HatWearingFool
Adventurer
In the pursuit of fairness I will start off by telling you that I for one (and I realize I’m not the only one) am quite excited by everything I have heard so far about 4th edition. So that fact makes it much easier for me to make some of the following arguments. I realize that many of the things I say are much harder to take when you are on the other side of a change.
I will also be drawing analogies to business that operate in other areas that I’m interested in. Hopefully these will still be meaningful to people without these areas of interest.
NOTE: Although I will be referring to arguments that I’ve seen on these boards and elsewhere I shall neither be linking to them nor quoting them. I’m doing this so that this post is not seen as an attack towards various people. If you haven’t seen an example of something I describe please don’t simply accuse me of constructing a straw-man. I may provide examples upon request through PM if the volume of them is not excessive.
First I shall deal with a common argument that I’ve seen leveled on these boards and elsewhere since the changes have been revealed. The gist of this argument is basically “If you want that why don’t you (go play a different game/do something else)?”. It is easy to tell people who want substantial change to D&D to go elsewhere. But what if WOTC are the ones who want to see something new in D&D? It doesn’t matter why they want to see changes it only matters that they do. Do you feel that they should be chained to their current customer base? Do you feel you are owed anything?
To try to show how silly this line of thinking is I shall compare the current situation to that of a fictional burger restaurant. Let us call this place The Burger Express (or BE for short). One day the owner of BE decides that he is unhappy with the state of his current restaurant. Now maybe he wants to expand his business, or maybe his current customer base is dwindling and to continue onwards as he currently is means bankruptcy, or maybe he has decided that he wants to make the “Ultimate Burger (UB)”.
It doesn’t really matter why he has decided to make a change it only matters that he has. Now apparently many who fear this change would like him to either open a new business to be run along side his old business or he should sell the old business to someone who wants it. Sure both are viable options but he has no explicit reason for doing this even if the old business is still a viable one.
You say that the recent changes will drive away existing customers? According to most of the things I hear about WOTC’s current customer base that’s like BE being worried about losing the group of 5 that comes in and monopolizes a table with only one person ordering food and the other 4 just drinking coffee. It’s just bad business to worry about appealing to this demographic. Especially if groups like this one are keeping new potential customer from coming and trying the food.
I hear the argument coming from people that these changes are changing D&D for the worse. Let’s examine this argument for a second. Who gets to decide if these changes are making D&D worse? I suppose from a purely business angle the answer would be the market place. But lets look at this from the perspective of the owner at BE. One morning the owner woke and decided that he is unhappy with his current Burger recipe and wishes to make the UB. Who gets to decide whether the new recipe is better or not? The answer from a taste point of view is the owner. It doesn’t matter what anyone else in the world thinks.
Sure there is a great deal of risk involved with this strategy and it clearly sucks for people happy with the status quo. But if your current strategy is played out (and you aren’t making enough money to survive or you simply want to grow or change), you have to be willing to take risks and try something new. If your current hamburger isn’t bringing in enough customers and you’ve given it 30 years with only tweaks maybe it’s time to acknowledge that your current recipe needs to go. Sure you risk losing the fans of the current recipe. Realistically you wont lose all existing customers because at least some will like the new recipe and stick around. The question really is how many will you lose and how many new ones will you gain?
Shockingly enough the answer to that question doesn’t really matter. What it comes down to is this. If your current customer base and/or product isn’t making you happy (you can’t survive, you want to be bigger, you want to do something different) then you’ll have to risk everything to try a get what would make you happy.
Many times I have seen the line of reason that says the best way to get new people in to the hobby is to get the old guard to introduce them. What if the old guard is doing is driving away many potential new customers? One look around here and you can see many people who are unhappy with “new” fantasy. And yet many new potential customers will have been brought up with that ”new” fantasy. I’m pretty sure being told that what the fantasy they like is stupid or not “real” fantasy could drive them away for good. Even if they do stay are they just being trained to be the next generation of moochers?
So WOTC is possibly better off making a D&D that is easier for gamer “0” to pick up and run by himself without help from the old guard, even if the changes required to do so will drive off some existing customers.
Also by catering exclusively to the old guard you stand to lose everything when all leave the market place (through death if nothing else). They need to broaden the appeal of their game before they hit that moment because then it will be to late they will have slowly bled resources in the twilight years of that market and possible be unable to make a change at that moment. They are better to try something new while still flush with resources from their current base.
Of course it can be tough deciding when to make this change. In many ways Harely-Davidison is coming to this cross roads now. There current market is aging rapidly and sooner rather than later they need to bring in some new blood. Of course they are a very large corporation and can afford to try a couple of different things. They have tried slowly changing their current line up of products (introducing the all new V-Rod) so as to not alienate their current clientele. However, the are also hedging their bets by running a sport-bike company (Buell) on the side. I doubt WOTC has the resource to push such a strategy though and so they can only change their core product and hope things work out.
I will also be drawing analogies to business that operate in other areas that I’m interested in. Hopefully these will still be meaningful to people without these areas of interest.
NOTE: Although I will be referring to arguments that I’ve seen on these boards and elsewhere I shall neither be linking to them nor quoting them. I’m doing this so that this post is not seen as an attack towards various people. If you haven’t seen an example of something I describe please don’t simply accuse me of constructing a straw-man. I may provide examples upon request through PM if the volume of them is not excessive.
First I shall deal with a common argument that I’ve seen leveled on these boards and elsewhere since the changes have been revealed. The gist of this argument is basically “If you want that why don’t you (go play a different game/do something else)?”. It is easy to tell people who want substantial change to D&D to go elsewhere. But what if WOTC are the ones who want to see something new in D&D? It doesn’t matter why they want to see changes it only matters that they do. Do you feel that they should be chained to their current customer base? Do you feel you are owed anything?
To try to show how silly this line of thinking is I shall compare the current situation to that of a fictional burger restaurant. Let us call this place The Burger Express (or BE for short). One day the owner of BE decides that he is unhappy with the state of his current restaurant. Now maybe he wants to expand his business, or maybe his current customer base is dwindling and to continue onwards as he currently is means bankruptcy, or maybe he has decided that he wants to make the “Ultimate Burger (UB)”.
It doesn’t really matter why he has decided to make a change it only matters that he has. Now apparently many who fear this change would like him to either open a new business to be run along side his old business or he should sell the old business to someone who wants it. Sure both are viable options but he has no explicit reason for doing this even if the old business is still a viable one.
You say that the recent changes will drive away existing customers? According to most of the things I hear about WOTC’s current customer base that’s like BE being worried about losing the group of 5 that comes in and monopolizes a table with only one person ordering food and the other 4 just drinking coffee. It’s just bad business to worry about appealing to this demographic. Especially if groups like this one are keeping new potential customer from coming and trying the food.
I hear the argument coming from people that these changes are changing D&D for the worse. Let’s examine this argument for a second. Who gets to decide if these changes are making D&D worse? I suppose from a purely business angle the answer would be the market place. But lets look at this from the perspective of the owner at BE. One morning the owner woke and decided that he is unhappy with his current Burger recipe and wishes to make the UB. Who gets to decide whether the new recipe is better or not? The answer from a taste point of view is the owner. It doesn’t matter what anyone else in the world thinks.
Sure there is a great deal of risk involved with this strategy and it clearly sucks for people happy with the status quo. But if your current strategy is played out (and you aren’t making enough money to survive or you simply want to grow or change), you have to be willing to take risks and try something new. If your current hamburger isn’t bringing in enough customers and you’ve given it 30 years with only tweaks maybe it’s time to acknowledge that your current recipe needs to go. Sure you risk losing the fans of the current recipe. Realistically you wont lose all existing customers because at least some will like the new recipe and stick around. The question really is how many will you lose and how many new ones will you gain?
Shockingly enough the answer to that question doesn’t really matter. What it comes down to is this. If your current customer base and/or product isn’t making you happy (you can’t survive, you want to be bigger, you want to do something different) then you’ll have to risk everything to try a get what would make you happy.
Many times I have seen the line of reason that says the best way to get new people in to the hobby is to get the old guard to introduce them. What if the old guard is doing is driving away many potential new customers? One look around here and you can see many people who are unhappy with “new” fantasy. And yet many new potential customers will have been brought up with that ”new” fantasy. I’m pretty sure being told that what the fantasy they like is stupid or not “real” fantasy could drive them away for good. Even if they do stay are they just being trained to be the next generation of moochers?
So WOTC is possibly better off making a D&D that is easier for gamer “0” to pick up and run by himself without help from the old guard, even if the changes required to do so will drive off some existing customers.
Also by catering exclusively to the old guard you stand to lose everything when all leave the market place (through death if nothing else). They need to broaden the appeal of their game before they hit that moment because then it will be to late they will have slowly bled resources in the twilight years of that market and possible be unable to make a change at that moment. They are better to try something new while still flush with resources from their current base.
Of course it can be tough deciding when to make this change. In many ways Harely-Davidison is coming to this cross roads now. There current market is aging rapidly and sooner rather than later they need to bring in some new blood. Of course they are a very large corporation and can afford to try a couple of different things. They have tried slowly changing their current line up of products (introducing the all new V-Rod) so as to not alienate their current clientele. However, the are also hedging their bets by running a sport-bike company (Buell) on the side. I doubt WOTC has the resource to push such a strategy though and so they can only change their core product and hope things work out.
