Perhaps a small boycott?

[pawsplay]

I'm not a 4e player, so my first thought was, "There's nothing really for me to boycott." But that's not true; as soon as I had some cash again, I was going to pick up some Demonweb boosters, and I was eyeing the new D&D minis as well. While I can only scratch my head at some decisions, this bothers me enough I am motivated to boycott.

 

[malraux]

Capitalism works just fine for me.

I think in some ways, that is the concern. Pretty much by all estimates, this move was both dumb and counter-productive. This means some things about WotC: either they don't understand the market they are trying to compete in, don't understand their customers, don't care, etc. If those are the case, that's a bad sign for WotC long term and certainly for DnD. Capitalism will work by killing off idiotic companies. If WotC is becoming an idiotic company, well, capitalism isn't going to save it. Certainly that's my concern.

 

[Dice4Hire]

For me, it is their books which are important. I like to hold physical things, and cannot stand reading page after page of pdf under any circumstances. So their suspending of PDF sales will not matter to me.

I say suspending as I just do not see WOTC stopping selling pdfs permenantly. Remember Dungeon and Dragon? They are alive and well (well, I don't think really well, but, well, you get my point) in WOTC's hands behind the DDI firewall. I think we will see the same with online copies. With the DDI, it is not necessary for WOTC to sell PDFs as the compendium has msot of the info in there in an easily cut and pasted form. Same with selling pdfs of dungeon and DRagon, whcih they have not done.

Is this stupid, maybe, but if it drives more people into DDI then I do not think WOTC will consider it a problem. I'll bet they are looking at the numbers of DDI, and will watch how much they go up in the next month or two.

I jsut do not see a boycot working, unless emails re sent to WOTC telling them this.

 

[nightwyrm]

I think in some ways, that is the concern. Pretty much by all estimates, this move was both dumb and counter-productive. This means some things about WotC: either they don't understand the market they are trying to compete in, don't understand their customers, don't care, etc. If those are the case, that's a bad sign for WotC long term and certainly for DnD. Capitalism will work by killing off idiotic companies. If WotC is becoming an idiotic company, well, capitalism isn't going to save it. Certainly that's my concern.

*shrug*

WotC dies, some other company will take its place, I'll continue gaming. My enjoyment of RPGs is not tied to the continual survival of WotC. I'm just not getting why so many are up in arms about it in forums and declaring boycotts and jumping ship to other companies. It's like their favourite sports team just lost the big game.

 

[JustKim]

I've asked this elsewhere, but how is this a big deal or some huge problem.

This is the first time I've seen the question and it is really refreshing. The reaction to the PDF news makes me cringe. Some posters have been so irrationally vile about this that at first I thought the situation had exacerbated to WotC somehow making all publishers stop PDF sales. But no, they have just withdrawn their PDF products from the market. The sense of entitlement is overwhelming when I try to sympathize with some posters. So I would like to see this question explored, to convince myself that this is not as ugly as it seems.

 

[Thasmodious]

Is it a huge problem? I don't know. I don't even know if the revenue WotC got off of RPGNow's scanned books was ever even enough to pay for the cost of putting it up. But still, this does have some significant impacts.

That's my issue exactly. Everyone freaks out and overreacts rolling out rather insane conspiracy theories, but I don't see many people wondering simply if sales weren't meeting expectations, or even coming close (likely because everyone just downloads a .pdf when they want one), so they pulled the product and are looking for new ways to explore that potential revenue stream. That's basic business. The cereal example is spot on.

 

[Maggan]

Am I just crazy or does anyone else think this might be a reasonable idea?

For any individual, it might be a reasonable thing to do.

But on the other side I don't believe calls for boycotts ever amount to anything. If enough people won't buy the book, sure it's a message sent, but I don't think people will join a declared boycott to make a point.

Add to that that a majority of WotC customers are buying physical books, and not PDFs, which means there is little impetus for them to join a boycott.

Even if you send an e-mail declaring your stance, I'm guessing customer service gets those kinds of e-mails all the time from gamers who think WotC did something wrong and this time it was really, really, really the last straw, so the message might drown in static.

/M

 

[TheNovaLord]

began my boycott about 6 weeks ago by realising actually 4e is just a rubbish minis game when it comes down to it, so sold all my books and modules!!!

Admin here. This is a superb example of trying to incite and inflame an edition wars argument, and is exactly what you should post if you want to get suspended or booted from a thread. So please, use good judgment when posting. ~ PCat

 

[Protagonist]

began my boycott about 6 weeks ago by realising actually 4e is just a rubbish minis game when it comes down to it, so sold all my books and modules!!!

wow, I'm so proud of you

 

[Kzach]

*yawn*

Wake me when the drama is over.