Marketing criticisms miss the point

[AllisterH]

"In the last eight years, we've given a lot of thought to the question of how to build fun, exciting and balanced encounters. We have found that by making monster roles more explicit, and by spelling out the differences between creatures meant to be encountered alone and those meant to be encountered as part of a group, we can speed up DM preparation, and make it easier to generate balanced encounters than ever before!"

How's that?

Which basically still says, "Old system just plain sucks" otherwise they wouldn't be changing it now would they?

People are STILL going to be offended because they'll still think "WOTC is saying the rules they sold me aren't good".

 

[Intense_Interest]

Which basically still says, "Old system just plain sucks" otherwise they wouldn't be changing it now would they?

People are STILL going to be offended because they'll still think "WOTC is saying the rules they sold me aren't good".

Well the argument goes that WotC could have been "nicer" in its critique. In a matter of degree, people want the "3.5 is still a fine system, you a great at playing it, but here is something else".

But you'd then forget the whole "market leader", "definer of the niche", and "cultural touchstone" WotC has and would maintain by selling 4E as a better system absolutely.

 

[delericho]

Which basically still says, "Old system just plain sucks" otherwise they wouldn't be changing it now would they?

No, it really doesn't. The only way to get to that is to read something into the text that just isn't there.

Unless the current edition is perfect, there is room for improvement. That doesn't require that the current edition be bad in any way, just not perfect. And I don't recall anyone seriously suggesting that that was the case with 3e.

 

[Maggan]

I've never seen a badly run marketing run as WotC has with 4e.

Which is a pity, because there are gigatons of worse marketing campaigns out there.

"Nothing sucks like Elexctrolux" comes to mind as one stellar example. And the Napster superbowl ad. And the Apple "Lemmings" ad. Ouch, that was bad. Really bad.

Some other ad catastrophes for reference:

http://consumerist.com/consumer/ads/top-10-worst-marketing-gaffes-flops-and-disasters-241095.php

Hell, I've probably been part of at least 20 marketing campaigns worse than what WotC has done with 4e. And with far, far, far worse results.

/M

 

[xechnao]

No, it really doesn't. The only way to get to that is to read something into the text that just isn't there.

Unless the current edition is perfect, there is room for improvement. That doesn't require that the current edition be bad in any way, just not perfect. And I don't recall anyone seriously suggesting that that was the case with 3e.

No, he has a point. If Wotc's priority was to stay clear of any alienation of its customers regarding edition change, it should not have chosen an abrupt edition change announcement and production series.
Instead, Wotc should have initiated a discussion with its customers and after a respectful frame announce plans on the direction and focus of the new edition -that would be based on the discussion with its customers.

Of course this would have taken more time and they could have lost some revenue due to the confusion the above plan comes with. But any negativeness of the very loyal customer base regarding edition change would have much less potential I guess.

 

[billd91]

Which basically still says, "Old system just plain sucks" otherwise they wouldn't be changing it now would they?

People are STILL going to be offended because they'll still think "WOTC is saying the rules they sold me aren't good".

It says nothing of the sort. Car manufacturers and software companies are continually coming out with products with modified features, and they never manage to convey to the market that their previous edition sucked. They very rarely say, "At high speeds, this car used to be hard to drive, which was no fun."

Nope. They market on the new, cool, shiny stuff and how it is better than what preceded it, but they don't undercut the previous model. And if you think that RPG editions have their devotees, you ain't seen nothing about certain car model years and their fans.

It's true that the reader is always going to read whatever they want into the company's statements, but it's better to make the easily offended to the hard work rather than hand them their bile on a silver platter.

 

[Maggan]

But any negativeness of the very loyal customer base regarding edition change would have much less potential I guess.

I actually think that it would have been worse. Instead of a period stretching from GenCon to now where some people have been worried, it would have been a long ongoing flamefest that would have made the criticism aired now seem like a tempest in a tea-cup.

Many gamers don't like big changes to D&D, and will go to great length to tell the rest of the world this.

Dicussing the changes of D&D in an open way such as you describe would probably have been a disaster for WotC, especially if they wanted to make big changes.

The marketing wasn't brilliant. And it wasn't utter cosmic fail either. It was sort of okay, which is a bit disappointing to me, but that's all. It seems to have worked okay, given the commercial interest and the internet chatter about the game, and I think that WotC aren't too disappointed. Except for the fact that they couldn't launch DDI as planned, but that's not the fault of marketing.

/M

 

[nothing to see here]

Heh. We're here all weekend. Don't forget to tip your waiter.

But, in the interests of actually generating a somewhat more informed discussion, could you respond to some of the criticisms made here? Are they reasonable criticisms or not? And, why or why not?

I think the smirking tone in Rouses's point is that since generating INTEREST in a product is a major goal of marketing, having a 12-page thread of people intensely debating the marketing of 4e is a strong -- albeit ironic -- example of 4e marketing success.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

I think the smirking tone in Rouses's point is that since generating INTEREST in a product is a major goal of marketing, having a 12-page thread of people intensely debating the marketing of 4e is a strong -- albeit ironic -- example of 4e marketing success.

If you subscribe to the any publicity is good publicity theory. However it can also be argued that positive publicity is better than negative publicity even if both are "good" publicity.

 

[nothing to see here]

How is it skewed?

It's a serious question. ENWorld is probably the biggest community of D&D players outside of Wizard's own forums.

Are ENWorlder's progressive? Anti-4e? Pro-4e? Are you saying that this message board is not representative of a community? Is there a narrow focus. I've heard passioned arguments that ENWorld is now a "pro-4e" or an "anti-4e" site.

Granted, you could be getting bias. But at the same time, maybe the poll speaks volumes. Right now we're probably one of the best statistical samples you can get of the D&D playerbase. At the very least it's an indication of trouble.

It seems nowadays (in general, this isn't targeted at anybody) if you don't like an argument now you attack the methodolgies or the person's motives. I would rather look at the poll and say "okay, it seems like this is a very controversial move", then look at other communities, etc.

QUOTE]

Others have said this better than me, but each time an online poll is cited as an example of any relevant information I have to chip in.

The one thing all scientific polls share is, a representative (ususally random) sampling model. You want to measure ENworld opinoin then EVERY SINGLE ENWORLDER needs to have a chance to answer the poll. If you don't visit the boards, don't visit the 4e boards, don't like posting or don't enjoy answering online polls -- you have a 0% chance of being included in the sampling.

On the other hand, if you are a pro- or anti- 4e zealot or the kind of person who LOVES answering online polls -- you have, limited only by your awareness an interest -- a 100% chance of being included in the smapling.

Any research that you can 'volunteer' for, click on, or sign-up for is self-selecting. Mind you they are not completely without merit for qualititative analysis (though even for qualitiative stuff, randomly sampled focus group testing is far preferable) -- and on that count you could conclude from the online poll "Boy there are a few people on ENworld who really don't like 4e".

But beyond that limited (and subjective) analysis, but do these polls in anyway represent this community, or the 4e market as a whole.

Not even close.