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

[MerricB]

Reading this long and quite fascinating thread, it seems there's at least some general consensus that WotC could win back quite a few lapsed customers by doing at least one of:
4. supporting older editions in DDI, Dungeon, etc.[/list]
I can think of absolutely no good reason why they don't do #4 right now. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the cost of doing so would doubtless be covered and then some by the increase in subscription revenue, and assuming said support was generally any good the increase in goodwill value would be tremendous.

Let's say that Wizards include one previous edition adventure in each month of Dungeon Magazine. Month one, OD&D, Month two, AD&D, Month three, AD&D2, Month four 3.5e, then repeat.

Is that worth your money? $10 each month for just those adventures?

I would suggest that most people wouldn't consider it worth it. And the "goodwill" you create by publishing those adventures is nice, but unfortunately you lose the goodwill of the 4E customers who are losing the 4E content you sacrifice to put in the older edition material.

Splitting the market is such a major thing to RPG publishers and players because RPGs are so time-intensive. I have over 200 boardgames, but each weekend I'm likely to play 5-10 different games. In a year, I'd be lucky to play three different RPGs. I do not believe that RPG players in general and D&D players in particular tend to hop from RPG to RPG.

The making available of previous edition PDFs is another matter entirely.

Cheers!

 

[renau1g]

If they could do that without reducing their support for the current edition maybe, but in all liklihood they'd have to print one less 4e adventure per month and I really would be upset by that. There's already enough Dungeon adventures for those that want them in back issues.

 

[renau1g]

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.

From a business perspective, money you spent in the past doesn't matter. They only care about current/future profits, therefore current/future sales, just as any business that makes money should. Wizards doesn't care that you bought every 1e book that was published, or even that you bought every 3e book. Those profits have already been booked, the shareholders have received their dividends (or increased share value) and the managers their bonuses. Now they look forward and try to gain customers who will spend more money. Younger individuals have more time, and likely will spend more money as they don't have a family, mortgage payments, car payments, utilities, etc. that most of those playing for years have.

It's a cold rationalization, but look at Jack Welch, he was certainly not a loving, feel good CEO, but damn he increased shareholder value and that's what every business strives to do.

Also, I've played since 2e and I feel no alienation, so please don't paint everyone who's played for a long time with the same brush. Thanks.

 

[renau1g]

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.

Yeah, this is my perspective as well. As has been hashed out in dozens of threads, we have incomplete information on their decision to stop selling PDFs. If you try for 5 minutes I'm sure you could locate the pirated PDFs of older editions. End of the day WoTC is a business and if the business didn't have a positive ROI, or even a high enough ROI vs. comparable opportunities for their limited investments, then that's likely why they shut it down. They might have officially said pirated copies were the culprits because the backlash might even be greater if they said they weren't making enough money on it.

 

[Wicht]

From a business perspective, money you spent in the past doesn't matter. They only care about current/future profits, therefore current/future sales, just as any business that makes money should. Wizards doesn't care that you bought every 1e book that was published, or even that you bought every 3e book. Those profits have already been booked, the shareholders have received their dividends (or increased share value) and the managers their bonuses. Now they look forward and try to gain customers who will spend more money. Younger individuals have more time, and likely will spend more money as they don't have a family, mortgage payments, car payments, utilities, etc. that most of those playing for years have.

I don't buy into the "younger people have more money" idea. More time yes. Money no. I spend more now, in my 30s on my hobby, than I ever did in my 20s (of course I blame Paizo).

As well, while past sales may not count towards future profits, the habits of past customers should not be ignored. Its foolish to write off faithful customers in an attempt to gain younger customers. I have come to believe this was not their intention, though it was, for many of us, what did happen.

 

[billd91]

The fact that the WOTC pdf's were often best sellers on Drive Thru only proves how incredibly small Drive Thru's sales are. When a twenty year old OOP product sells better than any new one is a commentary on new products.

Or that there's a significant demand for 20 year old OOP products in electronic formats. Without specific sales numbers, there's no way to tell the difference between your guess and the opposite.

It's pretty obvious to me. If the pdf's were a signficant revenue source, they'd be selling them. They're not selling them, therefore, they were not a significant revenue source. People voted with their wallets and the pdf's lost.

But we don't know that, do we? WotC cited piracy and nothing else. You're making a big assumption.

I will say that even your assumption gets at some of this thread's complaints about WotC. Your assumption tells me that even you aren't taking WotC at their word. But apparently you don't see why that might make for disgruntled, disenchanted customers (or even ex-customers). Personally, I don't like being lied to that much. Do you?

 

[billd91]

I don't buy into the "younger people have more money" idea. More time yes. Money no. I spend more now, in my 30s on my hobby, than I ever did in my 20s (of course I blame Paizo).

I don't buy it either, particularly when WotC's market survey data 10 years ago indicated the opposite. The highest spending group by far was the oldest (25-35) age group. Gamers over 35 weren't studied by the survey, so we don't know anything about their buying habits from this particular survey.

It's possible that practices have changed somewhat, but I see no reason to believe they've changed that significantly.

 

[renau1g]

It certainly wasn't their intention, I'm also sure of that. I'm also sure that Wizards has a lot of demographic information on sales, spending habits, etc. that most of us don't have. I know I spent more in my 20's than I do now in my 30's precisely because I'm working full time, have children to pay for, a mortgage, car payments, etc and have less disposible income than when I was in high school or university, despite increased earnings.

I really don't think they "wrote off" customers, but rather focused on their core brand and core products to increase profitability. Just like GM cut out Pontiac and Saturn to focus on their core brands (which seems to have resulted favourably for them) and GE did the same back in the 80's, which also was successful, Wizards is likely focusing on 4e, the DDI, and Essentials to maximize profitability.

 

[renau1g]

But we don't know that, do we? WotC cited piracy and nothing else. You're making a big assumption.

I will say that even your assumption gets at some of this thread's complaints about WotC. Your assumption tells me that even you aren't taking WotC at their word. But apparently you don't see why that might make for disgruntled, disenchanted customers (or even ex-customers). Personally, I don't like being lied to that much. Do you?

I actually have no issues with their discontinuation of sales of the PDFs, but I an in agreement with Hussar here. If they were making money hand over fist and it was generating as much or more than 4e, there is no way they'd stop selling them.

Look at companies who operate factories in China. Sure their designs are stolen as soon as they start building them and knock-off products are on the street at nearly the same time as official ones are. But companies still operate there as they are still able to make more money by having production costs low and losing a small amount of potential customers who purchase the knock-offs, than by producing them in say USA and having much higher costs.

 

[renau1g]

I don't buy it either, particularly when WotC's market survey data 10 years ago indicated the opposite. The highest spending group by far was the oldest (25-35) age group. Gamers over 35 weren't studied by the survey, so we don't know anything about their buying habits from this particular survey.

It's possible that practices have changed somewhat, but I see no reason to believe they've changed that significantly.

Hehe, I considered the 25-35 group to be the younger ones as there's little chance that anyone 25 was playing D&D in 1977, as we weren't even born then.