WOTC: Making a statement is not making a promise

[frankthedm]

Why is it that we hang so heavily on the words of WOTC, ascribing their plans as promises?

Some of us, stuck in the past as we are, prefer a world where a persons word is their bond. We would prefer not to think of a company that makes a game we deeply enjoy as untrustworthy. We prefer not to view the fellow gamers people they employ as liars. Some folks think it is o.k. for employees to parrot corporate blurbs regardless of the whole truth. Others feel speaking a lie for another makes the falsehood your own.

 

[Adrift]

Why is it that we hang so heavily on the words of WOTC, ascribing their plans as promises?

As fans of the game, I think some people just have a hard time separating themselves from the game in a way. No, I'm not talking about a person wandering around LARPing 24-7. Some people make DnD a little too important in the scheme of day-to-day life and hang on every word; even when those words are not promises. I'd almost equate the behavior to stalking/obsession.

WotC could potentially save themselves problems if they just put a tagline on everything they produce/write that says, 'all plans subject to change.'

 

[catsclaw227]

Some of us, stuck in the past as we are, prefer a world where a persons word is their bond. We would prefer not to think of a company that makes a game we deeply enjoy as untrustworthy. We prefer not to view the fellow gamers people they employ as liars. Some folks think it is o.k. for employees to parrot corporate blurbs regardless of the whole truth. Others feel speaking a lie for another makes the falsehood your own.

Are you one of those "others" that feel speaking a lie for another makes the falsehood their own?

You make it sound like someone forced the poor WOTC employees to point-blank lie to the fans.

When a company is discussing a development project, and they talk about the things they are planning to include, they are NOT "giving their word" as a bond.

If I tell you I am going to buy a red car, and I see a blue one I like instead, or (forbid!) I decide that I will get a better car in 6 months, I have not signed a contract with you that I suddenly break. My "word" is not suddenly in question.

 

[evilref]

Some of us, stuck in the past as we are, prefer a world where a persons word is their bond. We would prefer not to think of a company that makes a game we deeply enjoy as untrustworthy. We prefer not to view the fellow gamers people they employ as liars. Some folks think it is o.k. for employees to parrot corporate blurbs regardless of the whole truth. Others feel speaking a lie for another makes the falsehood your own.

I think you'd be hard pressed to prove anyone at WotC has lied. Not delivering on an intended product goal is not lying. Nor is believing that a product is better than some consumers find it to be.

Likewise unless you can show that anyone at WotC has deliberately lied in any of their marketing or press releases you're being disengenous (in the calculating sense) in your above statements.

 

[Scribble]

You know that game "telephone" where you whisper something in a person's ear, and it goes down the line, and around a big circle and you see how diferent the final message is from the original?

Sometimes I think the internet is like a giant version of that.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think a major part of the point is that the expectations should be different.

People are blowing the word "promise" out of all proportion with the hyperbole that some how the posters that say "promise" mean that a solemn oath was sworn.

When obviously they mean "we were told this would happen, and it didn't and now I'm disappointed." With the obvious nature of "WotC told us this stuff and if they're not going to stick to it, they shouldn't have said it in the first place".

Mass Effect was a great game, it failed to deliver on the early stuff they advertised. Saying "they promised us we could interupt conversations!" doesn't mean you think someone was oathbound.

 

[Tewligan]

You mean this post where he actually makes the announcement, and never actually says anything you just claimed?

No, that's not the post I meant. I'm not sure why you would think it was since, as you pointed out, it doesn't say any of the things I mentioned. I went back and hunted it down - the post was actually by Ken Troop, not Bill Slaviscek:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=16056224&postcount=2
This is the part I was remembering:

My second answer to that is, "Yes, even though we did, we could have done a better job overall."

Part of that is all of us have had our heads down in the trenches over the last few months trying to get as much of D&D Insider as possible ready to use and deploy for launch, or failing that, as soon as possible thereafter. With such tunnel vision, it can be difficult to remember to put down the code and the content and talk with your audience.
But regardless, we didn't do a very good job here of keeping up good lines of communication with the community. We're trying to get better at it. We'll appreciate hearing when we do better, and when we still miss the mark.

I bolded the part where he says they forgot to tell people what's going on, by the way, so it's easy to see. Otherwise, someone might bring up a link that's obviously not the one I was talking about to imply that I'm a liar!

Oh, and this one is dated June 7th, by the way.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Do you seriously think this is how WOTC has handled the PR around the DDI?

Not the DDI specifically, but 4e in general. I remember how they said something about how they laughed at all the questions about whether or not 4e was coming. Then 3 weeks later they announced 4e. That's not lying by a clinical definition, but it's still dishonest.

 

[JoeGKushner]

If a company makes a 'statement' and fails to do as they 'stated' they would, then if it's preceived as a bad thing, stocks will go down. How much they go down will depend on the 'excuse'.

WoTC is no different. Unless things have changed, I haven't seen any announcements telling buyers that they can send in those last 3.5 books because those updates? Yeah, they're just not coming. Those 4e books you bought and were supposed to be able to get a low priced PDF? We already know that's not coming so yeah, send those back too.

The whole 'language' of promise versus statement is asinine.

 

[Nadaka]

WotC staff did not IMO lie or break promises about the content of 4e.

However, I do believe it is the case that they did do so in relation to the systematic destruction of the D20 modern line and all support for that system.