Liz Schuh on Dragon/Dungeon moving to the web

[Storm Raven]

I don't consider it an "equivalent of Dragon and Dungeon". I buy KoDT regularly, but do so for the comics. If it was just the gaming material I wouldn't pick up an issue (not that I don't enjoy some of it when I pick up the comic).

I know a couple of people who bought Dragon primarily for the comics too. Why you buy a magazine is usually less important than the fact that you buy it.

 

[WizarDru]

I know a couple of people who bought Dragon primarily for the comics too. Why you buy a magazine is usually less important than the fact that you buy it.

I'd suggest that the number of people who bought Dragon mostly for the comics would be some significant outliers...although I would say that there number of people who buy KODT for the non-comic content is probably a significant minority of their readership. But I think it's relevant to note that KODT modified its content to pull in more readers in a similar fashion to White Dwarf.

The trend I'm seeing is that the only RPG magazines that survive are house organs....and that their relative success has a correlation to their market position, not the other way around.

 

[Ourph]

So it is your belief that Dragon and Dungeon would have sold equally well had they not had the D&D stamp on them?

Maybe I'm confused about your point. Are you saying that you think Dragon and Dungeon were popular because they carried the D&D and associated brand names or because of the "official" status of the content (i.e. - the content was labeled by WotC as accepted alterations/additions to the game)? It seems to me you've been arguing the latter, but the above implies the former.

For the record, I think the brand name recognition, marketing efforts of a major RPG company and track records of the magazines were the major determinants of their success in the light of failing competitors. I do not think that the status of the content as "official" plays a large role, for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. In my experience, the rules content of Dragon has always been considered completely optional and just as suspect as 3rd party publications when it comes to including that content in a game for every group I've ever been involved with. Dragon and Dungeon existed for many years as periodicals which were strongly associated with the D&D brand name but did not contain "official" content (all rules in Dragon except for published errata and Sage Advice were explicitly labelled "unofficial" by the magazine's editors). So there is a difference between bearing the "D&D stamp" and the rules content being "officially sanctioned" (at least, IMO).