New D&D Website

[Remathilis]

In related news, the D&D fansite toolkit makes a lot more sense now...

 

[Khairn]

Don't underestimate piquing interest. Indeed, that was the real reason behind having the galleries online in the first place. It wasn't to give people art to use in a game (although it certainly did that). The art, mixed with an inside look at a class, a few feats, a location, and a few monsters, were there to get people to buy physical books. Now, moving the art and the classes behind a wall of subscription shows to me that it's not as much about the books anymore, as it's about getting people onto a subscription.

That's fine and dandy. That's not me. I'm not that target demographic.

And is this really a surprise to anyone? It was the obvious direction WotC was taking with D&D from the very first announcement of the DDI. Monthly subscriptions help to reduce the tremendous financial peaks and valleys that the old distribution model created. The new site looks great and is clearly more useful than the old one. But it also seems to be primarily designed to support those D&D players who subscribe and encourage those that aren't subscribing to pony up.

I have some friends that used to laugh at me when I gazed into my admittedly cracked crystal ball and predicted that eventually we'd each require a computer to play D&D. We're not there yet, but their no longer laughing.

 

[Hussar]

In related news, the D&D fansite toolkit makes a lot more sense now...

Totally see that now:

# You may not make content from the Wizards website (audio-visual materials excluded) available through your own site if such use entails Wizards hosting such content for you on Wizards' website. For example, you may not make available on a Fan Site any content from Wizards' Web site in a frame, mirror, Iframe, widget, nor may you link directly to a wallpaper file hosted on Wizards' website

That makes a fair bit of sense in context.

 

[Shemeska]

Regarding the removal of art galleries for non-DDI visitors, an answer was posted over on the WotC forums. It's not a mistake, it's intentional.

"The Dungeons & Dragons art gallery has recently changed. All of the artwork contained within the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide are still available at no charge, in the gallery. Artwork from all other D&D books will now be made available exclusively to D&D Insider subscribers as an added benefit to membership."

 

[CharlesRyan]

Don't underestimate piquing interest. Indeed, that was the real reason behind having the galleries online in the first place. It wasn't to give people art to use in a game (although it certainly did that). The art, mixed with an inside look at a class, a few feats, a location, and a few monsters, were there to get people to buy physical books. Now, moving the art and the classes behind a wall of subscription shows to me that it's not as much about the books anymore, as it's about getting people onto a subscription.

Your conclusion isn't supported by your argument.

There are two issues here: Piquing interest and getting free stuff. I agree with your point that using the galleries to pique interest in print products is a valuable marketing tool. But guess what: That element is still there. All of the galleries are visible, in thumbnail, from outside the DDI wall. The images are small and incomplete, but plenty good enough to get a solid taste of the product's artwork.

The full-sized images are not available for free, but they're also not a necessary part of the marketing exercise (in fact, they might even be counter-productive). If you want larger images, for use in your game or web site or whatever, that's fine: it costs around $6 a month.

If that's not worth it to you, that's obviously a fine choice. But don't conflate the issues. Saying that WotC has eliminated a marketing function is completely spurious.

 

[Mercutio01]

The images are small and incomplete, but plenty good enough to get a solid taste of the product's artwork.

I very much disagree with this statement. The thumbnails are tiny, not just small, and I'll be damned if I can get any kind of idea of what the full image looks like based on an image that is 125x92. That's barely bigger than most avatars allowed on messageboards. If you think that this image http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/4new/galleries/DUN170_art/tn/tn_11.jpg is any kind of marketing or selling point, then I'd like what you're smoking. Is that guy a tielfing, a demon, what? What's he holding? I can't tell you anything about the quality of the original based on something that's roughly the size of my actual thumbnail. In all, I think your "plenty good" statement is not a statement of fact, so much as your opinion. All I know is that I can't even tell WHAT that creature is, let alone how well it's painted.

Just a note - that's $6 if you shell out the entire year's cost up front. It's $10 a month if you, like me, pretty much live month-to-month.

If that's not worth it to you, that's obviously a fine choice. But don't conflate the issues. Saying that WotC has eliminated a marketing function is completely spurious.

They DID eliminate a marketing function, for me at the very least. Those thumbnails simply are not selling points for print products. They might work fine as a way to suck people into subscribing (at least one person I know has said that they are now considering a subscription), but you can't tell me that a thumbnail in any way says "Man that art is the bomb!"

It was the obvious direction WotC was taking with D&D from the very first announcement of the DDI.

Look, if there were online gaming tools (as in you are capable of running a game online) in the subscription as initially marketed, I'd be all over the subscription. There isn't, and all indications are that they've abandoned those tools completely.

"The Dungeons & Dragons art gallery has recently changed. All of the artwork contained within the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide are still available at no charge, in the gallery. Artwork from all other D&D books will now be made available exclusively to D&D Insider subscribers as an added benefit to membership."

So, the benefit to subscribers is, what? Access to art that they already had access to before? Not much of a benefit for them, really.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, for me the site needs to let me see the 5% o he site I look at (mainly Product excerpts) and it does that fine, so I have no major issues with the site.

But a whole year to make the change.........

Well.......

Now how long will a complicated tool take them to develop?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, for me the site needs to let me see the 5% o he site I look at (mainly Product excerpts) and it does that fine, so I have no major issues with the site.

But a whole year to make the change.........

Well.......

Now how long will a complicated tool take them to develop?

We don't know when they actually started getting "serious" with the design, though.

I suppose the hardest part was convincing everyone involved that this was the way to go. I remember posts indicating that there are lot of different departments involved in the decisions for the site design, and getting them all to agree and having all their priority issues addressed... That can take quite some time.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Is that guy a tielfing, a demon, what? What's he holding? I can't tell you anything about the quality of the original based on something that's roughly the size of my actual thumbnail. [. . .] All I know is that I can't even tell WHAT that creature is, let alone how well it's painted.

I went to a movie the other day, and they showed some previews. Only they were really short: Like in this one scene, something was coming out of the darkness, and I couldn't tell if it was a zombie or a monster or somebody's dad or what. And then there were some people shooting, but I couldn't tell for sure if they were good guys or bad guys or if they were shooting at the thing in the darkness or what. And the whole preview was like 90 seconds long, so how could I tell if I would even like the director's style? It was like they were just teasing me. You're right, just showing little bits of something is a terrible marketing idea.

In all, I think your "plenty good" statement is not a statement of fact, so much as your opinion.

Point taken. The opinion of a successful professional marketer, but an opinion nonetheless.

 

[Mercutio01]

I went to a movie the other day, and they showed some previews. Only they were really short: Like in this one scene, something was coming out of the darkness, and I couldn't tell if it was a zombie or a monster or somebody's dad or what. And then there were some people shooting, but I couldn't tell for sure if they were good guys or bad guys or if they were shooting at the thing in the darkness or what. And the whole preview was like 90 seconds long, so how could I tell if I would even like the director's style? It was like they were just teasing me. You're right, just showing little bits of something is a terrible marketing idea.

And that alone was enough to make you want to see the film? Seriously?

By contrast, I think the trailers for Inglourious Basterds were well done. There's something approaching characterization, the basic concept behind the plot, and some dialogue. But that's apples to oranges.

A better comparison would be something like a single off of a new music album. You don't get the whole album, but you get one piece off of the album, which gives you an idea of the kinds of sounds that will come out of the rest of the album. For a direct example, I'm a fan of old-school Metallica and haven't really liked any of their songs since the black album. But the radio played "The Day That Never Comes" which was enough of a cue as to what the rest of the album would sound like, and convinced me to pick up the entire album.

Now, I don't buy D&D books just for the artwork, but I do put a lot of emphasis on the art in my personal preferences. Good illustrative art, to me, is more of a selling point than yet another article about skill challenges. Obviously YMMV.

Point taken. The opinion of a successful professional marketer, but an opinion nonetheless.

The appeal to authority here doesn't work for me. I know you have a fairly large pedigree in the gaming world, but I'm not convinced you're being wholly objective here. Your work for Wizards was during the 3rd edition, when they released art galleries free for consumers to peruse. It was also during a time of record sales of D&D, was it not? I know that coincidence/=correlation, but in my particular case, as a consumer, it definitely does. Indeed, the extensive previews for 4E were what convinced me to not only embrace 4E, but to advocate for it among friends, family, and internet acquaintances, and to try to support it through the power cards I co-created with Black Plauge. My subsequent moving away from Wizards can be tracked as an almost linear correlation with the movement of previously free content behind the paid subscription wall, and that same linear track can also be linked to my purchasing history for Wizards products.

Obviously I'm just one (former) consumer, but I'm far from the only person ticked off about the most recent move.