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

[I'm A Banana]

WOTC cuts off the PDF's due to piracy. We'll take them at their word.

Where's the problem? They are not obligated to sell anything. They stopped selling a product because, apparently, piracy was a concern and to combat this, they chose to take their ball and go home.

Only two main problems with this, really.

1. The approach is ineffective in achieving its stated goal. Anyone who cares to can find pirated, recent WotC material easily. Stuff like the Essentials line -- which gives you counters and dungeon tiles -- is probably a more effective approach, since it gives you things that cannot easily be reproduced.
2. They aren't currently selling older edition material, so fears about piracy cutting into current sales of things they don't currently sell are paradoxical and paranoid.

They can do whatever they want with their product, but I am free to call it out as (from my perspective) a pretty ignorant approach, if I see it that way. In the case that PDFs are pulled due to piracy, I do see it that way.

In the case that they're pulled due to being unprofitable, I could understand it, though I'd wonder why they said it was due to piracy, then.

But, boycotting a company because they choose to no longer make something available seems incredibly self centered.

Unless, of course, they no longer make what you want to buy.

For people who are not fans of 4e for some fundamental reason, that's pretty much the case.

They don't sell pdf's. Let it go. Why keep bitching and whining about it?

Dude, check the thread title. The PDF issue is clearly something that would "win back the disenchanted," and that pretty much makes sense to me, since it would involve WotC selling things for a game that those people play.

The message is, essentially, like asking Nickelodeon to sell you DVDs of The Adventures of Pete & Pete. They no longer make this thing, they've moved on to other things, but people still fondly remember and watch the show, so you can sell the show to them, still.

 

[Coldwyn]

WotC currently makes virtually nothing that I want to purchase. If they were to add older edition materials to the DDI, I would likely subscribe to the DDI for the convenience. Judging from the response to this thread, I'm not alone. Now, if WotC market research shows that the cost/benefit ratio of this operation is not favorable, then it makes little sense for them to do it. However, the only public reason WotC gave for pulling the PDFs was "piracy," which, of course, is ridiculous, since any given 4E book is now scanned and available from the usual illegal DL sites within a week of its release. The only think different is the quality of the release, but OCR works wonders nowadays. In other words, the pulling of PDFs did absolutely nothing to reduce piracy, so their only stated reason for not selling the PDFs is moot. Anything else, including Hussar's arguments is pure speculation.

Jut some thoughts to that:
Illegal PDFs of OOP products were availlable way longer than the official PDF for sale. So I guess it´s not "The official PDF got pirated" but rather "No on buys the official PDFs because the pirated ones are already in circulation".
For me, the question here is, which person who already has his pirated copies of every book out there would re-buy all that stuff just because it´s on sale now?
On the pirated 4E books: Well, they are not a total loss. People still pay for their DDI account, so there is still a revenue stream fueled by the products.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Yeah its weird!

Marvel has licensed characters to movie studios like fox. Basically they have no legal input on what Fox does with the characters in film. If FOX wanted to make Wolverine: The Gardening Years, Marvel has no say as long as they produce movies.

Incidentally that is why Spiderman went back to Marvel. They could not get a director for Sony's SPiderman IV. Now marvel is producing it in house. Marvel is no longer licensing characters. Unfortunately XMEN and Wolverine still have a long duration.

Tangent : Spider-Man is still licensed to Sony. It's why Sony kicked into overdrive after Sam Raimi left the franchise. They had to produce a new Spider-Man movie by a certain date or the property reverted BACK to Marvel.

 

[Mournblade94]

The biggest issue, and one Hasbro would have a very strong opinion about, is Wizards having confusion about their intellectual property.

"Customer support may I help you?"
"My son bought this D&D module online for his D&D game, but the rules are all different."
"Sir, that's Third Edition material, it's not compatible with the Fourth Edition game sold in stores."
"Then why are you selling it on your website next to the new stuff?"


As a gamer, this seems silly and easily explainable. As an executive making decisions about moving product, this seems like a situation you do not want to be in.

ST's point, I think, about customer confusion is more likely to have to do with WotC's stance on this (although they could have made that argument instead of the piracy one).

IN all reality, I think the magnitude of fury would have been greater if in fact they admitted to ST's point above.

I know it is a rational decision. I for one would have been furious even though the company has very little choice. The simple reason is I hate when things get dumbed down for the general public (STOP! I DO NOT MEAN 4E is DUMBED DOWN, what I mean is customer service now needs to deal with people who does not understand gaming conventions). Happens with movies all the time, and before the internet age, was the biggest complaint of fans, i.e. how they 'ruined' an ip by dumbing it down for the general viewing public.

NOTE: Very often I was the one complaining about it.

 

[Shazman]

Personally...I'm kinda amused that WOTC is being faulted for trying to appeal to a new generation of gamers who have grown up on anime and videogames...

I mean, AD&D would never try to be hip by stealing something from popular culture like say a tv show about some white guy playing a monk in a western setting....

I don't think anyone is faulting WotC for trying to get younger players involved in D&D. The fact that they are doing it in a way that completely alienates long time fans of the game, many of which have spent a lot of money on the hobby over the years, is what many are upset about.

 

[Mournblade94]

Tangent : Spider-Man is still licensed to Sony. It's why Sony kicked into overdrive after Sam Raimi left the franchise. They had to produce a new Spider-Man movie by a certain date or the property reverted BACK to Marvel.

AH! Well my comic guruness has been defeated. Anyway I thought SOny lost the license. I know that Bendis is working on the script, but the information funnleing through the comics network has a fault somewhere... many thanks.

I thought they DIDN'T complete it by the date.

 

[El Mahdi]

...your best bet is the community. And one of the great things about D&D of every edition so far is that it has a marvelously generative community. So you're not loosing much.

I can't agree more. ENWorld is a perfect example of just how good the community is. I've seen more creative and innovative D20 mechanics since the end of 3E, than I have during. And almost all from community generated submissions. Doesn't really matter the edition, there's an awesome community out there. And despite the sometimes edition wars, there's some very helpful cross-edition sharing. I may not play 4E, but it is D&D...and Man, I Love D&D!


But the "official" support would still be extremely welcomed.

 

[Reynard]

If WotC put out X Anniversary Editions of Older books/modules/campaign setting, just as they were originally printed, with perhaps new covers or nice bindings, I'd buy every one -- even those I already own -- simply because I think WotC should be rewarded for appreciating and embracing the very long history of the game and the people that have kept it alive for decades.

 

[MrMyth]

If the kind a roleplay support that a player (such as myself) is looking for is roleplay support that puts first "imagining what could exist in the D&D world" and "assign the mechanics that make that feel realistic and then I’m done", as Andy directly stated prior editions did and 4E does not, then 4E is not going to provide that. And that isn't a subjective assessment. That is the way the game was designed.

Whether or not that is a GOOD THING is, of course, absolutely, subjective.

I'm sorry, but I'll continue to maintain that believing that is how the edition is designed is an subjective opinion.

I do get that the editions are different. There are elements that some players will prefer in each, absolutely.

But rather than pointing out any actual elements that fit this concern you have, you keep returning to this one quote, and reading things into it that aren't there.

Look, here is what you said - you said you want to play a monk because "I want to be the guy who masters his body and contemplates his place in the multiverse and through all of this achieves a supernatural ability to jump and kick, amongst other things."

You then implied that 4E is sacrificing those desires - or putting less importance on them - in order to ensure that the jumping is mechanically balanced. That this is a "ruleset that puts 'being the character' as a secondary tier subservient to tabletop miniature equity".

That is not an objective fact. That is making a claim about the game that, if you really want them to fix, you need to genuinely demonstrate where the problem is.

Because the 4E monk seems to be built around exactly those elements you are looking for. I don't see its character being placed second to other elements. If you genuinely do, then I really want to be shown how.

Sure, both games have elements they offer that appeal to different people. But the reason I've been commenting on your posts is because you have been avoiding talking about any actual elements. You've just made a claim about 4E philosophy and indicated that your opinion of it is objective fact - that any who disagree with you are simply wrong, or are denying reality, or proclaiming that 'you can tackle people in baseball'. And that just isn't helpful, in my view, to either you or WotC in a discussion of this nature.

 

[Umbran]

Unless, of course, they no longer make what you want to buy.

Well, it is hardly a boycott then. I cannot boycott Coca-Cola by refusing to buy their gasoline. Not buying that which you weren't going to buy anyway isn't a boycott.