How would you market D&D? A Hypothetical exercise

[kenobi65]

They're called WotC Delegates. They do not focus on the RPG... instead their main focus is collectible games. From D&D Minis to Duelmasters. They get credit for visiting stores in their area, doing in-store demos and generally promoting WotC products.

That's what I'd remembered reading. Too bad WotC doesn't feel the need to do something similar for the RPGs.

That said, I know they've been doing some sort of retailer packs supporting one of the RPGA campaigns (Legacy of the Green Regent) -- but sending the retailer a module and some goodies to use with it is a lot different from sending an experienced DM to the store, ready and willing to run a D&D demo.

 

[RangerWickett]

So far, then, we have:

• Market to younger audiences with collectible mini games which can lead into D&D.
• Encourage more social promotion of the game. Give away free copies of a simpler D&D game to youth groups.
• Take advantage of all opportunities to cross promote. If a TV station is having a show that heavily ties in with geekdom, run an ad for D&D, or at least for D&D video games. Make sure D&D video games have rebate coupons for copies of the print game, and definitely make sure they mention that there actually is a D&D print game that you can play with your friends without a computer.
• Devise ways to make buying additional products for the game more enticing. Instead of buying the core rules and being done with it, we need a way for people to want to keep buying stuff. 'Change fashions' to paraphrase an earlier poster.

How do we do that last one?

 

[Samothdm]

[*]Devise ways to make buying additional products for the game more enticing. Instead of buying the core rules and being done with it, we need a way for people to want to keep buying stuff. 'Change fashions' to paraphrase an earlier poster.[/list]

How do we do that last one?

It goes back to the age-old fight between "engineering" and "marketing".

Engineering-based product design works like this: the engineers (in this case, game designers) come up with a product that they think is cool. They make it, and then they go tell the marketing people, "Here, sell this new product we made." There is no research done to determine if people would want to buy this product, the potential market size, how much they would pay for the product, etc.

Marketing-based product design works like this: the marketers determine what people want, and then go to the engineers and say, "Here, make this new product people want." There is no understanding on the part of the marketing people for how the products get made, the costs and difficulties involved, or anything else like that.

It appears that WotC has been doing more engineering-based product design, but they have done some surveys and stuff to see what people like, what they don't like, etc. But, in general, it seems that they've just written stuff and then put it out and expect people to buy it.

There's gotta be a happy medium there, where "engineering" (writers and RPG developers) and the marketing people work together to come up with something and know its potential before they make it.

Also, I think that I (and others on the thread) have drifted a bit from the original question of the thread, which was:

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.

I've been concentrating on why they haven't really done that and why it's cost-prohibitive and all that. I'll try to get back to the original question in another post tomorrow.

 

[nothing to see here]

I detect two parallel trains of thought in this discussion. Samothdom points out the marketing-engineering conflict that is as old as the day those two professions were thrown in the same room...I have another one that comes from politics. (don't worry mods -- no specific politics cited!)

VERY generally speaking there are two schools of thoughts to winning an election (regardless of your political views). MOBILIZNG your existing 'base' (core supporters) so that every single person who already supports you is mobilized to get out and vote (and give money....and volunteer etc etc) or EXPANDING your base (potential supporters) by broadening your core message or policies to reach out to groups traditionally outside your tent.

The problem is that, with most political parties, broadening your electoral appeal turns off your core supporters, and appealing to your core supporters limits your electoral appeal. And one need only look at parties out of office, in virtually any democratic country to see these two approaches at war with one another.

In D&D you have a small...but high mobilized base of core purchasers...who's lifestyle are, by and large, unrepresentative of the larger population in a number of issues far beyond their recreational habits. These are the lifestyle players -- who can generally be counted on to make multiple purchases every year but, in turn, expect, a specific experience out of the game. Appealing to this group is easy..but you may eventually tap them out...either in number of players or amount they want to spend. Low risk, low return.

Then you have your potential players...for whom there is high brand recognition (if not respect)...who require a specific gateway into the game (and, as a note, I do not count MTG players, CRPG palyers, wargames or any member of gamer culture in this group...as they are likely already socially indoctrinated into the culture around D&D and are more likely to have made a purchasing decision not to play). This group may not be cheap to reach...and there is no guarantee of success...but an expanding player base in one way or another, is necessary to ensure financial viability of the brand. High risk - High return.

I favour approach two...within some well defined limits (I agree prime time TV ads are a catastrophic waste of money for a niche product)...yet the balance of this forum favours approach one. Perhaps somebody could elaborate why?

 

[glass]

I'm going to be chuckling about that tomorrow night... somebody called Dr. Who "mainstream."

The first episode of the new series got about 10 million viewers, on at primetime on a Saturday evening, on BBC1. That's pretty mainstream!

EDIT: Not that that is particularly helpfull, as the BBC doesn't carry advertising.


glass.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Related question: how good is the current D&D Basic set? The old Holmes/Moldvay/Mentzer sets were very successful and created an entire generation of new D&Ders.* Does the current D&D basic set live up to this legacy of teaching the game at an affordable price?

*I wasn't one of them. I had to teach myself and friends using the AD&D Player's Handbook (2e). How I wish the classic basic set had been available to me!

 

[ashockney]

Great thread.

It seems like what you're saying is you would prefer the high-risk, high-return approach.

I don't entirely agree with your assessment that those in "neighboring" gaming cultures have made a purhcasing decision, and are not a viable market. I think there is enormous opportunity, for all the reasons that have been cited above. The last step for many of these gamers may simply be to say that this TYPE of game is also fun to play. It's much harder to understand, on the surface at least. I think that for many of these CRPG'ers, fiction readers, CCG'ers, Comic Book readers, and Miniatures/Wargamers, are more of a medium risk with medium return. These are all fish. Big ones.

To really GROW the market though, I completely agree, taking full advantage of opportunities like Harry Potter or LOTR would to target a mass-market appeal would be a terrific approach. Two key elements it seems are a powerful base to mobilize for such events (delegates), and an effective marketing strategy to capture the attention and eventually share of wallet for those you're addressing. To the point of engineering v. marketing, we're not going to reverse engineer D&D, so instead, I think you get really detailed with your marketing approach. Take core D&D, the basic D&D boxed set, and the D&D miniatures games and get out and do surveying and focus groups to determine how to capture the attention and grow the understanding of the casual fan.

Ultimately, to fully capitalize on the high-risk, high-return element, think branding. It's what really worked in D&D during the 80's. Whatever you tap into to get the word out, and there are already a host of opportunies that have been addressed, it should all tie into key experiences that are appealing to these groups, across all genres.

Finally, the preference towards the low risk fanbase demonstrated here is probably closer to home for our community. Not many casual fans here, we're all pretty hard core.

 

[NewJeffCT]

As a non-marketing person, I like the idea of D&D "delegates" or "envoys" in various local areas, but I think we need some dedicated to just D&D, rather than like the ones mentioned above that were supposed to be experts on all things WotC.

The minis idea is a good one as well - minis, then expanded minis game with basic role playing and then the core rulebooks.

 

[Wolv0rine]

I'm not a marketing professional, but I do have some thoughts on the matter.

First, I think the timeframe suggested is vastly too small. That's a short-term 'burst' approach, and isn't
going to achieve the goal of assuring (or at least attempting to ensure) the continued health and
prosperity of the hobby in general (and the D&D line in specific). To do that, you have to look ahead
and prepare.

I know for myself, I was drawn into D&D by two things; those quirky cool ads in the comics, and the D&D
cartoon. Being a child of extremely poor parents it did take a number of years before I got around to
getting the red box Basic set, but get it I did. And it was entirely because of those two things.

Now, what we want to do is two-fold (although they are twin faces of the same coin). We want to reach
the kids and get them into the game, and we want to insinuate the game into the awareness
of a broader base of people. My suggestions aren’t necessarily cheap, and they won’t pay off in 18
months by a longshot, but I think they would be more successful than anything that would. In effect, I
would try to reproduce the factors that drew me in, altered a bit to reflect the different times.

#1: I would revive the D&D cartoon. This is at first deceptive, because I wouldn’t want to revisit the
cartoon as it was. That’d never work. But a regular series directly based on D&D could. Kids
are more connected to their TVs now than we were, and just as susceptible to the appeal of an
entertaining show. I’d propose a show that:

• Took itself seriously. No camp, no goofiness. Kids are pandered to as being simpletons too
  frelling much in my opinion. But a good show that doesn’t treat them like retards can be just as
  successful as one that does. And, in direct connection to this…
• Took its audience seriously. Give your audience some credit for being intelligent enough to follow you.

Look at Cartoon Network’s ‘Justice League’ series (and it’s predecessors). Here’s a cartoon that takes itself,
and its audience, seriously. And it’s frelling prospering.
Now, there are two ways to go here, and I’m really not sure which way I’d want to lean. One is vastly
more expensive than the other. Okay I know which way I’d realistically go, because I’d never even be
able to dream of getting the funding for my own preference. But the options, as I see them (and keeping in
mind that both are going to be expensive, and take time) would be:

• Approach Bruce Timm to do a 'traditional animation' show in his 'Batman'/’Superman’/’Justice League’
  style. People are loving the style, even if it’s a BIT simplistic for fantasy. Or…
• Approach Pixar to do it (see 'The Incredibles'). This is going to be EXPENSIVE and take a long time,
  but it would be so amazingly kick-arse that I can’t imagine it failing for any reason other than
  budgetary problems. And once you had the groundwork on it, it’d be easier and quite possibly faster
  than traditional animation (once you have made an ‘everyman goblin’, you can have a horde of goblins in
  a fraction of the time a traditional animator could produce them).

Take your new show, which takes itself and you seriously, and is faithful to D&D, and approach Cartoon Network.
Do what it takes to sell it to them, and get it on the TV. Don’t let it degrade, and don’t let it fade away.

Step one. Now, for step two (which is mind-numbingly more likely to ever be possible than step one).
You produce a line of good quality action figures. Remember the old D&D action figures from back when?
Those were pretty cool for the time. Since WotC is owned by frelling HASBRO there’s just simply no excuse
for Hasbro not releasing a good line of action figures for D&D. It’s silly.

Now what have you gained by these two steps? What you’ve got is kids aware of D&D (not just aware of
the game’s existence, with the show and the toys being kept faithful to the game, you have kids who are
aware of the game, it’s classes, it’s basic features, etc) who think it’s cool, and are already playing with
D&D stuff (the toys). Include commercials in the show (subtle, don’t bash anyone over the head with it,
it turns people off), and on the packaging for the toys, and they’ll find their way to the game. It’s a
lot of lead-in time, but once you’ve done it, new gamers should sprout like mad.

Am I aware it’ll never happen? Yeah, I am. But I wholly believe it’d work. It worked a generation ago,
with inferior quality and approach. It’d work again if you did it to the standards that the new generations
are accustomed to demanding.
I think, in essence, that the answer is going to lie with a long-term approach. A short term approach that wants to see results in 18 months or somesuch is going (I think) to yield nothing in the end.

 

[RangerWickett]

#1: I would revive the D&D cartoon.

Am I aware it’ll never happen? Yeah, I am. But I wholly believe it’d work. It worked a generation ago, with inferior quality and approach. It’d work again if you did it to the standards that the new generations are accustomed to demanding.

Anyone remember these announcements: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/br/br20011201a

What ever became of the D&D TV show and dark elf movie? They probably died due to deal-making issues. They could've been done, and done well, but it just ended up they weren't done at all. I wish someone here who knew why could tell us.