The market dying?

[eyebeams]

Why do the 80's wacky stuff include in your estimation of D&D popularity?

TV ads? A toy line during the height of the children's action figure market? It's not bad.

Besides, were they some extraordinary cash cow for the TSR?

Maybe they did. By some reckonings, it wouldn't have done them a bit of good either way.

 

[Turjan]

3 million according to this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3655627.stm

The 6 million came up this year from last years marketing study, together with the claim of continual growth. If someone has the search function, he should be able to find it on this board somewhere.

 

[turbo]

What does the viability of the brand name have to do with the health of RPGs?

 

[eyebeams]

But what does that actually have to do with the market dying or the D&D brand name itself being viable? As we saw, TSR couldn't manage it's money so that carton really didn't do a whole lot.

It's interesting how this has shifted to the "D&D brand name" from the game, Dungeons and Dragons. The two are not the same thing. Nor is TSR's competence directly relevant to D&D's popularity. That was one of the reasons WotC picked it up in the first place.

 

[Turjan]

Inforgrames/Atari has the exclusive license for a decade more, at least, after having had it practicallyever since Hasbro bought WotC. In fact, Hasbro paid big money to get back rights for almost everything *but* D&D and a couple of other things. This is why the E-Tools software project was virtually stillborn.

So you think it's not a successful brand? I heard they announced that they don't want to produce any game under the D&D license anymore. Their next game will use their own system and world.

 

[Turjan]

What does the viability of the brand name have to do with the health of RPGs?

Nothing. We were talking about advertising effects.

 

[eyebeams]

So you think it's not a successful brand? I heard they announced that they don't want to produce any game under the D&D license anymore. Their next game will use their own system and world.

No, I think D&D is a remarkably successful brand. Sometimes, that success even rubs off on the RPG of the same name

 

[Psion]

It's interesting how this has shifted to the "D&D brand name" from the game, Dungeons and Dragons. The two are not the same thing.

I thought you were the author of that direction in the thread; you pointing at the presence or lack of toys seemed to indicate that brand presence was an indicia of strength of the line. If that's not what you were after, just what were you getting at?

 

[Turjan]

No, I think D&D is a remarkably successful brand. Sometimes, that success even rubs off on the RPG of the same name

Okay, I agree on this point. Being too successful is often a problem, because the connection to the actual product gets lost, like with Coca Cola or Kleenex. It's like with "RPG" and "Dungeon & Dragons", which works at least in this way, though obviously not the other way round.

This leads to the question, how would an advertisement for D&D, the game, have to look like? Does it make sense to launch ads at all?

 

[Psion]

This leads to the question, how would an advertisement for D&D, the game, have to look like?

That's a really good question. New and glitzy ads would tend to oversell the product, make people think they are getting something like a CRPG. Something more down to earth would have to fall into the tune of the parker brothers "family game night" ads, which seem almost apologetic for not being new, glitzy computer games.

You and I know (at least I hope you know) how exciting RPGs can be. But how can you convey that. RPGs aren't much of a spectator sport.