D&D General Hasbro activist begins proxy fight, urges Dungeons & Dragons spinoff

[Umbran]

Are we not gamers, here?

Gamers are not necessarily smart business people.

If you want to make a big change, you don't announce it early. You hide your intent as long as possible to reduce the time your opponents have to stop you.

So, your customers are your opponents, then? Your customers are your enemies?

 

[éxypnos]

No what made d&d explosively popular was two things. One it hit the middle spot between simple d6 systems like tunnels and trolls and the hours long measure your movements games.

No, D&D was already running fast when T&T came out. The measure your movement games weren't a competitor really. I worked in games and sales of them during this period.

 

[nevin]

No, D&D was already running fast when T&T came out. The measure your movement games weren't a competitor really. I worked in games and sales of them during this period.

It was running fast compared to othe rrpg games which combined were all smaller than even pf2 today

 

[nevin]

Gamers are not necessarily smart business people.



So, your customers are your opponents, then? Your customers are your enemies?

Parellis law 20 percent of your customers will provide 80 percent of your profits.

Now piss off the other 80 percent and you can lose that high spending 20. Think about that dynamic and you'll begin to understand how the average customer often becomes perceived as the enemy.

If 80 percent of your customers are happy with the product, but say 1/2 of the high profit customers aren't then 40 percent of your profits depend on bridging the gap between the two.

Customers provide the revenue but herding cats sucks. And cats is a good way to think of rpg gaming customers

 

[Umbran]

Parellis law 20 percent of your customers will provide 80 percent of your profits.

That's the Pareto Principle, and your interpretation of it is... unconventional. If you use this principle to willfully ignore segments of the market because they don't yield much of you profit, you find yourself in a death spiral.

Start with 100 customers. The Pareto Principle says that 80% of them don't get you much profit, so you can cheese them off, and allow them to leave.

Now you have 20 customers. The Pareto Principle says that 80% of them don't get you much profit....

Then you have 4 customers....

Then you have 1 customer...

The Pareto Principle is not about customer management.

 

[nevin]

No my point was it easy for companies to get so focused on the 20 percent and forget the 80 percent. I never said it was good business, I simply pointed out why it tends to happen in business. Once the penny pinchers or accountants are making decisions it's far easier to goose your stick focusing on the deep pockets. But I agree it's an almost gaurranteed losing strategy.

 

[Umbran]

No my point was it easy for companies to get so focused on the 20 percent and forget the 80 percent.

It is also easy for us to simply respond in fear when we have little information.

 

[Guest 7034872]

It is also easy for us to simply respond in fear when we have little information.

Hard not to, given the way the amygdala is configured.

 

[Dire Bare]

Dancey is a slightly problematic source, as he hadn't worked at Wizards for about a decade at that point, and was in leadership at Paizo to boot. Not to say that he was lying, but there's a lot of room for a game of telephone at play there.

I'm not saying Dancey is a liar, but . . . . perhaps it's just word choice, but that certainly sounds like what you are implying.

Dancey isn't a liar or problematic, he also isn't a prophet or an oracle, but . . . . most of his commentary on the industry has been spot on. He's a bright guy, and well-connected in the industry, even long after leaving WotC. Dancey doesn't always have the inside scoop, but I trust his opinions over most that get bandied about in these discussions.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm not saying Dancey is a liar, but . . . . perhaps it's just word choice, but that certainly sounds like what you are implying.

Dancey isn't a liar or problematic, he also isn't a prophet or an oracle, but . . . . most of his commentary on the industry has been spot on. He's a bright guy, and well-connected in the industry, even long after leaving WotC. Dancey doesn't always have the inside scoop, but I trust his opinions over most that get bandied about in these discussions.

I didn't say he was lying there, necessarily...but he wasn't a primary source, either, since he wasn't even around WotC for 3.5, let alone 4E.