Love the Game, Hate the Marketing

[La Bete]

Well the marketing can't be too bad - after all, we're all here talking about 4e right?

 

[Rpgraccoon]

You know I really did think the title of this thread was. Love the Gnome, Hate the Marketing.

Oh well, the marketing is irritating. I am just happy they are letting freelancers say if they liked the game. True they can't say what they dislike till it is finished. However, I like to see there opinion out there.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I must regretfully agree with this. I like the people who are behind marketing the new edition, but I can only think of a worse way to do this with a lot of work. Game design skills aren't the same as marketing skills, and it looks like 4E is being marketed by gamers. That isn't intended as a slam on anyone involved by the way ... it's more of a complement on the personality of a typical gamer.

While I was watching Metalocalypse a couple weeks ago, I saw a commercial for the new series of Magic cards. An actual TV spot. It was reasonably well done. The release of a new edition of D&D deserves at least as much attention.

--Steve

Aaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ,9, 10

OK, I think I can type now.

Criticizing the marketing of a 4e, on a message board dedicated to 4e, with 15 pages of posts (some with over 15,000 views), with 10s of thousands of participants, most of whom are talking favorably about a product that is not even out, is laughable.

There are actual marketing professionals behind this (like myself) and we have not even made a dent in the very large budget for advertising, public relations, and promotions yet.

It is the end of January, the big product release is in June, marketing will really kick in in March/April and will run for months.

end rant

 

[Dragonblade]

It is the end of January, the big product release is in June, marketing will really kick in in March/April and will run for months.

Nice! I am eagerly waiting for the floodgates to open.

 

[mhensley]

 

[Craw Hammerfist]

However you feel about the supposed gaffe with the playtesters, it isn't really a marketing faux pas. It isn't marketing at all, really. The audience that saw those posts from the playtesters is already well aware of the pending release of 4e. Gamers who get their info from the flgs or the bookstore have seen the preview books. They are quite well done. I thought the GENCON presentation was amatuerish as a marketing promo but was quite well done and informative as a gamer to gamer preview. Frankly, an overrehearsed, slicked up presentation would have sent the "D&D is becoming WoW!" crowd into orbit.

Step back and ask yourself this: as a reader of these forums, why would WotC bother to market to you at all? You are going to buy or not buy based on the product and the reviews of your peers. If WotC gave you exactly the proportion of "marketing" every week that you desire from now to June and the game sucks, you still aren't going to buy it. If they completely clam up til DDX and the game (in your opinion) rocks, you are going to buy it. Marketing to you is pointless.

Edit: aka What Scott Rouse said while I was typing this.

 

[GlassJaw]

mhensley wins the Interwebs today!

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Actually, people should be happy that WoTC marketing is probably preventing a lot of WoTC designers from coming on the forums to bluntly call all those people retards. Anybody with half a clue about the state of the game and the design process would see that negative feedback is far better used in the hands of the designers than in the hands of an information starved public. The fact that Andy Collins has to take time out of his work to inform these idiots of that fact just goes to show you that even the D&D community has a large population of idiots.

Generico - please take a look at the forum rules - we strive to keep things level-headed and refrain from insulting other posters. You're welcome to state your opinion, but bandying about words like "retards" and "idiots" doesn't really do much for the general level of discourse.

Thanks!
Kid Charlemagne
Moderator

 

[Lord Fyre]

Given the circumstances about having to keep the game under wraps, I think WotC's marketing has been ok with one major exception. They should have let Paizo continue with publishing Dragon and Dungeon until after the DDI had been well established. And even then, I think that Paizo should have been kept as the Dragon/Dungeon design studio for a lot of the online content.

Keeping Dragon and Dungeon in print would have provided a better platform for releasing 4e tidbits, it would have gotten more people on board more quickly by leveraging the existing subscriber base, it would not have upset a large portion of the existing subscriber base, and it would have guaranteed that Paizo would produce 4e products instead of continuing to support 3.5.

I think that you have hit the nail on the head here.

Cancelling Dragon and Dungeon before DDI was up and running hurt the launch of D&D IV - even if the business logic made it the right thing to do. (Yes, it would have also brought Paizo into the D&D IV tent right from the start.)

And, as someone correctly pointed out, the overuse of the word "cool" results from having the Game Designers doing most of the public relations. (Yes, shockingly, there really is a reason for Marketers after all!)

 

[EATherrian]

Other than some early missteps I've mostly been lightly negative to neutral on the 4e marketing. The only thing that I don't like and its not really a part of 4e marketing is the loss of my beloved Dragon and Dungeon. They were the last magazines I was subscribed to, and now I can only ponder the empty mailbox awaiting me at home each afternoon. Killing the print magazines is unforgivable to me, since I can't really READ on the internet. Scan yes, but not read. Therefore for me the magazines are gone unless I want to take up the extra cost of printing them, which I'm not really willing to do. The rest of 4e I'm actually warming up to, DDI I will never warm up to.