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Message: <blockquote data-quote="joethelawyer" data-source="post: 4447590" data-attributes="member: 55764">i agree with you on the bottom line as a necessity.  but i wish wotc had sort of a steve jobs type visionary at the helm.  someone who had big ideas and thinks his products are "cool".  who take a hand in guiing development  based on his vision.  who pays attention to the product details as well as the big picture and bottom line, like jobs.  and ultimately i wish wotc was its own company with a person at its head who could make these sorts of decisions without regard to the parent company's bottom line.  if big daddy has a bad year, junior has to slash costs/people to do its share to make up for it.  i see this guy leeds has a marketing background.  that means branding.  i have been thinking about the relationship between branding and hobbies lately.  i wonder if the branding concept works the same for hobbies as say branding and bandaids, for example.  i mean, you buy tylenol for the brand, even though the pharmacy has a pill with the exact same ingredients at half the price.  you just want that tylenol brand.  same for a lot of things.  you pay for the name.marketing has been all about branding branding branding in recent years.  that's all you hear about and read about in business journals. meaning the value of a thing isn't necesaarily the component ingedients of it, but the name recognition and the associated feelings that name brings up in consumers who make a purchase based on those feelings.  the value is subjective.so when i see a marketing guy brought in, i immediately think he is going to be brand focused, rather than focused on the ingredients.  i looked back at al the news articles he had been quoted in throughout his career on the nexis news databases, and he always mentions brand brand brand.  and i think for samsonite or gi joe toys that works fine.  but for hobbies in general, and dnd in particular, i think the details of the product are the crucial comonents of sucess.  i hope 4e succeeds.  because even though its not my cup of tea, it will draw in new gamers, and that is what this hobby needs more than anything else. those new gamers will then be exposed to other systems, and maybe try them out, keeping the other lines going along, thus keeping my favorite systems in business (castles & crusades and pathfinder).  i guess i just have concerns if the guy in charge is all about the branding aspect and the bottom line, and not the nitty gritty of the product.  i wonder if he has a big picture vision. or if he is going to regurgitate what the standard jargon and plans h learned in mba school.  that why i asked in my original post if he has a background in dnd.  i want to know what perspective he operates from.</blockquote>

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