When should we expect answers?

[Mark CMG]

That's amazing. And how long did that part of the world manage to exist with a mere few channels? Sometimes I wonder about our attention span over here in the USA. It's like we just . . .


Sorry. There's the phone.

 

[Odhanan]

Any public statement from Wizards will (most likely) have to go through their lawyers and PR people. It's a simple fact of corporate life. If they say one thing and then don't deliver, then they can be in for a world of hurt.

Small companies (like Paizo) have it much easier. They can pretty much just do what they want.

Cheers!

Another reason for me to support the small companies.

I'm sorry to say this, but any explanatory answer from WotC should have been ready before hand and should have already been given to the customers.

Personally, I will of course look at any answer they might provide, but in my mind, the damage has already been done. It's already too late as far as I'm concerned.

 

[kenmarable]

Well Ryan Dancey, Monte Cook, and almost every other high level person that have been associated we D&D disagree with you so I'd say you are the minority. I feel like I'm owed some sort of roadmap/explanation. I can understand businesses making decisions like this, but if Wizards doesn't understand how rabid your fan base is and what they expect, they've already lost a ton of customers (for evidence I'd point to these forums).

For one thing, Monte Cook at least has already stated on his boards that he'd like fans to stop using his opinions as a bludgeon against other fans. Besides, I believe you are misinterpreting them. But putting aside what high-ups may or may not think, I pretty much agree with Mouseferatu, but it's pretty close to splitting hairs.

I certainly don't expect WotC to give me an explanation and don't think WotC owes me an explanation. However, I'm certainly of the mindset that, a smart company concerned with maintaining good customer relations and PR, should have had a roadmap ready to present publicly (much as Paizo did). Like I said, it's probably splitting hairs, but as a customer, I'm not owed anything by them. They can announce tomorrow that they are canceling D&D forever, and I didn't lose out anything that was owed to me. However, for their business to come out of this transition with the most success, they should have handled it far differently. It's more of owing it to themselves not to shoot themselves in the foot.

 

[kenmarable]

Any public statement from Wizards will (most likely) have to go through their lawyers and PR people. It's a simple fact of corporate life. If they say one thing and then don't deliver, then they can be in for a world of hurt.

Small companies (like Paizo) have it much easier. They can pretty much just do what they want.

Cheers!

As for being a larger company or a publicly traded one, for starters, what they do with D&D would have very little impact on how Wall Street and the FTC view Hasbro. Besides, companies frequently "reset expectations", so it's certainly not unheard of and wouldn't cause a world of hurt. But, yes, of course they need to run it through their lawyers and PR, but there's nothing preventing them from doing so before the cancellation announcement. Morrus shouldn't have had to field questions for them to answer and pass through their lawyers and PR department. They should have done on their own weeks before the announcement was made.

Plus having worked on (coding and project managing) internet projects ranging from little $10K to the multi-million dollar range, if WotC is planning to release something the size of what they are hinting at anytime in 2007 and don't have a solid enough idea to go public of when it will be done or what the features it will include, then it's a project doomed to be over budget, late, and/or failing to meet expectations. The "design and plan as we go" method is one of most common mistakes in managing a large project, but it's also so common that there's really no reason not to see it coming. They should know what the final product will look like and when it can be done (with padding for the stuff that does pop up, of course) before a single line of code has been written. Considering how long ago they started talking about this and hiring for it, I would hope they have requirements gathering and design done or at least well on their way by now.

If they are unsure enough to announce when it will be done (or even when they can tell us more), then I fear for the success of the project and smell another Master Tools in the works. But I'm willing to give it a chance, it's just I don't personally think there's any adequate excuse for how poorly they handled this announcement. I'm not an MBA or in charge of any company, but I've spent enough years in the corporate world to see a PR blunder right in front of me. It's a recoverable one, but still a PR blunder.

 

[kenmarable]

Not many outside the UK though. I think the US has a soap opera and a news show.

Not to continue the threadjack, BUT...
... as part of the "trivia that's useless, but I'm proud of it dagnabbit" is that here in the US, Guiding Light started as a radio drama in 1937. So that's got Dragon beat by a bit.

But, yeah not much American TV has lasted that long. Some of the game shows maybe as well, but I don't have that useless trivia in my head.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I certainly don't expect WotC to give me an explanation and don't think WotC owes me an explanation. However, I'm certainly of the mindset that, a smart company concerned with maintaining good customer relations and PR, should have had a roadmap ready to present publicly (much as Paizo did).

I'd say its splitting hairs, but it is more sensible then what I said. I'll go with this as part of me is caught up in the emotions of this and yeah, I know they are just a couple of magazines. A cooler head prevails!

 

[Banshee16]

Understand, Banshee, it's not the expressions of frustration I take issue with.

(Well, it's not most of them. Some of them have gone so over the top as to be laughable, but they're the minority.)

It's specifically the attitude that WotC has somehow committed some great wrong by not answering questions sooner. Not that people wish they had--again, that's reasonable--but people claiming that somehow it's wrong/evil/improper for them not to have.

That's the aspect of this whole thing to which I object. (Or at least the one to to which I most strongly object.)

Ok, I'm understanding what you're getting at. No, I don't think they "owe" an explanation.....they're not breaking the law or anything. But if they care about their customer base, it would be *wise* for them to do so. Hopefully I've clarified my understanding.

They can do a lot of damage to themselves, when they have a customer base that is often so devoted that they're more "fans" than customers. Customers don't get upset with changes to the level that fans do. I'd actually contest that the D&D customers who go online, and read the message boards etc. are the fans within the D&D customer base.....and it's the fans that the DI will be pursuing, I'm thinking......many customers won't go online....I still know people who will not buy stuff online.

Having recently had my bank card compromised, and last year having my data captured by russian hackers of the White Wolf site, I sometimes rethink whether I should be buying online, myself.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

All this venting we have seen over the last 8 days, all the anger, and all the accusations are not a result of consumers acting out of line (although there has been some of that). Its a result of WotC not willing to communicate with their customers. There are so many simple and basic service practices that could have reduced a large amount of that anger. But WotC decided not to do them for whatever reason.

As long as WotC continues to avoid communicating with their customers, the responsibility for all this firestorm lies squarely with them.

I highly suspect that WotC does care....it sure doesn't look like it right now, but I bet there are employees who read the boards etc. and are probably seeing all this backlash, and pulling out their hair in frustration that they are not allowed to say anything right now.

Someone made a point about smaller companies being able to react, and announce things quicker....that probably had something to do with it.

1-WotC cancels/withdraws the Dragon/Dungeon license

2-Paizo has to say something, because they can't be collecting ad contracts for issues after September. Because the magazine is prepared months in advance, they've probably reached the point where they'd be starting to sell ad space for October right now. If they start not selling space, their regular customers would be starting to wonder why Paizo won't sell ad space to them for October....so Paizo knows the cat's going to get out of the bag, one way or the other.

Paize determines they have to make their announcement, in order to serve their customers, and prevent backlash that *could* do severe damage to them, because they're so small.

WotC on the other hand, isn't ready to make an announcement, because they're still working on the DI. Or they're waiting for their lawyers, or whatever. Consequently, they weren't prepared for the announcement.

I suspect that something in line with that scenario might be how this is playing out. It might look worse than it is, and none of it is intentional. Of course, I also try to believe the best of people.

Having said all that, I still can say I'm not happy with the Dungeon/Dragon/Dragonlance announcements. As a customer, I'm disturbed. As a customer, I really hope they have a decent plan in place.......and as a customer, I hope they have a plan to do something that I like with Dragonlance, instead of just sticking it on a dusty shelf, to wither away like BR, PS, DS, etc.

Banshee

 

[Razz]

Ok, I'm understanding what you're getting at. No, I don't think they "owe" an explanation.....they're not breaking the law or anything. But if they care about their customer base, it would be *wise* for them to do so. Hopefully I've clarified my understanding.

They can do a lot of damage to themselves, when they have a customer base that is often so devoted that they're more "fans" than customers. Customers don't get upset with changes to the level that fans do. I'd actually contest that the D&D customers who go online, and read the message boards etc. are the fans within the D&D customer base.....and it's the fans that the DI will be pursuing, I'm thinking......many customers won't go online....I still know people who will not buy stuff online.

Having recently had my bank card compromised, and last year having my data captured by russian hackers of the White Wolf site, I sometimes rethink whether I should be buying online, myself.

Banshee

Quite true. There those who play D&D and then there're those who PLAY D&D.

By that I will use my gaming group as an example. Out of all my players, only one would keep the game going and alive were I to, say, suddenly croak and pass away. The rest would move on with their lives and forget about D&D entirely. And out of the dozen players I've had over the years, only that one would continue being a customer/fan of the game.

Going by that average, the only people keeping D&D alive are people like me and that one player who'll "take up the torch." The rest would move on. It is this niche that WotC needs to keep happy or they'll lose D&D for good.

Could I ever imagine the other players of mine ever picking up a few D&D books and starting their own games? Hell no. I introduced them to the game and once I am gone, it's over for the rest of them unless someone else takes up the reins. In which, there's only one player of mine that would.

That is the story of a ton of gaming groups out there. A group falls apart and D&D ends because the DM moved away, quit D&D, got married, etc. and you didn't lose just one customer, you lost potentially 4 or more with that one person gone.

Heck, it happened to me recently. About 5 guys wanted a DM in the area, found me on Meetup.com, and a gaming group was established.

 

[Morrus]

The interview is up on the news page now, folks. Enjoy!