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

[JoeGKushner]

As terrible as I thought Fast Forward was, I still enjoyed certain parts of Dungeon World and it's supplements and some of their Demon Wars stuff had potential, especially since the art was kickedu p thanks to the comic book utility.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I went with two, but the reality is that after one poor quality book, I'll hold back, wait for several reviews and only take a chance on a second book if I see a lot of positive reviews.

If you get me with a second book, I won't even bother looking after that unless people start talking about how the publisher cleaned house and they are much better than they used to be.

 

[trancejeremy]

Like the other post said, it's really a matter of price. Even a lousy book with a good idea is worth buying, if it's cheap enough. (I have a lot of Fast Forward books myself). But I do stop buying new products from that company. (Pretty much just Mongoose & WOTC, though). Though I can't believe I was dumb enough to give Mongoose a second chance. I should have just thrown $35 down the toilet, it would have pretty much the same.

 

[Ron]

That's my problem with Mongoose, I brought three of their earlier releases (reviews available at ENWorld) and they did impress me as very poor. As far as I can get from reviews, they really improved with time, but I haven't tried them again.

 

[Monte At Home]

Think about the psychology of gambling. It's not the losses that keeps the buyers coming back... it's the wins. Psychologically speaking, a behavior that is rewarded at random intervals resists extinction.
QUOTE]

That's really interesting. It certainly explains a lot. (Behavior rewarded at random intervals is also a good way to train animals.)

 

[Garnfellow]

Any company and any designer can have at least one clunker -- even Homer nods. So you can't be too quick to judge based on only one bad outing.

But on the other hand, I am often flabbergasted by the utterly uncritical approach so many gamers take to new rule books or fantasy novels. "Well, the rules suck and the editing is terrible and the binding split but hey, that picture of the dragon girl on page 34 is pretty cool, so I think this is a pretty good book overall." or "Yeah, the first 12 books in that series are kind of bad, but the 13th one was kind of cool, so I've already pre-ordered the 14th and 15th ones too."

Sometimes it feels like the gamer population can be broken down like so:

• 25% crazy, super-vocal haters who think that everything ever produced is the Worst. Product. Evar.
• 70% unconditional lovers who buy everything they can snatch up and think it's all great
• 05% actually discerning buyers

That's why, as a prospective buyer, I find a forum like En World so helpful. I try to hold off on buying anything until I've seen some early reports from reputable posters, and this has been a great help.

 

[philreed]

(Behavior rewarded at random intervals is also a good way to train animals.)

And now I have thoughts running through my head that will keep me smiling for several hours.

Thanks, Monte!

 

[philreed]

Sometimes it feels like the gamer population can be broken down like so:

• 25% crazy, super-vocal haters who think that everything ever produced is the Worst. Product. Evar.
• 70% unconditional lovers who buy everything they can snatch up and think it's all great
• 05% actually discerning buyers

That's about the same thing I was thinking. We see this sort of behavior a lot with games, novels, and movies.

 

[Psion]

That's really interesting. It certainly explains a lot. (Behavior rewarded at random intervals is also a good way to train animals.)

Actually that verbage -- about behavior resisting extinction -- pretty much comes from my psych 101 class, and the discussion directly referenced animals aas examples/experiements/test cases. So that's not at all coincidental.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

(Behavior rewarded at random intervals is also a good way to train animals.)

My damn Yorkie (quite characteristically, actually) has proven almost impossible to house break. Perhaps I should try rewarding his correct behavior at random intervals instead of every time.