all good points, but I still feel like Dragon's current approach to cover copy is just as likely to alienate potential customers/subscribers as it is to draw them in.

I agree. The rest of my post, and the one even higher in this thread makes that quite plain, I had thought. Henry was commenting on their reasoning behind what they are doing, and asking who they were competing against, and I was simply enumerating those points.

My hope would be nothing on the cover but the art, the name of the mag, a small box with some highlights in one corner, and only the price and bar code (which I believe must be there, unfortunately.)

 

[Vocenoctum]

Magazines add taglines to compete on the newstand. I have a subscription -- I've never seen Dragon on a news stand except at a game store where it was the only magazine on the newstand. Are there so many D&D/d20 magazines in print that Dragon needs the taglines to be competitive? I guess so, but I have a hard time buying it.

FWIW, I buy Dungeon at Waldenbooks. I sub to Dragon, and will probably do the double deal with Dungeon somewhere in here.
(LGS sucks here, so don't nag be about giving them my business. Stiggybaby.com is much friendlier and more helpful.)

I ignore the tripe scattered around the picture/ cover. When I'm judging a magazine, I look at the table of contents. (Thankfully, Dungeon/ Dragon have kept it close to the front. I hate going through 20 pages before finding it.)
It doesn't bug me that it's there.

"Is 3rd edition dead?" WAS quite silly, but I never even noticed it until this thread They should have had the "get ready, D&D 3.5 " closer to that tagline, to answer there own question.

 

[haiiro]

I agree. The rest of my post, and the one even higher in this thread makes that quite plain, I had thought. Henry was commenting on their reasoning behind what they are doing, and asking who they were competing against, and I was simply enumerating those points.

I wasn't knocking you. Looking back over the thread again, I guess I was being repetitive. It was just part of my thought process as I wrote my response.

hope would be nothing on the cover but the art, the name of the mag, a small box with some highlights in one corner, and only the price and bar code (which I believe must be there, unfortunately.)

That sounds almost perfect to me -- I'd add the issue number in fairly large type, and the month in smaller type. I hate having to flip to the spine to see the issue number; the pre-Paizo Dragons at least had it on the cover, although it was much too small IMO.