How would you market D&D? A Hypothetical exercise

[nothing to see here]

Being impressed by the business acumen shown by many on these boards, I thought I would pose the following question regarding the future of D&D.

Just say Hasbro appoints you to be VP of marketing at WOTC. You're particularly charged with expanding the base of the Dungeons and Dragons brand...in particular, attracting new players to the game from non-traditional demographics. Your specific target is to increase the number of new players by 20% within the next 18 months. You are given a modest budget (by Hasbro standards), with the understanding that, more money can be freed up should your initial efforts demonstrate results.

So there you have it. You have full access to the D&D brand and the Hasbro marketing machine. How would you broaden D&D's base?

 

[fusangite]

Development Criteria
I think the first thing to do would be to take advantage of D20's modularity so as to produce essentially three fully compatible versions of the game. Basic D&D needs to be ressurrected so that there is a version of the game that 9-12 year olds can learn to play with some degree of fidelity. The rules, as they stand now, are simply too complex for a group of kids to figure out and play without constant house ruling and confusion. A simplified game that can pull kids right in is desperately needed if we're going to begin rebuilding the younger part of our demographic. Similarly, a miniatures-free version needs to be developed so that older people who are not combat wonks can enjoy playing.

Actual Marketing
Now, if I had a game that could be marketed a little more widely, I would undertake the following measures:
1. Community Centre Leadership: There are many after school programs out there that are short of ideas and trained personnel. In my view, WOTC could recoup its investment in 18 months or less if it established a program of donating one free copy of the core rules and a set of modules to non-profit or subsidized after school activities and provided training or a database of volunteer GMs so that there could be new opportunities for kids to play RPGs. It makes WOTC look like it's doing community service and it fosters a youth market. A friend of mine has done this kind of thing unilaterally and has enjoyed tremendous success -- there are dozens of kids in Vancouver's inner city and an Indian reserve on Vancouver Island who now play RPGs simply because he gave them an opportunity and provided GMing. (And he was paid $15/hour)

Yes, WOTC will take some flak who see their kids being indoctrinated with a game they don't like -- but look at McDonald's and sick children. It doesn't matter that their food is carcinogenic; the fact that they're doing charity makes them look good.

2. Mr. Plow: I don't know how many of you have seen the Mr. Plow episode of the Simpsons but Homer shares with us a brilliant marketing insight: "C'mon Marge. Lots of people watch TV at 3am... insomniacs, the unemployed, angry loners..." Now, while this was not the ideal market to require snow removal, this pretty accurately describes to core of D&D players. Cheap TV ads on local or cable channels (ie. non-network) that show sci-fi movies in the middle of the night could also help us regain people who gave up the hobby in the hopes that they would stop being losers as a result and have now discovered that they're still losers anyway. So what have they got to lose by going back to D&D?

3. Steal White Wolf: If D&D had an adult game that didn't require a battle mat, it could much more effectively produce a setting marketed specifically to girls. Strong branding of an especially female-oriented setting could deliver a lot. I'm thinking of a Celtic twilight setting in which an evil monotheistic religion is destroying the beautiful pagan matriarchy a la Mists of Avalon. While nauseating to people like me, it could really sell.

All for now. I may add more.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

While some of those ideas are good, I would caution against such an extensive promotional scheme that would require a lot more money than Hasbro would be willing to pump in.

I think there should be a greater push via video games and through internet advertising. Right now, a lot of the D&D video games have nothing more than a little logo on the box that indicates it is a D&D game. A lot of people probably don't even realize Baldur's Gate is D&D!

But if you wanna know the truth, the problem isn't the marketing - it's the game itself. D&D should be positioning itself to become an online game, whereby players around the world can interface with each other via videofeed to play the game. That's the future, not pen-n-paper D&D. And I don't mean an online game like NWN. I mean a game run by a DM, possibly without all the graphics, that enables the traditional D&D game to be played over the internet without all the hassle that it currently entails. Sure there are some hosts right now (usually free), but they don't have the authority or the financial backing to do it right. That's what WotC should be focusing on. It would create a whole new market for the game and it would allow isolated players to actually play the game.

But then, such an idea would undermine the need for rulebooks and D&D minis, now wouldn't it? And WotC can't have that. D&D needs a paradigm shift and it's missing the boat...

 

[Sigurd]

An interesting exercise...

1) I have no idea of the expected return -- this goes a long way to helping plan a campaign.

2) D&D can quietly stress the good parts of being a pen and paper game. Literacy, imagination, community are all good things helped by traditional role playing games. There are enough gamers that have become doctors, lawyers etc that a few expert opinions published in the back of the books is long overdue. On this score, gamers will find the information and do all the marketing themselves if they were only given the ammunition.

I really like your idea of resurrecting the different versions. Without knowing the costs of maintaining the 3 parallel threads at least it sounds good.

'Basic D&D'

A rules lite version of the game is already very popular in Castles & Crusades, Harp etc... there is no reason they should be alone. 3E is way too complicated for a lot of casual players. A basic D&D with a scaled down but compatible rule set and a retro feel would work.


'Advanced D&D"

This would be their main line as it is developing. Open licensing, community stuff the whole shmere.


"Expert D&D"

Really the extension of AD&D except that all of it is closed content. WOTC should head hunt people with really good ideas and pay as much attention to authors as well as content. There is so much content now that much of it is a blur. Expert D&D could be as big or as little as it works out to be.

This would be the platform for all their computer initiatives, unless the other two are so much more popular.

S

At least thats what I think right now

 

[fusangite]

But if you wanna know the truth, the problem isn't the marketing - it's the game itself. D&D should be positioning itself to become an online game, whereby players around the world can interface with each other via videofeed to play the game. That's the future, not pen-n-paper D&D. And I don't mean an online game like NWN. I mean a game run by a DM, possibly without all the graphics, that enables the traditional D&D game to be played over the internet without all the hassle that it currently entails. Sure there are some hosts right now (usually free), but they don't have the authority or the financial backing to do it right. That's what WotC should be focusing on. It would create a whole new market for the game and it would allow isolated players to actually play the game.

There is almost nothing with which I can agree in this post. D&D is a social game for people who are not that great at social interaction. A big part of what D&D provides is the capacity to structure regular social interactions for people who either don't enjoy or don't have the social wherewithal to be part of a weekly poker game. That's its niche. If you remove the social component, by making it an online game, the features that have retained so many people in the hobby would effectively disappear.

Remove the human social component and D&D becomes just another activity competing for people's solitary time staring at their screen. Most "interactive" games provide more immediacy, more intensity and less risk than D&D; your solution would push D&D to the margins faster.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I would use Keith Strohm's TV commercial idea he posted here years ago.
If anyone has that and can repost it I would love to read it again.
I think it was one of earlier Eric run boards that it was posted to.

 

[nothing to see here]

Interesting how...most of the marketing advice to date has, as a preface, a desire to see design changes. It's unusual for 'fans' of a given good or service to see the structure of that good or service as a barrier to expansion...I'm not quite sure what (if anything) that portends...I'll have to thank about that a little...

I do like the late-night TV idea. Obviously full scale television advertising would be grossly expensive and likely deliver very limited return (considering market size). A late night D&D infomercial now...hmmm there's an idea with lots of possiblities...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

What D&D needs is ...

a reality TV show where contestants explore dungeons, fight monsters, and win treasure, and periodically someone gets told: "You're dead!"

 

[scourger]

What an interesting thing to ponder, especially in light of the recently-revealed WotC/Hasbro marketing strategy. That strategy defines 3 levels of players: Trial, Regular & Lifestyle. The goal is to move consumers from Trial, through Regular and to Lifestyle as quickly as possible with the customer purchasing every D&D product as released. I think the goal is wrong.

The goal should be focused on Regular players--those who buy the core rules of a game and little else--through licensing of more titles. The key is to offer diffferent games under the D&D brand. First, the brand should have remained "D&D"--not d20--for Modern & Future. Here, WotC/Hasbro could steal a cue from GURPS. Why shouldn't D&D be a generic, universal roleplaying system? Sure, it's grounded in high-magic sword & sorcery, but I recall reading in the 2 most recent DMGs about ways to set the game in modern & futuristic genres. I imagine "D&D Modern", "D&D Future", etc.

I even think this should be applied to Star Wars, Cthulhu and other lincensed games. Why not? There's no reason, in my opinion, that another publisher should have the rights to "D&D Conan" or "D&D Lord of the Rings" (although that opportunity is stale now that the movies are all released). I don't begrudge them their games, but they could easily be made into D&D derivatives. Even titles like Star Trek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer are possibilities. In short, anything fromt he popular culture could & should be an RPG under the D&D banner.

I would keep and foster the d20 logo and license, though. It's really a brilliant strategy to push sales of the core books. If an independent publisher wants to make Chronicles of Riddick d20 adventures for the D&D Chronicles of Riddick d20 game, then that's great. It drives sales of the D&D Chronicles of Riddick d20 core book(s). The core D&D books should bear the d20 logo so that they are visually keyed to everything in the market that supports them. Maybe a special "d20 Core" logo is needed.

Anywya, this could all be way off base. I sure would like to have D&D versions of the afore-mentioned games, though; and I think there would be a market for them.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

There is almost nothing with which I can agree in this post.

Of course not. Because there's almost nothing with which I can agree with in yours. The future of D&D is kids, not adults. And kids are the ones choosing the internet and console games over face-to-face games. When was the last time a teenager asked you to play Monopoly or Sorry? Now when was the last time a teenager went online, chatted on MSN, sent email, etc., etc., etc. The future is online, whether you like it or agree with it or not. To cling to the fantasy that pen-n'-paper is the future is what will marginalize D&D, most especially once the current crop of gamers passes on. As for D&D being an aid for the socially-challenged, have you never heard of Lavalife or chat rooms? The internet has been much more of a boon for socially-challenged people than D&D ever was or will be.