Wizards marketing mistakes?

[Number47]

Do you get the feeling that a lot of the Wizards financial woes are because they keep trying to sell more and more stuff to the same people? I know I do! Has there ever been much of a push to expand the actual market base? I haven't seen any evidence, so I know there wasn't advertising saturation. Any comment form WOTC or ex-WOTC employees especially appreciated.

I mean, really, how many times are the same core group of hobbyists going to buy the same book?

 

[MerricB]

Not really...

No, not really.

What products are we talking about?

D&D products? By all reports, they've been tremendously successfuly. The core rulebooks are selling at above the optimistic predictions, the classbooks are selling extremely well.

And Wizards' plan is to produce fewer D&D products than in the days of TSR.

I'm sure much of the current strife is due to the artificial inflation of WotC due to Pokemon when Hasbro bought it; Magic probably has a small deal to do with it, though I doubt that it is in trouble, I don't think it is as big as it once was.

Cheers!

 

[DMaple]

How well do you think advertising outside the hobby press will do?

Imagine they get the prime TV slot in the middle of the Super-Bowl and do an excellent advert.

To start on the game you need not only the Core Rules, but generally a group of like minded friends.

It also helps if at least one of those friends is already experienced with roleplaying and even more handy if they have experience as a DM.

Hmm if an experienced player or DM is really need to get started why waste all that money on an advert when word of mouth will probably work as well and be much cheaper.

 

[hong]

Do you get the feeling that a lot of the Wizards financial woes are because they keep trying to sell more and more stuff to the same people? I know I do! Has there ever been much of a push to expand the actual market base? I haven't seen any evidence, so I know there wasn't advertising saturation. Any comment form WOTC or ex-WOTC employees especially appreciated.

I mean, really, how many times are the same core group of hobbyists going to buy the same book?

I'll say now that I bought more D&D-related material in the 6 months following 3E's release, than I did in the preceding 5 years....

 

[reiella]

As a sidenote, Wizards does have some marketing that goes outside of the trade magazines.

I see some ads in various video game magazines myself, and I always get a laugh from seeing Wizard's logo on Minion in BattleBots...

It doesn't have the same exposure as other things (like say FFX, which advertised on WWF of all places ).

Books typically don't have that good of marketing exposure either though. The only ones that come to mind are some L Ron Hubbard books and occasionally the latest from some random pop writer.

 

[Agamon]

I'm thinking that, like the last roundof layoffs, this has less to do about D&D and more about things like Pokemon and Magic (note the tongue-in-cheek name of Chris Pramas' good-bye thread...). WotC rode the high while it was there and are now chugging along, trying to stay in the air.

Unfortunately, D&D R&D was built on the back of Pikachu, and it's now being served as a side with electric rat burgers.

 

[mmadsen]

Imagine they get the prime TV slot in the middle of the Super-Bowl and do an excellent advert. To start on the game you need not only the Core Rules, but generally a group of like minded friends. It also helps if at least one of those friends is already experienced with roleplaying and even more handy if they have experience as a DM.

It's pretty obvious though that you can play something resembling D&D with a lot fewer rules (meaning you wouldn't need three gigantic volumes of core rules), that draws on ideas people already understand (so finding "like-minded friends" wouldn't be so tough), etc.

The D&D Adventure Game simplifies the rules a bit but also hamstrings them. The Star Wars intro game, I assume, does the same, but it has the advantage of a very accessible genre. If they put out a much simpler Star Wars game with lots of sample adventures and props, it might bring in more people.

Who knows?

I do think it's only natural to milk the hardcore gamers though.

 

[Number47]

How well do you think advertising outside the hobby press will do?

Imagine they get the prime TV slot in the middle of the Super-Bowl and do an excellent advert.

To start on the game you need not only the Core Rules, but generally a group of like minded friends.

It also helps if at least one of those friends is already experienced with roleplaying and even more handy if they have experience as a DM.

Hmm if an experienced player or DM is really need to get started why waste all that money on an advert when word of mouth will probably work as well and be much cheaper.

So by your thinking, all the gamers that are were always gamers before. Where do you think new gamers come from? Spontaneous creation? You have to, have to, have to grow your customer base. Wizards seems to think just as you do.