Why I WON'T boycott WotC

[delericho]

I have, in fact, purchased "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits" today, so no boycott from me. I'll go on buying (or not) as I always have.

 

[Imperialus]

As long as Wizards continues to put out books that make my Sunday evenings more FUN I will continue buying them. It's a pity the mags are gone, but the idea that this is a gamer 9/11 (and no I'm not making up that comparison) is rediculous.

 

[carmachu]

One example of a sucessful online magazine, and many more failures. The odds dont play well in WotC favor you realize?

I'll grab what I want, but will not be buying the online mag. I'll try out pathfinder and gamemastery instead. Print form is important to me.

 

[Torm]

Print form is important to me.

Me, too. But unfortunately, I think WOTC moving to digital is a symptom, not the cause, if you take my meaning. I love books, but a digital pad or a monitor screen is more cost effective and ecologically sound for publishers across the board, if they can get readers to accept them. Especially for periodicals.

 

[Laman Stahros]

Put simply, I have doubts about this "End of an Era" people keep talking about. Cheer up, people - the best is yet to be.

You may be right, the best may yet come. But, it is the end of an era. Dragon holds the record (as far as I know) for the longest running gaming magazine. I believe that White Dwarf is a close second and will now take up that mantle, but . . . I still find myself a little sad over this.

 

[Khairn]

I'll definitely be boycotting all WotC products for the near future and provide my gaming $ to other companies as a way to express my displeasure and anger over the mis-management of this entire fiasco. Its really the only action that WotC will listen to and understand.

Once this "wondrous and exciting" new digital initiative is actually available I'll take a look at it and make up my mind for the long term. If they really do "wow" me and make me forget the pain and anger they've caused, then I'll probably start buying their books again.

But given their hit & miss track record in recent books, and their less than stellar capabilities on their own site, I don't have a warm fuzzy at all.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Considering that my first thought upon hearing the news was "Oh, wow - this could be all kinds of AWESOME," no, I won't be boycotting WotC. In fact, so far this year, they haven't gotten any of my cash for RPG products (I've bought a few minis and quite a few Magic cards), but that's likely to change soon. I'll buy Star Wars Saga Edition when it comes out, because it looks spectacular, and I'll at least initially subscribe to the Online Initiative, because if it has searchable Dragon-like content it will be immensely useful.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

One example of a sucessful online magazine, and many more failures. The odds dont play well in WotC favor you realize?

Two, actually - the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society (also run by SJGames) also still seems to be active.

And WotC has a target audience that is at least an order of magnitude larger than that of SJGames. If they follow the same business model, the odds of their success aren't too bad.

And here's another idea: SJGames offers Pyramid subscribers the opportunity to playtest their new products - a number of interested subscribers (usually 40 or so) will be able to download the raw manuscript and then comment on it on a closed mailing list. If WotC does the same, then the sheer amount of people trying to get an advance peek (plus a free playtest copy if they are accepted) should be sufficient in themselves to finance this venture...

 

[Vigilance]

Two, actually - the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society (also run by SJGames) also still seems to be active.

And WotC has a target audience that is at least an order of magnitude larger than that of SJGames. If they follow the same business model, the odds of their success aren't too bad.

And here's another idea: SJGames offers Pyramid subscribers the opportunity to playtest their new products - a number of interested subscribers (usually 40 or so) will be able to download the raw manuscript and then comment on it on a closed mailing list. If WotC does the same, then the sheer amount of people trying to get an advance peek (plus a free playtest copy if they are accepted) should be sufficient in themselves to finance this venture...

Yep, there's a lot of new things they could try with this initiative that they couldn't do before.

I'm also hoping for more support of non-fantasy related content out of this.

 

[Wombat]

**shrug**

The loss of Dungeon and Dragon make very little impact on me, as I had little use for them. I subscribed to The Dragon in its first year, but eventually stopped the subscription because I was no longer playing D&D (after the move to AD&D). And I got a 1-year subscription to Dragon a bit after 3e first came out, but again found very little in the magazine that was really to my taste.

I also haven't bought a WotC book since Unearthed Arcana, and I felt both guilted into that one and a bit ripped off as I already had equivalent (and often better) material in other books, usually from third party vendors or free sites.

So what WotC does makes very little impact on me. I have no more intention of boycotting them, however, than I do McDonald's. Neither one is to my taste, but I might end up around people where that is my only option -- I'd rather game/eat than not game/starve...