What do you think WotC "owes" gamers?

[pawsplay]

Don't be childish.

What does this mean?

Let me restate my position: a company that beleives they are in business ONLY to make money is in moral error, and someone who believes their obligations can be reduced to contractual ones is in moral error. Just as an example, parents owe their children to feed and clothe them, and companies owe it to their communities not to destroy the environment or economy.

Given that people have made D&D a hobby, and WotC has prospered from the existence of that hobby, as mutually interdendent entities, WotC and the fandom owe it to each other to help the other prosper as long as both desire that the other should continue to exist.

Which is to say, if Wizards has made money selling supplements, but makes poor decisions that lead to bad sourcebooks being produced, they have let down their fans who have already invested in rulebooks, other supplements, and so forth. "Don't like it, don't buy it," is the appropriate answer, but it does not address the notion that if WotC does not make an appropriate attempt to give people what they want and can use, and is only interested in dollars, they are existing parasitically.

Parasitic corporations do not have a right to exist. Doing business is a function of society, and society has better purposes than lining the pockets of those who exploit others.

 

[Herobizkit]

Nothing, any more than Heinz owes me anything.

IMO, Heinz DOES owe us something. Heinz owes us the responsibility of creating a reliable, consistent, and easily identifiable product. If I buy a Heinz ketchup here in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, I should be able to buy the same product in Orlando, Florida and expect it to be "the same". If it's not "the same" (such as Heinz Spicy Ketchup, or the kind that's purple, or whatever), we should be made aware of this by proper labelling.

By the same token, WotC owes up the responsibility of creating a reliable, consistent, and easily identifiable product. Whether or not they HAVE, I cannot say... 90-95% of my gaming purchases are non-WotC products.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Let me restate my position: a company that beleives they are in business ONLY to make money is in moral error...

I mean your entire post reflects a niave, even childish mentality. It is not the way the world works nor do most economists support that idea. so what you propose fails in theory and it fails in application.

 

[Morrus]

IMO, Heinz DOES owe us something. Heinz owes us the responsibility of creating a reliable, consistent, and easily identifiable product. If I buy a Heinz ketchup here in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, I should be able to buy the same product in Orlando, Florida and expect it to be "the same". If it's not "the same" (such as Heinz Spicy Ketchup, or the kind that's purple, or whatever), we should be made aware of this by proper labelling.

In other words, they owe us the consideration of not cheating us by misselling inaccurately labelled products? And, by the same token, we owe them the consideration of not stealing their stock.

I agree that not engaging in mutually criminal behaviour towards one another is an obligation; but I don't think that was the thrust of this thread. In the same way, I owe you - I owe you the consideration of not stealing your stuff or killing your dog.

But I don't think that's what the original poster was asking about, and which some people have been discussing (I could be wrong). Basic societal obligations are, I think, assumed; they don't need pointing out. I thnk the OP means, more specifically, what does the company owe its dedicated fans above and beyond those considerations, or beyond those that a company who sells a single product to someone does. Is there an enhanced duty created by the concept of "fandom" or customer loyalty?

That aside, WotC still owes me over $1000. That's a specific debt they have towards at least one gamer!

 

[Morrus]

I mean you entire post reflect a niave, even childish mentality. It is not the way the world works nor do most economists support that idea. so what you propose fails in theory and it fails in application.

You can make your point without calling other members childish, please.

 

[jdrakeh]

However, publishers who act as if they owe their fans something tend to find their customers act as if they owe the publishers something. That's the important thing to remember as a publisher.

Exactly my point

I wrote a blog entry a while back highlighting what I considered to be especially atrocious (if not outright abusive) behavior on the part of publishers, where the treatment of fans was concerned. Now, I mention therein exactly what you mention here -- that publishers are not in any way obligated to treat fans decently, but that if they don't, their business will likely suffer for it and, if it does, they have nobody to blame but themselves (although many of them will typically try to blame fans for their own behavior, if given the chance).

 

[mhacdebhandia]

My brother's flatmate works for Coca-Cola. He told me at my brother's graduation party last year that Coke would be bringing out Vanilla Coke Zero one year after they brought out Coke Zero (which was around the end of 2006).

Should I be upset at Coke or my brother's flatmate if I don't start seeing Vanilla Coke Zero on the shelves around the New Year?

Wizards of the Coast only has an obligation to publish game material that we, the fans, want to see inasmuch as doing otherwise is bad for business. In other words: giving us what we want not because we want it, but because giving us what we want is good for their business.

It's like Star Wars miniatures, produced under the Star Wars roleplaying game license to the exclusion of Star Wars roleplaying game products* because, no matter how vocal the Star Wars roleplaying game fans were, the fact was that more people were and became fans of the miniatures game, and it was a vastly better seller.

* As we all no doubt know, it was to the exclusion of roleplaying game products because the license only permitted a limited number of products per year and nothing from the roleplaying line sold better than a miniatures set.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

In days of yore, there were three groups to whom companies traitionally (and equally) owed their best efforts: The Customers, The Employees and the Shareholders.

Since the 1980's (And globalization) that list has now been tapered down to one: Shareholders.

QFT.

Brings back memories of the good ol' days though

 

[pawsplay]

I mean your entire post reflects a niave, even childish mentality. It is not the way the world works nor do most economists support that idea. so what you propose fails in theory and it fails in application.

I disagree. Standard Oil, JP Morgan, and Microsoft have all learned what happens when you disregard your responsibility to society. There is nothing naive about believing that morality exists, even if people choose to be immoral. The idea that business is divorced from social concerns is entirely an illusion. The institutions that do business are all created by society. Business owes its existence to society and is beholden to the protections and liberties generated by society. Writing "Inc." after the name of something does not excuse a business from citizenship. Companies can be, and often are, charged with criminal offenses and civil penalties. Companies and the people who operate them remain ethically responsible for what they do.

Failing to treat your fans and customers as human beings with interests in their own well-being well may not be a crime, but it is an immoral act on a smaller scale. I also believe that in the long run, businesses that exploit their customers are likely to fail. TSR is a prime case.

I believe the idea that businesses exist solely for profit is unsophisticated. Profit is what distinguishes a business from other social organs, but it is not the sum total of why a business exists. Just as a for instance, grocery stores exist so that people who are not farmers can eat. What distinguishes a grocery store from a public storehouse is that it is run for profit. But what distinguishes it from a book store is that you can buy apples.

A game company that purports to serve a fan base, for a profit, is performing a deception if they are actually operating for a profit, irrespective of the fan base. Furthere, they are vulnerable to discovery, and in the long run, are likely to discover they have cooked the golden goose. There are some ways of business that lead to customer loyalty and there are others that lead to pessimism or even anger.

Businesses are "citizens" after a fashion, and just as you and I are beholden to our friends, our families, our employers, our business partners, and so forth, businesses share those same relationships. I can say from experience that businesses do care about their reputation and their perceived morality, and that many believe strongly in honesty and trust to their customers. While many dot coms busted, the one I worked for went on to great financial success and was purchased by an international telecom. Unlike many of our competitors, we were very open about the cause and frequency of outages and other issues. We also extended maximum effort to honor contracts made by our subsidiaries, even for customers who had services we no longer sold. In all the years I worked there, doing level three support (final tier support), there was only one customer we ever told that we would not continue to offer the service he had purchased. This is markedly different than the experience many of you have had with your cell phone company, where your contract is ammended every six months or so.

The only way for an amoral business to make a profit is to create the illusion they are providing a valuable service honestly. If, in actuality, they were intending to manipulate people into giving them more money for less service, they obviously would not advertise such a fact.

Although an immoral person or an immoral person may claim they are independent of others, in actuality, they could not exist were it not for the greater numbers of relatively honest people whom they masquerade as.

The "tragedy of the commons" is an excellent demonstration of how unsophisticated the "anything for a buck" mentality is.

Good business is moral business. Anything else is an imitation of good business.

 

[Glyfair]

I wrote a blog entry a while back highlighting what I considered to be especially atrocious (if not outright abusive) behavior on the part of publishers, where the treatment of fans was concerned. Now, I mention therein exactly what you mention here -- that publishers are not in any way obligated to treat fans decently, but that if they don't, their business will likely suffer for it and, if it does, they have nobody to blame but themselves (although many of them will typically try to blame fans for their own behavior, if given the chance).

I will also say that I find the opposite is happening more & more frequently as well. I know a number of consumers who will go somewhere to save a small amount of money, even though they are no longer supporting a business that had gone out of their way for that customer (and often, for their customers as well).

Companies aren't the only thing making decisions solely based on the money. Consumers are doing it as well.