The Kargatane in Book of Vile Darkness 4th ed

[Goose Bone]

It is a toy, and you and your players determine what kind...together.

Agree.

you and your players

Not the buissnessmans...

[Ken of Ghastria]

Let me add a couple of thoughts to this (and with the caveat that I've only done a few freelance projects for WotC and have no knowledge that I can share about what might be coming):

I wrote the first article in the new "History Check" series in Dragon, dealing with the origin of the feud between Kas and Vecna, and made the decision to use members of the Zarovan tribe of the Vistani as the series' narrators. Approaching the article, I was of course aware that 4th Edition had been ignoring references to D&D's past. So one of the first questions that ran through my head was "Can I even say Oerth? The Flaness?"

Again, while I can't speak for the DDI editors, I can say that they encouraged me to use Greyhawk references and not "retcon" them, which was very welcome. The second "History Check" article, Sterling Hershey's look at Rary the Traitor, went further, mentioning very Greyhawk-specific organizations like the Circle of Eight.

My point is that while, yes, there clearly must have been an editorial/marketing decision at the onset of 4E to close the door on much of the past, I suspect that there has been a realization that they went too far down that path, and the "History Check" articles and the references to Ravenloft in BoVD and Gloomwrought may be the first steps to balance that. More than that, i can't say.

[Bluebomber4evr]

For people who loved the tapestry, like me and many of us, this stinks. But it makes total sense, sadly. Whether it worked or not to bring in new players is another story, but from a strategy point of view, I see now where they wanted to go.

I totally disagree that it makes any sense. You don't alienate your long-term customers on the chance that you might attract new ones. That's ridiculously risky and it's pretty obvious by now that's it has backfired. I rank 4th edition up there with New Coke as far as bad business decisions go.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I totally disagree that it makes any sense. You don't alienate your long-term customers on the chance that you might attract new ones.

It all depends on how many long-term customers you have, and if they are still buying your stuff. If your customer base is aging, drifting away from gaming, dying, what do you to bring in new business? I don't know the sales numbers, but to keep a product going, it's inevitable that you need new customers. Especially in an RPG market, many of your long-term customers have all they need to keep playing for the rest of their life without spending another dime. A player's handbook, DMG, and Monster Manual goes a long way...

[Bluebomber4evr]

I totally disagree that it makes any sense. You don't alienate your long-term customers on the chance that you might attract new ones.

It all depends on how many long-term customers you have, and if they are still buying your stuff. If your customer base is aging, drifting away from gaming, dying, what do you to bring in new business? I don't know the sales numbers, but to keep a product going, it's inevitable that you need new customers. Especially in an RPG market, many of your long-term customers have all they need to keep playing for the rest of their life without spending another dime. A player's handbook, DMG, and Monster Manual goes a long way...

I'm not arguing that they shouldn't try to attract new customers, just that it's possible to do so without alienating most of your long-term ones. It's a delicate balancing act, one they made no attempt to do with 4th edition. Look at how well Pathfinder is doing, it's out-selling 4th ed. D&D and it's essentially 3rd edition rules and more importantly, pre-4th ed. background--gnomes are still gnomes, elves are still elves, no silly dragonborn or whatever. Obviously, that market is still there, and the sales numbers for Pathfinder speak volumes: more people prefer the traditional D&D setting than whatever it is 4th edition is supposed to represent.

It's apparent to me that Hasbro/WotC made the same kind of mistake Coca-Cola made in the 80s and Netflix made over the summer: they believed that people would buy whatever they made based solely on name recognition. They were wrong.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I totally disagree that it makes any sense. You don't alienate your long-term customers on the chance that you might attract new ones. That's ridiculously risky and it's pretty obvious by now that's it has backfired. I rank 4th edition up there with New Coke as far as bad business decisions go.

Ummmm...do you have any evidence that they lost more customers than they gained? And by "evidence," I mean more than your personal experience. I mean sales data. I hate 4E, too, but I don't actually know that it cost them as dearly as I wish it did.

New Coke is the poster child for bad business decisions, sure, but few people realize what actually happened there, or why, or how. If you're going to make a comparison like that, I'd like some data.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I'm not arguing that they shouldn't try to attract new customers, just that it's possible to do so without alienating most of your long-term ones. It's a delicate balancing act, one they made no attempt to do with 4th edition.

No attempt? Are you serious?

Look at how well Pathfinder is doing, it's out-selling 4th ed. D&D

Where are you getting your sales figures from?

Obviously, that market is still there, and the sales numbers for Pathfinder speak volumes: more people prefer the traditional D&D setting than whatever it is 4th edition is supposed to represent.

That would indeed speak volumes if it was true. No offense, but I'd like to see some data.

It's apparent to me that Hasbro/WotC made the same kind of mistake Coca-Cola made in the 80s and Netflix made over the summer: they believed that people would buy whatever they made based solely on name recognition. They were wrong.

Ah, but Netflix and Coca-Cola didn't make the same mistake: not even close. Coca-Cola was thrown by HUGE amounts of data that showed people prefer Pepsi in taste-tests. They made a new formula that beat Pepsi in taste-tests. That is to say, Coca-Cola's mistake was actually that they listened to their customer base TOO MUCH. Netflix, on the other hand, listened TOO LITTLE.

Edit: I hope I'm not coming across as hostile. I'm not. If you want to hate WotC/Hasbro for their decision, be my guest. I share your feelings, for the most part. It's when you leave off saying "I hate them," to saying "They are making a stupid business decision," that I feel I must object.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Here's some hard evidence: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20743.html

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/21399.html

Paizo’s Pathfinder, #1 in the roleplaying game category, continued to gain momentum, with sharp differences in the number of releases between It and WotC’s category-defining Dungeons and Dragons. Some retailers told ICv2 of differences between the customers of the two games, with D&D 4.0 appealing to new players and people that don’t want to get super-involved in an RPG, and Pathfinder the choice of players that want to spend more time on playing.

So yes, they most certainly did make a stupid business decision: they are losing out to a competitor that is essentially their previous edition.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Look at how well Pathfinder is doing, it's out-selling 4th ed. D&D

Where are you getting your sales figures from?

No one has the exact data because neither Paizo nor WotC release them, but based on number from retailers, multiple industry reports say Pathfinder is on top. Here's the first I could find from googling, but I've been seeing it multiple places:
http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2011/1 ... inder.html

Anyway, the outcome isn't the point. Business decisions are made based on the facts at hand at the time. For whatever reason, WotC decided that the existing business they alienated would be less of a financial loss than the gain from the new business they'd gain from what they did. So they went with it. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, that was probably the thinking involved. If they turned out to be wrong, they weren't the first company to make a big mistake.

I don't think anyone at WotC has ever said, "let's piss off our fans! great idea!" The people working on D&D love RPGs too. But they have bosses, and numbers to make, and a big corporation judging their fate. So I don't judge them harshly for decisions I personally don't like, and I can see the rationale for the decisions from their point of view.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

So yes, they most certainly did make a stupid business decision: they are losing out to a competitor that is essentially their previous edition.

I looked at that data, but I don't share your conclusion, especially comparing this to New Coke and Netflix. If this were either of those fiascos, Wizards wouldn't still be 2nd place.

Moreover, I don't think it's fair to Pathfinder to say that it was essentially 3.5. I'd like to think that part of its success is that it fixed what 3.5 had wrong with it. Funny thing, many of the 4E creators talked like they were trying to do that, too. So it looks to me like there was a problem with two possible solutions, and each company picked one. WotC/Hasbro seemed to think they could fix the 3.5 problems AND get a new market at the same time, while Pathfinder was shooting for a more subtle course correction. Hindsight seems to have shown that Pathfinder's solution was better for the original audience, while WotC/Hasbro still has the considerable consolation prize of that new market they were looking for. From a market standpoint, they are still in a strong second place.

[Bluebomber4evr]

I don't think anyone at WotC has ever said, "let's piss off our fans! great idea!" The people working on D&D love RPGs too. But they have bosses, and numbers to make, and a big corporation judging their fate. So I don't judge them harshly for decisions I personally don't like, and I can see the rationale for the decisions from their point of view.

I don't think they said that either. Honestly I think they felt that they needed to be "cool" and/or "edgy" when in reality it wasn't necessary. Every time I read WotC press releases regarding 4th edition I think of David Cross's stand-up routine about the "squagle":

(it's at 3:30 on that clip, warning: there's cussing) The point being, much of the changes made were unnecessary and were done simply because they didn't want to appear "old", much like the square bagle.

But as for judging WotC/Hasbro harshly? It'd be one thing if they were being outsold by some completely different and unrelated game/ruleset. But Pathfinder is for all intents and purposes D&D 3rd edition. That's a pretty foolhardy decision, then. One they should have known better than to make, being around for as long as they have. The really telling thing is what retailers say is the difference between the customers buying the two games: 4th edition is being bought by "people that don’t want to get super-involved in an RPG", i.e. casual gamers. The problem with catering to a casual crowd is that they don't stick around. This is the problem Nintendo had with the Wii. Lots of people bought the console, but very few bought any other games for it. Casual gamers aren't going to spend lots of money on your product and will lose interest altogether once the novelty wears off. In contrast, the people buying Pathfinder are "players that want to spend more time on playing." These are the people that will be spending lots of money on your products. These are the ones who are loyal to a brand, who will stick with your product for a long time.

And I do feel the New Coke comparison is apt, even if it is not as much of a commercial failure. I'm sure WotC asked people what they wanted to see in a new edition, but not as many people as they should have, and they based their decisions on very skewed data in much the same manner.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

I'm sure WotC asked people what they wanted to see in a new edition, but not as many people as they should have, and they based their decisions on very skewed data in much the same manner.

Again, the problem with New Coke was not that they didn't ask enough people. If anything, they asked too much. They had millions of data points suggesting that Pepsi was a threat, when in fact it wasn't. It was not a matter of the AMOUNT of data, but the KIND: A taste test does not actually indicate buying preference. It's a sip. When people sipped Pepsi vs. Coke, all the data--including Coke's own studies--said that Pepsi was preferred by a huge margin. When they took a case of each home for the weekend, most ended up preferring Coke. The sweetness that gave Pepsi an edge in a taste test ended up cloying to most of them when they drank a can.

If Wizards made a mistake like this, I have yet to see the data. I don't know all the means they used to gather and sort the information. As for your predictions about the future of the industry, you may be right. Time will tell.

[Bluebomber4evr]

Well I guess we'll just agree to disagree on that. If it makes you feel any better, DeepShadow, I'll start calling 4th edition "Squagle Edition" instead of "New Coke Edition."

[DeepShadow of FoS]

Well I guess we'll just agree to disagree on that. If it makes you feel any better, DeepShadow, I'll start calling 4th edition "Squagle Edition" instead of "New Coke Edition."

LOL! Agreed. I like the squagle skit, too, and I do think that it applies well in this situation. They were chasing the new and sparkly, as so many others. If it continues to turn out badly for them, my preferred term will be "Meatball Sundae," after Seth Godin's marketing parable.

[Goose Bone]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20120109



Or at least 4,5e...