When did I stop being WotC's target audience?

[WayneLigon]

I think everyone stops being the target audience for anything around about every 7-12 years. The music you grew up with is now packaged as 'cool nostalgia' for the 15-25 demographic. The TV show you liked is now regularly mocked by that hot young comedian as 'painfully old-fashioned and stupid'. The game you once played added new stuff when newer customers demanded newer things after having been exposed to them in other newer games, or the designers decided to 're-engineer for a new generation'.

5-8 years from now, we'll have 5E and the exact same arguements, complaints and threads will come up once more. Then the same will happen for 6E.

The only way to combat it is to embrace and adapt.

 

[jdrakeh]

Frankly, I hear a lot of "WotC ignored my advice, so screw them!" whining from older gamers who don't want to change. What these people fail to appreciate is that D&D isn't a hobby for WotC — it's a business.

Like any business, WotC must change its marketing strategy and products as the market changes, pursuing the majority of consumers. If they don't do this, they don't earn any revenue. If they don't earn any revenue, they go out of business.

You don't want to change? Then don't — but don't expect a company to waste time and resources catering to you and your tiny band of holdouts, ignoring the will of the consumer majority in an effort to win you back as customers.

No sane or responsible business owner would ever put the screws to legions of willing customers currently giving them money in order to satisfy the whims of a few former customers who currently refuse to buy anything. That's just not how basic commerce works.

 

[HelloChristian]

The only way to combat it is to embrace and adapt.

Or, just keep on doing what you are doing if it makes you happy. Find an edition you like and play the hell out of it.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

When did I stop being WotC's target audience? And why? Why did WotC decide to forego the money I was giving them? Are people like me so rare that WotC actually can't make a profit from us?

My answers:

1. You stopped being their target audience when they misjudged the market while creating and prepping for the release of 4e.

2. You stopped being it because they misjudged the market. They assumed a larger part of 3e's market would carry over into 4e in spite of the philosophical shift.

3. They didn't decide to forego your money. They made a mistake.

4. No. They made a profit off you in 3e.

Just my answers. But I think it's safe to say WOTC wishes the transition to 4e had gone a lot more smoothly than it has. The lead of the design team stepping down a couple months after the major release is probably significant. Maybe not... but probably is.

 

[jdrakeh]

Find an edition you like and play the hell out of it.

Don't be silly! Posting on message boards about how a faceless multi-million dollar corporation has personally wronged you is far more productive

 

[El Mahdi]

I tried posting this earlier in the conversation but it was eaten (it encountered an internet sphere of annihilation). I hope this isn't too far behind the conversation, although I have read the rest of the thread (and now I'm TIRED!).


I just turned 40 this year also, and I am not switching to 4E, but I really don't know if it has anything to do with my age or "generation". I'd be interested in seeing a poll of those who switched and didn't switch based on age group. Maybe there is a generational facet to it, maybe there isn't. Hmmmm.

Anyways, I agree with Jeff for the most part. In fact I probably feel about 90% the same way. So I'm not trying to belittle him or his opinion. But...

I don't think that WoTC decided that I'm not their target customer anymore, I think it's that I decided I'm not their target customer anymore.

Now, that doesn't mean I have anything against WoTC. I don't. I think WoTC made a smart business decision based on their financial and market research, and on customer and fan feedback. They just used that information to go in a different way than I would have preferred. They made a game that's popular, achieved the goals they set out to achieve, and I'm sure it's making money hand over fist, and I'm happy for them.

I'm just a little sad and disapointed (in the situation, not in WoTC) that our paths are diverging. But the reality is, it hasn't changed my game or the enjoyment I and my players have when playing it, one single bit. When the game is afoot, and the dice and monsters are being thrown about, the whole 4E/3E thing is the farthest from my mind. And I think that's all that really matters.

Now, maybe in 5 or 10 years, when 5E comes out, it may feel more like the type of game I prefer. I may even feel that D&D has gone "back to it's roots", or that I want to "play more", but that's for the future. I do think it's less from anything WoTC has done, than it is my tastes have diverged from theirs.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

My personal view of edition changes is this.

No one edition is better or worse in the grand-scheme of things. Yes for myself some edition may be better or worse, for myself 4e is better, but that is personal taste.

And personal taste is one of the key reasons in my eyes, edition changes are a welcomed thing. With a edition change there should be some radical changes, which yes may alienate some of the old fans, BUT! this may cause some others to find THEIR edition.

For some 4e is their edition, for another 3e, for another 2e, for another Basic, etc, etc. No edition is better or worse.

The only bad thing is staying with one edition forever because that means that there is a whole fan-community out there that hasn't found their edition.

So yes perhaps someone did buy all of 3e books but has no wish to buy 4e, there is a good chance it wasn't made for you, since 3e is perchance your edition. While 4e is anothers.

 

[teach]

I think what is interesting reading this thread, is that I never truly felt like I was WotC's target audience for 3.5. I bought the core books, and a couple splat books (because they had feats or prestige classes that sounded interesting) and the Eberron Campaign Guide. I think I've already spent as much on 4e that I did on 3.5. However, I was a huge consumer of 2e books. I loved the setting books, primarily the ones that moved away from the "vanilla lord of the rings" style fantasy (al-qadim, dark sun, planescape) and bought a ton of the campaign box sets (which was tough on my allowance). I was definitely TSR's target audience for 2e, as I bought into multiple settings (which I think was one of their big expected revenue streams at the time).

Now, I'm playing a ton more 4e than 3.5. Do I like the default setting? Marginally better, because I think the points of light allows for a lot more freedom in modifying it than the greyhawk-lite setting in 3.5. Also, in 3.5, the crunch (the feats and prestige classes) and the fluff seemed more tied together. Since I didn't really like the fluff in 3.5 much, it made it harder to enjoy and use the books because of the concern that if I changed the fluff would I also need to change the crunch. In 4e, the fluff and crunch appear to be seperated better (at least so far), so it's easier to ignore.

To tie back into the OP, I think 4e is more directed towards me and gamers like me (the kind that really like taking the core rules, and creating our own very diverse worlds around it, the kind that likes being tight with the combat rules, but loose with everytihng else). I'm lucky I guess in that I don't see the 4e rules getting in the way of the stories I want to tell, even though they include very little of the fluff included in 4e.

I agree that the books that have been released so far haven't been very "reader friendly". they really are books of crunch rather than books telling a story, and including crunch as needed. But I don't mind it, because I have my own stories I want to tell.

 

[chitzk0i]

WOW simply stated outright what was always lurking in the back of our gamist side: unique roles help individuals stand out in a party. And it's fun.

I don't really see this as a major part of WoW's design. I mean, look at this page. This information is very different from the focussed, codified roles that 4e has. WoW designers did increase player communication about party roles due to their strict party composition. In WoW, if a party has too few characters specifically intended to deal damage, they won't be able to take on monsters effectively. It will take much longer to kill monsters and the boss will probably kill you all.

So when you form a party in WoW, you have to get down to business. You have to say, "We need DPS!"

 

[Delta]

When did I stop being WotC's target audience? And why? Why did WotC decide to forego the money I was giving them? Are people like me so rare that WotC actually can't make a profit from us? Considering how much I spent on a monthly basis, I find that difficult to believe, but I guess maybe ...

CPerkins has the closest thing to my analysis:
(1) There was a great deal of continuity in the game from OD&D -> 1E -> 2E -> 3.0.
(2) At the dawn of 3E, Dancey & Co. gave away use of the IP via the Open Game License, irrevocably.
(3) Dancey left and management changed its mind about the OGL strategy and philosophy.
(4) Now they have to change the game quite radically in order to distinguish it from the OGL IP (in their thinking). Play must change; classes and races; powers must change; names of all the monsters must change to be trademark-protectible.

In summary: 4E had to be a radically different game to be locked-down IP according to current WOTC strategy. Your reaction is based on the fact that you fundamentally liked the game as it was for the first 30 years, and now it's quite different.