D&D 5E Well played WOTC (or Free RPG Day 2015)

[thalmin]

By the way, Free Comic Book Day is only free for the consumer. The stores actually have to buy all those comics they're giving away. It's good for them because it increases footfall but they still have to invest into it.
I don't know how Free RPG Day works but it's worth considering before deciding whether the comparison between the two is fair. Anyone know?

Yes, the participating game stores do have to purchase the free products. We sign up and decide how heavily we want to participate, but we have no choice in what we get, only in how many. We can purchase 1 or more "kits", which are all alike. Each kit contains 15 of each "platinum sponsor" product, 10 of each "gold", 4 or 5 of each "silver", 3 of each "bronze, and one of each "sample." I don't remember exactly, but I think each kit cost about $90 or $95. I think each kit had just over 120 items.

 

[Iosue]

Now now now let's not try and spin this.

You know as well as I do that signing up and downloading mean nothing beyond those two words.

This has nothing to do with fan boys. Pathfinder had over 100,000 contributions to the playtest which means a lot more than just 175,000 people signing up and downloading the first playtest packet. They never ever released how many people physically took all the surveys and contributed to the playtest. If you are going to throw information around then please make sure you go into full detail about everything.

Dude, there's no way you can spin this to make Pathfinder's playtest bigger. The Pathfinder Alpha had 25,000 unique downloads. The Beta had 45,000. Even putting them together, that's only 70,000 compared to D&DN's 170,000. And incidentally, that 170,000 is the number of unique registrants for the playtest, not downloads, so there's no double counting like that there is in the Pathfinder number. Winner, D&DN.

Per Chris Perkins, the surveys got over a 50% response rate. Even speaking conservatively, 51% of 170,000 is 86,700. That means that even at minimum WotC got more responses to their surveys than the Pathfinder playtest got downloaded (even double counting). Winner, D&DN.

The WotC forums overwent a major overhaul, of course, and so now we can't see the D&DN forums. A look on the Wayback Machine, though, shows that by Sept. 11, 2013, before the conclusion of the playtest, the D&D Next discussion forums had 424,421 posts in General, 8,975 in DM Playtest, 7,691 in Player Playtest, and 37,890 in Playtest Packet. I'll tell you what -- we'll take out the 424,000 General posts, and stick with the 54,000 playtest-specific posts. Let's also give Pathfinder all 100,000 posts in that forum, even though I have no idea how many of those posts are playtest-specific, or not just repeating arguments. We'll credit each of them as a unique, individual contribution to the playtest. But then, we'll do the same to the 54,500 from the WotC forums, plus we're going to add the conservative 86,700 survey responses, for a total of 141,000 contributions to the playtest. Winner, D&DN.

I have much respect for Paizo, and their public playtest. They showed that it could be done. But in the end, it was at best 70,000 groups (but not really, because of double counting), playtesting 4 release packets over the course of a year. With WotC it was 170,000 groups (no double counting) playtesting over 10 playtest packets over the course of two years. At best, you can say the Paizo playtest forums were more active than the WotC playtest forums. But there's no way the Paizo playtest was bigger.

 

[aramis erak]

Either way, I ended up with a 250-page hardback book in my hands, with D&D on the cover and an extensive adventure inside. So, really, what difference does it make?

D&D, WotC, and HasBro on the cover... and the profits mostly going to HasBro as WotC profits. And also with Sasquatch's logo.

For a company like Sasquatch, their take home probably was still better than working on their own product lines. If not, then right close to doing so, and a lot less risk. But doing it also comes with a benefit for them - their name gets some increases in recognition.

Meanwhile, for WotC, they're scoping ideas, and putting freelancers to work doing adventures, while they do branding and big theme. Win Win.

There's nothing much for them to gain from Free RPG Day.

FFG only does Free RPG day when they have a forthcoming release they want to preview for hype building.

 

[Hussar]

And who are you to dictate whether someones feelings are justified? People feel how they feel. Feelings are not a logical thing you can measure and dictate.

I've already explained my view in regards to the rest. I'm not going to go round and round with you.

But, if your feelings are not based on logic, then there's no point in actually engaging you is there? And, by you, I mean anyone, not you the specific, just to be clear. If someone's feelings are illogical, then they are irrational, and thus, beyond any effort to engage them. As a producer of a product, why on earth would you try to engage irrational customers if you didn't have to? Why would you base your business decisions and marketing on irrational customers.

If WOTC had produced something for Free RPG Day, it is just as likely that these same irrational people would complain about the product not being what they wanted. We've certainly seen that repeated ad nauseum over the years. "WOTC, this twenty dollar bill you included in my PHB is folded entirely wrong! WotC can't do anything right!"

This thread, and others like it, only serve to reinforce my opinion that WOTC is doing exactly the right thing by refusing to engage.

 

[Mark CMG]

I expect that there are at least people there who know it exists. If so, maybe they were trying to be clever, and placed it so that it can sort of 'lead in" to the day.

Yup. And I seem to recall a Worldwide D&D Day was scheduled on Free RPG Day a couple years back, even though Free RPG Day was scheduled well in advance.

Yup, after a quick search, here's a link to Tenkar discussing it on his excellent blog -

http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/02/free-rpg-day-worldwide-d-game-day.html

Well, if you are right, and they are aware of these events, they either care or they don't care. That is to say, they either think these events matter and are reacting in the way they do for some purpose, whatever that might be, or they don't think these established events matter and the scheduling of their own events to coincide are mere coincidence. I guess we could ask them, if only we spoke Hovitos.

 

[exile]

If WOTC had produced something for Free RPG Day, it is just as likely that these same irrational people would complain about the product not being what they wanted. We've certainly seen that repeated ad nauseum over the years. "WOTC, this twenty dollar bill you included in my PHB is folded entirely wrong! WotC can't do anything right!

I like to think-- as far as I am concerned-- that this is incorrect. I was disappointed that WotC didn't offer any thing for Free RPG Day; but I have been very pleased with their offerings from years past.

 

[delericho]

I like to think-- as far as I am concerned-- that this is incorrect.

Unfortunately, I think Hussar has it right. One of the rules of the internet seems to be that whatever WotC does, even if that is nothing, someone will complain. If their Free RPG Day offering had been a crisp new $20, someone would probably complain because it gave them a paper-cut.

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) these same irrational people (. . .)

I'm not sure what's wrong with these people.

This thread, and others like it, only serve to reinforce my opinion that WOTC is doing exactly the right thing by refusing to engage.

That's a big ten-four! Besides, they have you to keep us good and proselytized.

 

[Mark CMG]

Unfortunately, I think Hussar has it right. One of the rules of the internet seems to be that whatever WotC does, even if that is nothing, someone will complain. If their Free RPG Day offering had been a crisp new $20, someone would probably complain because it gave them a paper-cut.

Naw, I think the problem lies with certain folks thinking any complaint about a single aspect of something they enjoy is somehow an indictment of the whole, and further that all of the complaints they hear/read from individual sources can somehow be collectively attributed to each and every individual who dares to open their mouth. I, for instance, don't care for the scheduling of certain events but ask any broad-brusher who disagrees a month from now and anything in this thread with which they disagreed will be thought of as my opinion as well. That's one of the ways in which the Internet is misunderstood.

 

[delericho]

Naw, I think the problem lies with certain folks thinking any complaint about a single aspect of something they enjoy is somehow an indictment of the whole, and further that all of the complaints they hear/read from individual sources can somehow be collectively attributed to each and every individual who dares to open their mouth.

Yep, that seems to be one of the other rules of the internet. For all that it seems to give lots of people a voice, it's really bad at nuance.