When should we expect answers?

[Khairn]

Of course, I respect your opinion. But my point is there's absolutely nothing they could have, should have, or would have said that would take the sting off losing the major D&D publication for the entire course of the game's existence. There's absolutely no future product or plan they could reveal that would change that loss or make me happy about it.

I respect your opinion, but with over 20 years of Customer Service Management experience to draw from, I believe you are completely wrong. Managing expectations, deflecting disappointment and offering alternatives are all tools used to deal with angry customers. Just having someone who will listen to your problems (even when they do nothing about it) can oftentimes defuse the situation.

WotC bungling and mis-management of this DI announcement and their customers reaction is most likely due to 3 drivers ...

1) Incompetence (Unlikely but not impossible)
2) Disregard for Customer Reactions (I hope this isnt the case, but can't rule it out)
3) Had to wait due for additional changes to be announced at later time (This is the most likely, but is unfortunately still linked to #2)

More than the (bad) business decision to cancel the magazines, or the (bad) decision to go DI, its the horrible treatment of their customers that irritates me the most.

Well its day 6 going on to 7 ... eventually they're bound to say something ... right?

 

[Agamon]

More than the (bad) business decision to cancel the magazines, or the (bad) decision to go DI, its the horrible treatment of their customers that irritates me the most.

The poll I started suggests you're not alone. More people are willing to trust what they know about Pathfinder than what they don't about the DI (that should hardly be a surprise to anyone, but that just backs up the opinion that Paizo handled the cancellation better than WotC). So far:

Will Subscribe: 114 (PF), 17 (DI)

Not surprising. Blind faith in something we know little about is unlikely, especially with WotC's track record with electronic products.

Might Subscribe: 103 (DI), 81 (PF)

This isn't a surprise, either. A lot of people are waiting to see what the DI will bring, as well as more info on Pathfinder. Still, PF has a fair lead in people who aren't dead-set against the idea of subscribing (195 to 120).

Won't Subscribe: 140 (DI), 65 (PF)

Now I won't pretend this poll is truly representative of all potential customers of both companies, but this is telling. More people than not are ready to outright dismiss the DI, despite not knowing much about it. And this from an online poll concerning an online product. Even allowing for people who are still smarting from the loss of the mags, I still think it's more a product of the bad PR from relative lack of info compared to Paizo.

 

[caudor]

Agamon,

Your analysis is very well done and backed up by numbers from your poll. Well done.

As the past few weeks have shown, a day or two can make a big difference in attitudes. In a few days (likely), we should get results from the WotC Q&A that Morrus setup. At that time, speculation will give way to substance, and I would not be surprized if some views change.

I suspect that after the Q&A, the results will push more into a bell curve, with the majority people deciding to wait, see, and give the DI a look. Maybe I'm right; maybe not.

It would interesting to see another poll once information about the DI becomes available.

 

[Hussar]

FIFY. Nice to have a bit of perspective.

Let's not do that, Hussar. Not cool.

 

[Morrus]

The poll I started suggests you're not alone. More people are willing to trust what they know about Pathfinder than what they don't about the DI (that should hardly be a surprise to anyone, but that just backs up the opinion that Paizo handled the cancellation better than WotC). So far:

Will Subscribe: 114 (PF), 17 (DI)

Not surprising. Blind faith in something we know little about is unlikely, especially with WotC's track record with electronic products.

Might Subscribe: 103 (DI), 81 (PF)

This isn't a surprise, either. A lot of people are waiting to see what the DI will bring, as well as more info on Pathfinder. Still, PF has a fair lead in people who aren't dead-set against the idea of subscribing (195 to 120).

Won't Subscribe: 140 (DI), 65 (PF)

Now I won't pretend this poll is truly representative of all potential customers of both companies, but this is telling.

I'd be careful to draw any conclusions there. I've had a lot of experience with such polls, and what people say they're going to do and what they actually do very, very rarely even begin to resemble one another.

Market research firms spend an awful lot of money and effort creating questionnaires which approach accuracy in their results, and they rarely ask a question like that outright. There are dozens of techniques used; even then, after tens of thousands of dollars, they only approach about a 15% margin of error.

Id suggest that, in realtion to future reality, your poll probably has about a 150% margin of error.

 

[Mark CMG]

More people are willing to trust what they know about Pathfinder than what they don't about the DI (that should hardly be a surprise to anyone, but that just backs up the opinion that Paizo handled the cancellation better than WotC).

I don't think you even need a poll to gage the validity of those two statements. I think people are almost always more willing to trust in something for which they have some data than in something for which they have nearly no data. It also seems obvious that a lot of people believe Paizo has been handling the cancellation/transition better than WotC. The transition period has only just begun, so we will see how it continues to be handled by both companies and perhaps some of the accusations will prove unfounded and reactions will be more tempered.

 

[humble minion]

To be honest, I'll be more interested in which questions get answered and which do not. From my experience over on Maxminis (where WotC staff tend to be a fair bit more vocal and involved than they do here), WotC has a habit/policy of only answering questions that they want to, and magnificently ignoring the rest - particularly the more thorny ones, or the questions relating to when WotC has dropped the ball on something or other. While I'm sure there's a world of difference between that (where questions are posted on a sticky thread and WotC people wander in and jot down a few responses on a seemingly semi-random basis) and here, where the management of probably the most respected and populous fan site has involved themselves in the interview/enquiry(/interrogation?), the effort or lack thereof that goes into tackling the tough questions will be a massive indication of how seriously WotC takes the reaction to the magazine's cancellation.

 

[Maggan]

the effort or lack thereof that goes into tackling the tough questions will be a massive indication of how seriously WotC takes the reaction to the magazine's cancellation.

Nah, I don't think so. Of course they'll skip the tricky questions. We will be given some general answers, and some truly informative, and some questions will be outright ignored.

And that's just to be expected. I don't think a tricky question being dropped is indicative of anything else than "this was too tricky for us to answer" or "we can't answer this now". It's small step on the way to the launch of the DI, not the be all end all information barrage.

Anyone expecting full disclosure when the answers arrive might want to brace themselves for disappointment.

/M

 

[grrtigger]

I respect your opinion, but with over 20 years of Customer Service Management experience to draw from, I believe you are completely wrong. Managing expectations, deflecting disappointment and offering alternatives are all tools used to deal with angry customers. Just having someone who will listen to your problems (even when they do nothing about it) can oftentimes defuse the situation.

I totally agree. They could have announced the end of Dungeon and Dragon well in advance, say a year or so, along with the "we want Paizo to have the spotlight for now" announcement. Then they could have launched the "Final year of Dungeon and Dragon - and wow, is it going to be a good one!" campaign, with trickles of info every month or so ever-so-slowly peeling back the curtain on the new DI.

Then they push another big announcement in the final month of each magazine, with retrospectives and what-have-you, along with a whiz-bang rollout of The Plan *tm* for the new Digital Initiative and everybody's ... well, probably not happy, but at least not completely beside themselves over how things actually played out.

Obviously, they should have consulted me first ;p

That said, I'm looking forward to getting some actual answers about whatever The Plan *tm* actually is. I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll actually get some useful info and not some kind of "sorry, everybody - see you when DI launches!"

 

[(contact)]

Of course, I respect your opinion. But my point is there's absolutely nothing they could have, should have, or would have said that would take the sting off losing the major D&D publication for the entire course of the game's existence. There's absolutely no future product or plan they could reveal that would change that loss or make me happy about it.

Yes, this is certainly true in your case, but being unable to soothe you doesn't mean that ignoring the issue completely was the right move, or even a "nice try." I'd say they dropped the ball, but I don't think they saw the ball at all. I think the ball smacked them in the grill and now they're crawling around trying to find their glasses.

For myself, I'd be much more upset if Paizo hadn't (in a poignant counterpoint to WotC's silence) been present, transparent and prepared. They pretty quickly assuaged my concerns and sold me on a new product that sounds like more of what I wanted out of the mags and less of what I didn't.

We'll see if we get our announcement today.