Interesting Article on the new D&D license...

[RPMiller]

If you look at other things that Ha$bro does, you can see that they do not really care about the customer, or perhaps have no idea how to market correctly? Not sure. The best example is HeroScape. The game has a tremendous fan base of extremely talented and fanatical people. See Heroscappers.net to see what I mean. Yet Ha$bro is trying to market to adolescents and doesn't even know what its customers are wanting. It is a really interesting study in corporate/customer disconnect. If they would simply open themselves to the idea that their fans may actually know what would work for product line, they would likely be raking in the dough but instead they are looking at HeroScape as a loss leader of sorts. I fear that if D&D 4e doesn't live up to their expectations they may treat it the same as they are treating HeroScape and I will really feel for the WotC folks at that point.

[RobA]

I have to disagree with that assessment of HeroScape, RP...

I happen to be an AFOL (adult friend of Lego). I (and my other AFOL's) waste stupid amounts of $$ on Lego. In my case robotics, and for others, trains, etc. But regardless of our fanaticism, the talent, and even the cash outlay, we can't compete with the total sum of $$ spent by kids (and parent, grandparents, etc.) That small handful of people purchasing multiple $1000's annually can't compete with the tens of thousands spending $40 per year. Hence Lego's target demographic. (And the reason we have Bionicle).

Ha$bro will continue to market to adolescent males, as they will make more money from all the one-off sales leading to unused copies of HeroScape sitting in closets than the purchasers made by the fans at Heroscapers.net.

They are a company, after all, and making money for their shareholders is why they exist... I'm not defending them, just clarifying motivations.

-Rob A>

[RPMiller]

I suppose I wasn't clear. Ha$bro isn't marketing to anyone. They tried marketing to kids, but it fell extremely short and now there is next to no marketing being done at all. They aren't even sending out new product. Whoever the marketing team was that was in charge of HS should be sent back to school in my honest opinion.

The difference is that Lego has their act together and while they understand their target market very well, they also understand that there is interest from the adults out there who played with them as kids, and will get them not only for themselves but for their own kids as well. Ha$bro on the other hand made a sad attempt at marketing and when they didn't see their sales meet expectations they didn't bother finding out why. I know this first hand because some of the HS developers were on the forums early on, but they were forced to not participate after it was discovered they were helping the fans by answering questions and offering advice for mods and the like. Ha$bro just really didn't get it, and that is where my concern lies.

As for the business angle, you'll get no argument from me. I am very much for capitalism as indicated in my posts up above. That is why I'm bothered by Ha$bro. They had a cash cow for their shareholders and the dropped it because they refused to listen to their customers. That is what has me concerned.

[RobA]

WOTC responds...

...and it doesn't look that bad...

Q. Do I have to give up my right to publish 3.5 OGL products in order to publish 4e compatible products?
A. No. Publishers are free to print product lines under either the OGL or 4E GSL. We would love to see our industry colleagues convert their entire product offerings to 4E, as we are doing, but we do not expect or require entire companies to convert to the new edition.

-Rob A>