WOTC, when do we see a commercial for D&D on TV???

[Darth K'Trava]

There was a TV ad for the D&D boardgame. IIRC it was aired last year. I have a copy on video. The ad featured live action of Regdar, Mialee and Lidda.

Too bad there's not an online copy...

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Sure, but spending $2 to make $5 is a good way to expand. Again, its useless to speculate. If WotC is content with how much they are making right now and the size of things, then that's that. If they are running out of ideas for sourcebooks and ways to get existing player's to keep buying books, and want to try to increase sale of core material to new players, then I think its a logical next step. I don't believe a TV add would sink WotC if it didn't make them money right away - if Green Ronin or Malhavoc Press were to sink their funds into one it could potentially break them financially but WotC is huge and makes money from a number of different products - I would think if anyone in the RPG industry, they could put together a kick-a$$ add that made people excited about D&D.

I'm not sure how you could make D&D appealing as a TV ad without making it look like a fantasy movie preview... It'd be boring to show four guys sitting around a table, rolling dice and going from there... There's got to be a way to "spice things up" to make it look appealing to the general public and also the target audience.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

As for commercials being too expensive, if a local game store (and notice that I did not add the term "friendly") can afford to run prime time commercials on Scifi and USA, then Wizards could definitely afford to run commercials in some high concentration markets.

Is that the one over in Winston-Salem? (can't recall the name) They were running ads, from what I heard, on Sci-Fi for awhile...

 

[Belen]

Is that the one over in Winston-Salem? (can't recall the name) They were running ads, from what I heard, on Sci-Fi for awhile...

Fallen Orc in Cary, NC had ads on TV during Christmas.

 

[Buttercup]

A series based on the FR....mmm..drowy goodness...
Actually it'd probably be Eberron that would get picked if a series from DnD was to air, considering how hard that setting is being pushed.

Eberron exists as setting so that WotC/Hasbro can license it for computer games. Have you seen the latest stats on online gaming? It's making a boatload of cash and attracting new players like crazy. The rights for FR are too fragmented to make it a viable cash cow.

So if there is ever a TV commercial, it will be for an Eberron online game. These days, the table top game is only useful to Hasbro in so far as it provides them with a ruleset that can translate into the electronic venue.

 

[Buttercup]

I agree that a Harry Potter RPG would be a great entry product for new gamers, though I don't think it'd help with the people who think D&D is satanic...many of those people condemn the Harry Potter books, too.

The Harry Potter phenomenon has been good for fantasy books, movies, computer games and probably by extension D&D already. And while it is true that there are some people who think HP and all fantasy is satanic, this is an extremely small group and they aren't organized. It's a dying issue.

 

[Dremmen]

You got somethin' against the Panthers?!?!



Haven't seen one since the online version of that washer commercial with the geek and his gaming books.

I got nothing against the Panthers They are my fave - I got a mug even! In fact I hope to make it to Charlotte next season, see what Delhomme will be like this time around. He's been getting better and better.

But I digress - I still think that there is a huge number of players-to-be that may never have a chance to learn the game because it just happens that noone around them has it. That's the problem with word of mouth - it can't reach everybody like TV can. There are plenty of small towns completely devoid of veteran players or gaming stores (like mine), but chuck full of kids with spare time and nothing better to do than get into trouble. And I'd be willing to bet my first edition oriental adventures that a big chunk of these same kids would get a kick out of D&D if they even knew it existed or what it was about. The majority of players that I brought into the fold either didn't know what D&D was altogether, or didn't know what it was about, just heard the name. That ol' timey commercial from the early 80s did show gamers around the table, but the cartoon part of it gave a sense of how exciting it could be. Hell, buy that from TSR and air it and I'd be happy :\

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Eberron exists as setting so that WotC/Hasbro can license it for computer games. Have you seen the latest stats on online gaming? It's making a boatload of cash and attracting new players like crazy.

Has everybody seen D&D Online yet? It's an Eberron MMORPG, as far as I heard.

Judging by how World of Warcraft ran off with my wife, a D&D MMORPG will be great for the game ... especially if they can keep the rulesets close together.

But they won't be able to. A MMORPG environment quickly weeds out mechanically unreasonable advantages and presents them to the light of day. And people expect to fight about 20x the combats they do in tabletop games, one after the other, with little to no cooldown. I have a feeling Warforged won't make it out of beta looking anything like they do now.

((Especially since status effects are the bread and butter of MMORPGs, especially spell-based ones, allowing caster classes to effectively 'solo'. Warforged are supposedly immune to about 70% of the normal status effects in tabletop D&D ... which isn't going to fly in Happy Funtime Online D&D Land.))

--fje

 

[Staffan]

Eberron exists as setting so that WotC/Hasbro can license it for computer games.

I don't think Hasbro sees a dime of the D&D computer game market. Atari has a license for that that lasts for another 10-15 years.

 

[Belen]

I don't think Hasbro sees a dime of the D&D computer game market. Atari has a license for that that lasts for another 10-15 years.

Atari may have the right to make D&D games, but they sure as heck do not have a license to make Eberron games without an ok from Wizards. Unless Atari paid for the right to any world Wizards produced after the got the initial license, then Wizards should be fine.

I'll bet that the Dragonshards game and the D&D Online game using Eberron required some sort of payment for the rights on the part of Atari.