Tuesday, April 7, 2009

You Know Who I Feel Sorry For?

WotC's creative people.

First they make games that are perfectly playable, just tastelessly and terribly misnamed, so as to create animosity and division where there need be none (if 4e was instead called MagicSword, The RPG of Fantasy Adventure! there would be exactly 4.6% of the present amount of spewed bile over the whole thing).

Then they see see WotC's great shining gift to the gaming world, the OGL, knifed in the back and replaced by some addled doppelganger called the GSL that's still trying to present itself as awesome and open.

I'm guessing it wasn't the RPG designers' idea to announce all these digital tools originally sold to the public as the way to revolutionize tabletop gaming that never did seem to materialize.

And now pulling the pdfs for sale with no warning? Using the piracy excuse for pulling OD&D, Holmes, Mentzer, 1e, and 2e, which are not legitimately available in any other format which would benefit WotC? When the new edition was leaked from production masters before release? They could have blamed it on their new Internet Sales Policy and commitment to brick-and-mortar stores (see their press release here) and had players scratching their heads saying, "Wow, that seems like a bad move," instead of the current "What fucking assholes!" sentiment. But they're clueless.

They might post all their "legacy D&D" items for free download from their own site tomorrow, and they will still come off like clueless morons for not being able to communicate or coordinate their efforts.

The creative people may be well-meaning and sincere in their love for gaming and feel absolutely blessed to get a regular paycheck with corporate benefits just from designing games (although we'll never know how many ideas were theirs and not under the command of some clueless fuck executive saying, perhaps, "My boy likes dragons. Put in a dragon man that he can play."), but they work for dicks that don't care about gamers as anything other than a continuing revenue stream. Full stop, right there. They don't care.

(Do "lifestyle gamers" really just simply follow the latest cool thing? I think not. Does WotC attempt to deliver anything but? I think not.)

I see that there's something of a pattern where former WotC employees form their own companies or join other companies, and have at least modest success actually giving (modern) gamers what they want without bending over backwards to fuck their customers.

*hint*

14 comments:

  1. What the hell's a lifestyle gamer?

    It's still a game based on D&D so calling it something retarded like MagicSword: blah blah blah would be some shitty deals.

    But many of the naming conventions used in 4e (power cards?) are kind of dumb. I think it's partly white wolf and partly the whole "indie gaming scenes" fault. Trying to come up with buzz words to stay relevant when something straight forward would do.

    Skill challenges, paragon paths, epic destinies & splitting levels into wow styled tiers are all things I've pretty much ignored in my games so far. With power cards I figured out a good solution. Call power cards tactics and straight up erase/white out the stupid 'power card names' and descriptions. The players still have the mechanics and can describe the tactic used however they see fit.

    I think a combination of wotc's management and the arrogance of the employees are really fucking themselves over. They sort of started off with a whole superiority thing and it just snowballed from there.

    In many ways I don't really feel sorry for the creative people at all. I feel sorry for the guys who lost there jobs during christmas, and the group of employees who lost their jobs a few months before that.

    It feels like the people in charge of wotc are all to busy with company politics to run a good business. To me it sounds like there might not be many people to feel sorry for left in the company if they were to lose their jobs and I'm sure with moves like these that it's probably going to happen again within the next 6 months.

    Also shitty economy plus overpriced books being sold under a shitty marketing plan and business model is the culprit, not pirates. If someone really wanted the books they would have bought them anyways regardless if they had obtained a pirated version. Too all the people saying wotc are losing sales to pirates I say that's bullshit.

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  2. I don't feel too sorry for them.

    Hitch your star to Hasbro -- how could that go wrong?

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  3. I think the pattern you are seeing is that after WotC has their semi-annual lay-off, there are a lot of talented people that need to find new jobs.... and so they create their own or join better companies.

    I still expect to see every new WotC release available within weeks of releas. If anything this motivates the pirates to make an effort at "stealing" WotC IP.

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  4. >>Too all the people saying wotc are losing sales to pirates I say that's bullshit.

    I don't doubt they are losing some sales... but there's nothing that can be done about it (save for never ever releasing anything ever again... actually, I vote that they do that!) and removing the ability of some customers who want to pay you to actually do so is... dumb.

    Not to mention that if sales are down (after PHB II has been on best-seller lists lately?), they're in deep deep shit if piracy is their scapegoat while the real answer lies elsewhere.

    Personally I tend to believe the "it's a smokescreen to bring everything in-house" theory with a side-dash of "and they'll discontinue the old edition offerings altogether."

    We'll see.

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  5. >>What the hell's a lifestyle gamer?

    That's what Wizards of the Coast calls their customers/all of us in their press releases.

    >>It's still a game based on D&D so calling it something retarded like MagicSword: blah blah blah would be some shitty deals.

    At least they'd be labeling it as something different and not basically trying to fool people into thinking it's the same thing, only better. Most roleplaying games, and certainly Tunnels & Trolls, Palladium, Runequest, etc, are based off of or created in reaction to D&D anyway.

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  6. Jim, I was thining the same thing this morning. I can only imagine what a bummer it would be to finally land that dream job as a game designer for D&D only to be subject to all this corporate dicketry. Of course, the people that care seemed to be dismissed on an annual basis, so you don't have to endure the problem for long.

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  7. This:

    "My boy likes dragons. Put in a dragon man that he can play."

    Made my fucking day. Bwahahaha!

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  8. I'm glad to see that the community is looking at WotC's latest scheme with the same attitude as I am. I must say, I agree that this is a smokescreen. 4e sales have dropped significantly since it's release a year ago. I guess us gamers do know what we like. ;)

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  9. >> At least they'd be labeling it as something different and not basically trying to fool people into thinking it's the same thing, only better.

    It's the same shit different smell. Your argument could be used for each release from 2e onward.

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  10. >>Your argument could be used for each release from 2e onward.

    And if we're talking non-core 2e (kits, etc), I indeed use that argument for each release from 2e onward.

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  11. I think it is interesting that WotC's move is generating negative reactions from pretty much everyone. I don't think the company will die off because of this as most fans won't quit playing, but to see pretty much everyone saying they are sick of their shit is interesting.
    It's not only bloggers, and 4e haters, but their competition and many of the 4e player comments on various sites are all pretty much anti-WotC. BTW it was pretty smart of the various RPG competitors to jump on this quickly by offering free or discounted pdf's. Hopefully it works to their benefit.
    I for one think and hope that WotC has finally shown people their true colors and that people speak with their wallets. We can blog and comment about it till we're blue in the face, but until WotC actually sees that their decisions are impacting sales, they won't care.
    I say sell the brand to Paizo and be done with it.

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  12. >>>fliprushman said...

    I'm glad to see that the community is looking at WotC's latest scheme with the same attitude as I am. I must say, I agree that this is a smokescreen. 4e sales have dropped significantly since it's release a year ago. I guess us gamers do know what we like. ;)<<<

    That's why PHB 2 actually hit big time best sellers lists, because no one bought it? Reality check, 4E sales are actually picking up, not dropping off. Check your facts.

    The fact is, the piracy has led to more sales, not less. More people bought 4e after reading those leaked pdf's, or were able to make an informed decision to buy instead of buying and THEN getting pissed off.

    I will freely admit to downloading the pirated stuff, and it influenced my entire group's purchasing decisions, including which books to buy in what order, and which books we felt we could afford to skip.

    The option to preview the work has made us more savvy and informed consumers.

    Just like if we had set down in a big box store and read the material before approaching the register.

    I concure with several previous posters; I think WotC is just encouraging piracy.

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  13. James, gotta say I expected more venom from you than this about it.

    By doing this WoTC have made it very simple for other people to move in. White Wolf & Paizo are announcing deals. And why work for WoTC and their corporate dicketry (Jeff for the win) when game design, marketing and publishing is just so damn easy nowadays?

    It's a dumb move and it's going to hurt them - if they think everyone will jump on D&D Insider they're several beers short of a six pack. Jus' sayin.

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  14. A couple of other things people should note: 1. Dont forget Napster and all the file sharing that caused the music industry to go ballistic. Its the same reaction WotC is having. 2.WotC didn't make it convienient to buy their pdfs anyway. They were all the same price as the print product so anyone who bought them saved them money on publishing costs. So its not that they're losing money, the're just not making extra.
    Now as an aside, I like 4E and still feel it can be a great product but WotC has got to stop being so Draconian in their business practices. This is something that the other companies, who thrive on pdfs noted. They're afraid, in my estimation that this will drive their sales way down becuase of the fear of porsecution and thus putting them out of business. An interesting notion that someone suggested giving the rights to D&D to Piazo. I think that would be a great idea. WotC had their run with it and did well but maybe its time to give it to a company that cares more about its customers.

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