When should we expect answers?

[Vigilance]

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.

Isn't this more or less what they've done though?

The end of the magazines is like 9 months away or so, they've said goodbye to them on sort of a personal anecdotal basis, said the final issues of the magazines will be great and that they have this new thing coming.

It sounds like what you're recommending. We're just 48 hours into the information trickle

 

[grrtigger]

Isn't this more or less what they've done though?

The end of the magazines is like 9 months away or so, they've said goodbye to them on sort of a personal anecdotal basis, said the final issues of the magazines will be great and that they have this new thing coming.

IIRC, the last issue (September) of each magazine ships in August, just four months away. Also, there was no "event" promoted around the cancellation, just a press release and, later, a handful of developers reminiscing over the magazines. Add to that a conspicuous lack of response on WotC's part, at least initially, cast in sharp relief against Paizo's great follow-up with the new publication announcement, rolling over magazine subscriptions into their new title, Paizo staff practically living at the boards answering questions and providing technical support, etc.

I think a lot of the heartburn is over the fact that it feels like WotC treated this as just another business-as-usual announcement, rather than acknowledging the relationship many D&D players have with these magazines (which really are an institution almost as old as the brand itself) by making efforts to anticipate and soften the blow.

It's undisputably their call as to when the plug gets pulled for the magazines, but knowing your customers and respecting their relationship with your product is a huge part of customer service. Not strictly necessary (obviously), but it can go a long way toward ensuring customer loyalty to your brand, which you would think just makes good business sense.

 

[Banshee16]

If I was a betting man, I'd guess that if WotC is *so* confident about the new DI that they're willing to cancel a 30 year old magazine and raise the ire of their customers, then it must be a decent service....otherwise they're going to be making a colossal misstep.

I'm thinking that they're likely to offer access to the service for free for a few months, and then require people to subscribe to continue accessing it. Something along those lines, since so many customers (including yours truly) will be very reticent to sign up without concrete proof of the quality of the new service.

Banshee

 

[johnnype]

I know I'm not the first to suggest this but perhaps WotC is waiting to fill us in on the Digital Initiative because they wanted to give Paizo a week or two to hype their new product. WotC perhaps feels bad about pulling the rug out from under Paizo's feet and this is a small way for them to make amends.

That or Wizards completely ed up this anouncement.

I still don't know what to believe but either way they've managed to piss-off a lot of people. Not their best handling of a situation in any case.

 

[WhatGravitas]

You don't believe they planned a launch date for the DI and knew when the contracted licenses they had out were due to expire?

I *believe* that they knowing it. But then, I'm still puzzling about that PR, they've generated. But we'll probably never know, what they've thought in advance of the announcement. :\

 

[Simplicity]

I know I'm not the first to suggest this but perhaps WotC is waiting to fill us in on the Digital Initiative because they wanted to give Paizo a week or two to hype their new product. WotC perhaps feels bad about pulling the rug out from under Paizo's feet and this is a small way for them to make amends.

That or Wizards completely ed up this anouncement.

I still don't know what to believe but either way they've managed to piss-off a lot of people. Not their best handling of a situation in any case.

"Never ascribe to malice that which can just as easily be ascribed to incompetence."

Corollary:

"Never ascribe to benevolence that which can just as easily be ascribed to incompetence."

I keep seeing this theory from various people. There's just one problem with it. There are plenty of ways that Wizards could have let Paizo shine that *don't* make them look like they are incompetent. Thus, by not choosing one of those other ways, they are still being incompetent.

I think they just made a genuine miscalculation, and (hopefully) they're trying to play catch up with Paizo's preview storm.

 

[der_kluge]

I can't help but wonder why WoTC doesn't just issue a press release like every other company on the face of the planet.

 

[Agamon]

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

Yeah, hard to argue that. However, I didn't conclude that all the "won't"s won't buy the service, but that people were dismissing the idea, and then surmised that they likely did that because of the way WotC handled the situation, which may or may not be true, I'll admit. But it does make sense to me.

 

[(contact)]

But then, I would've perhaps been better to re-negotiate the Paizo contract for, let's say, one year.

Yes, it would have. Unless there are other Very Important Things on the calendar that you are not willing to push back, which means the only fix is to make it all develop faster and in your haste you have nothing finalized in time for the announcement, etc. The ball rolls. It's a screw-up, happens all the time.

From what I gather from reading Paizo's boards, the final Dragon and Dungeon magazines would be out the door already, except Wizards was gracious enough to let their license continue 4 extra months to allow them to finish the current Adventure Path.

In any case, WotC clearly was not ready. They rolled a 1 for their Digital Initative and are still flat-footed.

 

[GSHamster]

Actually, I think separating the two announcements is smart.

When they announce the DI, we'll all have gotten used to the fact that Dragon is no longer a print magazine, and so we'll be looking at the DI with that in mind. Otherwise, we'll get two shocks at once, there will be the outrage about cancelling Dragon, numerous comparisons between the two, etc. All things that will overshadow the DI itself.

Basically, WotC is changing our universe one step at a time, and giving us time to adjust one change at a time.

As well, they are building anticipation for the DI. At the very least, we're all curious to see what in the world WotC could come up with that would justify pulling in the licenses.