Love the Game, Hate the Marketing

[Fifth Element]

That said, Ari and John's opinions are biased towards 4adv because they have commented only the positive, but I bet you 17c the positive outweigh the negatives by a long shot.

The way you wrote this makes it seem you're saying: "If you have a positive opinion about 4E, you're biased towards 4E". It goes the other way - if you're biased toward it, you'll have a good opinion. This does not mean that anyone with a good opinion is biased. But maybe that's not what you meant.

Ari did mention, I believe, he had a few minor quibbles. He stated the positives outweigh the negatives by a long shot. That doesn't make him biased.

 

[rounser]

People are talking about an unreleased product 5 months before it exists. That's pretty good marketing.

But that would have happened anyway. People were discussing 4E so often it annoyed regular posters to the board before it was even announced, before we knew a thing about it.

Shooting fish in a barrel. I'd wager a bunch of amateurs could achieve this result given the hype that it was bound to generate just by mention of "4E" on these boards.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

deleted double post

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I'd wager a bunch of amateurs could achieve this result given the hype that it was bound to generate just by mention of "4E" on these boards.

Congratulations you're hired! The pay sucks but the thick skin you'll develop from being continually thrashed by people on the message boards will keep the cold off.

I'll need your media plan by Monday morning.

 

[Fifth Element]

Shooting fish in a barrel. I'd wager a bunch of amateurs could achieve this result given the hype that it was bound to generate just by mention of "4E" on these boards.

That's the great thing about ENWorld. Not only can we design a better game than WotC with our eyes closed, we can market it better too!

I'm sure our salary demands would be reasonable too. You listening, Mr. Rouse? You can start the layoffs now, and internet message boards will perfect 4E for you.

 

[Shazman]

A Google search revealed these number of entries for each word

"Cool" 81,400,000
"Sweet" 37,600,000
"Awesome" 20,100,000
"Bitchin" 1,990,000
"Dope" 1,190,000
"Phat" 1,179,000

Words that beat out "cool" :

"A" 1,150,000,000
"The" 920,000,000
"I" 705,000,000
"E" 639,000,000

Other popular words"

"Cat" 64,900,000
"God" 50,500,000
"Dog" 43,400,000
"Jesus" 23,300,000


Clearly we are under using vowels, pets, and the lords name but seem to be on par with use of positive adjectives

I know you are trying to be funny, but it's not the overuse of the word "cool" or any other word that is irritating some people. They say over and over that something is "cool" but don't give anything to back it up. If they can't say anything more than "This is so cool, but we can't tell you why." or "My rogue totally used this ability and it was so awesome. I can't tell you why, but it was so awesome." , then they really shouldn't be saying much at all. It's just a bunch of useless hyperbole. Another annoying thing that we've been seeing lately are the completely useless video answers to Sage Advice questions. They just plug the two preview books without answering anything. They are also clearly outdated. Do you really think that we are such sheep that we should pay 20 dollars a piece for thin, paperback books that are nothing more than advertisements? This information should have, at least, been free articles on WotC's website. Ideally, they would have been Countdown to 4E articles in the wonderful print version of Dragon if it hadn't been axed to try and make the DDI more appealing to fans of the mag. That brilliant move backfired, but that's another story.

 

[Fifth Element]

Do you really think that we are such sheep that we should pay 20 dollars a piece for thin, paperback books that are nothing more than advertisements?

It's things like this that make that Nerd Rage ritual so funny.

I didn't buy the previews, but I looked through them. I would have bought them if I had more disposable income at the time. They're a lot more than simple advertisements, as has been discussed in countless threads here and elsewhere.

 

[rounser]

Congratulations you're hired! The pay sucks but the thick skin you'll develop from being continually thrashed by people on the message boards will keep the cold off.

I'm not saying you haven't done a good job, or meaning to imply that you are a bunch of amateurs, I'm just saying that it would be very easy to make the people here very interested....like they were for years on end before these final months on end.

You must have noticed the three or so years before now, the speculating about 4E in every third thread? Because of that, I think ENworld is probably the last place to look to assess marketing success - we'd talk about anything 4E, at great length, for months, on the smell of an oily rag, I'd assume.

I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get of this place.

That's the great thing about ENWorld. Not only can we design a better game than WotC with our eyes closed, we can market it better too!

Whatever. We're continually reminded that ENWorld is not the real world, and not representative of it, with regard to surveys and opinions. I get the impression that the extreme amount of interest there automatically about a new edition of D&D is one of the ways it differs from the real world.

You're really suggesting that it's a hard sell on getting people to talk about the new edition of the game that these messageboards are all about? When information about a new edition is more or less what drew people to the place to begin with? I mean, it's not like we've been talking about crosstitch these last 8 years.

 

[Shadeydm]

Congratulations you're hired! The pay sucks but the thick skin you'll develop from being continually thrashed by people on the message boards will keep the cold off.

I'll need your media plan by Monday morning.

Media Plan:
Ok first were going to get our fans hopes up for return of the Greyhawk CS and let them all think that if the expedition book sells well there could be more to follow. Then were going to announce $E the very next month.

Next were going to kill both Dungeon and Dragon magazine, with promises things will be as good or better under our care and then let them totally suck, but promise sight unseen that things will be better once you start forking over $.

Then were going to release so little information about the game beyond disjointed meaningless snippets of flavor and fluff that any talk about the game is being done effectively blindfolded. And let it slip that if you don't like what your hearing tough cookies because you weren't our target audience to begin with.

Next, were going to let a select few playtesters outside of wotc employees release their thoughts on the game. And instead disclosing upfront that they aren't allowed to tell us what they don't like we will let it leak after the fact for a little extra egg on the face factor.

Oh wait you guys already thought of all this... dang!

 

[Khairn]

Media Plan:
Oh wait you guys already thought of all this... dang!

Shadeydm, you really missed your calling in life. Its obvious that you're a marketing whiz!