The Gaming Den

http://p198.ezboard.com/fgameschat19968 ... r][br]Sigh. No fucking shit, you think?

That has got to be the lamest excuse ever "We didn't edit it because we are publshing books too fast to bother."

-Username17

Now that's just silly. That stuff about editors being away from the desk is so BS. It's worse than saying "we didn't have time because we're so busy," it's saying "we didn't care to send emails and make telephone calls."

Thanks for the info, Frank.

WOTC is going out of business. They only put books out for core rules and one setting, the art direction has gone to crap with cheap-ass art, and the playtesting is non-existent.

Going to Hasbro was the worse thing, ever. Even Dragon and Dungeon have had real drops in quality, even though they have gone to monthlies.

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1084990608[/unixtime]]WOTC is going out of business.

You owe me a nickel.

As for the subject at hand, get real.

WotC has the best editing in the RPG industry. And that *is* a crying shame, but the truth of the matter is that us gamers will buy books no matter how poorly edited they are, so why on earth should a company waste its resources on improvements that its customers don't care about ? Yeah, it's a tragedy that nobody at WotC actually reads the books before the first set of errata comes out, but it is unfortunately good business sense.

Josh_Kablack at [unixtime wrote:1084992319[/unixtime]]but the truth of the matter is that us gamers will buy books no matter how poorly edited they are, so why on earth should a company waste its resources on improvements that its customers don't care about ? Yeah, it's a tragedy that nobody at WotC actually reads the books before the first set of errata comes out, but it is unfortunately good business sense.

Yeah, sadly enough, especially with their gaming philosophy of selling to PCs and not DMs, they're going to sell books.

The fact is that some players will buy the latest books just for that one PrC or overpowered spell that they want. And because of the "play by the official rules" emphasis of the modern day, that paradigm works.

I mean back in the days of 2nd edition, a DM is going to laugh you right out of the table if you came to him with a spell like spikes, nature's favor or miasma. But in 3E, some DMs are actually allowing that, simply because it's official.

And people will STILL keep buying books.

You always have the option of imagining a company like Mongoose, Green Ronin, AEG, Sword & Sorcery, etc. .... buying the license to D&D.

And quite frankly, I think that WotC's Editting Group ... and R&D and Publishing departments to boot, are a notch above these guys. Consistently.

That's kind of like saying Phantom Menace was better than D&D the Movie. They all suck when it comes to edits. But, when your target audience is boys between 12 and 17, standards don't have to be as high as, say, Vanity Fair.

Hanged Man,
I think the D&D demographics is a bit older in age than 12-17. I remember reading something from an interview with a WotC marketing higher-up who stated the 30 and 40 something D&D crowd are consistent buyers of every D&D product published.

And they also make up a *HUGE* demographic of the D20 buyers. Especially since you have to buy the D&D core/splat first, before buying the Rokugan, Dragonlance, and Freeport stuff.

Nothing more tastier to D&D Marketing than a 35 year old professional worker with a boatload of disposable income and who played D&D as a teen with scant resources...

Right, since teens and college kids are smart enough and poor enough to just download it all off the internet for free.

Basically, if WOTC is to survive, they need to keep pumping out quality products like the new plastic DnD miniatures. Those are the products I buy. Cheap, and a great DM's resource.

Wren, that's the people who buy - but that's not the people they market to. WotC could care less what I (literally the person you're descriving) think of their product, b/c I've been hooked for 3 decades. They know I'm not going away.

But the 12-17 crowd is up for grabs. So they market to them. And they don't care about things like balance, and grammar, and spelling. In general, of course - lots of whippersnappers agree w/ me.

FrankTrollman at [unixtime wrote:1084988857[/unixtime]]That has got to be the lamest excuse ever.

It's not lame. It's just true.

If WotC's putting out books at about the same rate they were before layoffs, that means each employee's share of the workload is greater.