Love the Game, Hate the Marketing

[Hussar]

Oh, hey, I agreed already that the online Dragon has been a disappointment. Completely agree. Dungeon's been good, but Dragon's blown.

 

[EATherrian]

I hear you on the Dragon side of things which has been extremely disappointing.

But the Dungeon side? Jeez, what's the problem? You got a triple sized module from Ari right out of the chute. You got four or five more solid modules on top. We've got three more coming. Heck, by the time 4e rolls out, you'll have enough free modules, high quality free modules at that, to run a 3e campaign for the next year or two.

Dungeon has been rock solid since the move over. Dragon... not so much. Very sparse.

Some of us have a very hard time reading substantive items on-line. I'm a long time Dragon and Dungeon fan. Did they always have something I could use? No, of course not, but over the course of their runs they've given me an incredible amount of stuff to use. They moved the magazines on-line, meaning I can't use them without adding a printing cost to whatever their subscription cost is. This is why I'm not going to support the DDI, and am still angry over the move. I mean, I used these magazines over 21 years (for one at least, don't remember how long Dungeon has been out) and now I can't without having a more costly, home printed version. Sorry to rant, but I'm still sore.

 

[Zinovia]

From the time I first heard about 4E, I've moved from being highly dubious about yet another version being published, to cautiously optimistic and pre-ordering the books. I'm looking forward to reading more about the game after the D&D Experience at the end of the month. Sadly I can't attend, as we're involved with running the World Science Fiction Convention this year. Still, I'm hoping for some reviews and solid information about the game to come out at that point.

Having changed my mind all the way from "You've got to be kidding!" to "June can't come soon enough", clearly the marketing of the P&P aspect of the game is working for me. I've enjoyed the articles we've seen so far that are revealing aspects of the game mechanics. I greatly appreciated some of the playtesters coming forward with their opinions on the game - even if they were told to only say positive things. That doesn't diminish in any way the positive things they *did* have to say. They could have said nothing at all. Instead I'm thrilled to hear that many of the flaws in the current system seem to have been addressed. Even if they added dragonborn with boobs. What's with that?

My concerns about marketing lie more with the D&DI content. I feel that the free preview is a good idea in principle, but it's failing to win me over. I use Macs. WotC is using DirectX as an engine for the character generator and virtual tabletop, so those of us who don't have Windows boxes will not receive that portion of the D&DI content. I'm not here to cry about how they should port it to Mac. Leave that aside for now. All I'm saying is that there is one major chunk of what we're supposed to get for our monthly subscription that I have zero access to.

So what else do we get with D&DI? Dungeon and Dragon magazines. Okay... but where's the beef? There have been some nice adventures in Dungeon, and I've enjoyed some of the design articles in Dragon, but there hasn't been anything like a complete issue of Dragon published in all this time, and the other articles in Dungeon aren't being written either. Deadlines seem to be going unmet, and there simply isn't much content coming out at all. There's not enough there now to justify the monthly fee. Promises that there will be more content later are hard to believe. You're asking us to buy a pig in a poke.

Nothing I have heard or read has persuaded me that it will be worth paying any kind of fee for D&DI. Not to get the VTT system and Character generator that I can't use on my computers. Not to get magazines that have been short on content and big on missed deadlines.

I'm in fact gravely concerned that the only access I'll have to rules updates and additional content will be through D&DI. I don't want to pay for something when 90% of the stuff we're supposed to be paying for isn't there or is unusable to me. People have dropped comments about how "That'll be out in D&DI after the game is released" (paraphrased - not an actual quote). That worries me. What are those of us who might pay to unlock our ebooks, but not subscribe going to do? Will we get that stuff with the ebook? D&DI is not going to be an appropriate means of releasing errata, since it will be subscription based.

I'm looking forward to 4E, but you have a lot of work to do with the electronic stuff. I'm still open to being persuaded, but I'm not presently optimistic.

 

[Drkfathr1]

I think that sums up the issues with the DDI that many have.

I wish someone from WOTC would address these concerns, especially the dribble of content and missed deadlines.

 

[jaer]

Anyone consider that the ending of Dragon and Dungeon was kind of necessary in order for WotC to distance itself from Paizo for the GSL?

I would imagine with the new GSL coming out and WotC charging for the chance to get the GSL early and being able to publish in a limited market, it would be difficult for them to continue to have a pleasant working environment with Paizo.

How difficult would that be, professionally, to say "Hey, we know you guys are publishing these magazines in conjuction with us, but if you want the 4e scoop, you need to pay 5k like everyone else." And how does Paizo keep working with WotC after that?

And what would happen to the magazines if Paizo chose not to get in on the early 4e publishing? How 'embarrassing' would that be for WotC for the publishers of their magazines to not embrace the GSL? Would that mean that there couldn't be any 4e content until next year in the magazines? If Dragon publishing all the 4e tid-bits and releases, wouldn't then Paizo be priviledged as a publish in that they got to see them before any other 3rd party publisher?

Of course someone who knows more about NDAs and GSL and the Paizo/WotC relationship could probably shoot holes throughout this, but it was just something I thought of. I know a lot of people think WotC dropped the ball when they dropped the magazines, but they have stated over and over that they had reasons for doing so.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I don't think there's any big idea behind the shutdown of the print magazines other than simple dollars and cents. WotC felt they could make more money by putting that content online, than by putting it in a magazine.

Makes sense to me. Say Dragon prints 100,000 copies of any issue, and sends it out to stores and subscribers (note: made-up figure). Any content produced in that magazine could be seen by 100,000 people, max. Sure, a few could share copies or whatnot, but realistically the max is about 100,000 people: one person for every copy of the magazine. Even if every single copy is bought and read cover to cover, it's just 100,000.

Compare to the Internet, where the max potential audience is: every English-speaking person who is connected to the Internet. And hey, if it turns out 200,000 people want that content, no problem--they can have it. No need for a costly new print run. Just go to the site. And if it turns out only 10,000 people want that content, no big deal. It's not like you just wasted money printing and shipping 90,000 unsold physical copies.

If the purpose of that content is to stimulate discussion & play of D&D (and generate sales for D&D books), then online is simply better. There's no comparison. Even if the site makes zero direct income and operates entirely in the red, it's still better than the small positive income from magazine sales because WotC can consider the whole thing a marketing expense; I bet the positive income from increased book sales will far overcome the costs of the site, and far exceed the print income.

I imagine this is what they want:
Player: "Hey, Bob User at Enworld is talking about trolls and linked to a new Ecology article on dragon online. Click. Huh, interesting. Hey, a banner ad for WotC's new book. Click. Ooo, the description of this books sounds cool, I'm going to buy it. Click. Yay it'll be at my house tomorrow."

If you're reading that same article on a printed page, in a magazine, while in the bathroom, and see that same ad in the margin, well--so what? You can't click on it. There's no potential of WotC generating a sale from that ad 30 seconds after you see it. Sure, you may vaguely remember that ad two weeks later when you're in the bookstore, but... not likely.

Anyway, I've heard complaints about the shutdown and all kinds of conspiracy theories, but it seems like a fairly straightforward business decision to me.

-z

 

[Khairn]

I think that sums up the issues with the DDI that many have.

I wish someone from WOTC would address these concerns, especially the dribble of content and missed deadlines.

In early January ScottR finally responded to an irate gamer over on the WotC boards who was complaining about that very thing. His response was very interesting

I would also like to add: Did the analysis look at all the content provided?

For example: Are we delivering more or less total content as a whole (factoring articles, staff blogs, podcasts, videos etc across the multiple vehicles of Dragon, Dungeon, the free site)?

Are the e-mags delivering more or less monthly content than their print counterparts?

I don't know the answers but it sure would be interesting to see. It could be the OPs claims are true and content has fallen off but I suspect this is not the case based on how much I perceive we are putting out. But we may very well be creating the perception that we are putting out less content because it is coming in different forms (podcast vs article), it is coming out in chunks (3 articles a week vs a whole month of articles), and it is scattered over many locales (Dragon, Dungeon, free site, bloggs etc).

Food for thought.

When challenged about the lack of content in in the mags and the missed deadlines his response was to link total content from all blogs, podcasts etc etc as part of the information available to players and as such he felt that the "lack of content" claims were probably not valid. He also stated in an earlier post that Chris T had indicated only 2 deadlines had been missed.

Whether you buy into his responses or not, what does seem clear is that many customers have a perception that WotC is failing to meet their expectations for content in the DDI, while WotC seems to feel its doing a good job. I admit that this is a "perception" issue and as such can be difficult to qualify. But I believe it does illustrate WotC's difficulty in managing customer expectations, which is very much a part of their marketing plan.

Just some food for thought.


ps If you are interested in reading the particular thread that contained a very detailed listing of the missed deadlines and less than "expected" content, you can find it here .

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

In early January ScottR finally responded to an irate gamer over on the WotC boards who was complaining about that very thing. His response was very interesting



When challenged about the lack of content in in the mags and the missed deadlines his response was to link total content from all blogs, podcasts etc etc as part of the information available to players and as such he felt that the "lack of content" claims were probably not valid. He also stated in an earlier post that Chris T had indicated only 2 deadlines had been missed.

Whether you buy into his responses or not, what does seem clear is that many customers have a perception that WotC is failing to meet their expectations for content in the DDI, while WotC seems to feel its doing a good job. I admit that this is a "perception" issue and as such can be difficult to qualify. But I believe it does illustrate WotC's difficulty in managing customer expectations, which is very much a part of their marketing plan.

Just some food for thought.


ps If you are interested in reading the particular thread that contained a very detailed listing of the missed deadlines and less than "expected" content, you can find it here .

Strange, the words "Managing Expectations" have been hanging around in my head for some time now...

Even me as a f4nboy sometimes thing there could be more DDI content, but I did "forget" the podcats and didn't even consider the blog posts as part of the Dungeon & Dragon "online magazine". I think WotC will have to make the things it consideres part of the Dungeon & Dragon magazines clearer. The website should probably support a better navigation scheme for this, that makes it easy to identify to identify the parts of a single "online issue".

And once they finished that, they should check if they really have put out enough material, and if both quantity and quality are comparable to that of the original magazines (too which I can't say anything - I wasn't a subscriber. It's too much a hassle to get them in Germany, while the DDI is - for the moment, without the need of credit cards to pay the content - a lot more accessible).

 

[Drkfathr1]

with the following topics scheduled to be revealed in December:

Races: Tieflings
Classes: Warlock Pacts
D&D World: History of the Core World
Monsters: Dragons and Dragon Families
Adventure Design: Traps
Magic Items: Weapons
Subsystem: Critical Hits and Misses

Starting in January 2008, Dragon #362 will take a look at the following:

Forgotten Realms: Using the Spellplague in your 3E campaign
Races: Elves and Eladrin
Classes: Warlord
Monsters: Minions
Adventure Design: Fantastic Terrain
Magic Items: Artifacts
D&D World: The Feywild
Subsystem: Death, Dying, and Negative HP

See....this is what I'm talking about. It's February and we've only had, what, three or four of those?

I think its really disingenuous of Mr. Rouse to say that the online content so far has been just fine, and we're all just really "wrong" in our perceptions.

I work in sales/marketing, and customer perception is very important...even when customers are wrong. But in this case, are we really wrong? And is it really appropriate for Wotc to just "hand-wave" away any criticism because "we're not the droids they're looking for."?

The folks on these boards are some of the most loyal and dedicated customers Wotc has, and if we're having problems buying into the strategy, they need to address that issue and not just ignore us. (or pretend its not really a problem)

"Missed deadlines? What missed deadlines? Hey! Have you been reading our blogs?!"

 

[herald]

I don't think there's any big idea behind the shutdown of the print magazines other than simple dollars and cents. WotC felt they could make more money by putting that content online, than by putting it in a magazine.

Makes sense to me. Say Dragon prints 100,000 copies of any issue, and sends it out to stores and subscribers (note: made-up figure). Any content produced in that magazine could be seen by 100,000 people, max. Sure, a few could share copies or whatnot, but realistically the max is about 100,000 people: one person for every copy of the magazine. Even if every single copy is bought and read cover to cover, it's just 100,000.

Compare to the Internet, where the max potential audience is: every English-speaking person who is connected to the Internet. And hey, if it turns out 200,000 people want that content, no problem--they can have it. No need for a costly new print run. Just go to the site. And if it turns out only 10,000 people want that content, no big deal. It's not like you just wasted money printing and shipping 90,000 unsold physical copies.

If the purpose of that content is to stimulate discussion & play of D&D (and generate sales for D&D books), then online is simply better. There's no comparison. Even if the site makes zero direct income and operates entirely in the red, it's still better than the small positive income from magazine sales because WotC can consider the whole thing a marketing expense; I bet the positive income from increased book sales will far overcome the costs of the site, and far exceed the print income.

I imagine this is what they want:
Player: "Hey, Bob User at Enworld is talking about trolls and linked to a new Ecology article on dragon online. Click. Huh, interesting. Hey, a banner ad for WotC's new book. Click. Ooo, the description of this books sounds cool, I'm going to buy it. Click. Yay it'll be at my house tomorrow."

If you're reading that same article on a printed page, in a magazine, while in the bathroom, and see that same ad in the margin, well--so what? You can't click on it. There's no potential of WotC generating a sale from that ad 30 seconds after you see it. Sure, you may vaguely remember that ad two weeks later when you're in the bookstore, but... not likely.

Anyway, I've heard complaints about the shutdown and all kinds of conspiracy theories, but it seems like a fairly straightforward business decision to me.

-z

But it's not that straight forward. Magazines are printed for and used by the players/DM who really want new fresh material on a regular basis. My 'zines were read by myself, my wife and my son as well as the many players that came to play at my house. So I have doubts that there are a one to one viewing on these publications. I could go on to talk about people who look through the zines at the store who don't buy but that's another conversation.

If WOTC thinks that by using thier own site will market thier brand better, so far they need to really go back and revamp what they have. Thier site layout is horible. The message boards they have are down right inhospitable. I'm not a person that thinks WOTC is bad for coming out with 4e or for stopping the zines and going with a online format. I have personally shelved making up my mind about it until after the 4e books come out to see if they can really make a go of it online only. But I will say that if they think that what they have done lately can cut it in the future, they are sadly wrong. They have to up the bar by far, much farther than what they have been doing so far. on the other hand I don't think that they have thrown thier full weight behind it to judge them yet.