On the marketing of 4E

[Cadfan]

Instead, you say "We changed x" and tell people what that means for them. As the song goes, "You've got to aaaaaaac-cent-U-ate the positive!" You don't bring up potential negatives. YOU don't do it. You let Joe Customer find out the negatives by himself, or wait for your competitors to point it out.

Well, clearly you know more about it than me. But your rules of advertising apply to the general economy. I rather suspect that the rules of practice are different when your product is competing almost solely with your own discontinued product, the product in question never expires so no one strictly requires a new version, and the primary improvements of the new version are better usability.

Personally, I suspect that people's interpretation of the marketing was colored by preexisting preferences, not the other way around.

Just look at this thread- its being regularly claimed that 4e's marketing upset "people who liked 3e."

Obviously that's a silly thing to say. We all know its a silly thing to say. You know it, I know it, we all know it. People who liked 3e are almost certainly the primary purchasers of 4e! They just like 4e more, or like to play the current supported edition of the game, or any number of reasons.

But people are tribalistic and want to claim ownership and throw out those they don't like. So they declare themselves to be "the people who like 3e" and imply that people who like 4e aren't.

The reality was that the editions were actually being compared, and consumers were actually being exhorted to choose one over the other. I'm not sure that WotC could have made everyone think that wasn't true by changing their language, especially given the emotional reaction people were inevitably going to have to an edition shift, and the resulting colored perceptions.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I rather suspect that the rules of practice are different when your product is competing almost solely with your own discontinued product, the product in question never expires so no one strictly requires a new version, and the primary improvements of the new version are better usability.

First, we have to stop using the word "better" in this context. Your "better" is someone else's "different" and another's "ruined." Its so subjective that it presents a barrier to communication...just like it did in the 4Ed rollout.

Second, while an RPG doesn't have an expy date, there are items with long shelf lives and those that get upgraded within the product's lifespan.

Look at game consoles: people are complaining about the new slim Playstation 3& its pricing vs the older version of the same console; people are complaining about new vs old Wii controls; people are complaining about rising X-Box failure (and re-failure) rates.

And the companies are saying nothing. Not in their ads, at least.

Apple, at one point, glutted its market with several new product releases a year- some of which made releases as little as 6 months old obsolete.

Again, Apple said nothing.

Heck- I can't even think of another RPG revision release that involved a badmouthing of a previous edition. Ditto wargames and boardgames.

The version of Acquire I have is different from the one my buddy's dad had...and different from the one my buddy owns. New editions of Risk and Stratego have popped up, but no ad info- other than what IP inspired the change- regards the changes to the game.

 

[AllisterH]

How come Paizo didn't get raked over the coals given that they EXPLICITLY said things like "The Bard sucks"?

 

[catastrophic]

Hey, folks, your friendly admin here. If you're curious on how not to post, please use this series of posts as an example. It's the sort of thing that gets people threadbanned or suspended: deliberate insulting language that is designed to stir up arguments instead of discussing them. Please avoid this sort of thing when you're posting yourself. Thanks. ~ PCat

How come Paizo didn't get raked over the coals given that they EXPLICITLY said things like "The Bard sucks"?

Because people are just making up things to rake WOTC over the coals with and their criticisms are not really valid.

I find it particularly contrived to decide there's some big faux pass involved in trying to improve the game, or daring to suggest that 4e is an improvement over 3e. Rubbish. New versions of products advertise their improvements over older versions all the time. This includes new versions of apple products, software, games, I mean for crying out loud some computer game development companies advertise their patches if they're big enough.

Not only is it absurd to demand the makers of a new product avoid mentioning it's advantages over a new one, not only is it ridiculous to claim that this is some kind of big advertising no-no, but I think we all know such a change in their promotion of 4e would have had limited effect on the people who decided to hate 4e.

This is particularly true of those people who hate it to the point where they can't stand to have 4e compared favourably to 3e.

If they had said things like 'not better just different' then the 4e haters would have said things like 'if it isn't better why make 4e at all' and this whole ridiculous process would begin anew.

There are certainly a lot of things that WOTC could have done better during the launch of 4e and in the time since then, but this ridiculous idea about 'tearing 3e down' hs got nothing to do with promotion or advertising, and everything to do with diehard 3e fans venting their spleens and other people giving the argument far more credit or support than it deserves.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

How come Paizo didn't get raked over the coals given that they EXPLICITLY said things like "The Bard sucks"?

You mean in the context of their game, Pathfinder?

1) They are the competition. The competition can get away with saying bad things about features of previous editions of D&D because that's how they define their product. That's how they get contrast.

Maybe they won't escape backlash completely, but their comments aren't going to be taken in the same way as the comments made by the company that owns the property both are maligning. Their product may resemble D&D, but it isn't D&D. WotC/Hasbro is the owner of D&D in all of its iterations.

2) Not only are they the competition, by making their release a tweaked version of 3.X, they are seen a bit as the "savior" of the old system, thus becoming the "enemy of my enemy"...or at least standard bearers for a revision rather than replacement of 3.X. The changes they are making are perceived as far less radical than the change from 3.X to 4Ed. They are making "tweaks," not wholesale systemic changes, and that lessens the impact of the blow.

Consider: there was barely a squeak when WotC reworked the Polymorph rules...just a short time before releasing 4Ed. That tweak wasn't trivial, either. But it stayed within the framework of extant rules- it wasn't part of a huge change.

3) They are a small company, especially relative to the 800lb gorilla that is WotC/Hasbro. If both Apple and Microsoft did something that created a negative impact on the PC using public, Apple wouldn't get the same kind of negative press- or legal scrutiny- as Microsoft would.

 

[Jack99]

Honestly it was some of the designer comments that got under my skin w/ regards to what 4e was all about. Two quotes or series of quotes come to mind.

"Of course, these planes don't hold a candle to 2E's hilarious Plane of Vacuum, which is truly the antithesis of fun.)" - Chris Perkins

And from the D&D Podcast #16

"Guardinals - Bullet in the Head." - Mike Mearls
"What's a guardinal???" - Dave Noonan
"They're outsiders from the plane of neutral good!" - James Wyatt
"There's a plane of neutral good? Which one was that again?" - Dave Noonan
"...Bytopia? Maybe?" - James Wyatt (giving the wrong answer, which apparently none of the other guys knew was wrong)
"I'm probably going to offend a bunch of Planescape fans, but Bytopia sounds like a place where you'd go to buy a gimmicky hamburger..."
*insert laughter and jokes cracked about the plane*

What's funny is that the page for the podcast actually went back and added a printed correction for them botching what the NG plane in the Great Wheel was, and what Bytopia was.

Not a big fan of sarcasm I take it?

How come Paizo didn't get raked over the coals given that they EXPLICITLY said things like "The Bard sucks"?

Because not enough people care what Paizo says.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I find it particularly contrived to decide there's some big faux pass involved in trying to improve the game, or daring to suggest that 4e is an improvement over 3e. Rubbish.

No, its not rubbish.

That 4Ed is "an improvement over 3.X" is a matter of opinion, and opinions vary greatly on that matter. Its entirely subjective.

By asserting it as objective fact in an advertising campaign, by taking that as your marketing strategy's starting point, you're adopting an adversarial stance right out of the gate. You're helping create and temper your own opposition. You've given them a rhetorical foothold.

New versions of products advertise their improvements over older versions all the time. This includes new versions of apple products, software, games, I mean for crying out loud some computer game development companies advertise their patches if they're big enough.

Look at the character of those improvements in those ads. In neither case are they criticizing their previous products on subjective grounds.

They tout that a computer runs faster, has a more powerful graphics processing card, are more stable, more secure, less prone to damage by viruses, more compact, bigger screen or lower price than their previous models - all things that are objectively verifiable.

The patches for games address known issues- software conflicts, freezes, backdoors, bugs, etc.- or again add or improve the program's functionality in objective ways with increases in world size, more realistic & challenging AIs, smoother graphics and so forth...and are also rarely part of an actual advertising campaign.

 

[billd91]

I don't think the marketing actually alienated 3.5 lovers. I think the marketing provided a flashpoint for people who were going to be angry anyways.

You would be wrong in at least one case: mine.

When 3e was announced, I was extremely skeptical. But the marketing and tidbits release over time on Eric's 3e news page pretty much won me over before it hit the stores.

When 4e was announced, I was optimistic. After all, WotC had delivered before both with 3e and with SWSE. Then as the year-long marketing campaign unfolded, I got more and more turned off to the point that I wasn't even seeking out the real previews put out by WotC. By the time the rules came out, I was pretty disgusted with WotC as a company. The company's failures to live up to commitments with the licensing and DDI were the icing on the cake.

For me, the marketing of 4e makes the difference between being disappointed and being disgusted. The way it ended up, 4e was never going to replace 3.5/PF for me. But the marketing campaign made it far less likely I would ever come back.

 

[catastrophic]

No, its not rubbish.

That 4Ed is "an improvement over 3.X" is a matter of opinion, and opinions vary greatly on that matter. Its entirely subjective.

That's not what I said. I said your claim about advertising was rubbish, and it is. I'm not suprised you jumped to the wrong conclusion, because if it's one thing people in these arguments can't stand, it's the idea that 4e might be just plain better than 3e. Gasp! No! We must keep that idea taboo!

By asserting it as objective fact in an advertising campaign, by taking that as your marketing strategy's starting point, you're adopting an adversarial stance right out of the gate. You're helping create and temper your own opposition. You've given them a rhetorical foothold.

Rubbish. Are you saying advertisers don't compared their product favourable to competitors? And previous models of their own products? Don't be ridiculous, of course they do.

Look at the character of those improvements in those ads. In neither case are they criticizing their previous products on subjective grounds.

Your entire argument is a contrivance. There's no validity to your claim. Adversiting doesn't make subjective criticisms? Subjective claims? That's what adversiting is.

They tout that a computer runs faster, has a more powerful graphics processing card, are more stable, more secure, less prone to damage by viruses, more compact, bigger screen or lower price than their previous models - all things that are objectively verifiable.

Your argument is simply not valid. You have created a fantasy world where advertisers work purely in terms of objective facts and that simply isn't true.

The patches for games address known issues- software conflicts, freezes, backdoors, bugs, etc.- or again add or improve the program's functionality in objective ways with increases in world size, more realistic & challenging AIs, smoother graphics and so forth...and are also rarely part of an actual advertising campaign.

Not only are many of these claims at least somewhat subjective, but they're obvious examples of where an improvement is made over a previous iteration, and these improvements are promoted.

 

[Crothian]

Wise.

Lessons learned from paying too much attention to movie trailers over the past two decades.