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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wolv0rine" data-source="post: 2144597" data-attributes="member: 9045">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:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"></li> </ul> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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…</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Took its audience seriously.  Give your audience some credit for being intelligent enough to follow you.</li> </ul>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:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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…</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">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). </li> </ul>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.</blockquote>

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