Quote from: thedungeondelver;559338Au contraire, they marketed it on the premise that everyone, from 3.5 gamers back, were idiots and played D&D wrong, and 4e finally fixed everything.

No, they marketed it and were as successful as say, Chevy would be marketing a new Corvette by saying people who admired (and owned) '66 Stingrays were idiots who didn't know the steering wheel from the clutch flywheel.  

This entire mess is their own fault, they get what they deserve.

Ayup. WOTC sold the 'newer is always betterer' line and it proved to be as true as the old 'housing market always goes up' crapola.

Quote from: jibbajibba;559339My daughter is 7 she woudl play Moshi Monsters all day if I let her out of the cellar for more than an a couple of hours a day.

Laugh point.

@Spinachcat:

4e failed because, in releasing it, WotC replaced an RPG with a miniatures boardgame founded upon mechanics disconnected from any sort of reality.

3.5 was bad enough, but 4e was a whole new level of fail.

I'm not sure 4e killed Dungeons & Dragons™ brand. What killed it was the OGL, which ironically(?) is also the greatest gift Wizards of the Coast ever bestowed upon the hobby. Even if 4e had been the greatest thing since sliced bread, the cat was out of the bag. A revival took place among older games. 4e just exacerbated it with it's design.

BTW, I fully agree that WotC did a shit job advertising 4e to existing fans.

But existing fans are only one group and we know they will soon fracture. The Edition Wars made it clear that new editions sell well at first, but then the fandom splits into fans of the new edition vs. those who retreat to their old favorites.

The important advertising is getting new blood to buy your product and aggressively marketing the game past its initial launch phase.
 

Quote from: jibbajibba;559339Take D&D make a facebook and some IPad/android apps get the name totally back in front of people then when you have 1m active facebook players create a way to let them link together in real time.

There is a very good D&D game on Facebook. Check out Heroes of Neverwinter - even if you aren't a 4e fan.

Too bad WotC didn't promote it significantly.

Quote from: Spinachcat;559344There is a very good D&D game on Facebook. Check out Heroes of Neverwinter - even if you aren't a 4e fan.

Too bad WotC didn't promote it significantly.

You know what kills me?  WotC could have kept the "older" players happy with a code-once-never-look-back facebook or web-based flash game and thrown some FB ads up that said "Play Classic D&D online!" and had some thing where armor classes went down instead of up and set it in a generic dungeon that was purportedly in Greyhawk (and done one for faerun by changing like 10 sprite graphics and mapnames) and not changed another thing outside of what they already had...then kept ad-banners up for 4e onward, and had more cash trickle in.

Yes, I'm that cynical about much of the OS market.  Hell, I'd have played it (REWARD GOOD BEHAVIOR).

To quote Ozzy, though: "Just like the wounded, and when it's too late, they'll remember, they'll surrender."

Quote from: jibbajibba;559339Fuck the teens you need the 8 year olds .

I agree. Market to the kids AND their gamer parents. You know. Us.

Quote from: Endless Flight;559343I'm not sure 4e killed Dungeons & Dragons™ brand. What killed it was the OGL, which ironically(?) is also the greatest gift Wizards of the Coast ever bestowed upon the hobby. Even if 4e had been the greatest thing since sliced bread, the cat was out of the bag. A revival took place among older games. 4e just exacerbated it with it's design.

I really do think this is a huge part of it, especially when one factors PF into the equation.
Anyway, I sneered at 5e when everyone else was cheering, but I don't think its going to be a total loss. I really do think they have every opportunity to at least  catch up to Pathfinder.

Quote from: Gib;559359I really do think this is a huge part of it, especially when one factors PF into the equation.

The OGL did exactly what it was intended to do, which is ensure that no one company could control D&D.

And why Dancey wasn't fired on the spot for suggesting it I'll never know.

Quote from: daniel_ream;559374The OGL did exactly what it was intended to do, which is ensure that no one company could control D&D.

And why Dancey wasn't fired on the spot for suggesting it I'll never know.

Because he convinced them that they would have everyone putting out d20 and OGL products, all of which required the Core Rulebooks to play.

Quote from: daniel_ream;559374The OGL did exactly what it was intended to do, which is ensure that no one company could control D&D.

This is so obvious that I cannot come up with satisfactorily insulting response. You're the smart guy, so I leave it up to you; try to work in douche bag and pedantic- if you can.

Quote from: Gib;559385This is so obvious that I cannot come up with satisfactorily insulting response. You're the smart guy, so I leave it up to you; try to work in douche bag and pedantic- if you can.

How about "you're a thickheaded moron with no understanding of how large companies value IP; also, the next time I see a cheap copy of DCC I'm going to buy it and send you photos of me lighting it on fire just to spite you" ?

Oh wait, that's me insulting you.  Sorry, I get turned around sometimes.

Anyhoo, I find it hard to believe that at any point Dancey actually said to anyone at Hasbro that part of the purpose of the OGL was to diminish their control over their IP, because that should have got him fired on the spot. I can believe that that was his intent, and I can believe he sold the rest of WotC on the idea, but as soon as anyone at Hasbro got a whiff of it it should have been spiked.

The notion that sales of tons of third party material would magically boost sales of the core books was silly on the face of it and contradicted by market experience, and even if that weren't true, it did not necessitate giving away the homeworld.

Thickheaded moron is kind of redundant, really. One or the other would have been fine, because they nearly always come together, whereas there are many varieties of douchebag, pedantic and otherwise.

Also I said nothing about WoTC and how they value( or should have valued) their IP. However, as long as we're stating the obvious, your position regarding the OGL seems pretty much spot on to me. I mean, really, what kind of dumbass creates their own competition?

P.S. I don't really want DCC.

Quote from: daniel_ream;559374The OGL did exactly what it was intended to do, which is ensure that no one company could control D&D.

And why Dancey wasn't fired on the spot for suggesting it I'll never know.

Because Peter Adkinson agreed with him. Note that he sold WotC shortly after.

Quote from: flyerfan1991;559191I've a good idea which software company you're talking about, and the medical software industry makes the IRS look like NASA.

It's sad really.  Maybe the medical software folks are allergic to best practices, so how about just some not totally shithead-stupid practices?  I mean, haven't databases been around and improved on since the 60s?

Quote from: Bobloblah;559195The enterprise software space has a lot of software that would make the average consumer either choke, or believe they just entered a timewarp to the 80s. I'm not sure comparing with consumer software is terribly relevant, as the considerations, particularly in terms of reliability, are very different.

It was 'enterprise' software only because that sounded flashier.  Front line records clerks and billing specialists are the intended audience, so the level of computer expertise is expected to be minimal.

I know what you are saying, the software is usually more designed for performance than interface.  Nonetheless, trying to extract information from a un-indexed block of text using Java is a far cry from trading looks for performance.