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

[Nightfall]

Okay let me 100% clear about me. I am NOT on anyone pay roll. If I was, it's a damn more than I'm making now which is 0%.

I also don't get paid by the post but considering my lifetime goal/lifequest is to surpass Crothian, well...I got a ways to go don't I?


Kheti,

No I'm not that naive. I am, however, older and feeling like it's time to put aside the anger and let the answers we see be heard. If that means we have to give a little to get it, I'm all for it.

Sean,

It's only weird if you think to hard. Besides my mom isn't undead or anything. I'm just spontanteously formed that way.

 

[Agamon]

Nightfall, just kidding around but, are you getting paid for all these responses?

Once he hits 20,000 posts, he officially becomes Nightfall, god of money angels, New Coke, Orcus and the Scarred Lands.

That, or he's just looking forward to posting, "IN YOUR FACE, CROTHIAN!"

 

[Agamon]

I also don't get paid by the post but considering my lifetime goal/lifequest is to surpass Crothian, well...I got a ways to go don't I?

Ah, it was option 2, I knew it!

 

[papastebu]

Well, you know. If I had to pick between Dragon/Dungeon and my best friend. I'd keep my best friend. But if I had to pick between them and say... Bob down the hall. Well, Bob down the hall. I wouldn't even notice if he were gone.

I have a cat named Bob. What are you trying to say?

 

[Friadoc]

I have a cat named Bob. What are you trying to say?

Bye-bye, Bob, bye-bye. WotC is looking to make an old school violin, RUN! j/k

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hmm...I just went over to WotC's message boards for the first time in 3 years (and after putting in my new email address etc.)...

It looks like all of the forums are locked for posting.

Is this just for my account, just having recently been updated, or is WotC getting a little more flame than it can handle at this moment?

 

[The Shaman]

The whole "WOTC staffers are "reluctant" (cough) to come over here and talk about this mess" that Morris posted honestly cracks me up.

As someone who has worked for some fairly large corporations who've had to make some press announcements that pi$$ed off a lot of people/customers from time to time, quite honestly, I think the stance is rather unprofessional. Marketing and CS people sometimes get to have all the glory, and sometimes they have to eat the big $^&t sandwiches when it's bad press and problems. Quite frankly, where I have worked, our marketing people (that included myself) would have been reamed out and/or disciplined/fired for avoiding such a situation. An online "damage contol-blurb", would not be sufficient (in the least). Then again, we'd have our CS people up to snuff on the sitch as best we could, and also be putting out all kinds of FAQs for our customers (like Paizo did)

I'm not talking about designers now...I'm talking about the marketing people and the people in charge of this online initiative (assuming they've hired the positions yet, lol).

The point I was trying to make is WOTC FUBAR'ed this up beyond comprehension (from a business/marketing standpoint). You don't take away a 30 year old "institution" to a large number of gamers, and say "yeah well..we'll have something pretty cool in a few months...but uhm..well..we cant say what it is you're going to get..its REALLY cool , though...really....it is...cos uhm..we said so". And then you certainly don't post that poor "blurb" they are trying to pass off as damage control. You get into it with your customers and you inform them..you assure them things are gonna be OK..by giving them SOMETHING concrete...not marketing BS. You post FAQs...you have up a SAMPLE of what some of the things in the pipeline are..SHOW what you are going to do...not just tell them in vague roundabout ways and then "hide". All of this SHOULD have done before the annoucement was made....uhmm...once again..just like Paizo did.

QFU(ltimate)T.

The Wizzos stuff may be so cool you could store a dead cow in it for a week. Six months from now gamers may be saying, "Paizo who?"

But this is not how you roll out a new product, and it is most definitely not how you say goodbye to a keystone publication. As of now this could be a chapter in a business textbook, the one titled, "Don't Let This Happen to You!"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I live in D/FW, and when Jerry Jones bought the team in 1988, he fired the head coach, Tom Landry. Not "promoted him to front office duties" "made him a GM" or "bought out his contract"- FIRED him. No ceremonies. No dinners in his honor. Nothing.

Nevermind that the man had had a losing record for a couple of years- he was one of the most respected and beloved men in the area.

To the fans, the man was more than a coach around here, he was an institution. Some people considered him a second father figure.

That, BTW, is NOT hyperbole.

And today, after 3 Superbowl victories with the coaches that followed TL, Jerry Jones is still experiencing pockets of backlash over that decision. Its not the fact that TL was fired- many people (then AND now) said it needed to be done but the method in which he handled the change in coaching. There are still people who HATE him for doing it the way he did.

That is also not hyperbole.

WotC has essentially done the same thing.

Even if the transition to a purely digital format for the 2 mags was a good decision, it was a poorly handled one that makes them look a lot like Mr. Jones.

 

[Steel_Wind]

The more I think of it, the more I think it was handled as a "death announcement" to avoid the accounting and date entry hassles with subscription transfers - with all its attendant database transfer and product roll-out deadlines too.

While I expect it was not an entirely selfless act, the more I think of it, it may well be that WotC has just taken a huge PR hit and given Paizo a chance to survive by permitting them to transfer subscription money to Pathfinder / store credit - instead of transferring cash to WotC.

 

[Nightfall]

I don't think anyone ever likes Jerry Jones, Mister Gator Eater Fighter Lover.


Aggy,

It's definitely option 2 in some ways BUT also think it might happen with option 1 IF I ever hit a billion posts.