Love the Game, Hate the Marketing

[JohnSnow]

One of the basic maxims of marketing is this:

"(Almost) any publicity is good publicity."

Or, to put it another way, as long as the publicity isn't universally negative, it's most important simply to break through the "noise" ratio of information. As long as we're talking about it (and not doing nothing but ripping on it), their marketing strategy is working.

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

 

[Mephistopheles]

This is not the independent press we are talking about.

They are playtesters who signed NDAs. They asked if they could talk we said "sort of" because no marketer in their right mind is going to cut someone free to criticize a product that is still in development. So we told people if you are excited go ahead and post about it, if not hold off until we get things dialed in.

I didn't say that they were independent press. They are also not WotC staff and there was no disclosure that they were commenting within certain restrictions, so I would say it was fair for the community to assume that it was independent commentary.

I guess we just should have said no to everyone but then you would not hear anything from people like Ari.

As you can tell from my previous post I agree. I do appreciate that your intentions were good but odds were that it was going to get whipped into a storm.

 

[Fifth Element]

I truly believe that without the many numerous bumbles, stumbles and fumbles, that WotC wouldn't be having to deal with even a fraction of the justifiable criticism and negativity that are a large part of any open discussion about 4E. You guys are your own worse enemies.

Can't say that I agree with this. Considering many of the things that people here (a pretty moderate board) have chosen to get outraged about, I daresay there would be significant outrage regardless of what WotC did.

Golden Wyvern Adept, anyone? "We tried aggro mechanics but rejected them long ago"? Pages upon pages of complaints on those. "What should we rename the warlord"? It goes on and on.

 

[helium3]

Yikes. We're really stuck on this "cool" thing. We've decided to turn over a new leaf here at WotC and substitute other adjectives whenever we have the urge to use the word "cool". Being from Massachusetts, I'm partial to "wicked", but these native west coasters prefer "rad" and "tubular".

Don't forget that when you really need to break the glass and go crazy there's always "wicked awesome."

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I appreciate hearing the opinions of people I respect and who aren't on WOTC's payroll, and Ari's posts did the job of convincing me to think more deeply about 4e -- but the knowledge that marketing said "Talk only about what you like" taints ANYTHING, even if there's no actual malice, deceit, or hidden agenda. Appearence of impropriety and all that...

I think Andy said it best here

Yes, we asked folks to share their positive experiences. Nowhere did I ask folks to be deceptive about those experiences or suggest positive experiences where they didn't exist, nor did I even suggest that such feedback was required or that anyone would be rewarded for sharing such feedback.

This is not Iran-Contra, no one had a gun held to their head being forced to say niceties, this is not some grand conspiracy to drum up support, the fact that we are on here being totally open about the communication that happened demonstrates that we are not trying to sweep something under the rug.

IMO I think this is a big flap about something pretty inconsequential.

BTW Andy is a game designer and damn good one so i wouldn't lump him in with marketing hucksters like myself.

 

[The Little Raven]

I guess we just should have said no to everyone but then you would not hear anything from people like Ari.

Excuse me, Scott, but I do believe your company folded the bills in this box of free money the wrong way.

 

[The Little Raven]

BTW Andy is a game designer and damn good one so i wouldn't lump him in with marketing hucksters like myself.

Some people seem to think that any employee of any company that says anything about a product is automatically involved in marketing, because when you work for a corporation you can't have an opinion that deviates from the company line... well, except if it's negative, in which case they're lauded as "honest."

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Excuse me, Scott, but I do believe your company folded the bills in this box of free money the wrong way.

Hahaha the joke is on you those bills are fake.

 

[Lizard]

Don't forget that when you really need to break the glass and go crazy there's always "wicked awesome."

What's wrong with "Nifty"?

 

[Dragonblade]

IMO I think this is a big flap about something pretty inconsequential.

And you would absolutely be correct.