Rary's Replay of the Past

[delericho]

Do you think that the investors were getting skittish because of the OGL drama and ensuing bad PR? Or is there something else afoot?

I think they're skittish because of everything else, causing the stock to drop, and that has worked in our favour. I doubt the OGL is the cause of anything.

 

[Umbran]

I don’t know if heads will role…but if anyone should know how fickle customers can be, and the need to stay on their good side, a toy company should.

Not really, and that was probably part of the problem.

Most of Hasbro's traditional toy and game stuff was low engagement. Like, everyone buys Monopoly, but it quickly ends up on a closet shelf and gets dragged out once in a blue moon. Hasbro generally doesn't have to care about customer reaction to business decisions - nobody cares so much about them to raise a fuss.

WotC products, on the other hand, rely much more on a core market of fandom - remembering that "fan" is short for "fanatic". They messed with a horde of fanatics and got surprised by the result.

 

[ilgatto]

(...)
I don’t know if heads will role…but if anyone should know how fickle customers can be, and the need to stay on their good side, a toy company should.

Not really, and that was probably part of the problem.

Most of Hasbro's traditional toy and game stuff was low engagement. Like, everyone buys Monopoly, but it quickly ends up on a closet shelf and gets dragged out once in a blue moon. Hasbro generally doesn't have to care about customer reaction to business decisions - nobody cares so much about them to raise a fuss.

WotC products, on the other hand, rely much more on a core market of fandom - remembering that "fan" is short for "fanatic". They messed with a horde of fanatics and got surprised by the result.

That is an interesting point. Because of its nature, D&D has "players" that put a lot of creative effort into their games, in effect making the game as much "theirs" as it can be of any company that seeks to market it. Co-owners of the game, as it were.

The same likely goes for what is called "the design team" these days, which I understand to mostly comprise folk who love and play the game themselves and now get to create its rules.

So I suppose it could be argued that each time top execs seek to make it into a vehicle for raking in the cash, to use it for any other purpose than to contribute to the game, to do anything with it that goes against the credo of its "co-owners" - this is much more likely to lead to problems than in the case of games people "just play".

All of which speaks in favor of a palace revolution?

It may be hard to prove, though (at least until some investigative journalism has been done), for if any heads are going to roll because of it, it now seems that there is at least one other big reason for such an event.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

WotC backs down

Well, that's a triple one-eighty if ever I saw one ... with sugar on top.

So WTL just happened here?

Civitas ad portas?

A palace revolution?

Plan B?

Not to be nitpicky, but it was a three-sixty after they tried a one-eigthy.

 

[ilgatto]

Not to be nitpicky, but it was a three-sixty after they tried a one-eigthy.

By Ningauble! You're absolutely right!

 

[TerraDave]

Not really, and that was probably part of the problem.

Most of Hasbro's traditional toy and game stuff was low engagement. Like, everyone buys Monopoly, but it quickly ends up on a closet shelf and gets dragged out once in a blue moon. Hasbro generally doesn't have to care about customer reaction to business decisions - nobody cares so much about them to raise a fuss.

WotC products, on the other hand, rely much more on a core market of fandom - remembering that "fan" is short for "fanatic". They messed with a horde of fanatics and got surprised by the result.

I would not underestimate the engagement of Pepa Pig fans.

But isn't WotC running the show now? The new CEO moves from Seattle to Rhode Island and forgets the fan base?

In any case, obviously someone made a big mistake.

 

[Umbran]

All of which speaks in favor of a palace revolution?

I don't know about "revolution". At least this:
Top Exec: We have had a crummy year. We need to do some things to make up for it.
Other exec: We can do this stuff with the D&D license! And get Big Money^TM!
Some Leader In D&D: Um, folks, this is a Bad Idea^TM
explosions heard in the distance
TE: AAAAAHHHH!
OE: AAAAHHHH!
SLID&D: So, like I was saying....