How many poor-quality books can a company produce . . .

[Pants]

However, if I am disappointed by a company's products more than once, I'll move them down my mental priority list. I still judge individual products on their own merits but I'll probably get around to them later.

That's what I do too.

I usually try to research a book before I get it, though sometimes I do impulse buy. Sometimes I'm rewarded, sometimes I'm not.

 

[Phoenix]

Malhavoc Press.....never again....*shiver*

 

[Eosin the Red]

Like a whole boatload of people my answer is more of a depends. I have bought a few stinkers from excellent companies and those do little to impact my overall view of the company unless they start becoming more frequent.

 

[philreed]

In the case of WotC for example, they have an even greater latitude when it comes to quality since they get to put the D&D logo on everything. Many D&D players who wouldn't touch a third-party product will still buy WotC products with the belief that such products are naturally better than anything a 3rd party could produce.

I expect that this is true with several companies. It appears that a large number of people develop emotional attachments to a company to a point that they are basically blind to the faults of their chosen company. Every company out there, from the guy in his basement to Wizards of the Coast, has faults and produces the occasional stinker.

An interesting experiment would be to give a panel of professional (non-game) publishers a dozen products from some RPG publishers.

And then wait for the panel's report on those products.

 

[Starglim]

Some of the bigger companies you can rely on to produce a few dogs and some halfway decent work - especially varying by the product line or writer. For example, I bought one Slayer's Guide and am not going back to that line again, though Mongoose has a lot of work that I like. I'd have to place Wizards in that category, too.

 

[diaglo]

WotC does it day in day out. i still buy their products

 

[Treebore]

Depends on how much I'm paying. If it is a Necromancer, Green Ronin, or Goodman Games product, well, I buy it. They have never made me feel ripped off. Other companies I stopped buying at full price, but I was more than happy to buy almost everything they made when they were on sale for $5.00/each.

WOTC is definitely a special case, even though I haven't bothered to buy anything from them since Lords of Madness.

 

[Ashanderai]

I voted "None" - Careful with purchases, reads reviews, etc.

But, I think there should have possibly been one more option because None is not entirely true and neither is, "One. Once I'm burned I'll never buy from that company again." You see, I read reviews, try to just purchase stuff I think I might use some day, flip through it in the store first to get a feel for the content and quality, etc. and I still get burned every now and then (though my purchasing decisions have gotten better over the years so I get fewer burns), but I would not say I will never buy from the same company or author ever again. I just go through the same process over again when deciding whether or not to purchase, though their credibility gets a little more damaged with me every time I come across a lemon - purchased or not.

 

[ssampier]

Top Ten Products No One Will Ever Buy!

10. 101 Obsolete Items of Questionable Use

9. Commoner: The Pamphlet

8. Maps of the Recently-Wildfired Grassland Plains

7. Skill Highlights: Whetstone Usage

6. PrC: Tailor (two levels)

5. The DM's Guide to Broken English and Brogues

4. Skill Highlights: Armor Polishing

3. Graph Paper (1" = 6')

2. Shoe Laces and Bootstraps

...and the number one Product No One Will Ever Buy...

1. The Big Bundle of Bookmarked and Cross-Referenced Phonebooks of Rural Antartica!​

Common Pamplet sounds interesting. I assume 8 will be in full color so I can get the full shades of black?

 

[Sir Brennen]

Books as Treats

On the subject of random rewards psychology...

What if the dog can know ahead of time if the master has a treat, or go to the treat store and browse through the selection to find out more about the brand of treat the master usually gives, or look up on the internet the opinion of other dogs who came to the master to get a treat (or received a complimentary treat without doing anything) ?

"It's like a rubber chew toy, only without the toy part. Good use of white space on the package, though."

The reward/gambling metaphor is a little to simplistic, I think, to really describe the gamer purchase mentality, habits and purchase decision resources. I think previously rewarding material can get a gamer to look at or investigate a company's products, but not necessarily buy.

Also, if the first thing a company puts out bites, then I'm much less likely to want to look into further offerings from them. However, if their initial publications are average or better, I'll be a little more forgiving if they put out something not so good. Note this doesn't mean actually purchasing - just willing to keep them on my radar.

Looking back at my 3.0 purchases, I do own a few which I thought were pretty good at the time, but now make me go "What where they thinking? What was I thinking?". I believe much of this was due to lack of anything else to compare these products to. No one had shown what a really good 3rd edition product could look like yet. Some of the products would make me inclined to dismiss the companies involved altogether if I bought them today. However, since I didn't, I do own a few things from these same companies that I am quite pleased with, even when held up against the raised standards of quality that exist today.