Marketing and passing D&D down to kids

[Emirikol]

This thread has been brought up before, but I was watching PBS with my 2 year old this morning and saw an AOL commercial. It always surprised me how companies market to kids:

McDonalds: Clown
Nestle Quick: Rabbit
On Nogin, I jst saw an add for Dove shampoo for kids, Dish Network (a dancing satellite dish!), Kleenex, Nestle Drumsticks, and a couple other things that surprisingly enough didn't have to do with 'moms.'
etc.

I just finished reading "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser and he goes over how 'tastes' are determined by age 4 and then cravings are determined for the rest of our lives. It's not just CN VII (Facial), CN IX (Glossopharyngeal) and CN X (Vagus), but includes psychological cravings as well.

Kids that are exposed to things like the Ren fest, castles, dragons, unicorns, knights, D&D, LotR, gaming fellowship, etc. at an early age will continue to associate with those early memories for the rest of their lives.

Strangely enough, you don't see much of this marketing for D&D. Worse, game conventions used to have lots of kids running around and they've regressed back to middle-aged people again.

Is D&D cyclical with fads or does it actually get passed down to kids? Was it passed down to you? Or were you 'sold'?

Em







..

 

[diaglo]

i've been sold.


Original D&D (1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are poor imitations of the real thing.

 

[hong]

i've been sold.

Original D&D (1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are poor imitations of the real thing.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Strangely enough, you don't see much of this marketing for D&D. Worse, game conventions used to have lots of kids running around and they've regressed back to middle-aged people again.

I agree.

I had originally hoped that WotC would take advantage of their Hasbro connection to expand D&D into other markets. Specifically a game like the one GDW produced a few years back (the name escapes me now). Basically, you chose from one of four base characters and played a board game. But the characters could improve and face tougher monsters the next time you played. Not role-play, but a good introduction to the "character building" part of RPGs and well suited for younger players.

 

[Wombat]

I always felt that I came to D&D the "natural" way -- I was nutty on the stories of King Arthur, on Greek mythology, and the like since I was about four years old (my mom groaned everytime I asked to hear Perseus and the Gorgon again, knowing full well that my brother wanted to hear Little Bear). From these stories I moved briefly to miniatures gaming (I wanted to do Aginicourt and Hastings, my brother wanted to do Bull Run and Shiloh...). D&D was my way to get into something I loved and move far away from re-enacting the American Civil War.

The age of gamers is slowly creeping upwards. Yes, there are still the archtypical high school gamers, but more of them are attached to PS2 or X-Box than to pen and paper gaming -- the Need For Speed, the pre-packaged adventures, the bright special effects and music are more of a draw than the work of having to create a character, much less a world. RPGs have mainstreamed in that you can find them at Borders and Barnes & Nobles nowadays, but where are the Saturday morning cartoons that might introduce kids to the genre.

Worse yet, we have a HUGE potential market in the Harry Potter fans, but there is no follow-up, no attempt to woo them. If Hasbro/WotC was smart they'd come up with a very, very simple rpg, one that would appeal to grade school kids and prepare them for later, more complex games.

Just my 2 coppers...

 

[robaustin]

Kids that are exposed to things like the Ren fest, castles, dragons, unicorns, knights, D&D, LotR, gaming fellowship, etc. at an early age will continue to associate with those early memories for the rest of their lives.

Strangely enough, you don't see much of this marketing for D&D. Worse, game conventions used to have lots of kids running around and they've regressed back to middle-aged people again.

Is D&D cyclical with fads or does it actually get passed down to kids? Was it passed down to you? Or were you 'sold'?
..

Expand on this a bit - I don't agree with your statement that kids exposed at an early age continue to like those things later in life. I had a relatively "mainstream" upbringing - exposed to all the usual kid stuff - so how did I end liking D&D?

And I'm sure there are kids out there exposed to this who are absolutely NOT into D&D. Maybe they are into sports, or comic books, or any other things?

Honestly, I think there are many other factors involved- from personality type to peers....

I see what you're getting at - there's no early mainstream media advertising targeted at kids specific to D&D - but would you really expect there to be? Parents don't generally encourage young kids to play games like D&D.

--*Rob

 

[TalonComics]

Re: Re: Marketing and passing D&D down to kids

I see what you're getting at - there's no early mainstream media advertising targeted at kids specific to D&D - but would you really expect there to be? Parents don't generally encourage young kids to play games like D&D.

--*Rob

I've found that many parents don't encourage their children to do much of anything except stay out of their hair. Those parents who encourage their children to explore things that involves imagination are just few and far between.
~D

 

[Elf Witch]

I came into gaming rather late. I had played some at cons but with a young child I did not have the free time for a regular game. I encouraged my son from a young age to be crearive. I took him to SF cons, Ren Fairs he had the DnD board game and his first role playing game was Ninja Turtles. We had a ton of books around the house. Today he is an avid gamer.

Some friends of mine were heavily involved in SF fandom helping run clubs and worldcons. Their son went to every Worldcon attending his first one as a baby. They had tons of SF books in the house his dad owned an SF bookstore for a while. As an adult he wants nothing to do with anything SF.

You can expose your kids to things but that does not mean they will grow up and embrace it.

I agree that WOTC is really falling short on selling product to the kids a simple RPG based on Harry Potter would be great. I saw a ton of kids at the DnD movie why was there no tie in between the game and the movie.

 

[Zaruthustran]

It was passed down to me at the tender age of 5. One day my older brother (14) and sister (12) wanted to play but were lacking party members. So they recruited me. I played a halfling named Falthou who after many adventures was slain by shadows. Alas, poor Falthou.

I think one of the reason WotC/Hasbro stays away from kid marketing is because they're gun shy. D&D had a mighty bad rep in the 80s, and look at all the unfavorable media coverage on video games and kids.

After all, D&D is a game that is fundamentally about gaining personal power by killing other beings and taking their stuff.

-z

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

I was exposed to fantasy, dragons, fairys, unicorns etc. from an early age but also, I was pretty much forced into performing arts by the age of 4 so I was exposed to alot of "pretend". I think a combination of both of these things contributes alot to my personality. I've strayed from fantasy, but I always come back to it.