On the marketing of 4E

[Shemeska]

Again, I've asked twice for actual quotes from blogs or books that were insulting. We've gotten two quotes, both of which, when placed within their proper context, aren't all that insulting at all.

I dropped a quote and a quoted conversation earlier in the thread, so either you missed them, or you've got me on your ignore list, either of which is possible I suppose.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

There, fixed that for you.

--Erik

Now, now Mr. Mona - play nice.

The Auld Grump

 

[pawsplay]

Oh, absolutely - in time it was fine.

But at the beginning - they were out - and that was very disappointing.

Even as a fairly young child at the time, the term Baatezu and the removal of the half-orc and the assassin made me snicker. It was like those Fall Carnival things some schools would try to pull off when the loca PTA freaked out over Satanic Halloween rituals.

 

[Hussar]

I dropped a quote and a quoted conversation earlier in the thread, so either you missed them, or you've got me on your ignore list, either of which is possible I suppose.

Quite possible I missed it Shemeska. It's a long thread.

I did catch the bit about making fun of Planescape names, but, I missed the other one.

Looking at TheAuldGrump, I gotta wonder, really? That's how thin your skin is? Note, nowhere did he say that you couldn't do "through the fairy ring" campaigns. What he said was that D&D wasn't designed for that.

Again, considering the vast majority of supplements and whatnot for any edition of D&D are very strongly centered on combat and loot, is that really a far off thing to say?

Heck, I see Erik Mona here. How often did Dungeon print a non-combat module? We've got what, 200 ish modules in Dungeon for 3e? I dunno how many for 2e. Out of those hundreds of modules, how many featured little to no combat?

 

[Echohawk]

Hardbacks take up a lot of space. It was especially noticeable given the number of hardbacks that were released. They even dwarf the box sets of the 2nd edition era in amount of space.

I'm afraid that this is not true. I just measured, and the 3.X hardcovers make a pile about 155cm high when stacked, while the 2nd Edition boxed sets make a pile 290cm high.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist checking! )

 

[Raven Crowking]

@ Hussar,

While I do believe that the marketing failed, I will certainly admit that a "best reading" of what WotC was putting out was not nearly as insulting as the initial reading that I was doing at that time. There were a couple of threads in the past where, when I re-examined the quotes, I have admitted as much.

IMHO, the boondoggle with WotC was caused by an intersection of what they did with what they said.

* When 4e was outed prior to the announcement, they denied it, making for a great "...the huh?" moment when, not long after, they announced it......Especially since they were bringing out new 3.5 books in the gap between denial and announcement, it makes it seem as though the denial was to sucker people into buying those books. (Keeping in mind the expectation at that time, which I also held until I began to read the snippets of 4e they were showing, that most people would switch to 4e.)

* The early marketing video on YouTube with grappling, which was overtly insulting both to prior editions, and to the players of prior editions (via portrayal).

* Pulling Dungeon & Dragon Magazines in order to create their own subscription service DDI cheesed a lot of people off.

* Statements that 4e would be OGL followed by retraction of same cheesed a lot of people off.

These things, and things like them, made it difficult to give a "best reading" to the comments that WotC was making. It very much felt like WotC had been given the benefit of the doubt already, and had taken royal advantage of it.

IMHO, and IME, anyway.


RC

 

[Fifth Element]

I'm not doubting that people came in with hostility pre-present, but people on this thread have stated "I walked in neutral and got offended," and you and Fifth Element have both responded with "No, you're lying. You walked in openly hostile. Go ahead and prove me wrong."

That gets under peoples' skins.

A lot.

I said no such thing.

Putting words in other peoples mouths: That gets under peoples' skin. A lot.

 

[Fifth Element]

* Pulling Dungeon & Dragon Magazines in order to create their own subscription service DDI cheesed a lot of people off.

* Statements that 4e would be OGL followed by retraction of same cheesed a lot of people off.

I can understand people getting annoyed by these. The second one certainly annoyed me. But it's a big step from this to "they insulted me and the way I play my game." If you're proposing it's an irrational reaction due to the other factors you mentioned, I'd accept that.

 

[Roman]

Marketing played a role in my decision not to switch to 4E, but only to the extent that it previewed and highlighted changes and direction of game design that I did not like rather than due to the ineptitude of the marketing campaign. By the time 4E came out, I was sure I was not going to buy it and merely skimmed the books just to see whether my opinion would be confirmed (it was). Had the marketing campaign been absent, I would have reached the same conclusions, but later - I would have been forced to scrutinize the final product more carefully.

Even a 'perfect' marketing campaign would have been unlikely to persuade me to purchase 4E. I prefer the legacy D&D flavor and although I do not necessarily cling to specific mechanics, the new game identifies and 'corrects' mechanical problems where I didn't have them (e.g. statting out NPCs, save or die effects, etc.), but ignores or makes worse problems I did have (e.g. hit points poorly representing actual injuries, auto-success/auto-failure), so it was an easy decision to stick with 3.5E or switch to Pathfinder RPG.

 

[Dausuul]

First of all, we can look at other games and their iterative editions. New editions of RPGs are sometimes looked upon favorably, but sometimes not. There is no overwhelming tendency to hate all new editions upon release. One might say, "Ah, yes. But Shadowrun fans are not like D&D fans." To which I would say, but the same people who play Shadowrun are the same people who play D&D!

While I'm not a Shadowrun player and not involved in the Shadowrun community, my impression was that the latest edition of Shadowrun had caused much gnashing of teeth.

And you also seem to contradict yourself as well. You claim that 3rd Edition is the exception to the rule - meaning that the rule of New-Editions-Are-Hated can be, in fact, broken. To add to that, as I recall it, AD&D was another welcome edition into the fold. I remember getting AD&D and becoming excited. "Wait. Elf isn't a class? Whoa. I can be an Elven Fighter, Elven Wizard, etc? Whoa! No way!"

And I and my entire group, along with a lot of other people, were excited about 4E. Doesn't mean 4E wasn't hated.

I think it's too apologist to simply say, "All new D&D editions are hated. Nothing anyone can do about it." If that were true, why bother with any kind of marketing campaign at all, since all of them will be doomed to failure?

I said all new editions inspire hate. I never said they inspired universal hate, or that any effort to win over the fans was doomed. But there will always be a very angry, very vocal section of the fanbase that absolutely despises the new edition.

A well-designed marketing campaign would minimize the size of that group, but if your goal is to not inspire any hate at all... well, it just ain't gonna happen. And thanks to the wonders of modern communications, even a tiny fraction of the fanbase can make one whole hell of a lot of noise.