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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
297 Posts |
 Posted - 08 Dec 2020 : 18:04:49
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To not clutter the portal thread...
quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
I agree that they don't need to change it up a lot to continue selling to the fans, but if they want to expand their customer base there is a lot that "needs" to be changed. The reason for this is that after a certain time the current incarnation of the product can be considered to have reached its maximum number of fans. To appeal to new fans change is needed.
This is how business folks think, and are tough to think. But it is wrong for so many things, and most of all fictional franchises.
When it comes to a thing of fiction like Superman or the Forgotten Realms you basically are a fan or you are not a fan. There is no cross over or middle ground. The perceived middle ground is just liking something, and note liking something and being a fan of something are very different. And the important part that business focus on is what will people spend their money on.
While sure everyone will have a different definition of "fan", lets limit it to a single prescription: The A-1 Money Fan. The A-1 Money Fan is a fan that will quite willing spend large amounts of money on the fandom they like, with the requirement that the content needs to be 'good', of course.
I'm a fan of the Forgotten Realms. I own nearly everything published for the Realms. If they publish anything with Realmslore I will buy it. I wait for the day Wizards will publish Volo's Guide to Realms PDAs: 30 years of hidden secrets, a twelve volume hardcover set prices at $50 each: I will buy them.
On the other hand, I am just like of Superman. I have never bought a single Superman comic (I've read some of friends or from the library sure)or any merchandise. I have never paid to go see a Superman movie, I can wait until they are 'free'. And nothing DC can ever do will make me spend and money on Superman or become a fan. But sure I like Suoerman enough to eventually read or watch anything with him in it.
The problem is that companies think very wrongly that there are tons of fans "hiding in plain sight" and all they need to do is toss out some crap and they will make tons of money. This is not true. No group of bridge playing grandmas, body painted sports cheer screamers or bird watching groups will EVER drop what they are doing and run out to buy a new Realms book and spontaneously become a fan.
There will always be a few new fans that trickle in from related groups....like fans of fictional fantasy or video games. But this is a natural trickle. If a person likes fantasy in general or RPGs in general, it's not a big leap for them to buy a Realms book. But it's a bit rare this type a person will become much more then a casual fan. They buy a couple things, then they 'max out' as they don't like the Realms that much.
So companies get this very wrong idea: They utterly ignore their current fans/customers and make some wild, crazy, "new" crap to attract people that are not fans. Like some guy that is looking on Amazon for a new fishing pole with spontaneously go over to the book section and buy a Realms book.
So the bulk of your current fans/customers don't buy the crap. And only a few new people impulse. And few of the impulse buy people become fans. So the new wild, crazy, "new" crap just fades away.
quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
Yet they changed Superman quite a lot over the years. They've changed his powers from being able to jump incredibly high to being able to fly. They've killed him and brought him back. They've removed his powers, given him new powers and so on. They even cancelled the comic and then brought it back.
A near perfect bad example. DC does not put out a Superman movie for decades. DC lets the Superman comic sink to boring, lame stories where Superman stops a bank robbery....again. Then they sit and say "oh no one likes Superman any more: we must utterly change the character so Superman is not Superman, then people will like him!"
So gone is the wholesome good guy and most of all American image of Superman. Instead they make some alien monster full of anger and angst called 'superman'. They really tried to pander to the anti-American globalists non fan haters by making Superman just like them. Thinking all the hate filled non fans would just magically and suddenly like Superman, become A-1 fans, and spend lots of money on Superman.
Amazingly, it did not work.....several times.
And sure they "try and fail" to change Superman all the time. Yet oddly they always seem to come back to the Classic Basic One. Wonder why?
But there is another way. And this amazing way makes tons and tons and tons and ton and tons of money too:
You make something FOR your existing fans AND that is good enough for other non fans: Basically make something good. See that? You make something FOR the fans, your existing base that will spend their money on your good content. And you make it good enough that casual non fans will like it too.
Marvel, is the Example here. With only slight changes and updates the Marvel Characters are the same ones that have been in the comics forever. The vast majority of fans look at the MCU and say "yep, that's Captain America or yep that's Iron Man". And, at exactly the same time....the movies are good enough that millions of non fans like them too. My wife, who is not a comics reader, is now a fan of both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers (and Groot, and Baby Yoda, and..). And she fuels the MCU money making machine buying things too.
quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
I don't have an opinion on whether that's a good thing or not. I am simply stating that is how it's done.
Though time and time and time and time again: Businesses are always wrong. Just check off the list of things businesses/companies/Hollywood said would not work and would not make money:
1.A woman super hero movie
2.A black super hero movie
3.A rated R superhero movie
Hum...think of any movies where "they" did not listen to the dumb businesses/companies/Hollywood and put out a good, money making movie?
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 08 Dec 2020 : 19:12:04
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You make many solid points there. I completely agree with most of your post. But this is the nature of the market. People who want money are shareholders in companies and they don't give two fecks and a martini if the fans don't like the product. All they care about is the revenue. So they put pressure on the company to perform. If enough pressure is applied the company will become desperate. I'd like to dissect a few of your points to make a statement. Please don't take it personal.
quote:
..nothing DC can ever do will make me spend and money on Superman..
*clears throat* Let me present to you a feature issue of the Superman comic book
In an attempt to stop a dangerously large near-Earth object traveling too fast to be picked up by the ATLAS (The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) placed around our planet Superman accidentally tears a hole in the weave of reality and is sucked into the wormhole along with the asteroid. He ends up in a parallel dimension, a world unlike any he's previously seen - The Forgotten Realms.
Would you buy that comic book? 
Because that's how they reason. But like you point out, that might lead you to buying that one comic book and no more.
- "We need to add fishing rules and an appendix with different types of fish to appeal to fishing enthusiasts and get them into D&D and the Forgotten Realms".
These are the design decisions that a desperate company makes to grow their customer base to satisfy the shareholders. And the shareholders own them, just like the producers own the movies like in your example. And many of them have agendas of their own. They will say no to some requests of the director just because it doesn't align with their agenda.
In the end, for all the good it does, capitalism is at fault here. To take my previous example with Games Workshop, it's one of the few miniature wargame companies that are listed on the stock exchange. If you compare them to smaller companies that aren't listed you'll find that those smaller companies are much less in conflict with their fans, and often praised for listening to their fans. Compare the big movie productions where the producer gets final say in who stars in the main role, or even who directs, with the small indie movies who make all those choices themselves aiming for what's best for the movie.
So yeah, you're correct. And that's why we can't have nice things. |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 08 Dec 2020 : 19:21:24
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I'm not comfortable with saying fans have to fall into that one particular category. I think people can be fans of the setting (or anything else, for that matter!) without having to go out and spend lots of money -- not everyone has that option, either because of other financial commitments or a lack of ready access to Realms material.
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Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
297 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 01:25:41
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quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
Superman ends up in a parallel dimension, a world unlike any he's previously seen - The Forgotten Realms.
Would you buy that comic book?
Nope, I know that would be beyond total crap. I might read it someday just to see how bad it was at some point. Radical crossovers that don't fit together well, are always crap: there is no way to do it right.
And I'm not an obsessive fan that "must by everything".
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert[/i]
I'm not comfortable with saying fans have to fall into that one particular category. I think people can be fans of the setting (or anything else, for that matter!) without having to go out and spend lots of money -- not everyone has that option, either because of other financial commitments or a lack of ready access to Realms material.
I did try to specify that I'm only talking about the active fans that spend money freely, not the whole fan base. This is all from the business side: If the 'fan' does not spend money, the company does not care about them at all. If there are 20 million fans that don't buy the book, they don't matter. Part of being a fan is supporting the content. |
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cpthero2
Great Reader
USA
2285 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 02:28:16
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Learned Scribe bloodtide_the_red,
Thank you for posting over in this new scroll!
quote:
This is how business folks think, and are tough to think. But it is wrong for so many things, and most of all fictional franchises.
As far as being tought to think in that particular manner, that is correct that we are, among many other ways, as business is not monolithic; however, though psychographics are a means by which to understand lifestyle, culture, values, traits, etc., it doesn't mean the marketing department is getting it correct. That assumption just doesn't make sense with WotC at least, since they are the point of this discussion, mostly. I think that WotC's marketing department was, without seeing their work and only seeing their product to market, powerfully wrong. Just because a company screws up their marketing doesn't make marketing (or any other discipline of business) [I'll also use marketing as a catchall for business in this scroll] "...wrong for so many things, and most of all fictional franchises." What it means is: they need to be better at their jobs. Otherwise, and please don't take this as an attack as I certainly do not mean it as so, the argument is a) the correct action is taken and met with positive outcomes as expected and therefore marketing is true, or b) the incorrect action is taken therefore marketing is "wrong for so many things." That unnecessarily reduces the complexity of business to a bifurcative set of outcomes. While simple, that is just not how business operates, and nor should it operate that way. Humans are complex. Tastes and preferences are multimodal. However, don't confuse my point here: the real point is not the validation of marketing as a valid principle tool to be used in business. It is a fact it is valid. Rather, the point is to demonstrate the use of marketing correctly, which clearly WotC did not.
quote:
When it comes to a thing of fiction like Superman or the Forgotten Realms you basically are a fan or you are not a fan.
This completely depends on how you define 'fan.' Colloquially we all know what a 'fan' is, but when objective analysis to determine consumer behavior so that products can successfully be put to market is at stake, 'fan' means unequivocally nothing. Colloquial definitions when this kind of discussion is occurring does a complete disservice to the point of the argument/debate/discussion. In the end, depending on how you establish the elements of the term 'fan', both psychographically and demographically, your product will or will not meet market demand. Your points about Superman and the Forgotten Realms make that point in fact. A consumer may or may not be able to articulate there tastes or preferences in a formal manner that is befitting productive analysis or not, but that does not mean that those quantifiable reasons don't exist.
This is exactly why market research such as discriminant analysis for categorization with ANOVA upon those categories as well as regression analysis are used. They literally define people into discrete categories, etc., so that their market interactions and choices can be understood and the products can be positioned in front of them (Segmentation / Targeting / Positioning).
So, I am going to adamantly disagree with your points unless they were bluntly and insufficiently described, in which case, a more descriptive reason can clear up the misunderstanding.
quote:
There is no cross over or middle ground.
Again, a bifurcative fallacy:
- Death is nothing to fear. It is either annihilation or migration.
- Be my friend or be my enemy.
- I thought you were a good person, but you weren’t at church today.
The list can go on, but stipulating that human behavior is reductively limited to one or the other, belies the reality of the human condition. In a tightly controlled market environment where perhaps there are no other options available, such a claim may hold water, but to imply in the gaming market place that it is 'x' or 'y' is invalid. The contrived nature of such a test would be limited to highly affected market spaces, and one would need to question: what is going on such that 'x' appears to be a reasonable market space to interact with as a business in the first place.
quote:
The perceived middle ground is just liking something, and note liking something and being a fan of something are very different. And the important part that business focus on is what will people spend their money on.
It is evident what you're getting at here, but it unnecessarily simplifies the issue, when the reality is quite the opposite. Consumer behavior as I mentioned above is extremely complicated.
It does sound like you are aware of the specifics of what the differences in fact are though, since you said, "...and note liking something and being a fan of something are very different."
So, my question to you is: How are they very different, descriptively, and not with colloquialisms?
How are we suppose to know that the consumers being targeted are not just highly price inelastic? Implicitly, it appears you are one of those consumers when you said, quote:
I wait for the day Wizards will publish Volo's Guide to Realms PDAs: 30 years of hidden secrets, a twelve volume hardcover set prices at $50 each: I will buy them.
Now, to be clear: there is nothing wrong with being highly price inelastic. It tends to lend credence to the argument that you are successful (or at worse, addicted to something such as cigarettes, though, I am not saying you are to be clear), and that price doesn't mean as much to you in that price range as it does to others. Congratulations if that is case.
However, it could also be that the conditions of the market place, psychographically, have changed for the market segment being considered for market growth strategies and those for example could be equity issues that came to market with 4e/5e. Perhaps it is the buy-in on the monumental amount of lore that exists and the barrier to enter for lifestyle reasons is too much and consumers are not interested in investing to play a game, i.e. Star Fleet Battles. Perhaps it is something we're not discussing in this scroll, and doesn't exist (quite likely) in my examples given. I'd love to hear what you do know that makes the "...reality is quite the opposite" though.
My point though is that colloquialisms don't answer serious business questions, they offer conjecture, and wiggle room on opinions about the market space. If all it is about is opinions, then that is fine, but to make such declarations as, quote:
But it is wrong for so many things, and most of all fictional franchises
appears to imply a degree of information that doesn't appear thus far.
quote:
While sure everyone will have a different definition of "fan", lets limit it to a single prescription: The A-1 Money Fan.
There is no plausibility to reduce the argument on analysis to one variable. Gaming markets are not monolithic, because markets are comprised of people, and their tastes and preferences are not monolithic. Reducing arguments to uni, bi, tri-variate arguments removes the reality of the markets to simplify the discussion. Therefore, it isn't a fruitful discussion, and the point is moot.
quote:
The A-1 Money Fan is a fan that will quite willing spend large amounts of money on the fandom they like, with the requirement that the content needs to be 'good', of course.
What is a large amount of money? $500.00? $40,000.00? Why is it large, and who is it large too? Certainly $500.00 is small to some market segment and large to another. If that is the case, a definition is needed. Using broad examples doesn't help make the point, it discredits it.
quote:
On the other hand, I am just like of Superman. I have never bought a single Superman comic (I've read some of friends or from the library sure)or any merchandise. I have never paid to go see a Superman movie, I can wait until they are 'free'. And nothing DC can ever do will make me spend and money on Superman or become a fan. But sure I like Suoerman enough to eventually read or watch anything with him in it.
This is a good point. One take anecdotally from yourself as a consumer, sure, but it begins to get at the notion of tastes and preferences, and the importance of figuring out why they exist so when companies go to products into the market place, that they target the people that want Superman, and not you (since your ambivalence is a sale limiting point).
quote:
The problem is that companies think very wrongly that there are tons of fans "hiding in plain sight" and all they need to do is toss out some crap and they will make tons of money. This is not true. No group of bridge playing grandmas, body painted sports cheer screamers or bird watching groups will EVER drop what they are doing and run out to buy a new Realms book and spontaneously become a fan.
Well, it is certainly possible that companies could be thinking that way; however, "tons of fans" are not necessarily the focal point. Lumping consumers buying power, willingness to buy, and more variables into what appears to be a proportional grouping belies market reality as I mentioned with income elasticity ideas earlier.
quote:
There will always be a few new fans that trickle in from related groups....like fans of fictional fantasy or video games. But this is a natural trickle.
A natural trickle? Income per consumer better be fan-frickin-tastic then, otherwise that natural trickle is going to the trickling sound of the businesses doors getting nailed shut. Look at cost production economics and specifically scale economies when the a higher amount of consumers purchasing gets reduced. Fixed costs become weightier, and variable costs are effected by lower purchasing power, increasing the cost/unit input, and thereby increasing your total cost structure by a ton. I don't think the CEO or anyone else on executive staff is looking at that... naturally. If they are, they need to get fired and thrown off the proverbial bridge of never working in their field ever again.
quote:
So companies get this very wrong idea: They utterly ignore their current fans/customers and make some wild, crazy, "new" crap to attract people that are not fans. Like some guy that is looking on Amazon for a new fishing pole with spontaneously go over to the book section and buy a Realms book.
I'm certainly not saying this didn't happen with WotC, however, that broad sweeping generalization makes no practical sense. Otherwise, there would be far fewer companies working in markets and a greater trend of oligopolies and monopolies would exist.
I appreciate the post, and look forward to your rebuttal.
Best regards,
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Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring |
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cpthero2
Great Reader
USA
2285 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 02:38:49
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Seeker Returnip,
quote:
People who want money are shareholders in companies and they don't give two fecks and a martini if the fans don't like the product.
While I get your broad point, this is certainly not always the case. It depends on the sophistication of the shareholders. Last year, Exxon shareholders railed against the board of directors directly during shareholder meetings over complaints that they themselves as well as consumers of oil/gas had regarding climate change. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-03/exxon-directors-face-shareholder-revolt-over-climate-change
So, again, while I get your point, I feel it is a bit of a broad brush. A company that makes socks, ehh... maybe not a big fight company/situation.
I look forward to hearing your response.
Best regards,
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Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring |
Edited by - cpthero2 on 09 Dec 2020 06:33:03 |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 04:23:31
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quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I'm not comfortable with saying fans have to fall into that one particular category. I think people can be fans of the setting (or anything else, for that matter!) without having to go out and spend lots of money -- not everyone has that option, either because of other financial commitments or a lack of ready access to Realms material.
I did try to specify that I'm only talking about the active fans that spend money freely, not the whole fan base. This is all from the business side: If the 'fan' does not spend money, the company does not care about them at all. If there are 20 million fans that don't buy the book, they don't matter. Part of being a fan is supporting the content.
Part of being a fan is supporting the content, yes -- but that's not what you originally said. You said "The A-1 Money Fan is a fan that will quite willing spend large amounts of money on the fandom they like" -- and I'm saying you can be a fan without spending large amounts of money. Someone who has to save up and think about it before making a purchase is just as much a fan as the person who rushes out and buys everything on day 1. They may not be supporting the company as much, but they're still supporting the company -- and there's prolly a lot more of them.
I've been both, even during the time I've been posting here. There have been times I've had to wait a paycheck or two before buying a novel, and there's been times I've run out the door on my lunchbreak, rushed to the game store or bookstore to buy the latest thing that just dropped that day, and then started reading it at my desk.
Also, as I pointed out, sometimes availability is an issue. We've got fans here from around the world -- and sometimes the material we're so eager to discuss either wasn't sold outside the US or it wasn't translated to a language they can readily read. It's not that these fans aren't willing to spend money, it's that they don't have something they can spend money on. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4429 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 06:38:26
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Not to mention that the fandom as big as the Forgotten Realms is going to vary widely, based often on your mode of immersion. Some fans of the Realms only know about it via Video Games (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter MMO, Demon Stone, etc) while others just ingest it through novels while others simply play D&D and use the setting.
Then you go deeper and you have fans of "parts" of the Realms, or Eras of the Realms, or Editions of the Realms, things the separate the setting more.
A better analogy would be to the DC universe or Marvel or better yet - Star Wars. Then you have to understand that fans aren't always going to agree. What someone finds as crap, another might absolutely love. For me, I'm a fan of both 4E D&D and some of the significant changes to the Realms. Does that mean, because this isn't the popular opinion, my fandom is less valid?
What about fans of the Prequels of Star Wars (which get hated on more than was necessary) or fans of the Sequels (which have their own detractors too). I feel it's too complex to boil down to a few camps |
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 11:52:20
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quote:
Originally posted by cpthero2
Seeker Returnip,
quote:
People who want money are shareholders in companies and they don't give two fecks and a martini if the fans don't like the product.
While I get your broad point, this is certainly not always the case. It depends on the sophistication of the shareholders. Last year, Exxon shareholders railed against the board of directors directly during shareholder meetings over complaints that they themselves as well as consumers of oil/gas had regarding climate change. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-03/exxon-directors-face-shareholder-revolt-over-climate-change
So, again, while I get your point, I feel it is a bit of a broad brush. A company that makes socks, ehh... maybe not a big fight company/situation.
I look forward to hearing your response.
Best regards,
As Wooly Rupert pointed out not all fans are spenders for whatever reason. You also said:
quote:
Colloquially we all know what a 'fan' is, but when objective analysis to determine consumer behavior so that products can successfully be put to market is at stake, 'fan' means unequivocally nothing.
This is what I agree with. When a company is trying to push a product to market they're not counting people who are wearing pins with their logo to calculate potential returns. Aka they don't care about fans period. Maybe I shouldn't have muddled it up by talking about fans likes and dislikes. My point was that being "a fan" doesn't make a difference in the calculations.
I am using a bit of a broad brush because that's how this scroll started. And I do agree with bloodtide_the_red that it's wrong. However it's not factually wrong that this is what happens. I'm sure we agree on that, and I'm sure you can deduce that from my other posts on the subject. But as a fan you can feel wronged. You feel that you've put so much love towards a certain thing and then suddenly you don't count. People want to count. You see what I mean here?
If you look at fandom as a phenomenon it would seem that fans are often under the illusion that they do mean, and will mean, a lot more than they in reality do. But they're never a majority. They're always just this little niche group of people who likes the thing in question more than everyone else, to the point where they're fighting among themselves over who likes the thing more. I'm in there swinging for sure. It's like we all have this mini psychosis.
But when I step back, when I exit myself for a moment and zoom out and look at it all from a holistic perspective which includes everyone else who likes the thing but might not consider themselves a fan, people who don't even know about the thing and don't have an opinion, and the producer of the thing who is trying to reach as many people as possible with their thing the world looks a lot different. I don't mean anything in this equation. I'm plankton.
The Forgotten Realms is an amazing world with a huge amount of lore behind it. You touch on this:
quote:
Perhaps it is the buy-in on the monumental amount of lore that exists and the barrier to enter for lifestyle reasons is too much..
Yes. To create a new edition of D&D and then reprint absolutely everything that's been written so far is absolutely impossible, much less getting new players to buy it all. So how to go about it? Give away the old stuff for free on a website? Wouldn't most companies try to at least get a little more money out of it? How do you find the balance? and so on. Rhetorical questions obviously.
But these are the things that show how little the group that call themselves "real fans" mean. They may already own everything and so have less of a hurdle to buy the new thing. But for someone who is new to the thing? Well, let me just say that only the amount of books for 3.x and the money spent on it I personally consider touching the limit of what's acceptable for me. |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
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Swordsage
Learned Scribe
149 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 12:43:26
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| D&D as a brand has gone gangbusters in 5th Edition in comparison to 4th Edition and has fended off the challenge that the new Pathfinder edition was thought to pose. And it's always been true that "FR fans" are a tiny subset of D&D gamers. The Realms is just a part of the vast IP that WotC is trading off (although at this current point in time it is a more major part due to its use as a setting for the adventure books that have come out to date) but it's only a part. And that is now changing at an accelerating rate. The most recent book, Rime of the Frostmaiden, has accomplished something profoundly brilliant (in business terms) that is actually unrecognisable to the vast majority of the FR fanbase: they've rebooted the Realms. Oh, it's a soft, hush hush reboot - not something overt and in your face like the ToT or the Spellplague - but the powers that be have detached themselves from all previous editions of the Realms and all the decades of material published in it by one simple, quiet concept and have allowed themselves the free rein to write what they want about anything in their IP and set it anywhere and anywhen in their IP. So all praise to the obelisks because they have altered the Realms forever. Everyone reading about them has been talking about them in terms of allowing them to change their campaigns, which they can. Their greatest power is however to allow WotC to change any aspect of the past Realms, without having to provide any elaborate explanation as to why. Just how many times the "Netheril used an obelisk to ..." is going to get trotted out is unknown, but it will happen. Nothing surer. So when it comes to "what companies get wrong about the fans", the Realms isn't one of those things. WotC know exactly that the "hardcore" FR fans are so small in number that to upset them is meaningless. They just need to keep producing books that sell and keep making 5th Edition a success. And to do that they had to find an easier way to introduce all aspects of their IP into their chosen base vehicle of the Realms. To leverage off Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ebberon, etc. And they've achieved that so quietly, that no one even noticed. And book volume sales continue to do well. Whether the "hardcore" FR fans buy them or not. |
Edited by - Swordsage on 09 Dec 2020 12:45:23 |
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 12:51:21
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Swordsage
Can you tell me what it is they've done in Rime of the Frostmaiden to make this possible, or viable perhaps? Please DM if you don't want to spoil it here. |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
297 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 21:24:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Part of being a fan is supporting the content, yes -- but that's not what you originally said. You said "The A-1 Money Fan is a fan that will quite willing spend large amounts of money on the fandom they like" -- and I'm saying you can be a fan without spending large amounts of money. Someone who has to save up and think about it before making a purchase is just as much a fan as the person who rushes out and buys everything on day 1. They may not be supporting the company as much, but they're still supporting the company -- and there's prolly a lot more of them.
I should have been a bit more clear about spending money. I was not talking about a massive one lump sum type purchase. I was tanking more about an A-1 fan being the type that will consistently by the content over time for a steady stream of money for the company. I like to label things so I can say I'm only talking about this one type or thing and avoid the mess of someone saying there are a million other things or ways or types.
The A-1 fan more then likes the content made (if your a romantic, they love the content). They have a special relationship with the content in ways not easy to understand. The A-1 fan enters into this informal agreement with a content creator: The fan agrees to buy all your good content, and most of your average content with the understanding that the content creator will continue to make good content, and try for at least some great content.
Realms Fiction is a good example here. With each book written by a different author you have little choice but to take a chance and buy a novel and read it to see if it's good or average or bad. And there are objective standards (Once Around the Realms is an awful book), much of this is personal: though quite often what you like others like: did you like the novel The Crystal Shard? You were not alone....
An A-1 fan buys all the Realms fiction to support the brand. As long as most of the books are good, they are willing to risk buying some average books and even a couple bad books. As if a book is good, average or bad is subjective a lot to a reader, there will always be a chance any book might be anyone of the three. This is where the company on the other side of the A-1 fan deal comes in: they agree to have high standards and agree to make an effort to try to produce good novels. They don't, for example, hire an idiot to write a crappy fantasy novel and then slap the words 'Forgotten Realms' on the cover.
The A-1 fan puts their chosen content at the top of their disposable income list. Assuming they are rational in the first place (wink wink) they will pay their bills and living expenses, and with whatever money they have left buy the content they are a fan of with that money. Some fans might need to save up; some fans will take money from other disposable income they have(like not go out to eat Friday night) and some fans might work an extra shift or work over time. The end result will be that they are willing to change their lives, even make a sacrifice, just to buy that content.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Also, as I pointed out, sometimes availability is an issue.
Well, this might cross over into crazy fan territory, but this is only an issue if you let it be:
Set the Wayback Machine for the Time Before Time. I was a transfan: a fan of the G1 Transformers. I learned that there was a Transfomers magizine in the UK that was impossible to get here in the USA (at least for a kid), and no local comic shop could or would help. So....we had a girl from France in our school and I asked her about it and lucky enough her brother, in France, was also into comics. So I wrote to him, on paper using snail mail. He wrote me back and told me of a friend living in the UK that he traded comics with by mail. I wrote to that guy and we worked out a trade: he sent me Transformers, and I sent him G.I. Joe(they did not sell that in the UK...sort of). For years we sent envelopes back and forth.
The above story is a bit insane (even more so as a kid I had to buy one, two, five and such cent stamps and cover the envelope to pay for the delivery). But as a fan I, and the other guy across the pond, were willing to do it.
quote:
Originally posted by cpthero2
There is no cross over or middle ground.
So here I was talking about the idea that people in unrelated fan groups cross over much into other groups and become a type A-1 fan. Note also the focus is on fans of RPGs, and related "geek" things: not all fans of everything everywhere.
Point: most people, by the time they become an adult, have set likes, dislikes, loves and hates. They are not truly set in stone, but it is rare for a person to change much, even more so to an extreme. This includes what they are an A-1 fan of(that is the content they love above all others and are willing to spend time and money on).
Point: Fans just about never respond to content created to attract and pander to them in the frame work of some other content. And this goes about ten times for fans of unrelated content(for example fans of D&D and Magic cards are related; fans of D&D and football are not).
Horribly Bad Idea: The company idiots want to attract all the football fans to the Forgotten Realms 6E D&D game(done in partnership with the NFL, of course). So they change the Realms by....sigh....all the NFL sports teams are teleported in to the Realms and become 'cool fantasy army sports teams'. The 49's become dwarves, the Cowboys become Minatars, the Rangers become rangers, and the Packers become gnomes and so on. Then they drain the Inner Sea to turn it into the super bowl war sports arena where each team army will fight! Grunt grunt!
So the....beyond idiotic...idea here is that a sports fan will see this and spontaneously, for no reason, not just like it but love it. they will run out and buy the game and all the game stuff. And that they, and all their pals will play the D&D sports game game AND then play the 'normal' D&D game too (somehow). And like magic: the company now has a billion 'sports fans' that have also become 'Realms fans' and will buy all the Realms stuff.
Anyone who is not an idiot or a company guy in a suit, will see that this will never ever work. Sure a couple sports fans might drift over and play the D&D sports game...and some might even jump to playing D&D in the Realms. But it will never, ever be what they think it will be: huge numbers of sports fans with zero interest in fantasy and RPGs or anything related that just 'suddenly and spontaneously' become A-1 fans. And most, if not all, of the ones that 'jump' will already have interest in related things like fantasy and RP fantasy games.
Now, making a 'NFL sports Realms' is not a bad idea for a way out in left field crossover. There are always "stranglers" from both sides you can pick up and convert as at least casual fans.
BUT you don't utterly destroy, ruin and change the official Forgotten Reams published campaign setting into nothing except the Awesome Extreme NLF Sports War Areana and then say "oh..yuck yuck, the Realms has ALWAYS BENN THIS WAY FROM THE DAWN OF TIME." And add in utter nonsense: "Beholders are living footballs and have always have been!"
Point: If you make good content, people and fans will come. It's so easy and obvious. And it is how nearly EVERY fandom was made: put out good content, and people will like and love it and become casual and A-1 fans.
When the Realms came out, it was just a D&D setting. It described a world. There was no idiotic attempt to make the Realms "a living paper video game like thing". There was no "The super cool Realms is just like that awesome video game Gauntlet: if your character gets hurt you just need to walk over food and eat it to be healed!"
And because the Forgotten Realms was a bunch of good products, it created lots of fans....that still exist to this day.
Again this takes us back around to the above: if they make good content for the fans, the fans will buy it.
Big Point: if you make good, or great, content not only will fans comes and buy it, but so will related fan bases.
Again, Marvel is the Big Example. They put out a good movie: Ant man. It's a fine enough action adventure movie. It's full of lore and such for the comic fans. And it has the huge dad/daughter subplot, that attracts tons of people...including tons of women that have never read an Ant Man comic. But they bought a copy of the movie to add to their collection of 'family movies'.
Point: Good content attracts everyone. |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6351 Posts |
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 21:57:24
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quote:
The company idiots want to attract all the football fans to the Forgotten Realms 6E D&D game(done in partnership with the NFL, of course). So they change the Realms by....sigh....all the NFL sports teams are teleported in to the Realms and become 'cool fantasy army sports teams'. The 49's become dwarves, the Cowboys become Minatars, the Rangers become rangers, and the Packers become gnomes and so on. Then they drain the Inner Sea to turn it into the super bowl war sports arena where each team army will fight! Grunt grunt!
And then they get a cease and desist from Games Workshop. :D |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 23:32:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
What companies get wrong about fans?
They treat fans and customers in general as a statistic.
They should treat customers as people but thus far I dont think a big company has ever done that
I've had some companies that have given me some great customer service. Paizo is one, and though I know not everyone is a fan of Amazon, their customer service has really treated me right. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 09 Dec 2020 : 23:45:58
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Amazon
So someone managed to change the email adress of my Amazon account a few years ago. I got worried I might have a saved credit card or similar in there and whoever hijacked my account would use it so I contacted support via email from my email adress, the one that had originally been connected to the account. In this email I explained that someone had hijacked my account and changed my email adress.
I received a reply that I had to contact them from the email adress associated with the account for them to be able to help me.
I sent them a new email repeating what I wrote in the first, that I did not have access to the account, didn't know what email adress they'd changed it to and certainly didn't have access to the email account.
I received a new reply, this time from a different support person, explaining that I needed to contact them from the email adress associated with my account for them to be able to help me.
I sent them a third email, repeating my query and asking them to escalate the ticket to second line support.
I received a reply, from yet another person, saying I needed to contact them from the email adress associated with my account for them to be able to help me.
I wrote a fourth email, listing the names of the people who had replied to my previous emails. I told them that if someone had gotten hold of my account details or personal information I would hold them personally responsible for it because of their obvious lack of even reading what I had written, not bothering to try and understand it and the potential consequences and complete unwillingness to help me, if they didn't put me in contact with either their second line support or their superior immediately.
Two hours later I received an email from a lady on the other side of the planet asking me for a phone number so she could phone me up and sort it all out. She added that she had also frozen my account to make sure nothing happened meanwhile.
Biggest company in the world. |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
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cpthero2
Great Reader
USA
2285 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 01:52:34
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Master Rupert,
quote:
Part of being a fan is supporting the content, yes -- but that's not what you originally said. You said "The A-1 Money Fan is a fan that will quite willing spend large amounts of money on the fandom they like" -- and I'm saying you can be a fan without spending large amounts of money.
A good point. Fan can be defined in multiple ways. Learned Scribe bloodtide_the_red has a point that a 'form' of a fan could be a highly price and income inelastic consumer. If that it is one of the primary defining characteristics of a market segment, so be it. However, there are in fact parallel options (this is my agreement by the way, just expounding upon it) that could lead to subscriptions, and other options that tie in consistency of income, which company managers love, in lieu of the volatile sales curves that come up with they hypothetical 'A-1 Money Fan.' Managers and shareholders hate volatility on average (except in currency exchanges and oil speculation as an example). That shows that there can be more 'fannishness' than may be initially believed. So, good point Master Rupert. :)
quote:
They may not be supporting the company as much, but they're still supporting the company -- and there's prolly a lot more of them.
Great point. Tastes and preferences are quite varied, and thus your point is quite good.
quote:
I've been both, even during the time I've been posting here. There have been times I've had to wait a paycheck or two before buying a novel, and there's been times I've run out the door on my lunchbreak, rushed to the game store or bookstore to buy the latest thing that just dropped that day, and then started reading it at my desk.
This is just like a situation of marginal tax systems where people's successes and/or failures can push people into different tax brackets, as can people's tastes and preferences. Another valid point.
quote:
Also, as I pointed out, sometimes availability is an issue. We've got fans here from around the world -- and sometimes the material we're so eager to discuss either wasn't sold outside the US or it wasn't translated to a language they can readily read. It's not that these fans aren't willing to spend money, it's that they don't have something they can spend money on.
A great point I had not considered initially, but in global markets, a variety of issues, i.e. distribution channels, governmental influences, and more, can drive availability in one direction or another and skew the options.
Best regards,
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Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring |
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cpthero2
Great Reader
USA
2285 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 02:14:59
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Seeker Returnip,
As always, thank you for the reply! :)
quote:
As Wooly Rupert pointed out not all fans are spenders for whatever reason.
I won't belabor the point as I am uncertain if people really want to get into the intersection of economics and marketing here (though if people do, please let me know and I'll wax poetic as much as you like). ;) haha
quote:
This is what I agree with. When a company is trying to push a product to market they're not counting people who are wearing pins with their logo to calculate potential returns. Aka they don't care about fans period. Maybe I shouldn't have muddled it up by talking about fans likes and dislikes. My point was that being "a fan" doesn't make a difference in the calculations.
The antipathy of profit motive: agreed! In very rare circumstances that is overcome, but not often. Money is pretty frickin' cool!
quote:
I am using a bit of a broad brush because that's how this scroll started. And I do agree with bloodtide_the_red that it's wrong.
Here we delve into the field of ethics, though. 'Wrong' according to what ethic? A moral relativist, a Kantian, consequentialist, etc.? Capitalists of the purist form don't disagree with it. I bet John Stuart Mills and Adam Smith would be deeply breathing in the smell of the greenbacks. I think to discount that different people view thins through other ethical lens' is to miss why such differences exist in the first place and monolithically treats the masses, erroneously.
quote:
However it's not factually wrong that this is what happens. I'm sure we agree on that, and I'm sure you can deduce that from my other posts on the subject. But as a fan you can feel wronged. You feel that you've put so much love towards a certain thing and then suddenly you don't count. People want to count. You see what I mean here?
Agreed. Pathos is a wholly different beast than logos. My wrath towards WotC is not based on business. Sure, I think their managers are largely incompetent, blathering fools, but that analysis of mine as a businessman myself, has nothing to do with why I am wrathful. They wronged my experience of the Realms. It isn't necessarily logical (though some may agree it is, who knows), but emotions are not logical. :)
quote:
If you look at fandom as a phenomenon it would seem that fans are often under the illusion that they do mean, and will mean, a lot more than they in reality do. But they're never a majority. They're always just this little niche group of people who likes the thing in question more than everyone else, to the point where they're fighting among themselves over who likes the thing more. I'm in there swinging for sure. It's like we all have this mini psychosis.
haha, so true! Fans are loud, extremely motivated people that seem like the majority due to their epic voice, but often are quite small. That's because most people are not fan...atic. ;)
quote:
But when I step back, when I exit myself for a moment and zoom out and look at it all from a holistic perspective which includes everyone else who likes the thing but might not consider themselves a fan, people who don't even know about the thing and don't have an opinion, and the producer of the thing who is trying to reach as many people as possible with their thing the world looks a lot different. I don't mean anything in this equation. I'm plankton.
haha, I get your point there. Plankton is rough, but I am not going to disagree. When someone writes a letter to WotC as a consumer, I am pretty certain that zero f**ks are given. lol
quote:
The Forgotten Realms is an amazing world with a huge amount of lore behind it. You touch on this: Perhaps it is the buy-in on the monumental amount of lore that exists and the barrier to enter for lifestyle reasons is too much.. Yes. To create a new edition of D&D and then reprint absolutely everything that's been written so far is absolutely impossible, much less getting new players to buy it all. So how to go about it? Give away the old stuff for free on a website? Wouldn't most companies try to at least get a little more money out of it? How do you find the balance? and so on. Rhetorical questions obviously.
Yeah, barrier to enter is tough. As a marketer it's always a fear when it comes to markets predicated upon a high degree of culture. The reason is clear: culture is an acceptance of values, traits, beliefs, etc. If someone doesn't possess those, you are necessarily excluding them. Excluding is not good for business: everyone's money spends equally. ;)
As always, I really appreciate your input Seeker Returnip! I hope you stay around at the 'Keep for a good long time, and invite your friends to come over and help grow the community! :)
Best regards,
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Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4429 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 05:36:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
quote:
The company idiots want to attract all the football fans to the Forgotten Realms 6E D&D game(done in partnership with the NFL, of course). So they change the Realms by....sigh....all the NFL sports teams are teleported in to the Realms and become 'cool fantasy army sports teams'. The 49's become dwarves, the Cowboys become Minatars, the Rangers become rangers, and the Packers become gnomes and so on. Then they drain the Inner Sea to turn it into the super bowl war sports arena where each team army will fight! Grunt grunt!
And then they get a cease and desist from Games Workshop. :D
Ok so now I want to make an Aarakocra that's blue and green in my favorite NFL team's colors of the Seahawks, lol. He's gotta have the Booming Blade cantrip (legion of boom reference). |
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cpthero2
Great Reader
USA
2285 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 05:43:29
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Learned Scribe Swordsage,
quote:
D&D as a brand has gone gangbusters in 5th Edition in comparison to 4th Edition and has fended off the challenge that the new Pathfinder edition was thought to pose.
I only comment as I do, due to information I've had from friends who have owned game stores and have shared detailed information from the 4th and 5th edition sales. So please bear that in mind as you read my response. That is of course a bit anecdotal, however, it is from (3) game store owners (I will not share their names or companies as I don't want to "call them out").
4th edition D&D was "a bulls**t product" according to one of the store owners and a failure in different terms from the other two. WotC was, IMO, so full of hubris regarding their product they let it go way too long. I mention this because we really don't know whether that is the case with 5e or not. It appears that, by proliferation, it is in fact doing better than 4e. That appears to not be difficult though when the sales from those three store owners I know (one west coast, one mid-west, and one east-coast) during 4e were apparently disastrously low. So, the differential really matters on 4e versus 5e sales. I would also be really interested in seeing marginal income records (yes, I know I will never see that) from WotC on 5e vs. 4e, as I think that would really tell some interesting tales. Higher production over time correlates to higher demand, which means cheaper COGS, better scale economies on production and higher margins. WotC never reveals this though, as we saw from the embarrassing tale of the tape, post-4e numbers.
quote:
And it's always been true that "FR fans" are a tiny subset of D&D gamers.
I can't disagree that that seems sensible, anecdotally, but I have no numbers to demonstrate what the proportion of D&D gamers are with ties to the Realms in purchasing consideration, relative to other settings, or even rules systems in general across D&D gaming, i.e. Pathfinder, #.0. 3.5, 4.0, 5.0.
quote:
The Realms is just a part of the vast IP that WotC is trading off (although at this current point in time it is a more major part due to its use as a setting for the adventure books that have come out to date) but it's only a part. And that is now changing at an accelerating rate. The most recent book, Rime of the Frostmaiden, has accomplished something profoundly brilliant (in business terms) that is actually unrecognisable to the vast majority of the FR fanbase: they've rebooted the Realms.
I'm certainly not going to say that your quote of, "they've rebotted the Realms" is not accurate, but if they are rebooting the Realms, who are they rebooting it for exactly? You say below that, quote:
WotC know exactly that the "hardcore" FR fans are so small in number that to upset them is meaningless.
So, if the number of consumers that are "hardcore" (5 consumers, 50, 20,000?) are so inconsequential then surely the "reboot" cannot be for them. If that is the case, then is it for the huge amount of current Realms players? Possibly, but how many Realms players are there currently? I don't know, but maybe you or someone else does, and I think that would really add a lot of oompf to the notion being presented here. The idea of going back in time for adventures with the Obelisks is cool, but that seems to serve the "hardcore" more than anyone else, which by your quote is so small a number, "that to upset them is meaningless."
quote:
Everyone reading about them has been talking about them in terms of allowing them to change their campaigns, which they can. Their greatest power is however to allow WotC to change any aspect of the past Realms, without having to provide any elaborate explanation as to why.
Anyone can already change their material, or do what myself and many others have done: not spend our money with WotC anymore, keep using the enormous amount of material we have for the Realms and not venture forth with WotC. Your confidence about this is really impressive. Do you have some information about the development of the market that WotC has specifically undertaken such that the soft reboot you mentioned is viable, or is this something else entirely? I'd love to hear your input on this.
quote:
To leverage off Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ebberon, etc. And they've achieved that so quietly, that no one even noticed. And book volume sales continue to do well. Whether the "hardcore" FR fans buy them or not.
If by achieving leverage at least with Dragonlance you mean get sued by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, then yes, I would emphatically agree that their masterplan is working well. I usually do not consider getting sued by your two main authors for an entire setting a success, but hey: there is more than one way to skin a cat!
Greyhawk and Eberron, I'll just have to wait and see. Again, there are no numbers to analyze as they are always carefully guarded and internal figures to the company, but they never seemed to do well to me (anecdotal, yes).
Best regards,
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Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1286 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 06:17:51
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| I've heard arguments that people who aren't pouring money into current products aren't fans...or at least the kind of fan that matters. |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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cpthero2
Great Reader
USA
2285 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 06:28:03
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Learned Scribe Azar,
quote:
I've heard arguments that people who aren't pouring money into current products aren't fans...or at least the kind of fan that matters.
Guilty as charged: I am not a fan by those standards! haha
Best regards,
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Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring |
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Delnyn
Senior Scribe
USA
889 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 13:00:56
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What is the minimally acceptable shelf life of a brand new product, or for that matter, a target demographic? That metric should inform at least some measure of quality control.
I can overlook ocassional mistakes. Not giving a s*** (Think BG:DiA or the 3.5 ed truenamer rules) is how to throw away an otherwise steady revenue flow.
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 17:02:00
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quote:
Originally posted by cpthero2
Learned Scribe Swordsage,
quote:
D&D as a brand has gone gangbusters in 5th Edition in comparison to 4th Edition and has fended off the challenge that the new Pathfinder edition was thought to pose.
I only comment as I do, due to information I've had from friends who have owned game stores and have shared detailed information from the 4th and 5th edition sales. So please bear that in mind as you read my response. That is of course a bit anecdotal, however, it is from (3) game store owners (I will not share their names or companies as I don't want to "call them out").
4th edition D&D was "a bulls**t product" according to one of the store owners and a failure in different terms from the other two. WotC was, IMO, so full of hubris regarding their product they let it go way too long. I mention this because we really don't know whether that is the case with 5e or not. It appears that, by proliferation, it is in fact doing better than 4e. That appears to not be difficult though when the sales from those three store owners I know (one west coast, one mid-west, and one east-coast) during 4e were apparently disastrously low. So, the differential really matters on 4e versus 5e sales. I would also be really interested in seeing marginal income records (yes, I know I will never see that) from WotC on 5e vs. 4e, as I think that would really tell some interesting tales. Higher production over time correlates to higher demand, which means cheaper COGS, better scale economies on production and higher margins. WotC never reveals this though, as we saw from the embarrassing tale of the tape, post-4e numbers.
One thing that I think is often overlooked, when discussing the success of the 5E rules, is how much public perception of roleplaying games has changed. It's come a hell of a long way since I got into gaming, and a lot of that change in perceptions has happened in the last 10 years or so.
When I got into D&D, 2E was going strong, though there was still a fair amount of 1E stuff available. And to buy your gaming stuff, you either had to go to that one shelf in the back of the hobby store that catered primarily to modelers or RC hobbyists. Or you might get lucky and find some stuff at your local comic book store. Otherwise, you were reduced to ordering -- via the mail! -- from places you saw listed in Dragon Magazine. Now you can buy D&D stuff at Target and Wal-Mart, or have Amazon or a lot of other places deliver it to your door.
We've had Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, the Lord of the Rings movies, the MCU movies, various TV shows, and a lot of other stuff that has turned our geeky interests into something approaching mainstream. Gamers are no longer perceived as being social outcasts lurking in basements and shouting at each other in Klingon, especially with a number of celebrities talking about being gamers. We're no longer objects of scorn or the subject of lame punchlines -- now we're more of an acceptable curiosity. "Oh, you play D&D? What's it like? I've never tried it, but it sounds kinda cool."
And we're no longer limited to finding local gamers and coordinating schedules with them -- I'm gaming every week with a handful of coworkers I've not seen in months, with another coworker that's 1000 miles away, and with a friend of the DM that none of the rest of us have ever met IRL.
Now gaming is more socially acceptable, more people are aware of it, there are more options for getting gaming material, and it's easier to find and gather with other gamers. It's no wonder D&D sales are up -- aside from a brief time in 4E, TSR/WotC has always been the biggest kid on the block, in the RPG industry, the one that everyone else combined couldn't compare to. D&D is the gateway into other RPGs.
This is not a knock on the 5E rules -- I've heard very little negative about them, and I am willing to try them. Given what I've read of both rulesets, I think I'd prefer Pathfinder 2E more, but that's just me.
I just think we can't look at the current success of the 5E rules without keeping in mind that it's a very different world, now, compared to when 2E, 3E, or even 4E came out. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
297 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 17:25:30
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quote:
Originally posted by cpthero2
I only comment as I do, due to information I've had from friends who have owned game stores and have shared detailed information from the 4th and 5th edition sales.
I was working in this industry at this time. 3.5E was huge. Game store tables were filled from open to close playing 3.5E. Then 4E comes out to....well, not much of anything. The books just sat on the shelf. Not only did the average gamer not want to waste the money on the "core" rules...again, but it was a radically different game.
4E mostly just sold to the Burn Outs. My definition here is the Burn Out is the person that goes crazy and buys the 'new' thing to be cool, plays it for a very short while, then toss it aside for the next 'new' thing.
It did not help that the economy was going into a down turn. And many fans were not too happy with the many low quality, but still expensive hardcover books. Many just stayed with 3.5e or just moved away from the game.
quote:
And it's always been true that "FR fans" are a tiny subset of D&D gamers.
Well, the largest subset of the D&D gamers. There are more FR fans then generic D&D fans.
And it's not that FR is a "better setting", it simply has more visibility. For two reasons: the Novels and the Video Games. Thousands and thousands of people crossed over from novels and video games to play D&D in the Realms. Now TSR and Wizards basically did nothing to support or encourage this, in one of the worst marketing moves ever. Still you had tons of people reading the novels or playing the video games and saying "it would be cool to be in that world".
This is the reason that even in 5E, they put Realms names in the title.
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 17:37:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Delnyn
What is the minimally acceptable shelf life of a brand new product, or for that matter, a target demographic? That metric should inform at least some measure of quality control.
I can overlook ocassional mistakes. Not giving a s*** (Think BG:DiA or the 3.5 ed truenamer rules) is how to throw away an otherwise steady revenue flow.
Wait, what's wrong with the truenamer rules?
quote:
Originally posted by bloodtide_the_red
There are more FR fans then generic D&D fans.
Are there though? Of the people I know or are aquainted with who are getting into D&D none of them come from the novels or videogames. They come from boardgaming via the D&D board games into D&D, or from other pen and paper RPGs.
And most of them don't bother with Forgotten Realms because it's too big of a buy-in compared to just making their own stuff up with the core books. |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
Edited by - Returnip on 10 Dec 2020 17:45:04 |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6645 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 22:11:58
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If I had to guess, I would say that WotC's main aim is to break down the specific campaign setting silos like FR, GH, DL, EB etc, so that they can simply publish "D&D books" and attract all players and DMs, not just the ones who love FR, or hate FR, or love GH, or hate GH, etc. The poster above who said that the Realms has been rebooted might be overstating the situation, but it is clear that there has been a significant push to introduce non-FR elements into the Realms, like Acererak. Choices like having Mordenkainen feature in Curse of Strand and then "recuperate" in the Realms under the care of Elminster rather than in GH was a very interesting and telling call. But I think after the disaster that was 4E and with the success of 5E (and as Wooly points out, its excellent current exposure in mainstream media and among celebrities), that WotC will do quite anything to keep the train rolling and sell books. If that means offending the "hardcore" fans of a particular campaign setting like the Realms, then so be it. I don't think they really are worried at all about that segment of the fanbase. And likely with good reason. You don't open burger joint and ensure you have an ostrich burger on the menu for that one person who might come in annually and order it. Will be interesting to see how the products evolve and progress.
-- George Krashos |
"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 10 Dec 2020 : 22:16:33
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quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
If I had to guess, I would say that WotC's main aim is to break down the specific campaign setting silos like FR, GH, DL, EB etc, so that they can simply publish "D&D books" and attract all players and DMs, not just the ones who love FR, or hate FR, or love GH, or hate GH, etc. The poster above who said that the Realms has been rebooted might be overstating the situation, but it is clear that there has been a significant push to introduce non-FR elements into the Realms, like Acererak. Choices like having Mordenkainen feature in Curse of Strand and then "recuperate" in the Realms under the care of Elminster rather than in GH was a very interesting and telling call. But I think after the disaster that was 4E and with the success of 5E (and as Wooly points out, its excellent current exposure in mainstream media and among celebrities), that WotC will do quite anything to keep the train rolling and sell books. If that means offending the "hardcore" fans of a particular campaign setting like the Realms, then so be it. I don't think they really are worried at all about that segment of the fanbase. And likely with good reason. You don't open burger joint and ensure you have an ostrich burger on the menu for that one person who might come in annually and order it. Will be interesting to see how the products evolve and progress.
-- George Krashos
Good points all over. Well put. |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
297 Posts |
Posted - 11 Dec 2020 : 00:28:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
Are there though? Of the people I know or are aquainted with who are getting into D&D none of them come from the novels or videogames. They come from boardgaming via the D&D board games into D&D, or from other pen and paper RPGs.
And most of them don't bother with Forgotten Realms because it's too big of a buy-in compared to just making their own stuff up with the core books.
You are talking about gamers, that is people that play board games or RPGs, moving to generic D&D.
And a person that is just a generic D&D gamer only has a very small chance of becoming a fan of any setting. Wizard downplays that "settings" even exist and has for years. Any new player of 5E will likely not even hear the words "Forgotten Realms" much.
And the setting is "intimidating" to any new person.....but it's no different then any massive fandom like Star Trek or Doctor Who.
The fans that read fantasy fiction, might become fans of the Realms fictional setting, just by reading the novels. Though at any one time they might run out of books to read. This leads to the opening that they can "play a game" and "make their own story" in that fantasy fictional setting they liked reading about.
It's much the same with video games. Like Baldurs Gate: lots of video gamers liked that game. And some again like the fictional setting of the Realms. But like all RP video games it has limited...and you can only "play" the game once. Then you Burn Out. A video game just does not have the options: it can only do what it's programed to do. So, again, people move over to the pen and paper game so they can play in the setting. Typically the Baldur's Gate video gamer will want to play in Baldur's Gate so they 'know' a bunch about the setting at the start of the game.
In both cases, novels and video gamers are fans of the Realms way before they ever play D&D. |
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Returnip
Learned Scribe
221 Posts |
Posted - 11 Dec 2020 : 01:11:50
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| Well considering very few people even read books nowadays, and even fewer still niche novels set in Forgotten Realms I can understand that they choose to not target them as a demographic and instead focus on gamers. Especially since gaming is becoming more and more mainstream, including pen and paper RPG and d&d as wooly Rupert pointed out. |
On the other hand you have different fingers. |
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cpthero2
Great Reader
USA
2285 Posts |
Posted - 11 Dec 2020 : 02:28:45
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Learned Scribe bloodtide_the_red,
quote:
I was working in this industry at this time. 3.5E was huge. Game store tables were filled from open to close playing 3.5E. Then 4E comes out to....well, not much of anything. The books just sat on the shelf. Not only did the average gamer not want to waste the money on the "core" rules...again, but it was a radically different game.
Nice! If you don't mind sharing: what did you do in the industry? That is a cool position to have been in for having insider information.
quote:
4E mostly just sold to the Burn Outs. My definition here is the Burn Out is the person that goes crazy and buys the 'new' thing to be cool, plays it for a very short while, then toss it aside for the next 'new' thing.
I find that interesting, especially since you worked in the industry. What led you to come to that conclusion about "Burn Outs"?
quote:
It did not help that the economy was going into a down turn. And many fans were not too happy with the many low quality, but still expensive hardcover books. Many just stayed with 3.5e or just moved away from the game.
Well, I do economic and marketing consulting for a living, so I can say about what you posit regarding the economy as being true. Though, it certainly doesn't take a degree to remember the horridness of that recession. That kind of decision making process, especially when income brackets were changing a lot and different things all of a sudden became "luxury items" by financial hardship.
quote:
Well, the largest subset of the D&D gamers. There are more FR fans then generic D&D fans.
That is very interesting as well. Where do you source that information from?
Best regards,
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Higher Atlar
Spirit Soaring |
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What compinies get wrong about fans
