WotC Replies: Statements by WotC employees regarding Dragon/Dungeon going online

[Friadoc]

Haakon1,

Hey, have you ever seen those "We only deal with big business" commericials?

If so, oddly enough, I just pictured the WotC Exec standing on the ink blotter of the Hasbro execs desk.



Nice!

 

[Hussar]

Interesting.

Not surprisingly some reactions to this was "it's too late" (24 hours late, OMG), "it's just spin" or "it's just marketing" or "it's not enough".

Of course it's marketing. A bit more laid back than the one Paizo is laying down thick on these very boards actually, for example. Of course it's spin. Did anyone expect a heartfelt apology and a "oh, you know we changed our minds because people have so eloquently put forward their feelings on the matter and that contradicts all our data and our analysis."

Now that WotC are speaking up, that's wrong as well. I don't think WotC can please some of the most vocal detractors with any amount of communication.

I still don't like the decision. But now that WotC are beginning to communicate, a day or so after the announcement, I'm going to listen to what they are saying, give them some time and have a pint or two in rememberance of the mags.

/M

I mentioned this in the other thread, but, yeah, I basically agree with this. Of COURSE Paizo is hitting the spin as hard as it can. This could potentially break them. A major source of income for them just got flushed. Add in the money they have to give back to subscribers (either in cash or kind) and this could have sunk them.

So, they were well prepped, had a new project in hand that looks pretty snazzy and are putting up a great face. Duh.

From WOTC's perspective, they haven't lost anything other than the license income. Somehow I doubt that's a major source of revenue. Money in hand, true, but not something they are going to lose sleep over. So, they take their time, wait for the storm of hyperbolic vitriol to blow over and then show people what they've got.

I'm fairly content to wait and see. But, it is fun to watch people blowing a gasket over this.

 

[delericho]

Oh for the love of Pete! Rarely have I seen such an embarrassing display of drama queenery and hyperbole.

And yet many of you... describe feelings of physical pain and mourning like someone important to you has died...

In the other thread, I posted that this felt like being punched in the gut. That wasn't hyperbole, it was a statement of my feelings at my time. Like a great many people here, I have been reading Dragon for the majority of my life, and now it is gone. So, yes, there is a sense of mourning.

Your being dismissive of the feelings of those who are effected by this, no matter how silly you may think they are being, is really not appreciated.

Most of the posts against WotC's decision have been along the "cold businessmen in black suits making profitable decisions" type.

This was a decision taken by 'suits' for business reasons. That's not to say it was the wrong decision, however.

Wizards of the Coast have recently moved back into publishing adventures. Rightly or wrongly, they seem to have seen Dungeon as a source of competition. In addition, they are moving to a digital subscription model, and here they rightly consider Dragon to be a source of competition to that. So, under those circumstances, it is a good idea for them to end the magazines. It would be folly to keep them in circulation and allow them to compete with their new venture.

(I would also expect to see the d20 license revoked, except that d20 (not OGL) now seems to be essentially dead, and probably isn't even a blip on the radar of the people pulling the shots at WotC. Besides, revoking d20 gains them nothing since everyone affected would just go OGL.)

This move does improve the chances of the Digital Initiative succeeding. They now have something that is a solid draw and that they know they can deliver. Unfortunately, as I see it, this only improves the chances for the DI from 'certain failure' to 'almost certain failure'. I have seen nothing in Wizards' track record to indicate they can pull off a tenth of the other things they have promised. And the e-zines alone aren't enough to sustain the DI; there's a reason ebooks haven't taken off - reading large blocks of text on a screen is uncomfortable, you lose all the benefits of the printed medium, and leverage none of the advantages of multimedia that the PC can provide.

So, I'm 95% certain the DI will fail, with features delivered late, crippled, or not at all. A year down the line, the promised functionality will be pared back, and back, and eventually the whole thing will be canned.

My horror scenario is that then Hasbro will look at D&D the role-playing game and determine that it is not profitable enough. The design work done on 4e will be shelved, the product will be canned. And, because D&D the brand remains a very valuable asset (for licensing to novels, video games, and movies) they will decline to sell, or even to license out the rights. And D&D as we know it will be dead.

That's the scenario that most worries me. I am, actually, hopeful that that last paragraph won't come to pass, but I do expect the DI to fail. Now, I don't hate WotC for doing this, and I'm not going to boycott them or anything like that. I'm almost certainly not going to sign up for the DI, unless the Virtual Tabletop is a stellar tool, but I don't particularly wish it ill.

Just my opinions.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

...Just my opinions.

And opinions well considered and written. I hope we don't look back in two years time and say, "The turning point of D&D's demise was when they cut Dragon and Dungeon."

Like you, it is difficult to see this having a positive effect on D&D. Like I said in my post, I just hope I'm wrong.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[WhatGravitas]

From WOTC's perspective, they haven't lost anything other than the license income. Somehow I doubt that's a major source of revenue. Money in hand, true, but not something they are going to lose sleep over. So, they take their time, wait for the storm of hyperbolic vitriol to blow over and then show people what they've got.

And, of course, image. Image is huge nowadays.

Have you seen the Wizards starting page?

It has stuff like silly lines "9 of 10 play our games. The 10th is dead." - Why? Because they want to appear as "friendly company", similar to your FLGS. They're writing articles (MtG AND D&D) in a fairly colloquial way... to avoid alienation.

This said, they're risking more than money. They're risking image. And, AFAIK, Wizards spends a lot on image - have you seen MtG marketing? It's a marketing with emphasis on "we're caring for you", because they're sending free stuff, supplemental stuff and so on.

This time PR wasn't that good.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

They could also have turned them into Print on Demand, which would have been clever.

People don't buy Print on Demand.



OK, a small percentage do. But very, very few. The small publishers who you see doing PoD aren't really doing PoD. Their print runs are so teeny tiny that the only people who will handle them affordably are PoD printers. WotCs production values are much, much too high for PoD printers. Sure, they could lower their production values, but you want to know something crazy? They'd sell fewer books that way. RPG books are a luxury/entertainment item and people like their color pictures.

 

[The_Gneech]

I don't care how exciting Kim Mohan thinks the new thing will be. Will it be delivered to my house? Will it come with the occasional random fold-out map of my favorite campaign world? Can I take it to read on the flight to California? Will it have ads in the back for a ton of little gaming companies I would have never heard of otherwise?

Until it does, I want my magazines.

-The Gneech

 

[Kae'Yoss]

This ending isn’t an execution—it’s an evolution. Now comes the next era. We have a plan.

That's a big pile of steaming crap. Evolution would be to have both the magazines and their Online Aberration at the same time and see what will win out. But they meddled. They killed the dinosaurs so their apes could become human. That's not Evolution, it's Infernal Intervention.

What keeps the old girl alive, though, is her never-ending goal of reaching the greatest number of people with the best possible content. Using a new delivery system doesn't have anything to do with compromising that goal.

Fact: A dual model of both print magazines and online content, available both on their website with a number of payment and subscription options and in paper, which would in turn be both available everywhere you can get D&D stuff and as a subscription, again with many delivery and payment options (including "paid with cash and carried home from the store") would be the delivery system to reach the greatest number of people.

So where does that leave our old girl? I'd say: "bleeding in the gutter".

This is a big deal and it is our full intention to continue to deliver the great content that the fans have come to expect from these magazines in a new medium.

Yeah, right. Except that you suck at that medium.

Part of me still can’t believe the magazines, in their current format, won’t be around anymore after the summer. But when I look to the future and see what we have planned, I can’t wait. Believe me, sometimes change really is for the best. I’m more excited than ever about the future of these gaming institutions. They’re not really going anywhere; they’re just coming home.

Coming home? Dragged back in, kicking and screaming. You threw them out when they were not good enough for you anymore, and when you saw that others could do them right, you got jealous and shot them down.

Why license from WotC? If you fail you lose money. If you succeed, you lose the license, and Wizards sets up a competing product to take your place.

I hope others will learn from this. I guess it will be harder for them to license anything, because it's a lose-lose situation: Either you fall down on your face, or you have some success for a time, until they take it away from you.

I commented about this in another thread. The melodramatic hyperbole is nauseating to me. It sucks that the mags are dying (in their present incarnation). It REALLY sucks. I have been reading them since the 80's. But geez... it's a magazine.

Aren't you a nice guy. People feel terrible about this, and you ridicule them. You must have many friends.

I totally agree, but some of the analogies are overkill. People saying that it feels like rape, or that a baby has drowned need to be called out.

Those comments were made by some cynicists who did the same as you did: Add insult to injury and ridicule those who feel the blow hardest.

 

[BadMojo]

I was expecting one of the folks interviewed to say "This really sucks. I haven't heard an idea this bad since the Book of Erotic Fantasy". Very disappointing.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'm a semi-divine servant of the Scarred Lands and half fiend son of Orcus!

Darn,

No one disputes my claims. Sad...

Your claim can't possibly be false