Green Ronin in PC Gamer!

[baseballfury]

So I picked up the latest PC Gamer to read on the bus, and only a few pages in I ran across an ad from Green Ronin for Book of the Righteous and Mutants & Masterminds. There was nothing in the ad I didn't already know (since I go to their website frequently), but it was cool to see a company from our neck of the gaming woods in a mag like PC Gamer. Kudos to Green Ronin for playing with the big boys!

 

[Samothdm]

Advertising for RPGs

I actually used to work on WotC's advertising (at their ad agency) and they were so opposed to spending money to advertise D&D. My group always suggested things like PC Gamer and other video/electronic game magazines, and even things like Maxim or what not just to reach people who may have played D&D in the past but had fallen away from it.

I know that Monte (on his site) mentioned he doesn't think that we need to advertise D&D because he feels, basically, that in order to get more people to play D&D we'd have to change the game significantly so that it will no longer appeal to its current fans. I disagree.

I think he, and WotC, are missing a huge potential:
1) People who are older now who haven't played D&D for years (maybe even decades) and don't realize that there's a 3rd Edition. I myself am 31 and haven't played for 10 years but I'm regularly involved in 2 campaigns now.
2) People who have the gaming mentality (either Trading Card Gamers or Video Gamers).
3) People who like fantasy and sci-fi books/movies/tv shows.

Sure, not all of these people are going to play D&D. But some of them will, and the game does need new players in order to stay vibrant. If WotC can't sell new products, they can't make any money to pay game designers to design more products to sell. It's just common business sense. But, instead, we saw the advertising budget for 3rd Edition drop significantly until at the end they were just running a few ads in their own "in-house" publications and also in publications like KoDT and InQuest, mainly just to keep their relationships with those folks intact.

Sorry if I hijacked your thread. I just thought people might find this interesting. And, I too applaued Green Ronin for spending some of their well-earned money to expose more people to their products.

 

[Aaron L]

Very good points. I think the idea that "it won't work so why bother?" is misguided.

 

[Samothdm]

Very good points. I think the idea that "it won't work so why bother?" is misguided.

Unfortunately this mentality is all too common among advertisers. They're afraid to try anything new because they might not be able to substantiate it or predict how many sales will result from it. But, if you don't try it, how are you supposed to know? That's why they hire us (ad experts) to help them make these decisions. But, then they don't listen to us. That's another rant, though.

I think that their main problem was that Hasbro, or maybe WotC corporate, didn't give them the budgets that they needed. But, another problem was that they spent money to run huge, four page full color spreads in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. (And, YES, money did "change hands" between WotC's game divisions and the periodicals divisions and will continue to do so now that the periodicals are part of a separate company). Does anyone reading Dragon honestly NOT know that the ELH is coming out, for example? Why not doing a smaller ad, or better yet just a listing, and spend that money elsewhere to reach an audience that might not be as knowledgeable about the product listings?

Better yet, why not just rely on the website, small listings in Dragon/Dungeon, and sites like this one to let the current gamers know about the new products that are coming out, and then spend your marketing/advertising dollars on actually getting new people to play the game? That always seemed like a better strategy to me.

Looks like maybe this is a topic for another thread? Or maybe since I'm so close to it (being a gamer and an ad executive) I'm too close to it and fans don't care so much?

 

[Ristamar]

I think that their main problem was that Hasbro, or maybe WotC corporate, didn't give them the budgets that they needed. But, another problem was that they spent money to run huge, four page full color spreads in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. (And, YES, money did "change hands" between WotC's game divisions and the periodicals divisions and will continue to do so now that the periodicals are part of a separate company). Does anyone reading Dragon honestly NOT know that the ELH is coming out, for example? Why not doing a smaller ad, or better yet just a listing, and spend that money elsewhere to reach an audience that might not be as knowledgeable about the product listings?

Hm. That's a damn good point. A four page color spread is kind of overkill.

 

[Setanta]

Hey Samothdm, didn't you say at one point that they did put an ad in Maxim and it was quite successful for most metrics?

 

[Krug]

Ideas

I too think that they should put ads in non-RPG magazines more, particularly in Computer Game magazines. D&D is the grand daddy of it all. It's the starting point for many RPG programmers who were inspired by the material to conceive and construct their games. I could easily imagine an advertising campaign linking D&D and some of the luminaries of the computer game world (eg: Bob Fitch of Blizzard who did Starcraft, after all he PLUGGED Monte Cook's Banewarrens here). Kind of like a 'Got Milk?' campaign which would show that the game isn't just played by a bunch of social misfit teens.

 

[Samothdm]

Hey Samothdm, didn't you say at one point that they did put an ad in Maxim and it was quite successful for most metrics?

Yes, they did. And, yes, it was successful. I won't get into the details of "how" successfull since that's proprietary data to them. But, the point is that they should be doing more of this and less of speaking to the same audience over and over (who, again, already know about the new products from WotC that are coming out).

In my opinion, WotC should be doing more advertising to get new players into the game. That means less ads in Dragon/Dungeon/InQuest and more in Maxim/PC Gamer/Comic Books.

I think it's exactly right for 3rd party d20 companies to advertise in the traditional "gamer" magazines, though. They shouldn't be responsible for getting new blood into the game, but rather should concentrate their limited marketing dollars on getting current gamers to notice their new product offerings.

But those are just my 2-cents.

 

[Finkin Swiftfingers]

I hadn't played any serious D&D for probably 10 years, till 3E came out. When it was released, a couple friends and I decided to try it out. We have been playing almost every other weekend since!

Advertising would probably help with people who haven't thought of D&D in ages.

 

[Erik Mona]

WotC did buy a staggeringly expensive 2-page spread in Maxim and a few other magazines shortly after 3e came out. The ads referred people to playdnd.com, which got lots of hits.

Putting an ad in Maxim is not rocket science.


--Erik