A New Era Begins

Common gamer-professional wisdom is to not publically disagree with the fans if you can help it. Silence is less likely to breed bad will than argument. But I'm done worrying about fan reaction to my non-game material. If you have an issue with my work, bring it on. If you don't like my other opinions, I don't much care anymore. I'm not paid enough by this industry as a whole to censor myself. I'm a freelancer, so I reflect only on myself. I know what I know, and I am very rarely wrong about these things.

It's some months before Dragon and Dungeon cease print publication. Heck, it's some months before Gen Con, where people will surely talk about this. It is, therefore, some months before WotC really needs to start advertising what they plan to do with those brands next, though it looks to me like online magazines of some sort with the Dragon and Dungeon names (perhaps different sections of the same online mag, or perhaps actually different subscriptions) are very likely.

Right now, a lot of people are up in arms about how the announcements of the cancellation of the print versions were handled by WotC. Of course I posted my own thoughts just last week, but nowhere in them did I saw I felt betrayed or felt the decision was a mistake. I was dismayed, because something I have loved is going away, but I have no reasons to think it won't be replaced by things that are as good if not better. From the Paizo side, Pathfinder sounds great and I'm hoping to be part of it (and already pestering a contact or two to make that a reality). Most people seem satisfied that Paizo is going to be fine, Paizo included, so at least I know the actual human beings financially involved in this are going to be okay.

On the WotC side, people seem upset to an extreme I can't understand (though I am not surprised). Yes, it's sad that things are changing. But.... things change. I presume WotC wants to be the premiere web site for all things D&D, which makes sense. They've seen how useful a good web portal can be to reaching and communicating with fans, but right now there are other sites that are more popular than WotC's with many folks. The problem with that is that those sites are run by people with their own agendas. WotC never knows when a site owner might decide to change how things are done, or decide he hates them and their game, or even publicly attack them as rude and unnecessary to his site's success. Why deal with those risks if you don't have to?

So obviously, WotC needs to provide some valuable content if they're going to be the #1 D&D site. One thing they can offer that no one else can is official content. That content is likely to be more popular if it's the lone source for such things. Thus, print versions of Dragon and Dungeon become competition for the web site WotC wants to build. They're licensed products, so WotC doesn't renew Paizo's right to keep them in print. The two companies come to amicable agreements, and then the fans are told.

One major complaint I have heard is that this was done "without warning." That's stupid. This is April, the print run ends in September. That's half a year's warning. If you mean the decision was made with no opportunity for fans to complain before it was settled, you're right. But since fans rarely mean what they say about things like this (see below), most companies don't run major decisions by them. In the case of WotC, there can actually be SEC considerations about when information on new products is released and how those decisions were made.

"Listening to your fans" means seeing how they actually react to your material, and if they have good suggestions implement them. It doesn't mean to let fans decide how you're going to spend your money and renew your licenses. This is especially true when you're bigger. The number of people shrieking loudly on the web is a very, very small portion of WotC's customers. Insignificant, even. And, folks, you are not representative. Just because 75% of people who post about a thing online hate it, doesn't mean 75% of the people buying their products hate it. WotC can actually do market research in scientifically valid numbers. There's no reason to think they haven't.

The next major complaint seems to be that WotC employees aren't getting on other websites and talking about why they made this (apparently unpopular) decisions, and that they aren't willing to talk about changing their minds.

Well, duh. Why should they?

It's difficult for anyone not part of a given big corporate culture to understand how little the advice, opinions, ideas, pleas and threats of the online community seem to translate into customer behavior. This is particularly true of corporations in the business of selling hobby products, where people often get invested out of proportion with the actual importance of a change to their lives. People on bulletin boards and fan sites often think their experiences and opinions are representative of the fans of a product as a whole, and thus what they say should be taken very, very seriously.

The problem is, a lot of them say some stupid stuff. If you equate the end of the print run of a magazine with being sexually assaulted, no professional is going to take you seriously. And if you say you're going to boycott the company. They're going to ignore that too. Why?

Because "you" have said it before.

Okay, maybe not you personally (though with the anonymity of the internet, even that isn't assured). The point is that people threatened to boycott WotC when it decided to produce a third edition of D&D. People threatened boycotts when they went with 3.5 just a few years later. They threatened boycotts when the Ares section was taken out of Dragon decades ago, or when Polyhedron was added to Dungeon, and then again when it was removed, or when the Annuals were discontinued. And yet, products continue to sell.

Nerd rage like this just doesn't last long. By the time Gen Con rolls around, not 10% of these people are still going to be this upset. If the web content is good, they'll buy it, if it isn't, they won't. I've heard a lot of people claim WotC is ignoring fans, and a lot of people claim this is the rpg version of New Coke. Of course, New Coke was brought about by fans who, in blind taste tests, claimed they liked it better than old Coke. So, WotC can't both be ignoring you, and following the New coke model. Oh, and Coke? Still there, despite the initial outrage.

Even worse, in the unlikely even everyone currently upset stays upset, it needn't seriously impact the success of the online initiative. WotC can advertise for their online content in new D&D releases. As such, they can reach a vast portion of their fans who don't care about unofficial web sites. People who aren't even aware of the current kerfuffle. People who outnumber all the posters of all the fan sites put together.

Will those people buy into the online initiative? I have no idea. But since WotC can pass out free trial memberships at little cost, give out coupons at the D&D Experience, get word out in every book they produce (fiction and game book alike), and even buy advertising in big national media, they have lots more important things to worry about than one or two fan sites run by people who can remove support at a whim and frequented by folks who have shown a willingness to compare corporate decisions to heinous crimes of personal violation, and assume such decisions are glaringly stupid with no consideration for history (seriously, I have saved posts from people declaring 3.5 was the end of D&D that sound a LOT like what I'm reading now), or information WotC has that they don't.

It's a New Era, not the end of all D&D support. Paizo says they're going to be fine, and I'm not going to call them liars. WotC has extended their license and allowed them to have the spotlight for several months, both of which are gracious acts by a big corporation. We have to wait and see what is going to replace Dragon and Dungeon, but until we see it there's no point is deciding it's a failure.

Most fans, of course, are going to wait and see quietly enough. And those who don't have every right to scream to the sky – I'm certainly not suggesting they shouldn't. But don't be surprised if that has no impact on what the subsidiary of a publically held company does with one of its major brands.

I, of course, have no inside input. I'm just another fan, spitting my $.02 into the wind like everyone else. This post is no more valuable than any other you'll find. I rarely come out and make predictions, but I'm betting this will have died down within 30 days.

I mourned for the print Dragon, because it was a marker of milestones in my life. But if Pathfinder and the Online Initiative are good, a year from now I may well not miss it.