Quote from: David R;346292Because there is a more contact between the publisher and consumer esp through forums.

That was my initial thought, too, but I don't know anything about wargames, their fans, and the amount of communication between the two.

It seems to me that the more broad the avenues of communication and the deeper they go, the more the average consumer feels like a decision-influencer. That's a double edged sword. You can use it as Paizo did to your benefit, but if the customer begins to perceive that he's a decision-influencer and decisions aren't being made as he'd prefer, then there's...dissonance...

Seanchai

Isn't it largely due to the inherant nature of rpgs. You buy one RPG you play it for say 100 hours if you like it you want to go on playing it. If you buy a baord game you might play it 10 times and then you want to play another board game. Generally a board game makes money by selling a range of boardgames you might go back and play a game again and as a company if you own a 'biggie' like Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit then you make variants. Some board games get big enough to spawn expansions but they are few and far between.

An RPG needs expansions to survive. The base market is not big enough and the creative input is too great to just release dozens of RPGs. Insterad you focus on a narrow range of RPGs and you add elements to them.

This sets up a totallly different dynamic between the consumer and the company between the two game types. Hobbyists like to keep on expanding their hobby and the board game hobbyist can buy a new baordgame the rpger tend to buy a new expansion for their favoured rpg(s). So when the board game company release a new game its just that a self contained thing than can be played or discarded. When an RPG produce an expansion its a little different as it fits with that which already exists creating a continuem. When an PRG firts release a new edition, as they need to do if they want to continue making profits from their small sales base, then they are breaking that continuem and saying that which came before is no more.
RPG firms could stop doing this and just release new games (no one would bitch about 4E if it was called Dragons and Labyrinths) but the name is so key to flourishing inside the market share and totally Essential to going beyond the market share that making a new edition of a popular game is far more likley to work as a business proposition.

In fact the players are totally in control. The old games they still have work just as well as the old board games. I can break out Block Mania or The Fury of Dracula for a couple of hours of fun just like I did 20 years ago. I can still break out Classic Traveller and do the same thing. But a lot of players not see it that way. They see the next edition of their favorite game as a test of their loyalty to the brand or the brand's loyalty to them. So if the change has been large as with D&D from AD&D 2e to 3e and from 3e/3.5e to 4e  some people are bound to have preferred the old game and so you are bound to get stronger emotions than a rabid Monopoly player who doesn't like Monopoly Junior.

Quote from: jeff37923;346289So why deliberately alienate a source of profit, like those previous customers? For example WotC alienating players of prior editions of D&D by removing their PDFs from the market, it was still a revenue stream for that company. For example GW alienating wargamers by declaring that older miniatures can not be used in sanctioned tournaments, even though quite a lot of money has been invested by the consumer into the now tournament useless army.




There is a huge difference between not manufacturing a product anymore and removing that product entirely from inventory or access deliberately in order to force a captive market to spend more.

This is patently incorrect.  Old miniatures are tournament legal, as long as they count as something legal.  Old rules are not.

You can still use your Space Wolf Exterminator.  In games of Apocalypse.

There seems to be a large amount of ignorance floating around as well as a general sense of hostility.

Before you say anything about squats, most people run them as Imperial Guard  nowadays.

Jesus Christ.

Quote from: Blackhand;346470This is patently incorrect.  Old miniatures are tournament legal, as long as they count as something legal.  Old rules are not.

You can still use your Space Wolf Exterminator.  In games of Apocalypse.

There seems to be a large amount of ignorance floating around as well as a general sense of hostility.

Before you say anything about squats, most people run them as Imperial Guard  nowadays.

Jesus Christ.

I saw a guy DQ'd for using squat models. In 1999.

Quote from: Blackhand;346470Old miniatures are tournament legal, as long as they count as something legal.  

This wins the doublespeak award for the day.

We get it. Games Workshop can do no wrong in your eyes.

Quote from: Blackhand;346470This is patently incorrect.  Old miniatures are tournament legal, as long as they count as something legal.  Old rules are not.

You can still use your Space Wolf Exterminator.  In games of Apocalypse.

There seems to be a large amount of ignorance floating around as well as a general sense of hostility.

Before you say anything about squats, most people run them as Imperial Guard  nowadays.

Jesus Christ.

Depends on whether the guy making the call is a douche or not. They've also got to be able to recognize the mini as GW.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;346417Everyone in the world needs to earn their living. (Sadly not) everyone has a job whose sole purpose is to part their employer from his money. That is not considered distrustful.

What is the difference between a smith making a wrought-iron garden gate (and selling it to a home owner), a technical writer writing a guidebook about a technical appliance, be it a computer, software, or a walkthrough for a computer game (and selling his work to a publisher), and an author writing a gamebook, or a die caster (if that is the right term) making pewter models (for sale to gamers around the world)?

Yes, a certain level of distrust is healthy, and GW's way of operations has always been a source of concern for me (as a shop owner I was directly involved with them, and there are many things worth of criticism), but I would never make that stance a fundamental outlook in my life.

That's business, man.  They treat you the same way.  Just look at how companies tend to respond to the subject of piracy.

The bottom line is, the culture we have today is a culture ruled by the corporate mindset, whose sole value is parting you with as much of your money as possible, for as little actual product, as they can get away with.  And these days that attitude isn't just limited to publicly traded companies, it's become so ingrained in the fabric of how business is taught and how people think about business, that I see it time and time again in independent companies as well.

I never trust someone who has an agenda that is contrary to my best interests, and I remain baffled at how this lesson has been forgotten.

The generation I was raised by was the one who lived through the 80s, saw corporate greed become the new morality, had seen the supposed beneficent Ma Bell get sundered, "knew" that Detroit had an 80 MPG car, "knew" that "long distance phone service" was a scam.

But this younger generation seems to have either forgotten, or simply stopped caring, that this kind of shit goes on.  And frankly, just because society has accepted and bent over to an immoral philosophy, doesn't suddenly make it a moral one.

It's true that it's not always true of many companies in the RPG world that are genuine hobby businesses, but the one this thread was started about isn't one of them, nor are a number of them up at the top rungs.  It shouldn't be a surprise when people look at them askance, and ask themselves if their profit motive has outstripped their usefulness to the consumer.  

That's what REAL capitalism is about, an exchange between intelligent parties seeking to each find the deal that is best for them.  Not blind consumers buying up everything with a certain label on it, and identifying with that label as strongly as they'd identify with their own personal God.

The term "counts as" is actually a term for a generally accepted practice that encourages modeling by the hobbyist.

For example, if used in the correct manner as according to a current codex, you may use your squat minis.  However, it must be easy to recognize them for what they are.  These squats is my infantry platoon.  See the command?  Heavy weapons? KK.  Oh hey, and I like your Armorcast Wave Serpent.

What was the guy using his squats as to get disqualified?  How'd he get disqualified if he already submitted his army?  Wouldn't he (at the extreme) just be barred from playing entirely?

If the ref didn't recognize the models and he didn't say anything to get the situation rectified - both the guy with the squats and the ref are utter douche bags.

The rules posted for that tourney required that only then-current GW minis were acceptable. In that tourney, another guy was DQ'd for using 3 third-party minis out of his 200 fielded minis, specifically, as his commanders. Yet another was informed his chaplain wasn't allowed; he had a newer (but not as well painted) model to sub in.

The ref was following the GW tourney proceedure, and showed them all in the rules he was under, exactly why they were tossed.

The guy using land raider models for Rhinos merely got hit with a BIG penalty for improper models.

I was running the SFB tournament. I got 3 entrants... two of whom were the DQ's. (I had 10 try the B5W demo that I also ran, and 6 playing the B5 Full Thrust variant. Yeah, I ran 3 non-GW events at a GW funded event. The venue supposedly required them to have non-GW games....)

Haven't read the entire thread, but let me address the original post.

What if it's the opposite what has been suggested, and rather than a bad understanding of business practices, it's actually a good understanding of them that makes RPG fans more critical?

Think of it this way: as a miniatures wargamer, you're pretty much at your company of choice's mercy. Whether you're playing Ancient, WWII, Squad-based Vietnam, or Dark Sci-fi Parody With Skulls And Spikes, there are only a few companies and manufacturers for that particular niche. And even if there's a choice, you've already invested a significant amount of money (and if you paint your figurines, also time and energy) into your game, so you're not going to change over lightheartedly. In other words, the company can treat you, the customer, like dirt, and there's nothing you can (or at least are willing to) do about it.


In comparison - of course this is just my personal view, mind you - the RPG market is in a relatively greater flux. You like cyberpunk-style games but Company A is churning out crap products and treating their fanbase shittily? No problem, Company B, C, and D also have cyberpunk-style products, and since you haven't already spent hundreds of dollars on Company A's game yet, changing wouldn't be that much of a financial drain, either. And a bunch of free rulesets online if you're willing to look for them. And if nothing else works, you can just make up your own cyberpunk game, or pluck some fantasy or sci-fi product out of the left field and convert it.

So we, the self-conscious customers, are looking at a competitive market (well, competitive relative to wargames), and thus, knowing our Economy 101 very well, expect the companies to make an effort and please us. Because we know that's what competitive companies ought to do to get our dollars. And when we see that despite our rightful free-market principles they still treat us crap, we get understandably offended.

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable market analysis, Premier.  I like it.  

I'm sure he won't though.

I can't think of any RPG companies that I hate.  I can think of a quite a few RPG companies that put out products that don't interest me.  I don't buy from them and don't play their games.

That pretty much sums it up, as far as I'm concerned.

Edit - actually, I guess I do play WotC's games, since they own the older D&D material.  And I *did* buy from them (e.g. PDFs of old modules I didn't have) until they quit selling.  So that annoys me -- a company that owns a product I'd like to buy, but they're not willing to sell it.  :shrugs:  Happily, there are other options (lots of material coming out for my preferred games, these days).

Quote from: Premier;346582Haven't read the entire thread, but let me address the original post.

What if it's the opposite what has been suggested, and rather than a bad understanding of business practices, it's actually a good understanding of them that makes RPG fans more critical?

Think of it this way: as a miniatures wargamer, you're pretty much at your company of choice's mercy. Whether you're playing Ancient, WWII, Squad-based Vietnam, or Dark Sci-fi Parody With Skulls And Spikes, there are only a few companies and manufacturers for that particular niche. And even if there's a choice, you've already invested a significant amount of money (and if you paint your figurines, also time and energy) into your game, so you're not going to change over lightheartedly. In other words, the company can treat you, the customer, like dirt, and there's nothing you can (or at least are willing to) do about it.


In comparison - of course this is just my personal view, mind you - the RPG market is in a relatively greater flux. You like cyberpunk-style games but Company A is churning out crap products and treating their fanbase shittily? No problem, Company B, C, and D also have cyberpunk-style products, and since you haven't already spent hundreds of dollars on Company A's game yet, changing wouldn't be that much of a financial drain, either. And a bunch of free rulesets online if you're willing to look for them. And if nothing else works, you can just make up your own cyberpunk game, or pluck some fantasy or sci-fi product out of the left field and convert it.

So we, the self-conscious customers, are looking at a competitive market (well, competitive relative to wargames), and thus, knowing our Economy 101 very well, expect the companies to make an effort and please us. Because we know that's what competitive companies ought to do to get our dollars. And when we see that despite our rightful free-market principles they still treat us crap, we get understandably offended.

The problem you have here is that it does not preclude the original statement. What you seem to describe is what I call a dissatisfied customer. What seems to be described in the original post (not assigning meaning to yours or his just my understanding) is what I call the rabid hater. This is not a dissatisfied customer that votes with their dollars, it is the guy who dogs you on forum after forum, claiming you some how raped his kitten over the internet with your game book. I think there is legitimate concern about a customer that feels they are poorly treated at the hands of a company. However, the sad truth is that it does not often line up with the reality of their customer base. What I mean is that the claims of say, WoTC somehow having a poor customer service or treating customers poorly are not born out by the subsequent loss of business. Certainly, their reckoning may be coming but that is not the point, I have heard how horrible WotC is since they were first founded. Under the "customers will not be treated poorly" theory they should have shut there doors some time ago...or there is a vocal minority that makes it seem so.

In any case, I for one, am not saying that customers should blindly purchase my products. I work very hard to support my products. However, there are still crazed haters out there that seems to take a legitimate business decision EXTREMELY personally.

Quote from: HinterWelt;346589In any case, I for one, am not saying that customers should blindly purchase my products.

There are, however, a not inappreciable number of people who do exactly that, not necessarily with yours, but with many others' products, which is why these days, the market consequences that should come with poor and consumer-hostile actions, have a habit of not actually coming true.  And there's a just-as-vocal segment of the internet population who seek to encourage and enforce a kind of uncritical forced optimism, and thus further prevent any serious consequences of such actions.  

There's a recent photo that's become rather infamous, a picture of the userlist for a Steam group boycotting Modern Warfare 2, where over half the list is currently online playing the game.

QuoteHowever, there are still crazed haters out there that seems to take a legitimate business decision EXTREMELY personally.

Thing is though, what a business might think is a "legitimate business decision" and what the consumer thinks is best for him are not necessarily going to agree.  Especially when the values system is as such that it views any action whatsoever, regardless of consequences, is "legitimate" as long as it makes them a quick buck.

We just went through a massive economic crash as a result of a whole lot of those sorts of "legitimate business decisions".

Quote from: aramis;346574The rules posted for that tourney required that only then-current GW minis were acceptable. In that tourney, another guy was DQ'd for using 3 third-party minis out of his 200 fielded minis, specifically, as his commanders. Yet another was informed his chaplain wasn't allowed; he had a newer (but not as well painted) model to sub in.

The ref was following the GW tourney proceedure, and showed them all in the rules he was under, exactly why they were tossed.

The guy using land raider models for Rhinos merely got hit with a BIG penalty for improper models.

I was running the SFB tournament. I got 3 entrants... two of whom were the DQ's. (I had 10 try the B5W demo that I also ran, and 6 playing the B5 Full Thrust variant. Yeah, I ran 3 non-GW events at a GW funded event. The venue supposedly required them to have non-GW games....)

This all a big pile of bullshit, really.  To the point I'd call you liar, if it didn't seem just so misinformed.

For one thing, then-current?  That's fucking retarded, I have never EVER heard of that.  That sounds like a non GW tournament organizers rules, especially considering what you said about land raiders.

Third Party models have always been banned at official GW events.

GW tournament rules?  What the fuck?  Unless it was an campaign event or hard boyz, this totally marks this story as false.  There are none, and have never been any "gw tournament rules".  Fucking unbelievable.  Even then, there are very little guidelines and those 'rules' you are talking about DO NOT EXIST.

GW funded event?  What the fuck event was this?

I'd like to see those rules he was 'under' because GW doesn't really give you any rules other than what's in the lists.  If there are tournament rules other than what all players know (the rulebooks) that's specified in the tournament rules and you should get them when you sign up to avoid mishaps like the ones you describe.

Absolute fucking gibberish.

It sounds like you're just making shit up to make this argument sound worse for GW, when NONE of what you said is applicable, ever, anywhere.  JESUS CHRIST.

Big. Fucking. Pile. Of. Bullshit.  

Even if this is so, you can't blame GW for it - because that's the tournament organizers prerogative.  I should fucking know.

BULLSHIT.  One more fucking time, louder in case you didn't hear me the first three times.

BULLSHIT.