darkseraphim wrote:Sell D&D to Peter Adkison or some of the original crew or something. It's such a beloved and mismanaged property ...
darkseraphim wrote:I know now what killed Wizards' of the Coast's dominance in fantasy RPGs, despite controlling Dungeons & Dragons. It wasn't Pathfinder. It wasn't World of Warcraft. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. Wizards' control of the FRPG market died because it was deaf.I know they're finally republishing 1E materials now that 4E is dead, but COME ON you guys wiped out .pdfs, sat on a treasure trove of material and made it illegal to acquire electronically, killed Dragon magazine, wasted multiple opportunities for quality online D&D presence and play, shoved through an edition nobody wanted, willingly assimilated yourselves to the Hasborg with no way to meet their expected numbers, created the OGL, basically abandoned it, and then got outplayed by the beast you created. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Sell D&D to Peter Adkison or some of the original crew or something. It's such a beloved and mismanaged property ...
darkseraphim wrote:I shall now post, for posterity, Ryan Dancey's words on what killed TSR and what made Wizards of the Coast such a superior company:"I know now what killed TSR. It wasn't trading card games. It wasn't Dragon Dice. It wasn't the success of other companies. It was a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy. TSR died because it was deaf."
Invincible Overlord wrote:... how would you fix it, and/or restore it's dominance in the RPG market (if it can be done...) ?
Invincible Overlord wrote:Say you had the money to buy D&D...... how would you fix it, and/or restore it's dominance in the RPG market (if it can be done...) ?Nice words btw...
darkseraphim wrote:Invincible Overlord wrote:Say you had the money to buy D&D...... how would you fix it, and/or restore it's dominance in the RPG market (if it can be done...) ?Nice words btw...Well, it's too late for that because of all the fanbase attrition and fragmentation, meaning that no one strategy is going to work. But assuming that it was not too late, the intro fanbase needs to be expanded while catering to us old guys a little too.Step zero is to release everything out of print as a quality .pdf, but they're finally moving in that direction so they get a pass on that.The first step would be to release the Moldvay/Cook or Mentzer Basic Set, verbatim. I'm sure the plates are gone and all that but WotC have shown that they want to reprint early materials by re-editing them. The quality needs to get a little higher, but that's what they should do. Include B2 in the set. Also include an optional CD with a character generator, encounter generator, treasure generator and lead-in to apps (below).Then, market to young people. The Basic Set needs to be in Toys R Us, but it also needs to be in WalMart, Amazon, and on the Cartoon Network. Dump a cool ad into the middle of the Game of Thrones premiere. Those are places where all age groups go to shop and enjoy entertainment. Get people talking, both "what was that new game?" and "can you believe D&D is back?"Keep it pen and paper, but make two cool apps, one an introduction to role-playing (Harry Potter vibe) and another a character rolling app with expanded options, graphics and social features ("Help me name and gear this guy, I just made a level 1 fighter using ..." etc.). Partner with Blizzard, Sony, Apple and/or Microsoft and get in bed with the devil ... find out if they're willing to partner on a promotion project in which phones become a part of the optional young game experience, as dice rollers if nothing else.The teenagers have already gone away to electronics and MMOs, but a lot of them still like books and boardgames. To get those people you need to release the Endless Quest line as illustrated e-books (virtually all the work is already done), and you probably need to make D&D cool enough for social networking. Yes, that probably even means a Dungeonville (shudder) or something similar that the rest of us can either ignore or sneakily play at work while denying we ever do so to our grognard brethren. Then gauge sales of the Basic Set in comparison to the 1E reprint sales, and make a strategic decision to determine if AD&D should come back into print as a separate brand. See if the old guys are worth catering to (they probably are, especially since the game is so creativity-intensive and a lot of people just want nice reprints and a few new products). If you consider AD&D as Classic Coke and 4E as New Coke, this makes some sense. :wink:
