Why Wizards Has Lost Touch w/ Its Base

[Ghendar]

I imagine it is less that they have loss touch with their customer base as people around here realizing they are just no longer part of that customer base anymore.

I didn't think of this until you posted it and you are absolutely correct. I am not an active member of their customer base any longer. I'm also not part of their core demographic anymore apparently.

 

[RangerWickett]

I imagine it is less that they have loss touch with their customer base as people around here realizing they are just no longer part of that customer base anymore.

QFMFT

Vocal folks on EN World are not your standard gamers. If nothing else, I have faith in Hasbro-WotC to be profitable. Even if you don't like something, it doesn't mean it's bad business. It just means you don't fit the target demographic.

I don't like American Idol, but I don't complain about the producers of the show making a bad show because I know the show isn't intended for people with my tastes.

 

[Sholari]

I imagine it is less that they have loss touch with their customer base as people around here realizing they are just no longer part of that customer base anymore.

I was pretty ticked off last night and I think this is a fair comment. I don't think my characterization is completely fair. However, as of this moment I am *indeed* no longer a part of their customer base anymore. I wish the best to them.

 

[nothing to see here]

Don't get me wrong an MBA and/or corporate experience is a great foundation, but WOTC needs a more diverse mix of industry people contribute to the decision making.

Your last quote sounds like a bit of a stretch. WOTC HAS a mix of industry people right now. Gamer types design and develop the content. And then people with expertise in marketing, production channels and (yes) finance ensure that this content can be produced and sold in a manner that produces some kind of profit. And that's exactly the way it should be.

Now every now and then you get the Ryan Dancey type of the world who combines business experiecne with a deep apprecation of the hobby. That's how the OGL happened. Barring a glut of such people, however, I'd take dispassionate competence over passionate incompetence any day of the week.

I no more want some RPG-gamer-fanatic who has never run a business in their life making business decisions than I want a non-gamer MBA designing the next supplement. If they are qualified to do their specific job, I care not a bit whether they spend their weekends in the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

I have been considering the core fanbase issue as well and also agree with the other posters that ENWorld, and the older generation (including myself) and not part of the core market of the hobby. My recent perusal of other online gaming communities seem to confirm this ( most of the gamers seem to be teen to young adult who grew up in the electronic era yet also seem to be very creative and talented in their own right; they also seem really into all the alternate classes etc. probably a by product of exposure to anime and video games).

However, based on age dynamics alone, I would hypothesize that our market subsegment probably has more disposable cash and spent more $$ per person on the hobby.

 

[VictorC]

As much as everybody doesn’t want to hear this but the magazines probably weren’t as great as everybody says they think they were. Now I’m not basing this on facts but typically when things like this happen its dew to the fact that Pazio for instance can’t afford to continue the license. So they weren’t making enough money on these magazines that no body can live without.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I imagine it is less that they have loss touch with their customer base as people around here realizing they are just no longer part of that customer base anymore.

Listen to Crothian. He is wise.

I'm going to save a link to this post and start posting it in every whiny "WotC hates me and they are run by incompetent morons who hate D&D" thread.

 

[The_Gneech]

As much as everybody doesn’t want to hear this but the magazines probably weren’t as great as everybody says they think they were. Now I’m not basing this on facts but typically when things like this happen its dew to the fact that Pazio for instance can’t afford to continue the license. So they weren’t making enough money on these magazines that no body can live without.

Um, no. The magazines were doing fine, financially. They're being killed to make a void for the "electronic initiative" to step into.

-The Gneech

 

[Delta]

It's also not in our best interests as gamers to wish failure of the new product; if the experiment does fail, it hurts D&D and the hobby as a whole.

Well, this is a common idea that I disagree with. Wizards making money is not necessarily the same thing as what's good for the hobby.

Personally, I wish there was less churn in the D&D ruleset. That is, I wish the rules would settle down to a common agreed-upon set, like chess or baseball, so that players of different generations could all share the fun with each other. The fact that Wizards is financially incented to change the rules a lot every few years is a bad thing for D&D, in my opinion.

Modern counter-examples include the Internet and the Linux operating system, whose production is not controlled by a single company, and who would be worse off if only a single company was making money off them. Ryan Dancey attempted to move D&D in that direction with the OGL, but Wizards really turned away from that circa 3.5, which saddened me.

 

[TheYeti1775]

Originally Posted by Crothian
I imagine it is less that they have loss touch with their customer base as people around here realizing they are just no longer part of that customer base anymore.

I didn't think of this until you posted it and you are absolutely correct. I am not an active member of their customer base any longer. I'm also not part of their core demographic anymore apparently.

Why do I feel like I'm in Logan's Run and my Crystal just changed colors.