Quote from: Votan;754999But this can be good.  I want good RPG products, but see no downside to things like a toy line or cartoons.  I won't be the target audience, but a good entry product is good for everyone (even non-WotC RPG companies).  I have liked how Paizo had some fun spin offs (plush goblins!).

But I hope the RPG isn't an afterthought.  I have pre-orderepd the first six products to see what it is like.

I know I'm not explaining this right (Sacrosanct would know because he's a Seahawk fan like myself). It's okay to be secondary until you aren't and then it's just insane but good for us even when we don't see or understand it in real time.

Quote from: Votan;754999But this can be good.  I want good RPG products, but see no downside to things like a toy line or cartoons.  I won't be the target audience, but a good entry product is good for everyone (even non-WotC RPG companies).  I have liked how Paizo had some fun spin offs (plush goblins!).

But I hope the RPG isn't an afterthought.  I have pre-ordered the first six products to see what it is like.

I know I'm not explaining this right (Sacrosanct would know because he's a Seahawk like myself). It's okay to be secondary until you aren't and then it's just insane but good for us even when we don't see or understand it in real time.

Quote from: Old One Eye;754984The Disney pre-teen sitcom thing my kids were watching tonight had a D&D reference (called it Ghosts & Goblins).  We may have a niche hobby, but it is pretty damn well known.

Very true. I've seen veiled D&D references on a variety of shows, but oddly WotC seems to have been unable to capitalize on the "popularity" over the years.

Quote from: Piestrio;754987Which fanbase?

Good point.

Public play is bullshite. I mean they're bringing back certificates. It's not 2003 anymore.

Quote from: Votan;754999But this can be good.  I want good RPG products, but see no downside to things like a toy line or cartoons.

Appropos of this: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/news/dicemasters

Quote from: Haffrung;754949Edit: Poked around the WotC site more. Tyranny of Dragons is obviously their big push. Tyranny of Dragons is Coming! Is that really supposed to be more exciting or important than D&D is Coming!? It's actually troubling how much of their marketing on that site is about book and video-game tie-ins. If there's anything that will turn me off 5E it will be grafting the game onto the Forgotten Realms like an afterthought to Greenwood and Salvatore's schlock novels.

The books, videogames and board games make actual money. So they get the attention.

Want the attention? Okay, be the part of the fanbase that earns the most revenue.

Quote from: Haffrung;754949Edit: Poked around the WotC site more. Tyranny of Dragons is obviously their big push. Tyranny of Dragons is Coming! Is that really supposed to be more exciting or important than D&D is Coming!? It's actually troubling how much of their marketing on that site is about book and video-game tie-ins. If there's anything that will turn me off 5E it will be grafting the game onto the Forgotten Realms like an afterthought to Greenwood and Salvatore's schlock novels.

The ideal for the hobby is to have a stable set of core rules and Wizards focuses on presenting a different package for adventuring every year across whatever media they feel they can target including tabletop.

The potential problem is that one of this packages becomes a mega hit in of itself. In which case there will be a lot of pressure make the generic core rules the X rule set. I.e. the Tyranny of Dragons ruleset, the Dragonlance ruleset, etc.

Hopefully the first few times are good sellers to establish a tradition of a stable core plus a special rulebooks for whatever they are presenting. Then IF they get a mega hit the worse that will happen they will have the core rules AND a complete game based around whatever just became a hit.

The alternative modules are splatbooks and rules oriented to be 'fair' in the context of organized play.

Quote from: Ladybird;755037The books, videogames and board games make actual money. So they get the attention.

Want the attention? Okay, be the part of the fanbase that earns the most revenue.

It's nothing to do with attention. I just think it would helpful if the official D&D site had proper information about the edition being released in two months. If bloggers can summarize the release schedule, with pictures and dates, why can't WotC?

Quote from: Haffrung;755044It's nothing to do with attention. I just think it would helpful if the official D&D site had proper information about the edition being released in two months. If bloggers can summarize the release schedule, with pictures and dates, why can't WotC?

It has nothing to do with attention, you just want them to write something for you?

It costs money to get a marketing team to write anything.
WotC get a better return from spending that money on advertising the other parts of the property than the RPG. So those parts of the property get the marketing attention.

The bloggers are outside of WotC's control, so they can do whatever they like.

If you want the attention of the marketing team, you have to make it worth their while.

Quote from: Haffrung;755044It's nothing to do with attention. I just think it would helpful if the official D&D site had proper information about the edition being released in two months. If bloggers can summarize the release schedule, with pictures and dates, why can't WotC?

They did write summaries - one by Mearls, called 'Recap', and then a useful set of Q&A with Rodney T. - so it's not as if the text is not there, or would take further paid hours. It's just buried in the wrong place on the site, I think, and that I guess was part of your point.

That said, I don't know how recent an addition/update the following is - but when I go to the site, and click on 'Brands' - D&D, I get here:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Feature.aspx?x=new/whatisdnd

One more click ('What to Buy') and I have the product line up for 5e. I don't think that's that unreasonable or too deeply buried in the site.

As for other channels of advertising... Maybe a TV ad comes out closer to the release? The one for 4E came out pretty close to its release day (Jun 6 2008):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0CouN_qv-I

Quote from: Piestrio;754987Which fanbase?

The RPG fanbase.

Quote from: Marleycat;755005I know I'm not explaining this right (Sacrosanct would know because he's a Seahawk like myself). It's okay to be secondary until you aren't and then it's just insane but good for us even when we don't see or understand it in real time.

No, I understand.  I'm from Seattle, myself

So Far,...So Good


It seems to be selling better than I expected.

 We still have to 'talk it up' a little bit because 4th edition turned off a lot of people over the past few years.

The talk is that it is a lot like the good parts of 2nd and 3rd editions...

- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;783832The talk is that it is a lot like the good parts of 2nd and 3rd editions...

There's a fair amount of the good parts of 4e too IMO