Marketing and passing D&D down to kids

[DaveMage]

I'm not in the industry, but marketing RPGs to little kids seems precarious business to me. Not because of the old satan worship crap, but because you risk alienating your adult audience.

When younger kids started swarming to D&D in the early '80s, TSR responded with a flood of products aimed at the younger market: Action figures, Saturday morning cartoons, dumbed down rulebooks and kiddy boardgames. For a little while, you couldn't turn around without seeing that logo or theme plastered on some new, stupid piece of marketing-driven junk.

For those of us in our late teens and early 20s at the time, it was a huge turnoff. Nobody at that age wants to be associated with "kiddy stuff." At the time, I was really mad at TSR for "selling out." I quit buying TSR stuff.

I do agree that kids introduced to gaming (and to fantasy and sci-fi) at an early age will carry those traits to adulthood, and it's certainly in the industry's best interest to cultivate new generations of customers.

To the extent that there were any kids (say, under the age of 15) at GenCon this year, they were all playing CCGs and Clix games. It seems to me that the key to creating a new generation of RPG players is to create a means for the YuGiOh kids to come to D&D. Instead however, a lot of companies I saw in Indy seemed to be racing against each other to create more sophisticated adult-themed card and clix games so they could hang on to their kids into adulthood.

CZ

I think you're right on.

I know there were many people that were thrilled when WotC announced that the terms "demon" and "devil" would actually be used in the 3rd edition.

It's a very tricky thing to market to both kids and adults.

Personally, I was introduced to D&D (basic red box) as a 10-year only back in 1980. My parents had no interest in the game, but my dad bought it for me as a present - I guess because he read the back of the box in the store and he thought I might like it.

I would prefer that the game be not targeted to children under 13. As I've read from similar threads on these boards, the game would have to be reduced heavily in scope to be appealing to younger children. Different kids handle things at different ages, so while some 8-to-10-year olds might grasp the rules, I don't think most of them will.

Keep it targeted to adults (or at least the 13+ crowd). Those younger children that are more advanced can handle it, and those that aren't can wait a bit longer.

 

[Zander]

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

As for D&D not doing marketing to kids, they're simply not practicing good business.

I'm not so sure. I reckon the new pre-painted plastic minis game is aimed at the Warhammer and MageKnight crowd, i.e. mostly older kids and early teens. Granted, we're not talking about toddlers. But I think WotC is aiming at the pre-D&D age group with a view to getting them into D&D.