What would WotC need to do to win back the disenchanted?

[renau1g]

Ironically, despite me only playing 4e, Paizo gets more of my gaming dollars each month as I subscribe to their adventure path and pay like $20/month, and with WoTC I only spend $6/month on the DDI. I really want Wizards to put out some better adventures

 

[Wicht]

Link to this post and get back to me in 8 years and we'll see which one of us is right, then. Does that seem fair?

The Question I was answering was, "Why would they do that?" The answer is Nostalgia sells.

You may be right that they won't do it, but I'm not sure what I'm wrong about. Hasbro currently sells nostalgia markeketed games. Their Nostalgia Monopoly is priced at close to $100 on Amazon. Obviously, not only does Hasbro feels that Nostalgia sells, but they think there are some fans of Monopoly willing to pay $100 for an 'antique' version of the game.

 

[renau1g]

Agreed. So they have done their market research and identified that there is a market large enough to sell $100 board games to that are replicas of the original game, AND that the amount they'll make on those sales will be greater than they could invest that money for with other opportunities.

Nostalgia sells, but it must sell better than other options, especially with the credit market still being screwed up, it's still difficult for companies to get money to launch new products.

 

[caelum]

It seems self-evident to me that WotC is concerned about those who didn't convert to 4e. Like it or not, the launch of 4e did alienate lots of D&D players, and the success of Pathfinder shows that those folks have moved on. One rule of business is to keep your existing customer base - that ought to be a lot easier than breaking into a new demographic/area. And 4e was not nearly as successful at that as 3e. (I have no idea of the relative success of 4e and Pathfinder, except to say that both are obviously successful.)

If you don't believe the logic, look at Essentials. The original strategy was for this line to draw in new players. (The original strategy for the main line was to make existing customers happy - obviously that had mixed success.) Now, with specialty classes and variable power structures and auto-hit magic missile, Essentials is also trying to bring back the "old school" feel. Presumably that's to appeal to customers they have lost - because obviously the current 4e players don't care much. So, evidently, WotC wants to appeal to their lost customer base. If they believe they should do so, why shouldn't we?

Also: hooking them young in order to maintain a long-term revenue stream only works if you can keep them hooked. To the extent that older gamers drop out of the system because the company focuses on the next generation, it's not going to work.

On another topic, of course pre-3e pdfs weren't a big moneymaker. But that's not the point: WotC yanked them from the shelf and alienated even more people. It takes almost no effort for them to be there - since all of that legwork had been done years ago - and, really, does anybody honestly believe that 1e adventures compete with 4e? Fans of those editions have an absolute right to be angry at WotC over yanking the products they like, as I'm sure many 4e fans would be angry if they quit supporting that game.

The reality is that older edition pdfs were a casualty over concerns about piracy of 4e books, and I believe an unnecessary (and unfortunate) one. No doubt the profits were small, so they didn't bother distinguishing them. I have no illusions that DDI should include support for past editions, but I think that making pdfs available is such a trivial thing, and would generate such goodwill, that they ought to do it.

 

[renau1g]

The fact that fans were kept for 30-ish years is definitely proof that they were "kept hooked". I'm not sure how many current 4e fans were alienated by the refusal to sell past edition source material.

Fans of prior editions can be upset I suppose, but it's like being mad at Microsoft for not supporting Windows 95. Sure you can use it, but Microsoft is only supporting their current OS (and I believe a few generations back). Or say Sony for not supporting PS2 anymore, mine still works in my basement, but they're focusing on PS3.

I care about specialty classes and variable power structures, just because I currently enjoy the game doesn't mean I love every facet of it and this to me is a nice addition.

Also, it's difficult to compare Paizo to WoTC, because they are not a similar size. Paizo is listed as 23 employees while WoTC is around 387 or so (according to Linked In), including freelancers. That means that Wizards is about 17x the size of Paizo. What Paizo might deem a success, Wizards may deem a failure.

 

[Mournblade94]

These products people are clamouring to have Wizards sell as PDFs are often available used online; but several people have put Wizards selling them again as something that would validate this relationship they have with the company. But consumers' only relationship with a company is to be exploited, to spend money on product. No company cares about you, personally, or ever did. The feeling that they did was just the result of marketing to your demographic.

I don't think anyone is clamoring for this. The thread was what can WOTC do to get old customers back. People listed what WOTC COULD do.

I know what WOTC could do, but I don't care if they do it, because I don't want them around anymore. They make a game called D&D, that is great. I recognize the game I play as truer to Dungeons and Dragons than the current one touted by WOTC. So what do I care if they do something or nothing to get me back. I will however address hypotheticals in a thread.

 

[Lanefan]

Print Dungeon and Dragon combined sold about 50 000 issues a month under Paizo. That wasn't profitable enough to keep them in print.

Something's wrong with this, in that there's many magazines out there that can only dream of those sales numbers and yet still manage to keep going...

Lanefan

 

[BryonD]

Fans of prior editions can be upset I suppose, but it's like being mad at Microsoft for not supporting Windows 95.

Win95 is technologically obsolete. 1E is not.

I don't think WotC should be expected to support any prior game. It is silly to expect them to.

But your example is very flawed.

 

[BryonD]

People have hit some fundamental "truths" of marketing in the last few pages.

Selling to teens and young adults is the right move in a capitalist system. You hook them early, get them devoted to spending on your product over their lifetime.

You are 100% correct here.

As I said upstream, even if the "snot nosed kid" spends all his money on games, my small fraction of expendable income beats "all" of his. But only for now.
Eventually, he will have the "small fraction of expendable income" and I'll be dead.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Something's wrong with this, in that there's many magazines out there that can only dream of those sales numbers and yet still manage to keep going...

Lanefan

On top of which, Paizo certainly wanted to keep them going, and WotC seems to have gotten an agreement from Paizo to not publish a magazine for a set period in order to avoid the competition. It seems that both Paizo and WotC believed that the numbers were large enough to be a concern.