TheRPGSite

In a lot of debates, people on various sides wonder why RPG Company 1 can get away with stuff that RPG Company 2 catches flak from its fanbase for.

The pristine example of this would be WotC vs. Paizo, but surely other examples abide in the industry over the ages. Usually, the sort of explanation focuses on the PR a company runs. But I think, even more concretely, it has little to do with PR and all to do with customer relations.

I'm going to document this once and for all, for the egoistic benefit of saving me a lot of breath on future occasions. But I'm equally eager to hear your opinions of this. The departure of WotC' current brand manager was apparently not a topic worth in its own right (I sort of agree), so it makes sense to broaden the focus of debate. Chime in with thoughts and experiences of customer relations in the RPG industry, be they general or specific.

Documentation Part

Exhibit 1.  (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/257909-question-scott-rouse-re-retroclones-3.html) JoetheLawyer raises a question on Enworld which puts WotC, and WotC' PR in the person of Scot Rouse, in a tight spot: is the OSR on safe legal grounds or not? Joe says, "I think we deserve an answer on this, no?" Enworld fanboys go rabid with "Joe, how dare you be so irreverent towards The Rouse? He DOESN'T GET PAID TO DO THIS." Rousy chimes in, "that's right, I'm just sitting here with cans of beer on my desk in my spare time. I browse on Enworld as part of what I do in my spare time, it's NOT PART OF MY JOB." If you're too lazy to skim that thread for these elements, read Joe's  bloody brilliant rebuttal of that inane attitude (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/257909-question-scott-rouse-re-retroclones-3.html#post4835569). If you find it detestable to browse on Enworld, and find white text on black background offensive to your poor old eyes, read it on Joe's blog here (http://wondrousimaginings.blogspot.com/2009/06/more-on-my-question-on-wotcs-position.html). To quote just the most pertinent bits:

Quote from: JoetheLawyerScott is a guy who gets paid to come here and be the eyes and ears and mouth of WOTC. It's his job. No one should put how they feel about WOTC on Scott. Even if they do, because of misplaced anger (we've all been guilty of it I bet), Scott gets paid to handle it. It's his job.

I have nothing against Scott. He is a good guy by all reports. He seems to be on the side of gamers. He is the only person to ask the question of though. If you like I could change the title of the thread to replace Rouse with Leeds, but it would still be Rouse who answers.

Whether the question gets answered or not, its still a valid question that in my mind, and the minds of others, deserves an answer. I'm sorry if Scott feels uncomfortable answering it, but frankly that's his job.

WOTC is not just the company that owns the intellectual property called Dungeons and Dragons, they are also the caretakers of a hobby that thousands enjoy every day. In that regard, they have a different level of responsibility which, to the extent that they are not carrying out that responsibility while paying attention to the bottom line, they seem to land themselves in hot water.

I'm offering them an opportunity to carry out not just the corporate mission statement to make money, but to help other aspects of the hobby out, which by all accounts has little or no impact on their bottom line.

Exhibit 2 (http://greenronin.com/2009/04/green_ronin_podcast_episode_9.php): a Green Ronin Podcast featuring Erik Mona. I transcribe it, as of minute 35 or so. Mona relates how Paizo, while still publishing Dungeon mag, started to release free PDFs displaying all the battle maps in a way that people could print out for their home use because people kept asking for it. (Something Settembrini brought about today, asking why WotC has never done it – their map galleries are absolutely useless for the task, they are DM maps, not player maps in e.g. showing monster locations etc.) Mona volunteers more recent examples of the fruits of Paizo staff interacting with Paizo customers online at a day-to-day basis here (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/general/archives/paizosAdventurePathsVariationsOnATheme&page=1#7). However, in the PodCast he then takes a moment to reflect on the underlying attitude, and this is what matters:

Quote from: Erik MonaSo we had to change what we were providing in response to the community.  And I really think in this day and age, community – especially in a niche market like table top gaming – I think having a community online and interacting with that community is absolutely critical to success. It’s critical to people knowing who you are, critical to people wanting to stay engaged with your brand and interested in your products , and I think it’s absolutely critical to your company. I think some companies look at interacting with their fans for instance on message boards as something extra, something that we – please – do at home, or something that is different from the WORK of going to meetings or sitting down and grind through text, you know, editing.

I as publisher of Paizo have always taken the opinion that this IS our job – interacting with our customers IS our jobs. Sometimes we do that by editing text. Sometimes we do that by coming up with new ideas for products. But sometimes it’s just being there by answering a question that somebody might have about our products, because no one knows our products as well as we do.
And that kind of “well, we’ll just let some fan answer our questions for us”, “we’re too good to be online, we’re too busy” or “we’re too professional” – I think that is potentially a road to disaster.

Our customers certainly imagine themselves as designers, or as publishers. I think that the very act of having a game where you are creative – in creating the stories and so on – it makes you think “how would I publish this thing” or “If I was a designer, how would I design this rule” or something like that. And so I think there’s a large number of people who are very interested in the process – whereas maybe you don’t care how your hotdog is made. And you probably shouldn’t.

That's it, in a nutshell. Scot Rouse with his beer cans at home, and Erik Mona at his office desk.

I had a long post in the other thread about Scott Rouse leaving that concerned your OP directly. Unfortunately i got eaten by a power surge So I will only relay the important bits.

There is a sales/brand management book written by Ken Blanchard called Raving Fans that talks directly to what Erik Mona says in the above posted thread. Paizo has made me a Raving Fan because I get the feeling that they care more about their customers than the profits the game makes. WOTCs business and game design model seems designed to make the maximum amount of profits, their fans be damned. Paizo seems to have found the elusive balance between profits and game management.

One of many reasons that, even though I bought, read, and played some 4e, I'm making the switch to Pathfinder.

If joe's response came from anyone less specious than joe, I would find it an intelligent response but coming out of him, it's malarkey. "Sweet sweet karma", indeed. I do however find Erik Mona's argument well put.

Quote from: JasperAK;338470WOTCs business and game design model seems designed to make the maximum amount of profits, their fans be damned. Paizo seems to have found the elusive balance between profits and game management.

We'll know in a few years which of these two approaches was more effective.

Quote from: ggroy;338482We'll know in a few years which of these two approaches was more effective.

I'm not sure we will – the scale of the two companies is too different, you get a lot of factors that apply to one company that don't to the other.

I don't spend time with Scott Rouse, and I don't spend time hanging out with WotC. I spend time with the actual game, and its the game thats important.

I just read this, and think it's pretty relevant to the thread...

http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2001/03/23/wizards/print.html

Enjoy...

And by way of response to "specious" claim, I have never made any secret of my loathing of WOTC as a company and how they have handled D&D since Hasbro took it over.  I don't like 4e, its not for me.  However, neither is much of 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder, as I'm discovering lately as I actually play the game as it was meant to be played, rules as written.  I do like the attitude behind the OGL much better than the attitude recently.  I think you'll find by reading what I've written on my blog and elsewhere that most of my hostility is directed at WOTC the company, rather than the edition, or the gamers that work there.  When 4e was first released I shared the opinion of many with my "WTF is this stuff?  It's not D&D!" statements, but like most it went away quickly and my anger was more accurately directed at the company rather than the game.  

My attacks on the company are not attacks on the game they produce. Though they are often confused as such by people who defensively think my criticisms of WOTC can somehow affect their enjoyment of their own game, and feel the need to jump on my ass on various boards for it.  I frankly don't give a shit about 4e the game.  I do care about the future of the hobby however, so to the extent the game is one which is designed to make money at the expense of attracting long-term gamers, I don't like it.  To the extent it is meant to act as a bridge to a variation of tabletop roleplaying which involves the use of computers rather than pen and paper at the game table, I don't like it.  As to whether it will or not, time will tell.

Back to the subject at hand in this thread, I wonder how much different D&D would have been if the original attitude prevailing at early WOTC as described in the link above was still present for the past 10 years.  I doubt that any of the PR or customer service mistakes would have been made.  It would have been so against the corporate culture to do so, that they would never have come up.  

I think that the Lisa and Vic mentioned in that article link are the same who now own Paizo, so maybe in a sense the spirit of the early WOTC days is still alive in Paizo/Pathfinder.  

Fundamentally it comes down to who owns/runs/works at the company, and why they do so.  If it's all about the money to the detriment of the hobby and those who enjoy the hobby, you have problems.  To the extent the decisions an corporate environment reflect the spirit of enthusiastic members of the hobby making things for others who enjoy the hobby, you have a company like Paizo doing well with PR effortlessly, because to them it's not PR.  It's just being themselves and enjoying what they're doing.

I wonder if we can ever get such an attitude back for D&D tabletop roleplaying in some way...I don't know if the cultural underpinnings are there anymore to support such widespread manic enthusiasm for either the current or older versions of the game.

Fair enough question posed by Joe, but it's also fair IMO that Scott declines to answer.  Or more precisely, he probably knows he can't answer and would get in all sorts of shit with legal if he did.

As a lawyer yourself Joe, surely you would counsel your client (WotC) from a legal point of view not to respond to such a question   If the do so, they have to balance the customer relation benefit against the legal risk.  As the OSR seems pretty clearly not the customer base for WotC, it's all downside from their point of view.

I do agree with you though that the game model they (WotC) have seems designed to milk their customers, by doling out the core stuff and trying to make the game only readily usauble if you subscribe to their on-line services.

Quote from: Imp;338484I'm not sure we will – the scale of the two companies is too different, you get a lot of factors that apply to one company that don't to the other.

In a few specific final cases, the answer would be obvious.

One case would be Paizo exiting the tabletop pen-and-paper rpg business or filing for bankruptcy in a few years.

Another case would be WotC shutting down and shelving the tabletop PnP D&D product line in a few years.

In the case where both Paizo and WotC simultaneously exit the tabletop PnP rpg business, whether through the hands of upper management or bankruptcy, we'll never know which business strategy was more effective.

Quote from: ggroy;338502One case would be Paizo exiting the tabletop pen-and-paper rpg business or filing for bankruptcy in a few years.

Another case would be WotC shutting down and shelving the tabletop PnP D&D product line in a few years.

Yeah, but I don't think either scenario is very likely at all, and b) could just imply that there isn't enough money in RPGs anymore for a large company to bother with it.

As for the subject of this thread, good customer relations is a definite plus, but bad customer relations wouldn't stop me if the goods were good enough.

Paizo could give out free blowjobs with every Pathfinder purchase and it would still be 3.75 and only interest people who want 3.75.

I don't give a shit about PR or coddling of the itsy bitsy online minority of "gamers" - most who don't even buy the books.   99% aren't customers and never will be.

Publishers should be spending far more time on marketing to new blood than worrying what the 40 year old special snowflakes are lawncrapping about this week.

I buy a game if it sounds interesting and play it  (or not) if it's fun.  That is about as much a relationship I've had with any gaming company.

Why would any one need anything more?

Quote from: Spinachcat;338543Paizo could give out free blowjobs with every Pathfinder purchase and it would still be 3.75 and only interest people who want 3.75.

If you chase up the hyperlink where I said "Mona volunteered more recent examples HERE", you'll see that the product in question isn't the ruleset but their adventure paths. People pick these up, irrespective of edition. Heck, people who haven't played D&D before (because they dislike the brand, but don't initially "get" that Paizo's offering for (then) "the world's most popular roleplaying" could be that), people who've just got into RPG etc. daily end up on Paizo's message boards. Not because they are 40 years old long time customers of the RPG market, but because they literally stumbled over a Paizo product. These people typically start posting with a query such as "hmmm, is there some info missing on p.x" or "I think the rough plot doesn't work/make sense for me here" etc., and that's where things get off ground in the way Mona describes. It's not just fellow fans who advise these people - it's often the very guy who wrote the module.

I recommend you browse the Paizo boards to see the effect this has on newcomers - instant birth of a Raving Fan (TM).

Therefore:

QuoteI don't give a shit about PR or coddling of the itsy bitsy online minority of "gamers" - most who don't even buy the books.   99% aren't customers and never will be.

This is your ignorance speaking. Paizo respond to people who already bought a product of theirs, and the way they respond all but ensures that these people will continue to buy more product.

QuotePublishers should be spending far more time on marketing to new blood than worrying what the 40 year old special snowflakes are lawncrapping about this week.

There's a mighty difference between a general RPG forum like this one, and one specifically oriented to promote and discuss products of one RPG company only. The Paizo boards provide focused discussion on their own products. That's not lawncrapping in my book.

Check here for  an example (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePath/councilOfThieves/initialThoughtsOnBastards&page=2#90). A poster quotes the designer's comments in full, only to add,

QuoteNothing to say really except to note that comments like that contained in the above quote are one of the fantastic things about the Paizo boards. As a keen purchaser of your products, yet one who is ignorant and oblivious to the realities of writing/editting/publishing, I find it fascinating to hear about the behind-the-scenes reasons for various decisions you've taken over the years.

And that's it. That's the added benefit of buying from Paizo.

When Paizo and me were going through our painful divorce, Paizo´s authors actually did argue with me about the reasons for the divorce. The people responsible actually did show me that they cared one way or the other.

Even in parting, I felt taken seriously.

WotC just ignored and mocked me since the "4dventure" ad.  Wtf?

I'm minded of the king of all "jerk designers"... Steven V. Cole, designer of SFB and Starfire. (Yes, the same Starfire that launched David Webber's writing career as a spinoff of the game line he took over developing for SVC...)

SVC was generally said to be terse, even rude. Online, frequently hostile... but he answered rules questions personally and quickly. I typed out a list of about 20 rules questions for SFB, back in 1985. Per the directions, mailed it off to ADB with a SASE... got it back two weeks later (which, at the time, meant turn around time was about 1 or 2 days), with answers to each and every question.

The same exact answers appeared as addenda in the next issue of Nexus.

Likewise, SJG had a similar policy: answers were pretty close to "immediate" for the era. And usually, they were logged, and put out in the company's house organs. (TSG for non-GURPS non-CW, ADQ for CW, and Roleplayer for GURPS, tho' SJG was an early adopter on tech, and had an internet accessable BBS by 1994...)

ADB and SJG both make good use of Compuserve (CIS) and GEnie for making fan contacts. Both had people assigned to actually respond on line. SVC and SPP both were on GEnie themselves, and occasionally on CIS. SJG had a staffer for that.

And both companies are doing well, and both companies have design staff active on their BBSs from work. And both survived legal issues that nearly killed them. (SJG - the USSS raid; ADB - the Paramount vs TFG & ADB, and ADB vs TFG.)

The folks at Pathfinder seem to be following a successful second tier model.
GW UK and WOTC are following a different model...

Quote from: aramis;338559GW UK and WOTC are following a different model...

Yes, and this is worth bearing in mind everytime someone comes along to praise WotC for their efforts to draw in "new blood". Frankly, given their production model, WotC would go under if they didn't do that. Their intentions surely have nothing to do with "growing the hobby". Hobby means staying on for more than 3 years, and if you do that as a WotC/GW customer you get royally screwed. On a regular basis. To quote from Joe's (amazing) linked reference (http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2001/03/26/wizards_part2/index2.html),

Quote from: John TynesBut then came Pokémon. Nintendo of Japan designed the Pokémon property from the ground up as a prefab fad whose innate collectibility could be exploited across multiple media. It posited a world where kids had little pet monsters who lived in their pockets and fought each other in action-packed but nonfatal battles. There were dozens of different monsters, with new ones for every product cycle. Kids were told directly to collect them all, and when the monsters mutated they should collect them again. Through video games, comics, television shows, movies, toys and trading-card games, Pokémon reigned supreme in its home country. When Nintendo brought the phenomenon to America, Wizards anted up to translate and publish the card game.

The rest is history, at least to 8-year-olds. The Pokémon card game was a bigger success than Magic, and Wizards rode the trend with the joyless dedication of a guy building the world's largest ball of string. There was nothing creative, charming, admirable or innovative in Pokémon except that it parted small children from their money with brutal efficiency. It inexplicably featured the dramatic story of cockfighting monsters who lived in your pants, and in Japan early episodes of the fast-paced cartoon series even caused seizures in epileptics. The entire thing was grotesque. Wizards' complicity was a sad affirmation of just how mainstream and uninspired the company had become.

Quote from: Settembrini;338554WotC just ignored and mocked me since the "4dventure" ad.  Wtf?

I recall clearly that it was the other way around.

You guys also should probably ask yourself: at what point do you call yourself a customer? I mean, a lot of you guys had declared yourselves (loudly and as often as possible) as non-customers at the moment of the announcement or even before it. Curse my memory but it certainly seemed like it went from "Dungeon Furnaces, lol, THAT will never work!" to "WOTC Has gravenly insulted me!" and "Tieflings? Those never existed in D&D before!" within ~6 months, and then it only got louder until it reached the hilarious crescendo of the PDF debacle (which also corresponded with a 2 week run of the PHB2 hitting the WSJ Best Seller List top 10).  By that time we had the flop zone refugees streaming in from everywhere they had been kicked out of everywhere else on the net.  

What I think actually happened (and it's probably pointless to point this out here, where things like honesty are so frowned upon) is that many people HERE came to a group decision about 4th Edition very early in the process. That group decision was about skepticism and denial.. and with each 4E success, the denial and skepticism simply grew louder and more strident to try and shout it down, until it turned into anger and tears and empty rage at being ignored.

But this is the market at work.

Oh and even that was called into question. The Amazon lists are fixed! The Wall Street Journal Best Seller list.. manipulated!  The accusations thus flew.

Finally the argument settled on "numbers don't matter". Everyone agreed all around.

Then Pathfinder came out. And IT sold really well too!

Suddenly.. the numbers mattered! Everyone was gleefully linking to the Amazon List that showed the Pathfinder core book up there, edging out Divine Power and Adventurers Vault, and there were high fives everywhere. For the entire week where Pathfinder was #1!

It's almost painful to watch you guys, sometimes.

But my point is: if Gallup or someone did some kind of market survey and asked actual 4E players how well WOTC does at customer relations, I suspect they would get a high or very high rating. Not from you guys, I totally believe it. But you guys would probably be booted from the survey around question #1 if you answered honestly.

AND it seems obvious at this point that a lot of people simply don't accept the legitimacy of the new edition, thus driving this strange perception of "customer relations"  for non customers.

But let's examine for a second, using JoetheLawyers own example.

Here's a guy who has a problem with the new edition. He doesn't understand it, it doesn't look like D&D at all! It's nothing like the old edition that Joe is here for righhhht?

Actually, if you read Joe's blog (and I do every once in a while) you realize that Joe first encountered the 3rd edition combat system last month. LAST MONTH. And he did it playing Pathfinder, which he was proud to have bought.

And of course you can't understand why 4e is the way it is, if you don't understand why 3e is the way it is, and where the issues in 3E are, and where 4E made changes to handle those issues (and yes, generating a whole series of it's own new issues). If you lack that understanding, I imagine it looks completely opaque from the outside.

So wait, lets go back and look at our disgruntled core and see what they are playing.. Castles and Crusades, Spycraft, AD&D1e.. OD&D, Basic D&D, 3e with "lots of house rules"..3.5 "but we don't use miniatures'.

Suddenly, It All Becomes a Lot Clearer.

And this also explains Pathfinder in a way that endlessly amuses me. Paizo made the (inexplicable at the time) decision to sell people a second copy of D&D3.5. And they TOTALLY pulled it off! How did they manage this? Well, their core customers come from three main groups:

1. People who were pissed at WoTC and needed to make a political statement, and were willing to pay money to do it.

2. People who honestly wouldn't know that the new edition wasn't that far off from the edition that is currently out of print (but widely available for cheap).

3. 3.5 enthusiasts looking for an update. This *has* to be the smallest percentage of the pie.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;3385813. 3.5 enthusiasts looking for an update. This *has* to be the smallest percentage of the pie.

How does it have to?  Show your work.

All I know is that Paizo has knocked fewer of the things I like about D&D than WotC have, and that's including well before 4E was ever in development.  So it's easy to see who I would trust more when it comes to supporting my RPG of choice:  Green Ronin. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwistEnding)

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338580But my point is: if Gallup or someone did some kind of market survey and asked actual 4E players how well WOTC does at customer relations, I suspect they would get a high or very high rating. Not from you guys, I totally believe it.

Instead of writing these two long posts where you mostly talk about 4E and its perception, and about how Joe doesn't get to say anything worthwhile about WotC' customer relations because he played 3E without minis (this got to be a new high in a non sequitur), only to briefly address the actual topic at hand in these measly four lines quoted here, I wish you had specified how you personally view WotC' actual customer relations. You know, rating them and giving us some insight into why you rate them thus.

For instance, one positive thing I associate with WotC' customer relations is that they sent me a free copy of a 4E module because I signed up for their DM Rewards Program. That's a plus in my book (and hey, they sent it all over to Europe! for free), but I'd like to factor in the negatives too (for instance, the two hours I spent online to operate their "user friendly" software to sign up for that rewards program). You, though, seem interested in docmenting neither positives or negatives, and resort to ad hominems straight away. Especially picking on Settembrini, who's actually got a documeted history (on his blog and on this board) on how he came to dislike 4E, seemed mightily unfair.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338581And this also explains Pathfinder in a way that endlessly amuses me. Paizo made the (inexplicable at the time) decision to sell people a second copy of D&D3.5. And they TOTALLY pulled it off! How did they manage this? Well, their core customers come from three main groups:

1. People who were pissed at WoTC and needed to make a political statement, and were willing to pay money to do it.

2. People who honestly wouldn't know that the new edition wasn't that far off from the edition that is currently out of print (but widely available for cheap).

3. 3.5 enthusiasts looking for an update. This *has* to be the smallest percentage of the pie.

You leave out group

4. 3.5 enthusiasts who long ago stopped purchasing WotC products. Each of those had this wonderful "WTF WotC???" moment (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=9556) - if it wasn't Weapons of Legacy it was Tome of Battle - and realized that their money is better spent on other companies' vision of D&D 3.5 and other companies' endeavour to actually release stuff that's useful.

The number of people who supported WotC' vision of 3.5 to its bitter end is incredibly small on this forum. That they fault 4E for some things WotC introduced actually late in the 3.5 product cycle - say, magic item "crystals" - is no fault of their own. Their purchase pattern is certainly consistent. They didn't buy into the crystal garbage back then, and don't want any of it now.

To quote from the referenced thread,

Quote from: James J Skach;190428[Tome of Battle] was the point, for me, at which the game...began to change. While I don't know if I'd use the term "jumped the shark" for a general review of the contents as it's approach might be hugely popular (see previous discussions on this particular book and it's influence on 4e) - but for me I could see something fundamental changing with that release.

Quote from: Windjammer;338584Instead of writing these two long posts where you mostly talk about 4E and its perception, and about how Joe doesn't get to say anything worthwhile about WotC' customer relations because he played 3E without minis (this got to be a new high in a non sequitur), only to briefly address the actual topic at hand in these measly four lines quoted here, I wish you had specified how you personally view WotC' actual customer relations. You know, rating them and giving us some insight into why you rate them thus.

For instance, one positive thing I associate with WotC' customer relations is that they sent me a free copy of a 4E module because I signed up for their DM Rewards Program. That's a plus in my book (and hey, they sent it all over to Europe! for free), but I'd like to factor in the negatives too (for instance, the two hours I spent online to operate their "user friendly" software to sign up for that rewards program). You, though, seem interested in docmenting neither positives or negatives, and resort to ad hominems straight away. Especially picking on Settembrini, who's actually got a documeted history (on his blog and on this board) on how he came to dislike 4E, seemed mightily unfair.

I hope I'm not overstating the case by saying I hold Settembrini in the highest esteem and had many offline discussions about this exact topic and he was pretty negative about 4e from the moment of the announcement.

The website isn't that great, I admit. It's problem is basically it's overwhelming size.

Quote from: Windjammer;338588You leave out group

4. 3.5 enthusiasts who long ago stopped purchasing WotC products. Each of those had this wonderful "WTF WotC???" moment (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=9556) - if it wasn't Weapons of Legacy it was Tome of Battle - and realized that their money is better spent on other companies' vision of D&D 3.5 and other companies' endeavour to actually release stuff that's useful.

The number of people who supported WotC' vision of 3.5 to its bitter end is incredibly small on this forum.

It may only be me, in fact. But I'd love it if there were more.

QuoteThat they fault 4E for some things WotC introduced actually late in the 3.5 product cycle - say, magic item "crystals" - is no fault of their own. Their purchase pattern is certainly consistent. They didn't buy into the crystal garbage back then, and don't want any of it now.

To quote from the referenced thread,

I think those crystals were cool!

I do accept your group 4, and I think that group is huge. But if they stopped.. they aren't customers. (I will say I never got Tome of Battle OR Weapons of Legend). I did get the magic item compendium where they had started to implement "encounter power" magic items in 3.5, as well as breaking the items down by level.

Quote from: Evansheer;338583How does it have to?  Show your work.

All I know is that Paizo has knocked fewer of the things I like about D&D than WotC have, and that's including well before 4E was ever in development.  So it's easy to see who I would trust more when it comes to supporting my RPG of choice:  Green Ronin. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwistEnding)

Pure conjecture on my part, but I am mainly talking about my sense of the fairly large D&D networks I was well ensconced in.

Green Ronin is really good, (they are head and shoulders above all other 3rd parties for the 3.0 era, especially when it comes to their bestiaries) but Pramas had already mostly turned his back on D&D before D&D4 was announced.

Quote from: Windjammer;338588You leave out group

4. 3.5 enthusiasts who long ago stopped purchasing WotC products. Each of those had this wonderful "WTF WotC???" moment (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=9556) - if it wasn't Weapons of Legacy it was Tome of Battle - and realized that their money is better spent on other companies' vision of D&D 3.5 and other companies' endeavour to actually release stuff that's useful.

I'm glad you linked to that , by the way. It harkens back to a time when we actually had real discussion here.

Since it was discussed, I wasn´t totally negative from the start.

17th of August 2007, my blog:

Quote                                                      Der Reichsbedenkenträger                                                      

                                                                   Nach allem was ich weiß, wird die 4th Edition gut.

Spiel bis zur 30. Stufe, weniger Vorbereitungszeit, Book of Nine Swords Einflüsse.
Manche Dinge erscheinen mir unnötig, aber man wird sich daran gewöhnen, oder mit den alten Landser-SL-Methoden zu umgehen wissen. Kandidaten: z.B. Encounter-Ressourcen-Management (noch weniger Strategie) oder die angedeuteten Änderung der Charakterklassen (weniger Grundklassen, mehr Modifizierbarkeit).

Was mir wirklich sorgen macht, ist Deutschland. Denn der große Sprung nach vorne soll für WotC ja laut eigenem Hype durch die DI geleistet werden. Online Kommjunitie sowie Hausaufgaben-Tools, digitale Ergänzungen, etc, alles für eine monatliche Gebühr.

Translation:

"For all I know, 4th Edition will be good.

Play up to Level 30, less prep time, B9S-influences. Some stuff seems unneccessary, but one will get used to it, or find workarounds, for example the Encounter-Ressource Management (even less Strategy [than 3.x]) or the new hinted character classes.

What I´m really concerned about is Germany...[no German DDI, no German 4e success]"

BTW, I´d really would have appreciated a full-fledged B9S D&D.
But that wish came to be in the most devillish and inane way.

The moment 4e jumped the shark for me, were the healing surges. It all became obvious at that time. I´m not sure, but I would bet it was after August 2007 that I learned of them.

Quote from: Settembrini;338594Since it was discussed, I wasn´t totally negative from the start.

17th of August 2007, my blog:



Translation:

"For all I know, 4th Edition will be good.

Play up to Level 30, less prep time, B9S-influences. Some stuff seems unneccessary, but one will get used to it, or find workarounds, for example the Encounter-Ressource Management (even less Strategy [than 3.x]) or the new hinted character classes.

What I´m really concerned about is Germany...[no German DDI, no German 4e success]"

August 17th was at or around the date of the announcement (and I was there in the room when it was made). But the game wasn't released until June 6th 2008. I feel like if your opinion changed before that date, I have a legitimate case. And of course it would have been after August 07 that you learned about healing surges!

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338591It may only be me, in fact. But I'd love it if there were more.

I'm here too, if not buying WoL or B9S doesn't disqualify membership in that elect group. And on occasion I even use the magic crystal system at my 3.5 game table. But I get people who dislike it and the concomitant commodification of magic items. (Cf. Jeff Rients' comment in the Rouse thread, how the magic item "parcel system" in 4E was the final straw for him to realize that this wasn't an instalment of D&D he was interested in.) Speaking of which, I had to laugh out loud when recently re-reading this:

Quote from: The Night Below (TSR 1995 module for AD&D 2E; author Carl Sargent)Magical Trade and Barter

PCs should never be allowed to buy magical items (who's going to sell them? you think a wizard spent months enchanting a wand of frost so he could sell it?).

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338596August 17th was at or around the date of the announcement (and I was there in the room when it was made). But the game wasn't released until June 6th 2008. I feel like if your opinion changed before that date, I have a legitimate case. And of course it would have been after August 07 that you learned about healing surges!

Well, yes! The PR turned me AWAY from the game before it was published, that´s for sure. That´s my point, highly relevant to the discussion!

I was:

1) 3.5 Fan
2) Digital Support Fan (the Paizo kind, web enhancements etc.)
3) 3.5 played and DMed to the brim up to level 23, Greyhawk, Wilderlands, Official 3.0 AP, Dungeon Mag, Eberron etc.  and with basically ALL supplements. I know my AoO from my Ao, so to say.
4) At the time, still with good memories of the B9S
5) Mini and Battlemap Fan

And the PR of Rouse and Co. did turn me away from 4e in a MAJOR way. So the PR is to blame, in conjunction with the concepts themselves the PR failed to sell to me.

Quote from: Windjammer;338597Speaking of which, I had to laugh out loud when recently re-reading this:

It's a side topic, but anyhow:

In AD&D, we never allowed magic item shops. It was unheard of. Precisely because it was so arduous to create magic items, according to the rules.

In Basic D&D, which my friend Ed Garcia was running, there were magic items shops in every major city of Mystara. And in fact, he assumed they would be in AD&D as well. I don't remember offhand what the rules are for creating magic items in Basic were (were there any rules for that?), but I doubt it was like in AD&D.

3E had rules for such shops, and they were actually somewhat manageable: it cost half the value of the item (via the DMG value) and an XP cost..and a feat. So it made sense for 3E to have magic item shops, NPC magic-Item creators and sellers, and indeed- 3E adventurers were expected to have a lot of magic gear (especially stat booster items) in order to keep up with the CR system.

Quote from: Settembrini;338599Well, yes! The PR turned me AWAY from the game before it was published, that´s for sure. That´s my point, highly relevant to the discussion!

I was:

1) 3.5 Fan
2) Digital Support Fan (the Paizo kind, web enhancements etc.)
3) 3.5 played and DMed to the brim up to level 23, Greyhawk, Wilderlands, Official 3.0 AP, Dungeon Mag, Eberron etc.  and with basically ALL supplements. I know my AoO from my Ao, so to say.
4) At the time, still with good memories of the B9S
5) Mini and Battlemap Fan

And the PR of Rouse and Co. did turn me away from 4e in a MAJOR way. So the PR is to blame, in conjunction with the concepts themselves the PR failed to sell to me.

I understand that, but what is the relationship at that point? They didn't go out of their way to personally offend you, they changed the rules in a way that you didn't agree with or .. want.. and you took your business elsewhere. At the moment they ceased producing the stuff you did want and you decided not to get the stuff they were producing..you weren't a customer anymore, and the decision was entirely yours.

 It's a very simple (and non controversial) situation that happens a million times a day, every day, across all industries.

As someone with a bit of PR background who really doesn't care for either Pathfinder or D&D 3-4E, I think you are just seeing two different strategies for two different corps with vastly different issues due to differences of scale.

And frankly, Paizo and WOTC should have different approaches to public and customer releations. There is no one-size fits all strategy, and anyone who tells you there is has a book on the subject to sell.

Further, you can have the best PR people and the best strategy in the world, but if your organization is forced to make hard decisions (which inevitably look like wrong decisions to certain internal and external groups) then you are going to have to deal with some blowback.

I really don't think Paizo has had to deal with many decisions that even approach the kinds of challenges and oppertunities that WOTC was facing as the 3.5 era wore on. To compare the two is like comparing apples and tractor trailers.

I would say that 80-90% of people put off by 4E's marketing wouldn't have been 4E customers, not long term anyway. Might have sold slightly more 4E PHBs, but thats about it. I've noticed that most people who complain about WotC's marketing are not WotC customers. Particularly when you factor in separating 4E from the OGL, WotC isn't doing community relations or marketing for non-WotC customers anymore.

Question: Is there anything WotC could have done from a purely marketing standpoint that would have lead you to be a 4E customer, beyond merely buying the PHB/Core Gift Set to check it out? If no, then why would it matter how you feel about WotC or 4E?

As I see it, WotC is being less friendly to non-WotC customers these days. During the days of the OGL, the D&D community included non-WotC customers(thanks to said OGL), and because of the OGL non-D&D customers had a relationship with WotC by proxy. I'd say that these people are the most upset by the current state of affairs. The question would be, are these people necessary to WotC, and do they need to be catered to, especially since the OGL is no longer seen to be supporting WotC and D&D.

Quote from: Settembrini;338599Well, yes! The PR turned me AWAY from the game before it was published, that´s for sure. That´s my point, highly relevant to the discussion!

I was:

1) 3.5 Fan
2) Digital Support Fan (the Paizo kind, web enhancements etc.)
3) 3.5 played and DMed to the brim up to level 23, Greyhawk, Wilderlands, Official 3.0 AP, Dungeon Mag, Eberron etc.  and with basically ALL supplements. I know my AoO from my Ao, so to say.
4) At the time, still with good memories of the B9S
5) Mini and Battlemap Fan

And the PR of Rouse and Co. did turn me away from 4e in a MAJOR way. So the PR is to blame, in conjunction with the concepts themselves the PR failed to sell to me.

Take the marketing out of it. If the marketing was no factor and you were to make your decision solely on the 4E game itself, would you have switched? Would you have purchased more than just the PHB or Core Gift Set to check it out? If no, then why does it matter how you felt about the marketing?

We will never know. What I do know is that the marketing turned me away. In other words, it wa snot successful in swaying me to 4e. That´s bad marketing one way or the other. And about marketing we talk.

Quote from: Settembrini;338607We will never know. What I do know is that the marketing turned me away. In other words, it wa snot successful in swaying me to 4e. That´s bad marketing one way or the other. And about marketing we talk.

So, you make gaming decisions based solely on advertising then.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338611So, you make gaming decisions based solely on advertising then.

He didn't state this anywhere, so I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion (especially since you worded it as a statement and not a question).

 I think a better question is... isn't the whole point of marketing a new product to get people to test it out or give it a chance?  If the marketing turns them off of even giving the product a try... then yeah, it is a failure of marketing and not the product per se.

I used to be among the core audience of D&D, just two years ago. Their PR did not convince me of 4e. The PR failed in highlighting the strengths of 4e and downplaying it´s faults. it did the opposite, and coupled it with a mindset that led me to believe the bad things are now actually the core assumption. And I abhor this assumption so much, I don´t want to be even talking about it.

Simple, the PR not only failed, but made things worse.

Whether I would have liked the game without PR is irrelevant. The whole job of PR is to make me buy and like it,, if at all possible. And I was definitely in the SAME starting position that AM was in, so for all things predictable, it was possible.

Quote from: imaro;338615He didn't state this anywhere, so I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion (especially since you worded it as a statement and not a question).

 I think a better question is... isn't the whole point of marketing a new product to get people to test it out or give it a chance?  If the marketing turns them off of even giving the product a try... then yeah, it is a failure of marketing and not the product per se.

I think CasualOblivions accusation is wrong,  and that it wasn't marketing/advertising that turned Settembrini off at all. It was the rules themselves, and Settembrini said as much: Healing surges. Treasure Parcels.

I have to admit I was enjoying the cognitive dissonance displayed when people would say "The only reason D&D4 is an overwhelming success is because of marketing.. " and then two posts later they would say "And the marketing of D&D4 is a total failure!!!"

Quote from: imaro;338615He didn't state this anywhere, so I'm wondering how you came to this conclusion (especially since you worded it as a statement and not a question).

 I think a better question is... isn't the whole point of marketing a new product to get people to test it out or give it a chance?  If the marketing turns them off of even giving the product a try... then yeah, it is a failure of marketing.

The marketing is designed to sell the game to people who the game will appeal to. If the game isn't likely to appeal to somebody, than neither is the marketing.

The marketing for 4E was very honest. The game that was released bore a striking resemblance to what was advertised. The marketing of 4E was 90% based upon the game itself. If you weren't going to be interested in the game from a mechanical standpoint, the marketing was going to fail you. Should they have tried to trick people?

Quote from: Settembrini;338617I used to be among the core audience of D&D, just two years ago. Their PR did not convince me of 4e. The PR failed in highlighting the strengths of 4e and downplaying it´s faults. it did the opposite, and coupled it with a mindset that led me to believe the bad things are now actually the core assumption. And I abhor this assumption so much, I don´t want to be even talking about it.

Simple, the PR not only failed, but made things worse.

Whether I would have liked the game without PR is irrelevant. The whole job of PR is to make me buy and like it,, if at all possible. And I was definitely in the SAME starting position that AM was in, so for all things predictable, it was possible.

I think this is true, but I probably get less offended by rules I don't like.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338618I think CasualOblivions accusation is wrong,  and that it wasn't marketing/advertising that turned Settembrini off at all. It was the rules themselves, and Settembrini said as much: Healing surges. Treasure Parcels.

I have to admit I was enjoying the cognitive dissonance displayed when people would say "The only reason D&D4 is an overwhelming success is because of marketing.. " and then two posts later they would say "And the marketing of D&D4 is a total failure!!!"

The rules were the marketing. People who are angry about the marketing are angry about the rules. 4E was marketed by showing off the game itself, and its reasons for being. People who were turned off by that marketing were turned off by the game.

Which is my whole point. People turned off by 4E marketing were never likely to be customers anyway, and didn't need to be catered to.

Should they have been less honest? Should they have misled people and try to trick them into trying 4E? What should they have done from a purely marketing standpoint, taking for granted the 4E system as released?

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338622The rules were the marketing. People who are angry about the marketing are angry about the rules. 4E was marketed by showing off the game itself, and its reasons for being. People who were turned off by that marketing were turned off by the game.

Which is my whole point. People turned off by 4E marketing were never likely to be customers anyway, and didn't need to be catered to.

Should they have been less honest? Should they have misled people and try to trick them into trying 4E? What should they have done from a purely marketing standpoint, taking for granted the 4E system as released?

Well, I agree with you. It is what is.

The problem is, in forums like here, some people want to believe it is what it isn't. Or at least they want to comfort themselves with that thought.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338619The marketing is designed to sell the game to people who the game will appeal to. If the game isn't likely to appeal to somebody, than neither is the marketing.

The sole point of marketing is to widen the range of people interested in your product.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338619The marketing for 4E was very honest. The game that was released bore a striking resemblance to what was advertised.

Surprisingly perhaps, I agree with this. After a couple of months playing 4E, late in 2008 I watched that first presentation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_e5wAUwdmM) again (it's nice to find out today that some of the laughter and clapping in the audience was Abyssal Maw's!). I found to my own surprise that I had come to totally re-evaluate the presentation. I still found the initial 5 minute-clip hilarious and off-pitch, but the stuff said later on - on how 4E will reduce prep time for the DM, make stat blocks easier to handle etc. - these were tall orders and it sounded just like hugely exaggerated claims in 2007; by mid to late 2008, I could see how these were fair claims about the new edition.

This tells me two things. The presentation was designed by, and tested in screening to, only people who already knew parts of the ruleset (i.e. people in house). They had no clue how what they had done would look like to outsiders. The outsiders' POV was likely to be different (and, incidentally, more negative). It certainly is, if I compare my reception of that presentation in 2007 and in late 2008. So, the clip gave off pretty good vibes to people already on the 4E bandwagon; but off-putting ones to those on the fence. And that returns us to the point above, how marketing should precisely avoid that result. Marketing should target people not yet willing to buy. Hence I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people on this board here finds the linked presentation as tasteless and off-putting today as they did in 2007. The fact that the presentation clip cements their opinion, instead of soften it up, is confirmation to me of failed marketing.

And that's just talking about that one clip. Re-reading the drivel WotC put into the "Wizards presents" preview softcovers had the inverse effect. There were so many huge claims ("we're going to make adventuring in the elemental planes interesting again!") that turned out to be very, very far from reality. While I initially liked parts of these softcovers, today they strike me as evidence of how clueless and incompetent certain corners of 4E are.

So while I agree with you, tco, I think it's not that clear cut.

Quote from: Windjammer;338627The sole point of marketing is to widen the range of people interested in your product.

You don't widen the range of people interested in your product by marketing to people who are likely to reject the final product in any case.

Quote from: Windjammer;338627Surprisingly perhaps, I agree with this. After a couple of months playing 4E, late in 2008 I watched that first presentation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_e5wAUwdmM) again (it's nice to find out today that some of the laughter and clapping in the audience was Abyssal Maw's!). I found to my own surprise that I had come to totally re-evaluate the presentation. I still found the initial 5 minute-clip hilarious and off-pitch, but the stuff said later on - on how 4E will reduce prep time for the DM, make stat blocks easier to handle etc. - these were tall orders and it sounded just like hugely exaggerated claims in 2007; by mid to late 2008, I could see how these were fair claims about the new edition.

This tells me two things. The presentation was designed by, and tested in screening to, only people who already knew parts of the ruleset (i.e. people in house); they had no clue how what they had done would look like to outsiders. The outsiders' POV was likely to be different. It certainly is, if I compare my reception of that presentation in 2007 and in late 2008.

And that's just talking about that 1 clip. Re-reading the drivel WotC put into the "Wizards presents" preview softcovers had the inverse effect. There were so many huge claims ("we're going to make adventuring in the elemental planes interesting again!") that turned out to be very, very far from reality. While I initially liked parts of these softcovers, today they strike me as evidence of how clueless and incompetent certain corners of 4E are.

So while I agree with you, tco, I think it's not that clear cut.

I'll take the Elemental Chaos over the infinite plane of boring fire any day of the week. Elemental Chaos gets an entire book later this year, and we'll really see whats what then.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338630Elemental Chaos gets an entire book later this year, and we'll really see whats what then.

I hated the new Manual of Planes for its tasteless, pointless, and vacuous verbiage. I hope to be corrected by the forthcoming book you mention, but its (as yet limited) previews give me all the old shivers.

In my case, I was almost completely oblivious to the marketing of 4E prior to its release.

At the time I didn't regularly read any tabletop rpg message boards, nor any rpg company's web sites.  The only stuff from tabletop rpg message boards I really read for many years prior, was googling and finding threads with Gary Gygax answering people's questions.

I only really found out about the 4E ruleset when I saw "Keep on the Shadowfell" at an FLGS.  There was a group of people at the FLGS playing it around that time, and I joined them.  We were trying to figure it out from the quick start rules.  At the time, I didn't follow any of the "4E rumors" threads or blogs which compiled every piece of information released by WotC after August 2007.

For somebody like me and others in a similar situation at the time, marketing wouldn't have made much of a difference either way.  I wouldn't be surprised at all that many casual players do not closely follow the "current events" of the tabletop rpg business.

In hindsight, the marketing perfectly matched the game. Both failed at providing many things to many people that were 3.5 customers.

I think it´s pretty disingenious though, how casualob is argumetning. because it totally denies the whole existance of PR.

if PR is ineffective ANYWAY, so why bother? Right. And about that X factor we are talking. And if you love 4e, you must see there are some people lost by BAD PR that could have been swayed to the 4e side of things. Preferences are in same parts self-reinforcing as they are open to outside influence.

And if that wouldn´t count, then PR is a waste of money. We all know it´s the other way around, and a lot of money is spent on IMAGE, PERCEPTION and customer LOYALTY. Especially if you are into 4e, you should be sad the way it was advertised.

Quote from: Windjammer;338634I hated the new Manual of Planes for its tasteless, pointless, and vacuous verbiage. I hope to be corrected by the forthcoming book you mention, but its (as yet limited) previews give me all the old shivers.

I actually found the Manual of the Planes useful. I ran a mini-campaign in the Nine Hells, and found the 4E Manual of the Planes actually more useful than Fiendish Codex: Tyrants of the Nine Hells. What 4E books tend to do is to be focused on running the game instead of focused on being a good read. Give the nuts and bolts of what you need to run things and nothing more, lots of space for DMs to fill in(intentional space), and little blurbs of flavor instead of filling in every single detail. 4E setting books seem to have "open to interpretation" built into them, especially the generic setting/monster books like Manual of the Planes and Open Grave/Draconomicon.

Quote from: Settembrini;338637In hindsight, the marketing perfectly matched the game. Both failed at providing many things to many people that were 3.5 customers.

I think it´s pretty disingenious though, how casualob is argumetning. because it totally denies the whole existance of PR.

if PR is ineffective ANYWAY, so why bother? Right. And about that X factor we are talking. And if you love 4e, you must see there are some people lost by BAD PR that could have been swayed to the 4e side of things. Preferences are in same parts self-reinforcing as they are open to outside influence.

And if that wouldn´t count, then PR is a waste of money. We all know it´s the other way around, and a lot of money is spent on IMAGE, PERCEPTION and customer LOYALTY. Especially if you are into 4e, you should be sad the way it was advertised.

I'm not sad. I think the marketing did a good job at its target audience. I think people who were going to reject the game in any case had this reinforced by the marketing.

4E was going to alienate a large portion of the 3.5E crowd no matter what happened. It might have been possible to lessen this, but the effects of this in my opinion would have been minimal.

4E marketing did a god job of appealing to those likely to like the game
4E marketing did a tolerable job of those who might like the game
4E marketing did a bad job of appealing to those unlikely to like the game.

I don't really see the big issue.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338640I'm not sad. I think the marketing did a good job at its target audience. I think people who were going to reject the game in any case had this reinforced by the marketing.

4E was going to alienate a large portion of the 3.5E crowd no matter what happened. It might have been possible to lessen this, but the effects of this in my opinion would have been minimal.

4E marketing did a god job of appealing to those likely to like the game
4E marketing did a tolerable job of those who might like the game
4E marketing did a bad job of appealing to those unlikely to like the game.

I don't really see the big issue.

You make alot of blanket statements, yet choose not to go into why you hold these oppinions.  I am actually curious as to why you believe all the things you stated above.

Quote from: imaro;338645You make alot of blanket statements, yet choose not to go into why you hold these oppinions.  I am actually curious as to why you believe all the things you stated above.

I make the statements based on being active on forums since before 4E's launch. There is a strong observational correlation between disliking 4E's marketing and disliking 4E from a rules standpoint. People who were on the fence about 4E didn't seem to have a strong opinion either way about the marketing. People who liked 4E's changes tended to approve of the marketing.


The fact is, 4E was designed to be a fundamental change to what came before, and downright contrary in a lot of places to what came before. In addition, the plan all along was to dump the OGL. These two things ensured that a smooth, anger free transition was going to be pretty much impossible, and I don't fault WotC for failing to avoid it.

Quote from: Windjammer;338457But I think, even more concretely, it has little to do with PR and all to do with customer relations.

But, like PR, I think there's a good deal of subjectivity that comes with customer relations. For example, personally, I don't care one whit that WotC took down their PDFs. I don't think it's bad customer relations at all. Others vehemently disagree.

Seanchai

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338647I make the statements based on being active on forums since before 4E's launch. There is a strong observational correlation between disliking 4E's marketing and disliking 4E from a rules standpoint. People who were on the fence about 4E didn't seem to have a strong opinion either way about the marketing. People who liked 4E's changes tended to approve of the marketing.


The fact is, 4E was designed to be a fundamental change to what came before, and downright contrary in a lot of places to what came before. In addition, the plan all along was to dump the OGL. These two things ensured that a smooth, anger free transition was going to be pretty much impossible, and I don't fault WotC for failing to avoid it.

So, it's all anecdotal, and since you are a very strong proponent for 4e then it is probably a biased observation.  I mean isn't it just as valid to claim that, perhaps... poor marketing caused some people (who may have been slightly positive or neutral towards 4e as a whole) to view the rules in a negative light when they were finally exposed to them??  Just saying.

Quote from: Windjammer;338627The sole point of marketing is to widen the range of people interested in your product.



Surprisingly perhaps, I agree with this. After a couple of months playing 4E, late in 2008 I watched that first presentation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_e5wAUwdmM) again (it's nice to find out today that some of the laughter and clapping in the audience was Abyssal Maw's!). I found to my own surprise that I had come to totally re-evaluate the presentation..

Keep in mind that the presentation took place at GenCon, after hours (in the evening anyhow, after the dealers hall was closed), and in the Sagamore Ballroom-- RPGA Territory. So in this case, disregard for a second that it was on Youtube for everyone else. I suspect it was meant to be an announcement to the D&D faithful before anyone else. And it came as a surprise to most of us (including me).

As for your claim about who put it together, I think you are right!. The actor in the piece was Chris Perkins. There are in-jokes. It seems to have been done in house.

Quote from: Seanchai;338649But, like PR, I think there's a good deal of subjectivity that comes with customer relations. For example, personally, I don't care one whit that WotC took down their PDFs. I don't think it's bad customer relations at all. Others vehemently disagree.

Seanchai

Exactly.

Quote from: imaro;338645You make alot of blanket statements, yet choose not to go into why you hold these oppinions.  I am actually curious as to why you believe all the things you stated above.

Independently, I have to say, I hold the exact same opinions.

Quote from: imaro;338645So, it's all anecdotal, and since you are a very strong proponent for 4e then it is probably a biased observation. I mean isn't it just as valid to claim that, perhaps... poor marketing caused some people (who may have been slightly positive or neutral towards 4e as a whole) to view the rules in a negative light when they were finally exposed to them?? Just saying.

Sure it is anecdotal, but then, sometimes you just have to believe your own lying eyes. If (as you say) "poor marketing caused some people (who may have been slightly positive or neutral towards 4e as a whole) to view the rules in a negative light" is true, well, I'm sorry to hear it. They are missing out. But if those people were predisposed to hating it anyway.. then they probably are better off with whatever else they were doing.

In any case, it isn't the end of days.

What I don't like about the entire argument surrounding this is the stupidity of attacking fans vis a vis the rules- (aka "Treasure Parcels? What kind of deluded incompetent needs to have his treasure parceled out?!!"). Illiberal, dishonest and vain, and it colors the entire site.

And that's how things went here, starting almost immediately.

Quote from: JasperAK;338470Paizo has made me a Raving Fan because I get the feeling that they care more about their customers than the profits the game makes.

Thanks for the info about the book - I'm going to check it out.

Here's the operative word in the quote above: "feeling." In other words, does Paizo really care more about it's customers or is that just how some folks perceive them?

I'd bet that as a smaller company, they do have more latitude to make sure their vocal fans' requests are met. However, I'd also bet that if the same fans start asking (or demanding) things that are inconvenient, expensive, or they feel aren't in their best interest, they'll try a different tack...

Because there's a line. It's not that one company cares about their customers and another doesn't. The company-customer relationship is painfully obvious and anyone who has ever dealt with a customer knows that dealing with happy ones is much, much preferable to unhappy ones. There's a line dividing what a company will do for it's customers and what it won't, and that line varies by company.

Paizo does have a line, just like WotC.

I think Tipsy had an interesting point about Paizo not having gone through what WotC has. Thus far, they've been able to point to WotC as the reason for some of their decisions (WotC made us stop printing a magazine, WotC made us support 3.5 rather than 4e), but that will eventually change and then we'll see where their line is at.

Seanchai

Quote from: Joethelawyer;338496I do care about the future of the hobby however, so to the extent the game is one which is designed to make money at the expense of attracting long-term gamers, I don't like it.  To the extent it is meant to act as a bridge to a variation of tabletop roleplaying which involves the use of computers rather than pen and paper at the game table, I don't like it.

Is that bullshit, at least to a degree, though? I mean, WotC signed up to produce D&D, not be the shepherd of the industry.

Seanchai

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;338619The marketing is designed to sell the game to people who the game will appeal to. If the game isn't likely to appeal to somebody, than neither is the marketing.

The marketing for 4E was very honest. The game that was released bore a striking resemblance to what was advertised. The marketing of 4E was 90% based upon the game itself. If you weren't going to be interested in the game from a mechanical standpoint, the marketing was going to fail you. Should they have tried to trick people?

I disagree that the 4e marketing was "very honest" and that the game we got was what was advertised.  I'm sure I didn't see all of the marketing that came out for it, but I'll go over some of the things I remember, and you can add to it with specific marketing you remember, ok?  

First up, there were the commercials showing the evolution of the game with that weird foreign narrator:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zECPZLmb0&feature=related  It made fun of and put down previous editions (in a playful way), and at 3:50, it said this:  "While there is room for refinement, I pledge to you, the game will remain the same... the game WILL remain the SAME!"  I don't think most people consider 4e to merely be a "refinement", and to many, it is not "the same" as previous editions.  Personally, whether you like the game or not, you have to admit it is very definitely NOT just a refinement of the same game.

Next up, there were a lot of comedic commercials that did nothing to explain the major shift in emphasis of the game to tactical combat or the massive changes in the rules, though it did give a few hints about some specific changes.  Mostly they were simply fun and appealing to fantasy gamers:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72LQ6W2W_TU&feature=related , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyRZDYC7n0E&feature=related , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqFPujRZWo&feature=related , etc.

Finally, there were the 2 books, Races & Classes, and Worlds & Monsters.  These had no real game stats, and I wasn't about to pay money for hints and advertising, but I never got a sense that they explained just how very different 4e would be.  Sure, it said Dragonborn and Tieflings are in, a bit about PoL and changes to the planes, etc (gleaned from skimming the books in the store a bit), but it didn't seem to be marketing aimed at "this is a tactical minis game full of pushes/pulls/slides, Combat advantage, OAs, marking, and numerous status effects to keep track of, and we've put so little effort into the non-tactical minis side of things that non-combat spells will now cost money and lots of time to cast and are relegated to an appendix, and we haven't even polished the rules or DCs for skill challenges...."

I remember how surprised I was when I finally got the core books, because IMO it was not fairly marketed toward those who'd like its different game style, it was pushed as the same game you have been playing with a few tweaks and "refinements", but the pledge that "it's still the same game", and it isn't.

Quote from: ggroy;338636In my case, I was almost completely oblivious to the marketing of 4E prior to its release.

What I'm wondering is where's all this marketing that people keep talking about? I think folks are considering everything everyone related to the projects says about it as marketing and that's not the case.

Example: There was - or, honestly, is - a big to-do over what I think a design said in some blog about fifteen minute adventuring days not being fun. I can't remember the specifics, but that's close. It's also probably not marketing.

Let me put it this way: Paizo wasn't including as part of it's marketing plan that Paladins suck in 3.5 just because it's in their FAQ. (They're also not saying that you're retarded and just think you had fun playing a Paladin in 3.5.)

Seanchai

Quote from: samurai007;338677I don't think most people consider 4e to merely be a "refinement", and to many, it is not "the same" as previous editions.  Personally, whether you like the game or not, you have to admit it is very definitely NOT just a refinement of the same game.

If you actually used the 3.5 combat system, it is indeed a refinement and the game is largely the same. Maybe most people don't agree with that.. and maybe I'm alone or in an extreme minority in thinking that...


...along with the other hundreds of thousands of 4E players.


But at the same time, what does it really matter what individuals think?

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338600It's a side topic, but anyhow:

In AD&D, we never allowed magic item shops. It was unheard of. Precisely because it was so arduous to create magic items, according to the rules.

In Basic D&D, which my friend Ed Garcia was running, there were magic items shops in every major city of Mystara. And in fact, he assumed they would be in AD&D as well. I don't remember offhand what the rules are for creating magic items in Basic were (were there any rules for that?), but I doubt it was like in AD&D.

Cyclopedia (and Expert Set) have fairly straightforward rules for magic item creation...

Expert p25
   If an item duplicates a spell effect, the cost is usually 500 gp and 1 weeks time per spell level. There is always at least a 15% chance that the magical research or production will fail. This check is made after the time and money are spent.
The DM may limit or forbid the production of certain powerful items, by requiring very rare substances for production. They could be hard to find, very costly, time-consuming, or require a special adventure.
Examples cost Time
Scroll: magic missile (x2)* 1,000 2 weeks
Portion of healing 500 1 week
Fire ball wand** 30,000 17 weeks
*3 missiles each
**fully charged with 20 charges
An item that does not duplicate a spell effect is given a cost and required time by the DM. For example:
Item cost Time
20 arrows + 1 10,000 gp 1 month
Plate mail + 1 10,000 gp 6 months
Crystal ball 30,000 gp 6 months
Ring x-ray vision 100,000 gp 12 months
Ring spell storing 10,000 gp 1 month per spell level

Quote from: samurai007;338677I disagree that the 4e marketing was "very honest" and that the game we got was what was advertised.  I'm sure I didn't see all of the marketing that came out for it, but I'll go over some of the things I remember, and you can add to it with specific marketing you remember, ok?  

First up, there were the commercials showing the evolution of the game with that weird foreign narrator:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6zECPZLmb0&feature=related  It made fun of and put down previous editions (in a playful way), and at 3:50, it said this:  "While there is room for refinement, I pledge to you, the game will remain the same... the game WILL remain the SAME!"  I don't think most people consider 4e to merely be a "refinement", and to many, it is not "the same" as previous editions.  Personally, whether you like the game or not, you have to admit it is very definitely NOT just a refinement of the same game.

I just realized that i've always interpreted this line differently than perhaps most people. I interpreted it as referring to 4E only.

"While there is room for refinement, I pledge to you, the game will remain the same...the game WILL remain the SAME!"

"While future supplements in the 4E line will add polish and depth to the game, the core game will always be contained in the initial core books. Future supplements will not add new basic rules or change the way basic rules work. Supplements will not give those who own them a mechanical advantage at the table."




BTW, this sentence is full of win:

QuoteIt inexplicably featured the dramatic story of cockfighting monsters who lived in your pants.

:teehee:

Quote from: Seanchai;338649But, like PR, I think there's a good deal of subjectivity that comes with customer relations. For example, personally, I don't care one whit that WotC took down their PDFs. I don't think it's bad customer relations at all. Others vehemently disagree.

Seanchai

There's a ton of truth to this.

To use a non RPG example, we have a large convenience store chain that trains its employees to be super fast at the register.  Wham, bam, boom.  I don't care for that...I like a bit of banter, actual eye contact and employees who remember their customers.  It's what I did in customer service for 12 years and it served me well in their different industries (convenience stores, movie rental stores and loan offices).

I have several friends who will ONLY go in said chain BECAUSE they just want to pop in, grab their crap, and get out.

Some people want an impersonal game company that cranks out books on schedule.  Some people get off on yucking it up on message boards with the people that run those companies...companies which are often months (or worse) behind schedule.

All a matter of taste.

Quote from: Seanchai;338665Thanks for the info about the book - I'm going to check it out.

Here's the operative word in the quote above: "feeling." In other words, does Paizo really care more about it's customers or is that just how some folks perceive them?

I'd bet that as a smaller company, they do have more latitude to make sure their vocal fans' requests are met. However, I'd also bet that if the same fans start asking (or demanding) things that are inconvenient, expensive, or they feel aren't in their best interest, they'll try a different tack...

Because there's a line. It's not that one company cares about their customers and another doesn't. The company-customer relationship is painfully obvious and anyone who has ever dealt with a customer knows that dealing with happy ones is much, much preferable to unhappy ones. There's a line dividing what a company will do for it's customers and what it won't, and that line varies by company.

Paizo does have a line, just like WotC.

I think Tipsy had an interesting point about Paizo not having gone through what WotC has. Thus far, they've been able to point to WotC as the reason for some of their decisions (WotC made us stop printing a magazine, WotC made us support 3.5 rather than 4e), but that will eventually change and then we'll see where their line is at.

Seanchai

Defining perceptions is the whole point of marketing and public relations.

I think TCO may be right. When a company takes away a good portion of what I like and replaces it with something I don't, there is no way their PR or marketing is going to change my mind. At best it will allow me to reevaluate what I am looking for in their products. That is why I tried 4e for about a month; that was all I needed. That game play reinforced my initial thoughts and feelings about the game. It wasn't for me. The game took away too much of what I liked and didn't replace it with anything that I could accept. 4e did not make my games better. YMMV :)

Seanchai, concerning the customer relation line that you talk about, That line is tangentially related to my earlier point in another thread about WOTC being the 800lb gorilla. If they are too big to give me the service I can get from Necromancer, Kenzer Co., Troll Lord, Green Ronin, Creative Mountain, Goodman Games, Pinnacle, or Paizo then fuck them; I don't need them. There are plenty of other companies that can earn my gaming dollar by better providing the service I desire.

But their asshole defense of taking away something I do want to buy, PDFs of out of print editions, really was the dick move that proved to me they don't care about gamers. My money to purchase OOP stuff isn't taking away from their 4e sales, since at this point I have no intention of buying 4e products. Their PR totally failed to justify their actions to me. I have money to spend with them and they don't want it. Fuck them I have others ways to get the gaming fix I want.

As for Paizo and their ability to play the wounded victim. If they ever forget why so many people are behind them, fuck them too. I don't think it is necessarily WOTC hate, but a wish of the customer base to continue with 3.0 and allow it to elvove without concern for the profit motive that necessitated WOTCs design and marketing changes with 4e.

ENWorld had(it has been locked) what amounted to a mirror image of this thread going earlier today. Definitely a different set of responses and opinions compared to what was posted here.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/266591-love-game-hate-baggage.html

Why was the thread locked?

Quote from: JasperAK;338779Why was the thread locked?

Have a read of the final post.  ENworld is a Hasbro brand-management tool. Criticism of WotC's commercial behaviour is verboten there.

Eh, that's a misrepresentation - if ya read it, the mod closed it because the OP was a 4e fan whining about how he was cutting himself today & otherwise bringing the whole hurt feelings business back to the board. Meanwhile, the extent the ENWorld thread went differently is the extent to which it's populated by that site's one-note douchebags (about 50% there, including some of the shittiest ones).

Quote from: Seanchai;338649But, like PR, I think there's a good deal of subjectivity that comes with customer relations. For example, personally, I don't care one whit that WotC took down their PDFs. I don't think it's bad customer relations at all. Others vehemently disagree.

Seanchai

I don't see how deciding to not sell PDFs anymore is bad customer service to ANYONE, even the biggest single consumer of Wizards PDFs.

Telling you something you don't want to hear does not equal bad customer service.

By that definition, every time WalMart decides to no longer sell a product, or a car manufacturer decides to not continue a model of car, they are engaging in bad customer service, because that was someone's favorite product!

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338591It may only be me, in fact. But I'd love it if there were more.  I think those crystals were cool!

I too loved the later books from WOTC 3.5.  The crystals were great, as was the magic item compendium.  The Book of Nine Swords was great, though not playtested enough.  

And I agree with pretty much everything you've said.  I do think most of the biggest complainers were no longer WOTC customers before 4e even came out.

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuck;338819I don't see how deciding to not sell PDFs anymore is bad customer service to ANYONE, even the biggest single consumer of Wizards PDFs.

Telling you something you don't want to hear does not equal bad customer service.

By that definition, every time WalMart decides to no longer sell a product, or a car manufacturer decides to not continue a model of car, they are engaging in bad customer service, because that was someone's favorite product!

What?

I'm not trying to argue false dichotomies, but how then would you define good customer service? I think your informed and well-reasoned opinion will be quite telling in this respect.

Quote from: Hairfoot;338784Have a read of the final post.  ENworld is a Hasbro brand-management tool. Criticism of WotC's commercial behaviour is verboten there.

I am starting to think you're a bit of a loon.

There's just no way for a "normal" person to read that thread the way you read it, and come to the conclusion you came to.  You're living in your own reality, at least with this example.

Quote from: Mistwell;338826I too loved the later books from WOTC 3.5.  The crystals were great, as was the magic item compendium.  The Book of Nine Swords was great, though not playtested enough.  

And I agree with pretty much everything you've said.  I do think most of the biggest complainers were no longer WOTC customers before 4e even came out.

Hey fucktard, please continue ignoring everthing that was said & proven in this thread.

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuck;338819I don't see how deciding to not sell PDFs anymore is bad customer service to ANYONE, even the biggest single consumer of Wizards PDFs.

Hey fuckface! It´s because of YOU and folks like you that I can´t take 4e fans seriously. I´ll explain why, WotC-tardy:

People bought a product/ service. Within one day, without warning, that service discontinued. A service that people already had PAID for. This is a BIG difference from "not selling anymore". Obviously NOBODY ever said it was WotCs obligation to keep selling a given product.

So assmunch, I take it you know it and LIE ou of motives I can´t fathom. You are a bane to humanity and should stop posting now. Or you could repent.

So if a company overhauls its product and a good number of customers decide to abandon ship because they are just not going to like the new version no matter what, that's got nothing to do with marketing? What category does that fall under then, just general bad business policy?

I suppose New Coke was not an example of bad marketing, because the people who refused to buy it and caused the uproar were never going to accept the new product no matter how it tasted?

As I said up-thread, if marketing is thought to be ineffective ANYWAY, then it has no point and Scott Rouse´s salary was waisted money.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338683If you actually used the 3.5 combat system, it is indeed a refinement and the game is largely the same. Maybe most people don't agree with that..

Well, I think your quote documents very well where the line of disagreement runs. You start out from a (to me) sound observation about the combat system and end up talking about the game at large (which strikes me as quite a leap). But 3.5 was a much larger game than (what I'd call) the combat engine, and for certain people the attraction the system held was due to those further parts. Some of those parts were completely eradicated in 4E (labeled as "unfun", "session stoppers", or detrimental to the "core story" of the game), others were simplified beyond recognition (e.g. the magic item creation subsystem).

Finally, I wouldn't consider 4E to be "largely the same game" as earlier editions if we extend the comparison farther back than 3.0. The whole point of 3rd edition was to keep a high number of core elements of AD&D in tact, and introduce a couple of new features (such as feats and prestige classes). It was an amalgan of the old and the new. To me, 4E refined the new bits - successfully, for the greater part - but threw away the old ones, mostly. The result is a refinement of a subset of 3.5 at best. If you liked that subset most about 3.5 to begin with, 4E would truly be a "refinement" to your game. Otherwise you'd be out of luck and you'd be looking at a game that was a disfigured, incomplete shadow of all you love about D&D.

Quote from: JimLotFP;338862So if a company overhauls its product and a good number of customers decide to abandon ship because they are just not going to like the new version no matter what, that's got nothing to do with marketing? What category does that fall under then, just general bad business policy?

If the market doesn't accept it, it's a bad decision. If the market does accept it, it's a good decision.

For the most part, WOTC alienated people who were buying C&C, True20, and "nothing from WoTC" so the effect was somewhere between negligible and "positive" since it did seem to have attracted some younger players.

I know the last thing this hobby needs is a bunch of kids playing, but there ya go.

Quote from: JasperAK;338827What?

I'm not trying to argue false dichotomies, but how then would you define good customer service? I think your informed and well-reasoned opinion will be quite telling in this respect.

I think some people have this idea that the customer is ALWAYS right and that if a retailer doesn't roll over and say yes to every demand, that they are not getting good customer service.

I've had people demand something be taken back by a retailer well after the return date fill out comment cards and slam CS representatives, at a retailer that took such things very seriously, just because they were given the right answer, which was "no".

I'd place the idea that Wizards declining to sell something anymore, for reasons they feel make sense in the current business climate for them in this category.

So- not selling 3rd edition, not selling Dragon and Dungeon as physical magazines, and not selling PDFs are most definitely not bad customer service.

They're just Wizards doing what they think is best for their business right now and discontinuing a product line.

You have every right to be unhappy about it. You have every right to feel its a dumb decision on their part.

But Wizards telling you something you don't want to hear is not bad CR.

As for what IS good customer service, its doing everything you reasonably can to make the customer experience a good one, being friendly, keeping the store clean, making the shopping experience an "all ages" environment for any kind of mainstream retail, having a professional staff etc.

Quote from: Settembrini;338861Hey fuckface! It´s because of YOU and folks like you that I can´t take 4e fans seriously. I´ll explain why, WotC-tardy:

People bought a product/ service. Within one day, without warning, that service discontinued. A service that people already had PAID for. This is a BIG difference from "not selling anymore". Obviously NOBODY ever said it was WotCs obligation to keep selling a given product.

So assmunch, I take it you know it and LIE ou of motives I can´t fathom. You are a bane to humanity and should stop posting now. Or you could repent.

Ok...

1. Fuck you.

2. I am most definitely not a 4e fan or a Wizards fan dumbass. I am currently writing an OSRIC module and hanging out at the K&K Alehouse and here online.

Does that sound like a 4e fanboy to you?

3. Fuck you. If you want to have a conversation, that's fine. If you want to yell at me when you clearly don't know the first thing about me, then fuck off and die.

4. What product is that? PDFs? How the hell is a PDF a "service"? You buy it, you download it, you're done. The transaction is over. It's as much a "service" as a candy bar.

Same with a magazine. If you had a subscription, and they refund the outstanding balance, you're done. They don't owe you shit.

Same with a game edition. When a company decides to move on, the "service" has been discontinued.

So I don't really know which "service" you could be referring to, because I don't think Wizards sells "services", they sell "products".

5. Oh yeah, fuck you.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338895If the market doesn't accept it, it's a bad decision. If the market does accept it, it's a good decision.

For the most part, WOTC alienated people who were buying C&C, True20, and "nothing from WoTC" so the effect was somewhere between negligible and "positive" since it did seem to have attracted some younger players.

I know the last thing this hobby needs is a bunch of kids playing, but there ya go.

Huh?  So you're claiming the majority of people alienated by WoTC's PR for 4e were those playing totally seperate OGL games?  Not buying it.  

I find it far more likely that the majority of people alienated by such things were playing  3.x... and thus still potential WotC customers.

Quote from: JimLotFP;338862So if a company overhauls its product and a good number of customers decide to abandon ship because they are just not going to like the new version no matter what, that's got nothing to do with marketing?

No. I could market the hell out of shit pies, but if no one buys them because they're made of shit, that has nothing to do with marketing.

Seanchai

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuck;338819I don't see how deciding to not sell PDFs anymore is bad customer service to ANYONE, even the biggest single consumer of Wizards PDFs.

As I said, I agree. But many others don't.

Seanchai

Quote from: JasperAK;338767Defining perceptions is the whole point of marketing and public relations.

Yes, but whether or not those efforts succeed depend on the subjective view of the individual.

Quote from: JasperAK;338767That line is tangentially related to my earlier point in another thread about WOTC being the 800lb gorilla. If they are too big to give me the service I can get from Necromancer, Kenzer Co., Troll Lord, Green Ronin, Creative Mountain, Goodman Games, Pinnacle, or Paizo then fuck them; I don't need them. There are plenty of other companies that can earn my gaming dollar by better providing the service I desire.

You're not necessarily getting or not getting service based on size, however.

Quote from: JasperAK;338767Their PR totally failed to justify their actions to me.

How on earth could their PR justify something to you? They can explain something and try to persuade you, but justify? Whether or not something is justified or not would vary by individual.

Seanchai

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338895For the most part, WOTC alienated people who were buying C&C, True20, and "nothing from WoTC"

Funny that role-players that are playing and spending money on not-WOTC versions of D&D would be considered "lost customers." I figure they'd be much easier to gain as customers than totally new gamers... with the right product and marketing, of course.

If I were WotC, I would rather have new gamers.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;338951If I were WotC, I would rather have new gamers.

If I were WOTC, I'd rather have both, and with their resources that should have been possible.

Yes, it's preferable but would such an effort work? Probably not and that's why I would rather get the new gamers.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;338955Yes, it's preferable but would such an effort work? Probably not and that's why I would rather get the new gamers.

what exactly did WotC do, marketing wise, to garner brand new gamers?  Seriously, I see this trotted out alot concerning 4e but I see very little evidence that WotC made any type of concerted effort to market to people who had never gamed before.

Edit: And honestly the only way ganing new gamers is preferable to keeping one's old fanbase (and then trying to grow from there) is if the new gamers equal or outnumber the lost customers and purchase as much as or more than the old guard.  Otherwise it's a loss.

Quote from: imaro;338965what exactly did WotC do, marketing wise, to garner brand new gamers?  Seriously, I see this trotted out alot concerning 4e but I see very little evidence that WotC made any type of concerted effort to market to people who had never gamed before.

LFR. Most successful organized play effort in the history of the hobby.

Giving away the first module plus quick play rules plus Character Builder.

If you're not paying attention, and anyone who says what you just said isn't paying any attention, you shouldn't be in this thread.

Quote from: Thanlis;339018LFR. Most successful organized play effort in the history of the hobby.

Giving away the first module plus quick play rules plus Character Builder..

How the hell does someone not connected with gaming (a new gamer as opposed to a lapsed gamer or current gamer) even know about any of this?  let me try again... what marketing was geared towards pulling in new gamers (people who don't already know about D&D).  What areas and techniques, besides the traditional gamer avenues, were used to expand the market?  

Quote from: Thanlis;339018If you're not paying attention, and anyone who says what you just said isn't paying any attention, you shouldn't be in this thread.

Or... your talking out the side of your neck about what WotC has done to capture new players... yet still, somehow, found a way to totally avoid listing anything that remotely resembles actual marketing that would reach someone not already knowledgeable about D&D... Try again, perhaps without the snark this time..

Honestly, the whole business with the Penny Arcade podcasts seems like the biggest marketing coup from where I'm sitting.

LFR & similar are more about organizing the hardcore (well, hardcore in certain ways)

A fine example of Paizo customer support. (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo/websiteFeedback/thePRPGFAQATadInsulting)

Quote from: B.T.;339035A fine example of Paizo customer support. (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo/websiteFeedback/thePRPGFAQATadInsulting)

It also shows they have a sense of humor and can admit to an "oops!" moment.

Both things make them look good.


- Ed C.

Quote from: imaro;339026How the hell does someone not connected with gaming (a new gamer as opposed to a lapsed gamer or current gamer) even know about any of this?  let me try again... what marketing was geared towards pulling in new gamers (people who don't already know about D&D).  What areas and techniques, besides the traditional gamer avenues, were used to expand the market?  

You mean other than the television ads, the popular Facebook mini-game, the D&D for Dummies book, and the intro boxed set in Toys R Us?

Does the front page exposure on Jones Soda work for you?

Did you happen to notice WotC paid Shelly Mazzanoble to write a book aimed at women explaining the appeal of D&D? I didn't like the book, but I did notice it.

The latest Salvatore trilogy is explicitly about the change from 3e to 4e.

Quote from: Imp;339028Honestly, the whole business with the Penny Arcade podcasts seems like the biggest marketing coup from where I'm sitting.

LFR & similar are more about organizing the hardcore (well, hardcore in certain ways)

LFR is actually geared towards the brand newbiest of newbies. Which is probably why it has been so successful.

I would actually say that what 4E has done isn't so much marketing the game towards newbies, but making it appealing and accessible to them.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;339122I would actually say that what 4E has done isn't so much marketing the game towards newbies, but making it appealing and accessible to them.

Yep, this I can see, but the examples given by Thanlis and others aren't examples of actual marketing (as oposed to making it accessible) to brand new players.  Aboout the only one that has a chance of actually garnering the attention of anyone who has never played or heard of D&D and roleplaying games is the intro box in Toys R' Us.

RPGs are a social hobby, and new players aren't really generated without some sort of contact with the social side of things. With the exception of the rare cases where entire groups spontaneously generate themselves, most new players are brought into the hobby by existing players/groups. I am leaving out lone stragglers who buy a book and read it alone without joining a game, but these people aren't exactly part of the hobby. This is just how the hobby works. Since you are brought into the hobby by friends and acquaintences for the most part, marketing isn't as important than making the first actual contact with the game go as well as it can go. Advertising for RPGs is word of mouth, and it always has been.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;339126RPGs are a social hobby, and new players aren't really generated without some sort of contact with the social side of things. With the exception of the rare cases where entire groups spontaneously generate themselves, most new players are brought into the hobby by existing players/groups. I am leaving out lone stragglers who buy a book and read it alone without joining a game, but these people aren't exactly part of the hobby. This is just how the hobby works. Since you are brought into the hobby by friends and acquaintences for the most part, marketing isn't as important than making the first actual contact with the game go as well as it can go. Advertising for RPGs is word of mouth, and it always has been.

Maybe this is one of the problems, in so far as garnering new players.  The fact that word of mouth, instead of a real marketing campign geared towards bringing new people into the hobby, is considered the best way.  Not sure but it seems as though the players of one's product as opposed to the product itself would be what gets judged by prospective players... not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

"Word of mouth" would be almost next to useless for insular groups.  It would also be next to useless in cases of players who actively berate "newbies" for being clueless and stupid.

Quote from: imaro;339128Maybe this is one of the problems, in so far as garnering new players.  The fact that word of mouth, instead of a real marketing campign geared towards bringing new people into the hobby, is considered the best way.  Not sure but it seems as though the players of one's product as opposed to the product itself would be what gets judged by prospective players... not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

The problem with your statement is that people don't play RPGs by themselves, they play with others. In general, people aren't recruited into the hobby before finding an actual game to join. Looking for a gaming group is something experienced players do, not newbies. Word of mouth is the default advertising because of the necessary participation of the social group.

Its a question of what works. You can't advertise the game without offering a group to join.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;339133The problem with your statement is that people don't play RPGs by themselves, they play with others. In general, people aren't recruited into the hobby before finding an actual game to join. Looking for a gaming group is something experienced players do, not newbies. Word of mouth is the default advertising because of the necessary participation of the social group.

Its a question of what works. You can't advertise the game without offering a group to join.

Uhm... but there is a group to join, the LFR.  From there players can start their own group, recruit from the LFR players or whatever.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;339133The problem with your statement is that people don't play RPGs by themselves, they play with others. In general, people aren't recruited into the hobby before finding an actual game to join. Looking for a gaming group is something experienced players do, not newbies. Word of mouth is the default advertising because of the necessary participation of the social group.

Its a question of what works. You can't advertise the game without offering a group to join.

Well, for some people "involvement in gaming" is actually codeword for RPG-book collection.

FWIW, we have had lot so of people join LFR because they showed up at "Thursday open gaming at the shop" got handed a character sheet to the only games that open-armedly accept new players, and became LFR players by default.

It's always amusing when the special snowflakes who are desperately clinging to the image of their specialness casually deny the effects of advertising and marketing.

Quote from: StormBringer;339141It's always amusing when the special snowflakes who are desperately clinging to the image of their specialness casually deny the effects of advertising and marketing.

You have evidence of the effects of advertising and marketing on the RPG hobby? Source?

Or are you just lawncrapping, again?

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;339144You have evidence of the effects of advertising and marketing on the RPG hobby? Source?

Or are you just lawncrapping, again?

Oh, Lord no.  The billions spent on advertising every year doesn't actually work, of course.  No one could possibly be influenced by marketing or advertising, that would be silly.

Quote from: StormBringer;339161Oh, Lord no.  The billions spent on advertising every year doesn't actually work, of course.  No one could possibly be influenced by marketing or advertising, that would be silly.

The impact and significance of marketing varies from industry to industry. Saying otherwise is silly.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;339120LFR is actually geared towards the brand newbiest of newbies. Which is probably why it has been so successful.

Who would find out about it how? Going to a gaming convention? Reading on a gaming forum? I don't think you realize how deep down the rabbit hole you are.

Quote from: Imp;339168Who would find out about it how? Going to a gaming convention? Reading on a gaming forum? I don't think you realize how deep down the rabbit hole you are.

"Showing up at the game shop" is usually enough.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;339169"Showing up at the game shop" is usually enough.

Wow AM, way to reinforce Imp's point.

Quote from: imaro;339125Yep, this I can see, but the examples given by Thanlis and others aren't examples of actual marketing (as oposed to making it accessible) to brand new players.  Aboout the only one that has a chance of actually garnering the attention of anyone who has never played or heard of D&D and roleplaying games is the intro box in Toys R' Us.

... yes, Facebook is COMPLETELY populated by gamers. UTTERLY. There is absolutely zero chance anyone on Facebook who doesn't already play tabletop RPGs would happen to play one of those cute little casual games.

Dude. Over fifty million people have played Farmville on Facebook. Fifty MILLION. That's nearly five times the current population of WoW. Think about that for a second.

I swear. Someone else who isn't a 4e fan step up here and say "Yeah, OK, I disagree with you completely on everything else but it's stupid to write off Facebook's marketing potential." Please, give me reason to believe in the intelligence of man.

Quote from: Thanlis;339204I swear. Someone else who isn't a 4e fan step up here and say "Yeah, OK, I disagree with you completely on everything else but it's stupid to write off Facebook's marketing potential." Please, give me reason to believe in the intelligence of man.

I'm not a 4E fan. It's not to my task in games. I've been on Facebook for years. I've seen the Farmville game, and the space trader game, and this game, and that game. I'm a member of a couple of RPG fan groups on Facebook, so the robots know i'm a gamer. And i have never, ever seen one of the 4E mini games on Facebook. I didn't even know they existed until this thread. So...i can't say what you want me to say. ;)

Quote from: Gordon Horne;339210I'm not a 4E fan. It's not to my task in games. I've been on Facebook for years. I've seen the Farmville game, and the space trader game, and this game, and that game. I'm a member of a couple of RPG fan groups on Facebook, so the robots know i'm a gamer. And i have never, ever seen one of the 4E mini games on Facebook. I didn't even know they existed until this thread. So...i can't say what you want me to say. ;)

http://apps.facebook.com/tinyadventures/

Quote from: JasperAK;339202Wow AM, way to reinforce Imp's point.

Also, public libraries... bookstores. These events happen everywhere.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;339212http://apps.facebook.com/tinyadventures/

Now i've seen it, having had it pointed out to me, by a gamer, in an RPG forum.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;339213Also, public libraries... bookstores. These events happen everywhere.

High schools. (http://www.warhorn.org/RegulatorDay/) Churches... damn, can't find the LFR church game I noticed last month, but here's a Pathfinder game that happens at a church (http://www.warhorn.org/scholars/). (Good for them.)

Quote from: Gordon Horne;339210I'm not a 4E fan. It's not to my task in games. I've been on Facebook for years. I've seen the Farmville game, and the space trader game, and this game, and that game. I'm a member of a couple of RPG fan groups on Facebook, so the robots know i'm a gamer. And i have never, ever seen one of the 4E mini games on Facebook. I didn't even know they existed until this thread. So...i can't say what you want me to say. ;)

Huh. Go figure.

Well, here's the writeup on Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5040559/dungeons--dragons-tiny-adventures-on-facebook), and here's the writeup on Wired (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/08/dungeons-dragon/), and here's the app data showing 170K users with steadily rising numbers (http://www.appdata.com/facebook/apps/index/id/23415053320).

So, yeah, I'm gonna keep on saying that Tiny Adventures represents marketing even if people want to believe that it wasn't.

Never ever ever ever seen an RPG game of any sort going on in a general purpose bookstore, and no idea where you'd reliably set up in most any of 'em. Haven't been in a public library in some time so I can't speak to that one. Seems like a real pain though.

The great majority of the gaming sites on that warhorn.org site seem to be game shops. You can cherry-pick churches and (what would seem to be pretty logical) high schools, but then, what's your point, that people play RPGs in different locales? That's pretty nice.

Quote from: Imp;339227Never ever ever ever seen an RPG game of any sort going on in a general purpose bookstore, and no idea where you'd reliably set up in most any of 'em.

The few times I've seen rpg games played at big box bookstores, were at ones which had a rec room where the door can be closed and the blinds pulled down.

Quote from: Imp;339227Never ever ever ever seen an RPG game of any sort going on in a general purpose bookstore, and no idea where you'd reliably set up in most any of 'em. Haven't been in a public library in some time so I can't speak to that one. Seems like a real pain though.

The great majority of the gaming sites on that warhorn.org site seem to be game shops. You can cherry-pick churches and (what would seem to be pretty logical) high schools, but then, what's your point, that people play RPGs in different locales? That's pretty nice.

You're the one who was saying non-gamers couldn't find out about LFR, dude. Stand corrected.

Libraries are no big deal, btw. A lot of libraries have conference rooms; they usually make 'em available fairly cheaply for non-profit organizations. Gaming groups qualify, particularly given that they're involving themselves with books.

Liz Danforth has a great blog (http://www.libraryjournal.com/blog/1130000713.html) on libraries and gaming, for those who're curious. If my local library branch wasn't in the middle of remodeling, I'd be hitting them up for space and trying to do a little outreach.

Quote from: ggroy;339230The few times I've seen rpg games played at big box bookstores, were at ones which had a rec room where the door can be closed and the blinds pulled down.

The synchronicity of this thread (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75854/20993429/Starting_a_new_LFR_Group) starting within a couple hours of ggroy's post is too good to miss out on. And no, one example of someone starting a game at a big box store is not proof of any damn thing at all.

Quote from: Imp;339227Never ever ever ever seen an RPG game of any sort going on in a general purpose bookstore, and no idea where you'd reliably set up in most any of 'em. Haven't been in a public library in some time so I can't speak to that one. Seems like a real pain though.

We used to play in the public library 20 years ago. I'm sure someone is carrying on the tradition. We'd get people sticking their heads in to ask what was going on. That's gamers promoting their hobby, though. Good. Excellent, even. But it didn't have anything to do with TSR, GDW, or FASA.

Quote from: Thanlis;339234You're the one who was saying non-gamers couldn't find out about LFR, dude. Stand corrected.

Whee, LFR sessions are being held in like three general-purpose bookstores in the world, and you can find out about them on gamer network sites on the internet, have a fuckin' cookie.

Look, it's nice that people enjoy LFR, but your media profile is not there and you basically have to be into tabletop gaming already to get into it – it's not a major vector. Sorry, it's not. That Facebook app has got to be way more effective marketing-wise.

Quote from: Thanlis;339223Huh. Go figure.

Well, here's the writeup on Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5040559/dungeons--dragons-tiny-adventures-on-facebook), and here's the writeup on Wired (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/08/dungeons-dragon/), and here's the app data showing 170K users with steadily rising numbers (http://www.appdata.com/facebook/apps/index/id/23415053320).

So, yeah, I'm gonna keep on saying that Tiny Adventures represents marketing even if people want to believe that it wasn't.

Quote from: Thanlis;339204... yes, Facebook is COMPLETELY populated by gamers. UTTERLY. There is absolutely zero chance anyone on Facebook who doesn't already play tabletop RPGs would happen to play one of those cute little casual games.

Dude. Over fifty million people have played Farmville on Facebook. Fifty MILLION. That's nearly five times the current population of WoW. Think about that for a second.

I swear. Someone else who isn't a 4e fan step up here and say "Yeah, OK, I disagree with you completely on everything else but it's stupid to write off Facebook's marketing potential." Please, give me reason to believe in the intelligence of man.

How about instead of trying to be oh so fucking snarky, you take a minute and think about what the hell you're typing.  WotC has made claims that somewhere in the range of 6 million people currently play D&D (and this doesn't even count the people who aren't playing but have played or know about rpg's but don't play D&D, etc.)...

Now are you trying to tell me that out of those six million, there's no way majority or even all of the 170K (less than 5% of the total number of D&D players) that have played whatever this app is on facebook... couldn't be gamers?  Are you really trying to claim majority or even any type of significant number of the users are in fact people who knew nothing about gaming until they magically stumbled across this facebook app...thats pretty fuckin hard to believe.

A few other comments...

What the hell does Farmville have to do with what we are discussing...

When the hell did I claim facebook was populated only by gamers...go, go hyperbole...

Why the hell are you capitalizing random ass words...

Quote from: imaro;339249How about instead of trying to be oh so fucking snarky...

Sorry I hurt your feelings, my lamb.

Quote from: imaro;339249WotC has made claims that somewhere in the range of 6 million people currently play D&D (and this doesn't even count the people who aren't playing but have played or know about rpg's but don't play D&D, etc.)...

I’m intrigued by the reference to 6 million people playing D&D. I did a quick google, and managed to find the following references to player numbers:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3655627.stm

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/playdnd/parents

These say 3-4 million play each month in the US, though how this figure was reached is not explained. If anyone has any more information on where the numbers come from, I’d love to see it.

If we accept the numbers, what do they mean? Well, the population of the US was 304 million in 2008 – lets say 300 million to keep things simple. If 3 million play each month (I’ll use the lower end of the scale), that means 1% of the population of the USA are playing D&D each and every month.

To put this in context, that means that Chicago (population @2.8 million), should have about 28,000 regular D&D players. Richmond (population @200,000) should have about 2,000 regular D&D players. Or that each and every town in the US with a population of (say) 500 people or more should have a regular monthly game of D&D going on with 5 players.

Now, it may be just me, but these numbers look waaay too high. As they say, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics...

Quote from: Glazer;339285These say 3-4 million play each month in the US, though how this figure was reached is not explained. If anyone has any more information on where the numbers come from, I'd love to see it.

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html

Quote from: ggroy;339294http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html

Thanks ggroy :)

I'll have to have a proper look through the report. One thing that immediately jumped out was that according to the linked file, you're more likely to meet a woman playing a miniature wargame (21% of respondents were woman) than if you are playing a rpg (19% were women). This alone makes me doubt the methodology used.

Quite a lot of details are missing, which makes it hard to check whether the survey was done properly or not.

Quote from: ggroy;339306Quite a lot of details are missing, which makes it hard to check whether the survey was done properly or not.

I think the problem lies here (the following quotes come from the report, not ggroy):

Quote"Information from more than 65,000 people was gathered from a questionnaire sent to more than 20,000 households via a post card survey. This survey was used as a ìscreenerî to create a general profile of the game playing population in the target age range, for the purposes of extrapolating trends to the general population.

This "screener" accurately represents the US population as a whole; it is a snapshot of the entire nation and is used to extrapolate trends from more focused surveys to the larger market."

Unfortunately, this is a self-selecting survey, that only includes people that decided to respond to a post card survey. The chance of it representing 'the US Population as a whole' is unlikely – it represents people that reply to post card surveys.

This is compounded by:

Quote"A follow up survey was completed by about a thousand respondents from the ìscreenerî. The follow up survey is an extensive document with more than 100 questions."

So the results are even more self-selective, representing the views of the people that first responded to the general post card survey, and then could be bothered to respond to an "extensive" questionnaire. All-in-all I think it's a fair assumption that this survey could easily over-index the number of gamers in the population as a whole, simply because gamers are more likely to respond to a survey about games.

This aside, problems with the numbers show up in other areas too. For example, we're told that 17% of 2.25 million roleplayers also play miniature wargames, and that 37% of 1.8 million miniature wargamers also play rpgs. That's 382,500 and 555,000 people respectively – but these numbers should both be the same, as they both measure the number of people from the two groups that play both games.

Bottom line, if a survey this easy to pick holes in is the basis of the statement that there are millions of D&D players playing the game every month, then I think we're probably better off trusting judgements based on our own gaming experiences and anecdotal information garnered from forums like this one!

I would be very interested to see what exactly was in this 100 question survey document.

Questions have to be designed well, such that they don't introduce in any additional biases.

Quote from: Imp;339227Never ever ever ever seen an RPG game of any sort going on in a general purpose bookstore, and no idea where you'd reliably set up in most any of 'em. Haven't been in a public library in some time so I can't speak to that one. Seems like a real pain though.

The great majority of the gaming sites on that warhorn.org site seem to be game shops. You can cherry-pick churches and (what would seem to be pretty logical) high schools, but then, what's your point, that people play RPGs in different locales? That's pretty nice.

I've seen some people playing at the local Barnes and Noble, in the coffee shop.

In Kenai, there was a group playing in the cafe at the used book store a couple years ago.

Quote from: aramis;339408

Quote from: ImpOriginally Posted by Imp  View Post
Never ever ever ever seen an RPG game of any sort going on in a general purpose bookstore, and no idea where you'd reliably set up in most any of 'em. Haven't been in a public library in some time so I can't speak to that one. Seems like a real pain though.

The great majority of the gaming sites on that warhorn.org site seem to be game shops. You can cherry-pick churches and (what would seem to be pretty logical) high schools, but then, what's your point, that people play RPGs in different locales? That's pretty nice.

I've seen some people playing at the local Barnes and Noble, in the coffee shop.

In Kenai, there was a group playing in the cafe at the used book store a couple years ago.

That's another huge difference in gaming culture between the US and Europe. I've never been to the US, but stories about gaming stores with their own back room or similar open gaming areas abound. Indeed, events like D&D Days and FreeRPG Day etc. wouldn't even work if this weren't the case.
Try to find such a game store in Europe. You'll have a hard time. On Enworld fans once complained to Charles Ryan, who organizes the UK part of D&D Gamedays, that NOT A SINGLE SHOP in London runs the events. Because they lack the venue. They've got plenty of shop area, but it's full with shelves, not tables. (Contrast the classic GW Warhammer shop, which always has at least two tables ready to play.) I've had similar experiences outside London. And same for Germany. There are a couple of shops, apparently, which are the exception. But the norm is that you don't ever run across an active game in a gaming store.

I'm sure part of it has to do with EU gaming stores making less profit than US ones, and that rent (especially in the UK) is a more weighty investment than in the States. Still, if you are looking for another factor which makes it harder to draw in people into LFR, D&D Gamedays, and their like in Europe, here could be one.

Quote from: Windjammer;339430I'm sure part of it has to do with EU gaming stores making less profit than US ones, and that rent (especially in the UK) is a more weighty investment than in the States. Still, if you are looking for another factor which makes it harder to draw in people into LFR, D&D Gamedays, and their like in Europe, here could be one.

There were other shenanigans in europe I can't even go into.

But as far as LFR goes: any venue will do. Public locations work because they are less intimidating- people can just show up and play, and thats why they work out best. But you could just as easily run it at someones house.

Quote from: Thanlis;339223Well, here's the writeup on Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5040559/dungeons--dragons-tiny-adventures-on-facebook), and here's the writeup on Wired (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/08/dungeons-dragon/), and here's the app data showing 170K users with steadily rising numbers (http://www.appdata.com/facebook/apps/index/id/23415053320).

If I recall, Game Informer also had an article or two about 4e.

Seanchai

Quote from: Glazer;339285Now, it may be just me, but these numbers look waaay too high. As they say, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics...

Just as a point of information, I was watching an old 60 Minutes about suicides and BADD the other day and 60 Minutes reported that 3 to 4 million people in 1984 were playing.

Seanchai

The Americans have as much space as they want.

That´s why they have to drive everywhere, and a 40 miles commute to the gaming group is considered short.
Two sides for every medal, I suppose.

EDIT: Serious Games, Camelot and Gamer´s HQ (only the latter still exists) all have gaming space (Berlin stores). Also check out the Funtainment stores, if one was serious, one could run LARGE game day events at those places. And they are a franchise!!

Check out some pics of the Berlin Funtainment store (http://hofrat.blogspot.com/2007/04/ostverschiebung.html). It´s even situated in the centre of Bobo-dom and Latte-Macciatto-douchebags. AM would love the walk-in possibilites for random young hip person being swayed 4e-wise, girlfirends attached. Across the street is a boardgaming Café, one could cross promote events.

Quote from: Settembrini;339481The Americans have as much space as they want.

That´s why they have to drive everywhere, and a 40 miles commute to the gaming group is considered short.
Two sides for every medal, I suppose.

I consider 40 miles "long" but it's well within the distance I would travel for a weekly game. My old 3.5 group had a player 45 miles away (we met weekly). For a while I was going from Columbia to Frederick, MD (42.6 miles) for the group that hangs out there on Sundays.

Quote from: Settembrini;339481The Americans have as much space as they want.

We do?

Quote from: Settembrini;339481That´s why they have to drive everywhere, and a 40 miles commute to the gaming group is considered short.

It is?

Quote from: Settembrini;339481Two sides for every medal, I suppose.

Especially when you base judgements on another culture solely on your own cultural environs. That is called bias.

Quote from: Settembrini;339481Check out some pics of the Berlin Funtainment store (http://hofrat.blogspot.com/2007/04/ostverschiebung.html). It´s even situated in the centre of Bobo-dom and Latte-Macciatto-douchebags. AM would love the walk-in possibilites for random young hip person being swayed 4e-wise, girlfirends attached. Across the street is a boardgaming Café, one could cross promote events.

Well, you know me better than I thought! Yes, that's exactly the kind of place I'd pick for an event. Although those tables look skinny.

Quote from: Settembrini;339481Check out some pics of the Berlin Funtainment store (http://hofrat.blogspot.com/2007/04/ostverschiebung.html). It´s even situated in the centre of Bobo-dom and Latte-Macciatto-douchebags. AM would love the walk-in possibilites for random young hip person being swayed 4e-wise, girlfirends attached. Across the street is a boardgaming Café, one could cross promote events.

Funny I didn't consider Funtainment. They've got a local branch in Munich too, but it's more of a TCG + Warhammer venue. I haven't considered it as a venue for something RPG related yet. (They have perhaps 3-4 RPG books in the shop, all of them so dusty that I had to wash my hands with soap after I touched them. Eeeeeehhh!)

Do you want to argue about the population density of the US? I fear cold and hard numbers would make this a very short argument.

Quote from: Settembrini;339499Do you want to argue about the population density of the US? I fear cold and hard numbers would make this a very short argument.

The arguement is not about population density. It is about you assigning opinions to a population that you have very little accurate insight to.

Oh, this is fucking stupid. I'm an American, I've been to various places Europe, and yes, America is a lot more spread out than Europe is, barring NYC, San Francisco, and other denser places where the sets overlap. 40 mile commutes? Not necessarily standard. But Jeff's just being a pouty little nationalist.

Quote from: Windjammer;339496Funny I didn't consider Funtainment. They've got a local branch in Munich too, but it's more of a TCG + Warhammer venue. I haven't considered it as a venue for something RPG related yet. (They have perhaps 3-4 RPG books in the shop, all of them so dusty that I had to wash my hands with soap after I touched them. Eeeeeehhh!)

Well, I don´t think they´d ever object to RPGA or PS events. And the table problem can be solved, too.

In Canada, 100 years is a long time.
In Britain, 100 miles is a long way.
In America...well, we don't talk about them. ;)

Quote from: Imp;339518Oh, this is fucking stupid. I'm an American, I've been to various places Europe, and yes, America is a lot more spread out than Europe is, barring NYC, San Francisco, and other denser places where the sets overlap. 40 mile commutes? Not necessarily standard. But Jeff's just being a pouty little nationalist.

OK, so you agree with me that Sett's opinions do not accurately apply in this case, but you think I am out of line to point that out?

"Funtainment"?

Fucking Germans.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;338581And this also explains Pathfinder in a way that endlessly amuses me. Paizo made the (inexplicable at the time) decision to sell people a second copy of D&D3.5. And they TOTALLY pulled it off! How did they manage this? Well, their core customers come from three main groups:

1. People who were pissed at WoTC and needed to make a political statement, and were willing to pay money to do it.

2. People who honestly wouldn't know that the new edition wasn't that far off from the edition that is currently out of print (but widely available for cheap).

3. 3.5 enthusiasts looking for an update. This *has* to be the smallest percentage of the pie.

There is a fourth entry as well, which would be people who want a concise and manageable ruleset that collectively weighs less than 80 lbs to haul to the gaming table. I never had an issue with 3.X off-hand, although I did burn out on it (largely, I realized, due to an inability to absorb the high volume of first and third party content produced for it) and I am a big supporter of 4E as I find it an easier system to manage, but I have also picked up and am supporting (and playing) Pathfinder as well, simply because I am enjoying Paizo's iteration of the game and their smooth approach to product design. If Paizo hadn't done such a fine job in terms of quality product and friendly marketing, then I would likely have ignored Pathfinder, or at least consigned it to the same dustbin as other D20 spin-offs such as True20. So Paizo's doing something right, by bringing a quality product and a friendly approach to their sales pitches. I can only speak for my local area, but among most of my gaming cohorts (of which only two out of thirteen frequent online forums such as this) both games are proving equally successful.

Quote from: RPGPundit;339704"Funtainment"?

Fucking Germans.

RPGPundit

Bavarians in that case.

Koenigsberg East Prussians masquerading as Barvarians.  :rolleyes: