Marketing criticisms miss the point

[Twowolves]

Why not kill the old? Are you saying that you'd prefer to just re-buy what you already own? WotC had an opportunity to throw out all that baggage, and they took it.

Why not? Because all that "baggage" was what appealed to lots of players in the first place, maybe?

And regarding "rebuying what you already own", do you mean like gnomes, bards and frost giants? Or do you think they threw that "baggage" out as well? I don't think so. Second edition had splat books for fighters and clerics and even frickin' ninjas, and then guess what: 3rd ed had splatbooks for fighters and clerics and ninjas. 2nd ed had sourcebooks for geographical regions of their published settings; 3rd ed covered the same ground. Wanna bet there will be 4th ed books detailing the same_exact_regions, especially now that they "blew up" the settings? Wanna bet, pretty please? The cycle of a new edition consists of selling you what you already own, with just enough changes to make you stand up and shout "IT MUST BE MINE!!!!"

4E is a success because of the words in front of 4E: "Dungeons & Dragons." It's the new edition, everyone will buy it, and we'll come to love it.

Well, not everyone will be buying it. "Drink the kool-aid and be happy with what we tell you to be happy with." Umm... no thanks. But hey, that's ok, because I've had it made abundantly clear to me that after years of brand loyalty and thousands of dollars of my business, I'm not the target audience anymore, so I don't count. Welcome to Marginalizationville; population: you!

 

[Hussar]

And I agree!

But then why was the effort successful to entice me to go from 2E to 3E, and NOT from 3E to 4E? Wouldn't they have gone after the same crowd then as well?

No.

The "crowd" they are designing 4e for didn't exist when 3e was released. Living RPGA play is a 3e invention. RPGA numbers were tiny back then. Certainly nowhere near the over one hundred thousand members they have now.

When 3e came out, they marketted to lapsed gamers, and to gamers who were tired of 2e. 4e has not been marketed, particularly to people tired of 3e, but rather to create a new market - the RPGA.

From a business perspective, it's a good move on WOTC's part. They design a game specifically targeted at their greatest consumers, create a space where those consumers can congregate in even greater numbers, more easily and then charge rent.

If it works, they have a bread and butter revenue stream that is more or less independent of selling more books. They can piggyback on the MMORPG model. No, they will never have numbers like WOW, but, they don't need those numbers. They need a nice solid core of DDI subscribers playing RPGA games and they're set.

If you think I'm overstating the case, look at my evidence.

• What elements are most problematic in tournament play? Open ended spells like polymorph and summoning. Solution, remove them from play.
• What play issues hurt tournament gaming the most? Unbalanced classes like CoDzilla. Solution, class parity. All classes are now casters.
• If someone plays in RPGA games, how much do they care about world building and simulationism? Answer, probably very little, unless they are designing RPGA adventures, which is a small number of members anyway. Solution, take the simulationist cow into the pasture and put a gun in its ear.
• What is the number one difficulty in Living Campaign design? Answer, adventure design. The need for balanced encounters that follow the rules is paramount. Erik Mona commented on this in a Fear the Boot interview - numerous Living adventures being chucked because of design flaws. Solution, craft rules that make adventure design very simple, very easy and difficult to screw up.
• Several options in play made the game grind to a halt. Special combat moves like grapple for example. Solution, strip them out of the game, or make them very specific powers that are not usable by everyone.
• Several build options are decidedly subpar, meaning that players coming to a tournament, may wind up being sidelined because of poor choices. Solution, strip out subpar options and design classes that make it very hard to outright suck.

To me, this adds up to pretty strong proof that you and me are not the target audience for 4e. WOTC is banking on the RPGA to drive this edition. And why not? The RPGA has been driving 3e for the past couple of years. PHB 2, polymorph errata, whatnot, all results of RPGA game issues.

This is why, when you read some of the changes, you think, "What the Hell? Why did they change that? I never had any problems with that at my table." You didn't. Sure. But, the RPGA did. That's why it got changed.

 

[MerricB]

No.

The "crowd" they are designing 4e for didn't exist when 3e was released. Living RPGA play is a 3e invention.

Not true. Living City is a AD&D 2e campaign that ran for years.

Cheers!

 

[Dire Bare]

I haven't read the entire thread (toooo loooong), so forgive if I am being redundant.

There's a difference between WotC's marketing decisions (at least their initial ones) and the results of those decisions.

I was actually pretty happy with what WotC intended to do, what they promised us. But like many, the poor planning and execution of those initial promises have left a sour taste in my mouth. Not off to a good start.

However, I did purchase the books (still waiting for them) and plan to playtest the game for myself. After at least a couple of sessions of 4e play, I'll decide whether this is the game for me or not. It's frustrating that my decision might get made before the digital offerings are truly ready.

 

[Zinegata]

As a marketing professional, I believe strongly that even if the product is good, the consumer has the right to not buy a product because the marketing was vague or outright dishonest.

It's the only way we can weed out the good marketing people from the sleazy ones.

Still, marketing is not a black and white thing. Bad marketing for some people is good marketing for others. Your mileage may vary.

 

[The Highway Man]

I think what people truly mean when saying WotC's marketing was a failure really is "I really felt offended by the way 4E was presented to me".

That does NOT make the grievance any lesser for the one who's uttering it. I think that using a bit of psychology to try to understand what people mean instead of reading what they write literally can save a lot of time, space and loops in argumentation, particularly on internet message boards.

 

[Zelligars Apprentice]

<snip>

When 3e came out, they marketted to lapsed gamers, and to gamers who were tired of 2e. 4e has not been marketed, particularly to people tired of 3e, but rather to create a new market - the RPGA.

<snip>

This actually makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately.

 

[Hussar]

Not true. Living City is a AD&D 2e campaign that ran for years.

Cheers!

This is true. I had forgotten Living City. Although it doesn't really change my point. LC had good numbers, but it wasn't until 3e that the RPGA really got going the way it is now.

 

[Hussar]

This actually makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately.

Whether it's good or not depends on your point of view. I'm fairly ambivalent to be honest. 1e was based heavily on tournament play and was pretty popular. Some of the most popular supplements of late 3e were heavily influenced by tournament play IMO (take a look at the Delve Format forex) and that has been a good move.

So, I can see how it's a good thing for WOTC and the hobby. Whether its good for my table or not remains to be seen.

 

[Dire Bare]

No one bought more WotC 3.x RPG titles than I did.

Really? Do you really think so? As there is a finite amount of WotC 3.0/3.5 product, and a number of geeky folk who bought every single piece of it, I don't think you've got this one right.

I apologize if I'm missing sarcasm or humor here.