What do you think WotC "owes" gamers?

[Mistwell]

Just to briefly chiime in, pawsplay I feel you are expressing a view that is different from at least my own business experience, as a business owner.

 

[jdrakeh]

Well, it's hard for an individual "fan" to do that. Still, putting a publishers product up on filesharing networks probably comes close.

Hrm... good point. I honestly hadn't thought about that, but I think that I have to agree with you here.

 

[Glyfair]

I minored in Ethics. You can mean either you like. They don't differ in any definable way.

http://changingminds.org/explanations/values/values_morals_ethics.htm
http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/types.html

 

[jdrakeh]

And vice versa. Morality does not bring home the bacon, but neither does profit justify a business's existence.

I respectfully submit Enron as a grand example of an ethically and morally bankrupt company than ran on nothing but the promise of profit for the better part of a decade. It only collapsed when its profit margins dipped to the point that the truth of the matter could no longer be concealed -- the bulk of the unethical conduct wasn't exposed in ernest until after lagging profits sealed the company's fate. If Enron wasn't a wake-up call for those with a romantic notion of business, I suspect that nothing will be.

Point is, the romantic notion of a company that puts morals before basic economics is nice, but unrealistic. Most (if not all) financially successful businesses make decisions based on basic economics first and on ethical implications second (if at all). The sole exceptions to this rule of thumb may be businesses for whom morals are the business (i.e., faith-based businesses). And living where I do, I frequently have my doubts about that.

Saying "a business should be run only for profit" is similar to saying "a consumer should get a product for the absolute cheapest they can." So, for instance, the right thing for a consumer to do would be to buy from a wholesaler who has managed to gouge the publisher out of a profit. Soon after, the publisher folds, and no more books appear.

Wholesalers purchase their stock directly from publishers at a price which the publishers set -- a price that, unless a publisher is just plain crazy, earns them a profit. This being the case, your example ignores some basic realities of retail in favor of hyperbolic drama. If a consumer buys a book from a wholesaler, the publisher has already been paid for and earned profit on that book (true, not as much profit as they would have earned by selling direct to the consumer, but profit all the same).

It's not actionable if WotC starts producing a minis line that maximizes sales of boosters while frustarting collectors and gamers, but ultimately, the line is going to die.

Emphasis mine. And that's what everybody has been saying -- failing to provide consumers with what they want isn't actionable (i.e., there is no obligation there). It's certainly in a company's best interest to do this, but they are not required to do it, which is what "owing" somebody implies.

 

[Cadfan]

pawsplay-

I think you are getting confused. There is a difference between saying that a business "owes" its consumers certain things for moral reasons, and saying that a business ought to behave in a certain moral way because it will create long term profits. The latter argument is not actually about moral obligation, it is about faking moral obligation in order to profit from the appearance. This sort of argument is additionally weak in that if the underlying economic assumptions are wrong, the moral conclusions are likewise wrong. I suspect this is the case here, as I doubt that the resentment claimed on forums like these is anything more than the inevitable complaining of ennui-ridden fans who are entirely unrepresentative of the larger and more important D&D audience.

 

[pawsplay]

I fail to see how Enron is in any way a counterexample to my psoition. It is exactly something like Enron that I am thinking of when I say an unethical business can survive only by masquerading as an ethical one, and only for a time. Enron failed, utterly, totally. People who worked at Enron had trouble transitioning to new jobs because of the image of the company not only as a failure and a moral disgrace, but as a joke.

I happen to think there are a great many things for which you cannot sue someone over that are still ethical violations on a smaller scale. Just as blasting your stereo at just under the legal limit may not be illegal, but is still rude.

I don't think of myself as a business romantic at all. I think of myself as very hard-minded. I would be extremely reluctant to do business with someone, however tangentally, whom I felt was unethical, even if it were, to me, momentarily profitable. Sometimes there is a price to be paid for the high road. But discipline is essential to business. While our culture may glorify the "go for broke" big success stories, it's important to realize that most businesses who take big risks, fail. Simiarly, Enron is notable as a story in which, remarkably, things went bad for a long time before anyone noticed.

 

[jdrakeh]

I fail to see how Enron is in any way a counterexample to my psoition. It is exactly something like Enron that I am thinking of when I say an unethical business can survive only by masquerading as an ethical one, and only for a time. Enron failed, utterly, totally. People who worked at Enron had trouble transitioning to new jobs because of the image of the company not only as a failure and a moral disgrace, but as a joke.

Enron didn't succeeed for the time that did because people thought it was moral, but because they thought it was generating profit. Two different things entirely. Similarly, it didn't collapse because people saw it as being amoral (as I mention, much of that didn't come out until after it was all but dead in the water) -- it collapsed because it was no longer generating profit, and people became aware of that fact.

I get where you're coming from, but it ignores a lot of the realities surrounding the company's collapse. Your argument that business success hinges more on morality and ethics than it does on earning money simply ignores a great many econimic realities. It is very much a romantic notion, whetehr you recognize it as beign one or not. The reality, rather than the romance, is that treating people well is rarely enough to keep the doors open -- and companies such as Standard Oil, Enron, Merrill Lynch, and others stand testament to the reality that a business can treat people like crap, so long as they think that it is earning them money and not suffer one whit.

 

[Kunimatyu]

IFor example, if WotC says that in Eberron, it won't detail Xendrik, then two years later releases a supplement that does that exactly, does that constitute a breach of trust between a creator and consumer?

Actually, it constitutes you -not knowing what you're talking about-.

The Xen'drik book is designed to help a DM with Xen'drik exploration, but it doesn't "detail" Xen'drik, merely gives you a lot of modular pieces that you can choose to include or not. It doesn't precisely map out the whole continent, or say 'and this stuff is always there.' When Keith Baker was designing the book, he made a point of saying that he specifically DID NOT want to map out everything.

So, in closing, your example is wrong, and you shouldn't be taken seriously.

 

[pawsplay]

pawsplay-

I think you are getting confused.

Perhaps I have not made myself clear, and it is you who are confused.

There is a difference between saying that a business "owes" its consumers certain things for moral reasons, and saying that a business ought to behave in a certain moral way because it will create long term profits.

There is a difference, just as there is a difference between buying an apple and eating an apple. Both events may yet have related causes, while remaining distinct in a great many particulars.

It is true, the only way to say a business owes someone things for moral reasons is to say that, in fact, moral obligations exist, whether we wish them to or not. But I have no problem with that position. Some things are moral and some things are not. Some immoral things are illegal, some are civilly actionable, and some are neither yet immoral nonetheless.

Just as a for instance, I think it would be immoral for WotC to declare they are going to publish a sourcebook, Races of the Underdark, have it listed on Amazon, and take pre-orders, and then put out a book with the information promised on the advertising blurb, four pages of rules on foot-racing underground, and one hundred pages of the word "rhubarb" printed over and over. That would be considered bad faith.

In general, I tend to regard things as immoral to the extent to which they are self-destructive or isolating, but there are other ways of looking at morality.

A business can be excused from morality only so far as morality does not exist for individuals, either. And insofar as there is such a thing as morality, a business is not excused from it merely because they are in business.

To say that people often, and perhaps usually, behave immorally does not mean human beings are not subject to morals, which is equivalent to the argument put forth by the "you don't know business" position taken earlier. For instance, a milllion people sharing files does not make it more, or less, moral to do so.

 

[pawsplay]

Enron didn't succeeed for the time that did because people thought it was moral, but because they thought it was generating profit. Two different things entirely. Similarly, it didn't collapse because people saw it as being amoral (as I mention, much of that didn't come out until after it was all but dead in the water) -- it collapsed because it was no longer generating profit. I get where you're coming from, but it ignores a lot of the realities surroundied the company's collapse in favor of supporting your argument that business success hinges more on morality and ethics than it does on earning money.

I don't recall making the argument that morality was the primary attribute that would generate success in business. I only said it was one attribute that generally contributed to success. And that is aside from the fact that, whether or not a business is profitable or not, it can still act in ways that are moral or immoral. I believe there are some things so immoral no business should do them, at any profit. Human slavery is one issue many people feel that way about.