On the marketing of 4E

[Imaro]

Wouldn't current magazine content be worth more that older edition content, from a commercial point of view? If anything, you would assume that they wold take less risks with it...

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing...

 

[billd91]

On RC's PDF question.

IANAL and this is pure speculation on my part, but, mightn't the reason the pdf's got pulled is part of the ongoing legal process prosecuting the piracy case? I honestly have no idea, but, this could possibly explain things, and also explain why WOTC is so closed lipped about it, since discussing ongoing legal proceedures is a very big no no.

No. I think that's highly unlikely. If this were normal for such cases, then all someone would have to do to get their competitor's products out of circulation would be to find a patsy to pirate it and get sued.

Or it could be they just don't want to support older editions of the game. That's possible too.

Probably true, but I would hesitate to call selling PDFs of old products as providing "support". It's more akin to selling off back inventory as is.

But, a question though, what does that have to do with marketing?

Everything. Everything that affects how the customers see you involves marketing.

 

[pawsplay]

I think maybe WotC's biggest marketing failure with 4e was not realizing that 3e fans were like the cool ex you didn't want to piss off because you have a lot of mutual friends. When it's over, it's over, but nobody likes to be made fun of.

 

[Umbran]

Wouldn't current magazine content be worth more that older edition content, from a commercial point of view? If anything, you would assume that they wold take less risks with it...

Yes, and no. "Worth" is an odd thing in business, and therein lies the heart of the matter - business strategy.

While Dragon content is new, it can haul in some money. But, it is only new for a very short while, after which its value drops off precipitously. And there's this thing in business called "loss leading" - where I allow some of my value to leak away, or even run at a loss, in the hopes of it drawing in new business.

I would expect Dragon to be viewed that way. It's purpose isn't to have lots of value itself, but to maintain current customers and draw in new business. If a few Dragon pdfs make it into the wild, it is a small loss, but may draw in new customers that see the cool stuff, and thus overall be a win.

Content from old editions, however, is not a loss leader. It does not draw in much new business, and may even compete with current production lines (some argue this possibility - proving it to each other means nothing, and WotC is not listening to our points on the matter here, so I won't get into it, other than to state that WotC might well consider this possible).

Risk is a combination of the probability of an event occurring, and the loss that event represents. The probabilty that some pdf content from any line being pirated is near 100%.

Dragon content getting into the wild is a loss, mitigated by drawing in some new business and/or maintianing customers who might buy new books. Old edition content getting into the wild is loss - unmitigated by other factors. Thus, old content getting pirated may well be "higher risk", than Dragon content.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I think maybe WotC's biggest marketing failure with 4e was not realizing that 3e fans were like the cool ex you didn't want to piss off because you have a lot of mutual friends. When it's over, it's over, but nobody likes to be made fun of.

Actually, I begin to think the marketing was deliberately designed at least in part to be divisive like that because of the following.

They were changing the game radically. While there's a lot of argument back and forth about this, from an objective standard things changed radically. You could take a 1e AD&D player, drop him into 3e, and while he'd have to adjust there is a lot of familiar stuff. Your Fireball is still a 3rd level spell, does Lvl-d6 damage, etc, your fighter is still a fighter, etc, your monsters are still monsters.

They also knew that people had options this time. They were fully aware of the OGL and that it can't be revoked by them, and that other companies could make a substitute game if they screwed up. Ryan Dancey actually stated he didn't believe D&D would change because if they tried to change it too radically the people would revolt.

So, I think in part to make people want the changes, they have to make fun of the old game. I don't see you saw as much of this last time because they were trying to win old fans who had strayed back, keep existing fans, and they really were streamlining existing systems. This time, I think they were trying to aim for new players who thought D&D was "uncool", as well as get fans to accept "radical reboot" as being a natural evolution for the good of the game. (I think WoTC could have changed the game in ways to streamline it without doing the things that it did.)

 

[Nikosandros]

Dragon content getting into the wild is a loss, mitigated by drawing in some new business and/or maintianing customers who might buy new books. Old edition content getting into the wild is loss - unmitigated by other factors. Thus, old content getting pirated may well be "higher risk", than Dragon content.

By now, all the old content is available for illegal download. I'm much more willing to buy that either they don't want competition and brand dilution or that, once they got rid of the 4e stuff, they didn't want to bother with material that gave them marginal profits.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

This time, I think they were trying to aim for new players who thought D&D was "uncool", as well as get fans to accept "radical reboot" as being a natural evolution for the good of the game. (I think WoTC could have changed the game in ways to streamline it without doing the things that it did.)

And this is the major difference between people who like 4e and agreed with the marketing of it and those who didn't.

By the end of 3.5e, I was aware that there was NO way to fix it without a radical reboot. At least, not the deep seeded issues. You could fix the issue with save or dies by changing them to doing damage. You could fix some imbalances in the classes with some tweaks. But to fix the real issues (the ones that mostly involved the difference between d20 rolls, the modifiers placed on the rolls and the DCs you were rolling against) you needed to hollow out the entire system and recreate it from scratch with new math. And it was evident that in order to entirely fix the imbalance between casters and non casters, you needed to implement some sort of spell-like system for non-casters. I saw Bo9S and realized how awesome this could be if done right.

Which is why I had no problem with the marketing. All they ever said was "Those things that didn't work in 3e, we're going to fix them." It seems all the uproar I ever hear was when someone says "But none of those things were broken! How dare you insult our near perfect game by saying it doesn't work?" It's all a matter of opinion.

 

[JohnRTroy]

And it was evident that in order to entirely fix the imbalance between casters and non casters, you needed to implement some sort of spell-like system for non-casters.

Which is why I had no problem with the marketing. All they ever said was "Those things that didn't work in 3e, we're going to fix them." It seems all the uproar I ever hear was when someone says "But none of those things were broken! How dare you insult our near perfect game by saying it doesn't work?" It's all a matter of opinion.

Well, all I can say is that D&D was able to last for 30 years without a Radical Reboot. They were able to do it in the past with the 2e/3e mix. Considering all the effort that went into building 3e, I don't think there was any reason to make fighters equal to spellcasters in terms of options other than opinion. You're stating that there is an "imbalance", yet fighters had more hitpoints, more feats, and worked within the system.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Well, all I can say is that D&D was able to last for 30 years without a Radical Reboot. They were able to do it in the past with the 2e/3e mix. Considering all the effort that went into building 3e, I don't think there was any reason to make fighters equal to spellcasters in terms of options other than opinion. You're stating that there is an "imbalance", yet fighters had more hitpoints, more feats, and worked within the system.

The "imbalance to the degree it becomes a problem" part of D&D was a 3E creation. In AD&D, dealing damage(the main activity of nonspellcasters) was more efficient against enemies with less hp(compared to 3E, pretty much all of them), save or die/suck became universally less effective as you gained levels, and spellcasters had a large number of handicaps that were removed for 3E. The Radical Reboot(in the case of balance) was a response purely to 3E, not 30+ years of D&D.

 

[AllisterH]

Well, all I can say is that D&D was able to last for 30 years without a Radical Reboot. They were able to do it in the past with the 2e/3e mix. Considering all the effort that went into building 3e, I don't think there was any reason to make fighters equal to spellcasters in terms of options other than opinion. You're stating that there is an "imbalance", yet fighters had more hitpoints, more feats, and worked within the system.

Eh, you do realize 3e spellcasters made out like BANDITS with the changeover from 2e to 3e.

I have a HUGE list of all the "little" changes that were made that all combined made the spellcasters such a force.(Hint: the term Batman wizard is purely a 3e creation)