Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Leviatham" data-source="post: 6002905" data-attributes="member: 50740">That is a terrific post! I won't reply to it in detail mainly doe to lack of time, but I will say I agree with a lot you've said.Let's forget for a bit about magazine advertising. Although I think it would make sense, I also agree that it is unlikely to be the best use of the money with the market the size it is. Probably advertising in tradeshows and convention programmes (Sci-Fi and fantasy shows, comic conventions... that sort of thing) would have a much better chance to raise awareness than an advert in Cosmopolitan.The issue I see with most (if not all) marketing schemes that games companies put into place is that they're terribly inneficient. I am also talking from the point of view of the UK, btw. I don't have enough information about what marketing happens in the USA (and I am not including mentions in series like A Town Called Eureka and the like. Although they're handy, they're far from sufficient).WotC is the one who's best poised to enhance brand awareness and they're doing very little about it. D&D has been a very strong videogames brand until relatively recently. I think the shambles that was DDO hurt the tabletop game quite a lot. Alas, when a brand loses credibility (like D&D lost with DDO) the loss spreads around and people who went from tabletop to videogame for convenience, didn't have the slightest incentive to go back to tabletop (they still probably don't in their majority).I am not sure there are many plans to bring more D&D videogames to the shelves. I know there is a game called Neverwinter coming out next year, but I don't know if it is D&D related.If there were another Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate (and I don't mean the relaunch) or Planescape: Torment, we'd probably see an increase in tabletop sales. At least that'd be my prediction.Probably Paizo hopes the same will be true with the Pathfinder MMO.Of course not many other companies can do that. Having said that, I spoke to Chris Birch recently (Modiphius) who will be bringing out a tabletop RPG based on a Facebook game. Both prodcuts will come out at the same time and will be related. I am *very* curious to find out if that'll work. Certainly hope it will. But I am also very curious to learn the buyers demogrpahics.Companies that can't do that need to become marketing savvy. The hobby has way too many products out there and too few outlets to be able to survive in its current shape. Now, I know some people don't care what happens to the hobby, but I also feel that is a terribly short-sighted way to look at things. I for one care a lot.Companies need to increase outlets. There are few shops out there and they keep closing. There are few distributors and they find it difficult to compete and distribute for various reasons. However there are ways of doing it and some retailers are becoming more gaming aware.Talking with the CEO of Cubicle 7 just a couple of days ago he mentioned how Barnes & Noble has bought some 7000 of the Dr. Who card game. Perfect opportunity to include a leaflet inside that game for the Dr. Who RPG and some other C7 material!Oh my god I am rambling... sorry about that!Even if companies can't/don't want to take risks (my initial point that brought up the advertising bit) they need to become better at marketing and encouraging the customers to do some of the leg work for them, a.k.a. word of mouth.The bottom line is that things need to improve if we want to see a healthy RPG industry (at least I want to, other don't care) and I think that's something everyone has the power to help with (and to some degree the responsibility, though I don't want to open that debate again... it became a bit tiresome).Ok.. I'm stopping now!</blockquote>

Verification