Windjammer
Adventurer
Over the last couple of days, there's been an interesting exchange of sorts between a retailer and WotC president Greg Leeds. 'Exchange' may stretch the terms here, but in essence a retailer presented his situation and Leeds wrote a response. I'm going to quote both in full and, to round it off, I'm going to quote what a retailer related on another forum - anonymously; he's on this board, and if he wishes to put a name to the post, I leave it at his discretion, not mine.
Retailer Mike King:
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"From the point of view of a game store manager, it seems clear to me that 4E is not as successful as Wizards of the Coast needed it to be, and that they are pushing hard to fix it.
As a buyer for a game store, I can say the lack of Arcane Powers 2, Dungeon Masters Guide 3 and the imminent publication of The Rules Compendium seems ominous. It feels like the end of 3.5 did, only on an accellerated schedule.
As a seller of 4E books, I can tell you that sales have dropped dramatically for new books. The first 60 days of sales of Martial Powers 2 was well under half the comparable sales of Martial Powers 1, and whereas I used to bring in a dozen or more copies of each new book for opening week, I am now bringing in no more than half a dozen.
As a direct customer of Wizards of the Coast, I can say that their marketing has become increasingly and nakedly aggressive. For example, in order to receive and be able to sell the Player's Handbook 3 on the same date Barnes and Noble does, our store had to agree to host World Wide Game Day Player Handbook 3 Adventure, otherwise we'd have to wait over 10 days later to release (and no game store can afford to cross Wizards of the Coast regarding release dates, let me tell you). Host Game Day, or give Barnes and Noble (who regularly breaks release dates without consequence) ten days head start? Not actually a choice.
Or consider D&D Encounters. This is Wizards new program to promote 4E play in store. Starting at first level, an adventure a week, for twelve weeks, with the promise of additional "seasons" of play. There is an explicit in-game mechanism, called Reknown, which rewards players who have access to and use specific published materials, and which disadvantages characters in game who do not. At various Reknown totals, players gain the equivalent of encounter powers for their characters, above and beyond what they entitled to for their class, level, and magic items, and some of the highest Reknown rewards are awarded for using specific products.
That is, a player with access with to just the original Player's Handbook playing a Ranger with a photocopied character sheet will actually have one less encounter power at first level than a the player sitting next to him playing a Psion Shardmind built using the Character Builder, at least until he has caught up with the Psion's Reknown. But the Psion will almost always have more Reknown.
The D&D Encounters adventure itself is not entirely self-contained, but depends on DM knowledge of both the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. It is specificly tied to that setting, and the mechanics contained. In order to be able to sell new 4E books without waiting an additional ten days, either I, or the store, are going to have to eat the cost of two of the most expensive 4E books published.
Further, it is obviously that they are putting much more effort into the promotional adventures. Both the World Wide Game Day and D&D Encounter adventures have actual authors, editors, and staff credited, and are substantially less awful than previous efforts. While still lame, they require much less effort to fix, as they are more internally consistant, and have fewer contradictions, errors, and omissions. At least it's clear they have an author, and are edited.
It feels to me like Hasbro has lit a fire under Wizards of the Coast, and given them an ultimatum: Perform or Be Sold Off. There was an article recently in the Wall Street Journal about Hasbro's performance and profitability. Transformers and G.I. Joe get kudos, they discuss their Parker Brothers and Avalon Hill board game lines, but neither Magic the Gathering nor Dungeons and Dragons even rates a mention!
That is suggestive of the sad state of Wizards of the Coast."
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Retailer Mike King:
Greg Leeds' response:
And, an additional perspective which antedates the above exchange but is very recent (put outside quote tags because they've for some reason killed the formatting - don't we love forum software):
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"From the point of view of a game store manager, it seems clear to me that 4E is not as successful as Wizards of the Coast needed it to be, and that they are pushing hard to fix it.
As a buyer for a game store, I can say the lack of Arcane Powers 2, Dungeon Masters Guide 3 and the imminent publication of The Rules Compendium seems ominous. It feels like the end of 3.5 did, only on an accellerated schedule.
As a seller of 4E books, I can tell you that sales have dropped dramatically for new books. The first 60 days of sales of Martial Powers 2 was well under half the comparable sales of Martial Powers 1, and whereas I used to bring in a dozen or more copies of each new book for opening week, I am now bringing in no more than half a dozen.
As a direct customer of Wizards of the Coast, I can say that their marketing has become increasingly and nakedly aggressive. For example, in order to receive and be able to sell the Player's Handbook 3 on the same date Barnes and Noble does, our store had to agree to host World Wide Game Day Player Handbook 3 Adventure, otherwise we'd have to wait over 10 days later to release (and no game store can afford to cross Wizards of the Coast regarding release dates, let me tell you). Host Game Day, or give Barnes and Noble (who regularly breaks release dates without consequence) ten days head start? Not actually a choice.
Or consider D&D Encounters. This is Wizards new program to promote 4E play in store. Starting at first level, an adventure a week, for twelve weeks, with the promise of additional "seasons" of play. There is an explicit in-game mechanism, called Reknown, which rewards players who have access to and use specific published materials, and which disadvantages characters in game who do not. At various Reknown totals, players gain the equivalent of encounter powers for their characters, above and beyond what they entitled to for their class, level, and magic items, and some of the highest Reknown rewards are awarded for using specific products.
That is, a player with access with to just the original Player's Handbook playing a Ranger with a photocopied character sheet will actually have one less encounter power at first level than a the player sitting next to him playing a Psion Shardmind built using the Character Builder, at least until he has caught up with the Psion's Reknown. But the Psion will almost always have more Reknown.
The D&D Encounters adventure itself is not entirely self-contained, but depends on DM knowledge of both the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. It is specificly tied to that setting, and the mechanics contained. In order to be able to sell new 4E books without waiting an additional ten days, either I, or the store, are going to have to eat the cost of two of the most expensive 4E books published.
Further, it is obviously that they are putting much more effort into the promotional adventures. Both the World Wide Game Day and D&D Encounter adventures have actual authors, editors, and staff credited, and are substantially less awful than previous efforts. While still lame, they require much less effort to fix, as they are more internally consistant, and have fewer contradictions, errors, and omissions. At least it's clear they have an author, and are edited.
It feels to me like Hasbro has lit a fire under Wizards of the Coast, and given them an ultimatum: Perform or Be Sold Off. There was an article recently in the Wall Street Journal about Hasbro's performance and profitability. Transformers and G.I. Joe get kudos, they discuss their Parker Brothers and Avalon Hill board game lines, but neither Magic the Gathering nor Dungeons and Dragons even rates a mention!
That is suggestive of the sad state of Wizards of the Coast."
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