The Sundering has launched...

[billd91]

I don't think using your own IP is something to mock as "desperate".

Particularly not when you're invoking the nostalgia or "back to basics" approach that WotC is taking with D&D Next.

 

[jodyjohnson]

What my kids know of the Realms they learned from Baldur's Gate.

Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Waterdeep, and Neverwinter gave the Realms a lot of exposure and the Modules are 2/3 Setting Guides, 1/3 adventures.

 

[Derren]

I don't think using your own IP is something to mock as "desperate".

It is to me when the core franchise is piggybacking a side product because of its popularity.
Does D&D/FR not have enough "pull" on its own so it has to resort to riding on the success of 15 year old video games?

 

[jodyjohnson]

At least they'll never rode a whole year on their poster child for cool, the drow.

Or nearly a year on Neverwinter.

Baldur's Gate gets 3 months in the sun until they move on to Icewind Dale.

 

[Morrus]

It is to me when the core franchise is piggybacking a side product because of its popularity.
Does D&D/FR not have enough "pull" on its own so it has to resort to riding on the success of 15 year old video games?

What's with all this loaded language? "Desperate"? "Piggybacking"? "Pull"? "Resort"? The derision is dripping from your posts. I my opinion, which seems to be the diametric opposite of yours, if a company doesn't use its established, successful, popular IP, it's run by idiots. Are you suggesting that they should adopt a strategy of just using the unpopular stuff?

Does it bother you when DC makes a Batman comic? Why is DC piggybacking on Batman because of his popularity? Does the DC Universe not have enough "pull" on its own so it has to resort to riding on the success of 80 year old comic book characters?

 

[I'm A Banana]

It is to me when the core franchise is piggybacking a side product because of its popularity.
Does D&D/FR not have enough "pull" on its own so it has to resort to riding on the success of 15 year old video games?

"Side product?" Dude, there's probably more people out there who have played those games than have ever or will ever chuck a d20. It's the vanguard, the first volley, the opening salvo.

 

[ruemere]

I don't think using your own IP is something to mock as "desperate".

I think it's better described as "basic common sense", and is what every successful company on the planet from Coca Cola to Apple does.

In that case, naming the new initiative dndsundering (aka: the breaking of DnD) is a freudian blunder, isn't it?
Even dancing on a grave of a still living edition (i.e. announcing coming of Next and slowing support of 4E to almost nothing, while 4E was still supposedly in game), did not look as bad to me as this.

One thing more, they should be, IMHO, bolder with the retcon. It is hard to succeed if you just extinguish a cast of known heroic pantheon by fastforwarding, offer little to nothing new personnages, and then just reinvent the setting again. Come on - idols, face figures, champions of all causes - they sell the setting, because you find characters you want to hate, follow, help or thwart. The maps and empty names won't do.
Therefore, by reverting the change on the comological level, they should turn back the time (well, they can kill Mystra again, if they really feel like it - I really disliked that dumb notion of magic being handled by a single god) and go back to the golden age of FR. [*]

Regards,
Ruemere

[*] I'm all for culling deities, retiring of some obnoxiously ultrapowerful yet always impotent NPCs etc. Just bring back the realms as they were.

 

[Derren]

if a company doesn't use its established, successful, popular IP, it's run by idiots.

Except that the Baldurs Gate were never really WotC IP. Oh sure, they owned the rights of the world it played in, but the game was a product of Atari. And yet WotC seems the need to heavily draw on the popularity of products from a other company to promote their new edition instead of coming up with something on their own.
Was there any mention of the Baldurs Gate games in the FR PnP products? Small tidbits at most. And now suddenly WotC uses the iconography of the game heavily to promote their new product. Its not even sure that the Sundering has anything to do with the games and that instead WotC just uses the combination of Baldurs Gate and the Bhaal symbol to get cheep advertising. You might of course love it, but to me that does look like WotC does not trust that their own products are interesting enough.

And to use your example, did DC use the Dark Knight movies to heavily promote their Batman Comics and put lots of things from the movie into the comics like the new Bane? No, even though there were likely more people having watched Dark Knight than who read Batman comics.

"Side product?" Dude, there's probably more people out there who have played those games than have ever or will ever chuck a d20. It's the vanguard, the first volley, the opening salvo.

For WotC licensing out D&D was a side business. The core were and still are PnP products and novels. But now they have to use the products of other companies to promote their stuff as apparently they can't do it alone.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Part of me wonders if this won't just be a big "reset" to 1e that creates multiple timelinses, some where the Time of Troubles happened, some where the Spellplague happened, some where neither happened, some where both happened, some where other apocalpses happened...

 

[Morrus]

Except that the Baldurs Gate were never really WotC IP.

Of course it's WotC's IP. Maybe the actual game code isn't, but the content is.

And yet WotC seems the need to heavily draw on the popularity of products from a other company to promote their new edition.

You keep saying that like it's a bad thing. It's a good thing. Using your own IP is what you're supposed to do with it. It's like complaining that I'm using my own car.

You know what is a bad thing? Having valuable IP and never using it. That's almost mismanagement.

And to use your example, did DC use the Dark Knight movies to heavily promote their Batman Comics and put lots of things from the movie into the comics like the new Bane? No, even though there were likely more people having watched Dark Knight than who read Batman comics.

Holy keep editing your post, Batman! It's making it really hard to hold this conversation.

A quote from Dark Knight Returns was used in the SDCC press conference to announce the new Batman/Superman movie a couple of weeks ago. Again, an example of sensible promotion using one's own IP.