Hasbro/WotC has crossed the Trust Thermocline

[Parmandur]

But if you found out that the company owners and management of your favorite company are total bastards, who treat their employees terribly, disrespect the RPG community, and only see you, the fan, as an "obstacle to their money" . . . . you might be less inclined to purchase their products, even if you LOVE those products.

If it came out that WotC was a cesspit of abuse like Activision or Ubisoft, for sure. This...ain't that. And I assume every company, privately or publicly held, however nice, views me as a resource, so that doesn't phase me.

 

[Malmuria]

Sure, obviously, they are a large corporation and I am a customer...that's how the relationship works. They don't care about me, I don't care about them. If they produce something that I want, then I buy it. If they don't, then I don't buy it. Turns out that since 2014, the only things they put out that I didn't want were Acquisitions Incorporated and Rick & Morty, but they could still put out something I don't want (has tonhappen eventually). Other companies put out stuff that I want, so I buy it (Call of Cthulu, Dungeon Crawl Classics, several Midgard books, just got tye PbtA Avatar in the mail) When they don't, I don't. None of this constitutes a friendship or relationship, it's all transactional.

Well that's great for a rational economic actor such as yourself, but mostly the whole reason businesses invest in their brand is so that customers form attachments to it. The idea that companies just try to make the best product that consumers buy or don't buy is just not how brand identity works. Wotc further saw dnd as a "lifestyle brand." You can see this even in their recent statement and the emphasis they put on their "community." In the past you saw it with how they used influencers on social media to introduce products and do actual plays. Well right now all that talk of community is not credible, and the influencers (many of whom were part of the 3p ecosystem) are upset in very vocal ways. So that strategy is off the table, at least for a while.

 

[mamba]

Well that's great for a rational economic actor such as yourself, but mostly the whole reason businesses invest in their brand is so that customers form attachments to it. The idea that companies just try to make the best product that consumers buy or don't buy is just not how brand identity works. Wotc further saw dnd as a "lifestyle brand." You can see this even in their recent statement and the emphasis they put on their "community."

yes, I can see them trying to be a lifestyle brand, but I also see how they treat their community, and all the marketing in the world cannot overcome what they did there

In the past you saw it with how they used influencers on social media to introduce products and do actual plays. Well right now all that talk of community is not credible, and the influencers (many of whom were part of the 3p ecosystem) are upset in very vocal ways. So that strategy is off the table, at least for a while.

I am fine with that, in fact I want them to tell just how badly WotC treated their community and to promote competitors

 

[Parmandur]

Well that's great for a rational economic actor such as yourself, but mostly the whole reason businesses invest in their brand is so that customers form attachments to it. The idea that companies just try to make the best product that consumers buy or don't buy is just not how brand identity works. Wotc further saw dnd as a "lifestyle brand." You can see this even in their recent statement and the emphasis they put on their "community." In the past you saw it with how they used influencers on social media to introduce products and do actual plays. Well right now all that talk of community is not credible, and the influencers (many of whom were part of the 3p ecosystem) are upset in very vocal ways. So that strategy is off the table, at least for a while.

Yeah, I mean, that was patently cynical horse manure before. But they will still be able to use that strategy when the dust settles, as they have before.

The lifestyle brand isn't "WotC is my boyfriend," it is "black dragons spewing acid are Sick" and suchlike. That's not going away.

 

[Gladius Legis]

There can be a conversation on how WOTC and Hasbro can regain trust in the future, but it absolutely cannot be with the current management. At the very least Cynthia Williams needs to be shown the door, and preferably Chris Cocks, Tim Fields, and Dan Rawson, as well.

 

[overgeeked]

WotC claimed recently that about 20% of the user base for D&D are DMs - losing 10% of your player base is bad but not a death blow I’d say; losing half of the 5e DMs would be a sea change.

Edit: And that’s aside from the posts I’ve started seeing on Reddit that essentially read, “…so, D&D sucks now, I guess?”

Exactly. DMs are the most likely to be plugged into the wider industry and interested in 3PP. So when the 3PP are threatened or disappear, it’s DMs who show the most concern. Importantly, DMs are almost by definition not casual players. They tend to be whales in the sense of super users.

DMs are 20% of WotC’s customers…but they spend the lion’s share of the money. That’s literally part of their “under monetized” complaint. So if the surge of cancellations is predominantly DMs, who make up most of the sales, the impact on WotC’s bottom line could be huge.

 

[Greg Benage]

I was reading a GeekWire interview with Cynthia Williams, and I just have to share. Disclaimer: No one, including me, actually knows if she's been driving these decisions. That said...oy.

GeekWire: Speaking of which, as a former Xbox employee, what do you feel like you brought from that to your new job at Wizards?
CW: When I started talking to Chris Cocks [Hasbro CEO and the former Wizards president] about joining Wizards of the Coast, I knew that the fanbases for Magic and D&D are even more fanatical than Xbox or PlayStation fans. That’s really what I brought, was the understanding of the stewardship that you have for these brands that are part of people’s lifestyles and identities.

Wizards of the Coast President Cynthia Williams on tabletop trends, 2023 strategy, and more

After stints with Microsoft’s Xbox team and Amazon’s finance and fulfillment departments, Cynthia Williams started a new role 10 months ago as president at Wizards of the Coast. Williams has… Read More

www.geekwire.com

 

[mamba]

“what I brought, was the understanding of the stewardship that you have for these brands that are part of people’s lifestyles and identities.”

“…and how to best squeeze the most amount of money out of their foolish appreciation for a brand, leaving only an empty, mangled husk behind”

Yeah, you have shown us what you mean by ‘understanding’ and ‘stewardship’. Neglect is better than this form of stewardship.

 

[Charlaquin]

The erosion was there. It had been growing pretty steadily. This is just the move that made the cliff face crumble.

Yeah, it’s a weird analogy, but I think I kinda get it. I’ll sometimes use the analogy of “boiling the frog slowly,” where if you have a frog in water and raise the temperature slowly enough, it won’t notice the change and will stay in the water until it’s boiled alive, but if you increase the temperature too quickly, it will jump out. This is kind of the same idea, but getting colder instead of warmer, and with the addition of a point beyond which it doesn’t really matter how slowly you go, once you cross that line it’s too damn cold.

So, in WotC’s case, I would say revoking the OGL is that “thermocline.” The line that they can’t cross without losing consumer trust, no matter how gradually they try to ease us into it. I’m not sure that’s what the article is actually trying to say, but it’s how I’d apply the analogy to this situation.

 

[Charlaquin]

The fact that we are the target audience for 3pp (long time hardcore fans that are on a site that is from a 3pp) is 40% is bad but not "oh everyone is leaving this game" levels. I wonder if it is a blip on casuals radar.

It probably is, but the nature of the hobby is that the hardcore fans have an outsized influence over the casual fans’ habits. The people who are invested enough to have strong opinions like this are also more often the driving force behind decisions about what their playgroup plays. That’s why, for example, 4e didn’t grow as quickly as WotC expected it to, leading to a premature end despite respectable financial success. It’s a phenomenon WotC seems to consistently fail to account for.