Effects of "the D20 Push" on Indie Industry

[clehrich]

Clinton,

You think advertising works because people actually want everything advertised?  I mean, people buy beer that's advertised along the lines, "Buy this beer and hot women will have sex with you."  Is this because they like the taste?

Look, it's not as simple as, "People are stupid."  People are malleable, that's all, and there's an enormous industry out there intended to figure out what pushes their buttons, what provokes them into spending money.  The American economy, a "consumer economy," largely rests on people purchasing things they don't need.  Is this rational choice?

This isn't a matter of insulting people.  People's purchasing is affected by advertising, and sex sells.  So do people actually consciously believe that they are purchasing better sex when they buy a case of Coors?  No.  Are they attracted to purchasing Coors because of the sex in the ads?  Apparently, yes.

If this seems stupid to you, then you think people are stupid.  If it seems a bit glassy-eyed and uncritical, then you think people are not terribly reflective or self-critical, as I do.  If you really believe people pay no attention to the sex in advertising, and that all that sex is there just to amuse the people making the ads, I'm afraid you're deluded.

[efindel]

That's an extremely well-stated argument. Like most of what Noam Chomsky says, however, it's incredibly insulting to real humans, who are assumed to be unable to see the fact that they're being fooled, led, and used.

On the other hand, if something's successful, it's less insulting to assume people really want it. McDonald's is successful for the same reason WotC is - the majority of the user base makes the choice to eat that food or buy those games. That majority either (a) makes that decision based off what they want or (b) make bad decisions. I happen to agree with the first.

To me, it's not "bad decisions", it's a few other things:

(1) Convenience.  McDonald's?  There's one right around the corner, and I can get in and out quickly.  D&D?  I can get D&D stuff at any chain bookstore -- no need to go hunting it in specialty stores or on the 'net.  If I buy a Windows-on-Intel computer, I can walk into tons of places and get software and hardware that will work with my system -- but if I go for a Mac, or for Linux-on-Intel, there are fewer places to go, and getting compatible hardware or software is harder.  Same with d20 -- pretty much any d20 product can be used with any d20 System game, with pretty minimal tweaking.  I can use D&D Fiend Folio as a monster resource for a d20 Modern game almost as-is -- but if I want to use it with, say, Hero Wars, I'll pretty much have to make up stats for all the creatures from scratch.

(2)  The safety of the familiar.  McDonald's food isn't great... but it's not really bad either.  The quality is very consistent from store to store, and people can walk in and order without even looking at the menu.  D&D is most people's first RPG -- and while the d20 System isn't always the best way to handle things, it's also not fundamentally broken in any way that matters to most gamers.  Someone moving from D&D to another d20 System game will generally have a lot of familiar things to make them feel "at home".  In the software world, it's a well-known factoid (I say "factoid" because I haven't seen any verification) that most people will always find the first software they learned to do a task to be the "easiest to use" for it.  People who started with Windows often find Macs mystifying, and vice-versa.  I think the same is true for RPGs -- most people start with D&D, and at least a significant fraction of those continue to find D&D the "most comfortable" RPG.  People I've known who started with other games often have very different ideas about what's "intuitive" in an RPG.

(3)  Related to #2, but worthy of separate mention -- what everyone else is doing.  Finding D&D groups is pretty easy.  Finding a group to play niche games can be a lot harder.  To a large extent, this one creates #1 and #2 -- there are lots of d20 products readily available, and the d20 System is familiar, precisely because lots of people already play it.  

Most people want what's familiar, and what they know (or think) other people want.  And they don't want to have to go out of their way to get it.  That's a large part of marketing -- getting your product "in the public consciousness", so people think of it when they want something in that category, then making sure that when they do want it, they can get it.

Are these people stupid, or making bad choices?  I don't think so.  They're making convenient choices -- going with the flow, as it were.  There might be things out there that are better, or that they'd like more if they tried them -- but they're happy enough with what they're getting that they don't want to expend a lot of effort looking for something different.

Now, there are certain personality types who find this sort of thing infuriating -- that someone could "settle for" something less than optimum, "just because it's convenient".  Personally, I think this is more of a problem for those personality types than for the majority -- a case of "I know what's best for you, and if you weren't so lazy, you'd know it too!"  Because of this, you're always going to get some folks arguing that the masses are stupid and/or lazy.  I think the masses just have different priorities from those people.

(It's possible to get into big arguments about short-term vs. long-term thinking with this.  I'm not going to argue it -- again, it's a question of priorities, and thus, ultimately can't be resolved one way or the other.)

On the other side of things, if you're trying to get the masses to try something you've got that's new... well, that's where marketing comes in.  You want to make it look like lots of other people are using it.  You particularly want to make it look like people who the masses want to be like (or possibly, just want) use it.  And above all, you want to make it easy for them to get.

IMHO, a large part of advertising is simply letting people know that something exists, and doing it in a way that they'll notice and will cause it to stick in their memory.  Most people won't actively seek out new things, so they won't buy what they don't already know about.  

Sex in ads is one way to do this, because we're hard-wired to be interested in it.  But there are other ways -- remember the Bartyles and Jaymes ads?  Or Apple's "1984" ad?  Or the Budweiser frogs?  Or the Mentos ads?

--Travis

[efindel]

You think advertising works because people actually want everything advertised?  I mean, people buy beer that's advertised along the lines, "Buy this beer and hot women will have sex with you."  Is this because they like the taste?

Well... yes.  They like the taste of beer (God knows why, but they do), and they like the feeling that drinking beer gives them.  People were buying beer back in Sumeria, long before anyone came up with advertising campaigns.

Advertising doesn't create a demand -- or at the least, it doesn't create a sustainable demand.  If something doesn't do anything that anyone wants, you might get a few -- or rarely, a lot -- of people to buy it, but it won't take long for people to realize that it's useless and stop buying it.

(Well... it's possible to create a continuing demands for something useless among children, because you've got a self-renewing audience.  Wait a couple of years, and you'll have a whole new crop of children who don't know that X is shit.  If you've got a cheap product with high profit margins, you can make money that way.  Just look at sea monkeys.)

What advertising does is try to channel that demand.  People want beer... but Coors wants them to think of Coors when they want beer.  And they want to get Coors being sold everywhere they can, so when they go into a place and say, "I want Coors," they get given Coors, and don't "settle" for some other beer.

--Travis

[Ron Edwards]

'Scuse me ... I do see the relevance of marketing, advertising, and commercial concepts to the discussion, but I'd like to focus the thread back onto RPGs specifically.

Thanks,
Ron

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Don't assume that just because it's successful it's actually a good thing.

Or that the people who buy or watch and make something successful that they actually like it.

When the wife & I lived with her parents, I marveled that they actully watched Walker, Texas Ranger. Good God, what a horrible show. But I kept quiet because I was a guest in their house. It wasn't until years later that they made an off-handed comment about how bad the show was. I was flabbergasted and asked why they watched the show if it was so bad. They said there was nothing else on.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I recently got a job in customer service and they discussed something caled hostage loyalty, which is people who stay with our company, buy our product, use our service for resons other than they are happy with our company, products & service. People will become hostage loyal for a number of reasons. Being a celluar phone company, we require a contract with a early termination fee of $200. But there are less obvious method of becoming a hostage, such as not wanting to have to shop around to other companies once you're out of contract because that sounds like too much work.

I could percieve the whole D&D/d20 thing as a form of hostage loyalty. It is the most recognizable name, and as such the one you're more likely to find players for. "I tried to run a session of Riddle of Steel* at my local college but got no takers. I then searched for D&D players and got more responses than I had seats at the table." It's a cycle. Everyone buys & plays D&D because that's the game that everyone buys & plays. Actual satisfaction with the game itself is secondary, if at all, in this cycle.

And my point was, is, and remains that just because it sells does not mean that everyone is completely happy with it. But what else are they going to buy? An indie game they might not be able to find people to play?


* not picking on RoS I just needed an example here and I wanted it to be as similar to D&D as possible. It was a toss between RoS and Donjon. It came up heads.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

On the other hand, if something's successful, it's less insulting to assume people really want it. McDonald's is successful for the same reason WotC is - the majority of the user base makes the choice to eat that food or buy those games. That majority either (a) makes that decision based off what they want or (b) make bad decisions. I happen to agree with the first.

I'm sorry, Clinton, but this is hardly a counterpoint. It's more a statement that this is what you prefer to believe or that you don't wish to insult people. People make bad decisions all the time. It is not our to insult them nor make them feel better about their mistakes. I don't necessarily think this is a mistake, per se. These are ecconomic decisions based on many criteria and actually liking or being satisfied with the product is only one of many. Convenience is another, whether it's finding the actual games at a local store or the convenience of finding people interested in the game.

Actually, upon reflection, I think it's more insulting to assume that some games purchase these games based off of what they really want. Especially if they fit the profile described for the GNS casualty I had quoted above. They want that?

[GMSkarka]

'Scuse me ... I do see the relevance of marketing, advertising, and commercial concepts to the discussion, but I'd like to focus the thread back onto RPGs specifically.

Mea Culpa if I'm violating Forge rules or etiquette here, Ron, but I have to ask:

Isn't a thread discussing the effects of the D20 push on the industry *about* marketing, advertising and commercial concepts, rather than "RPGs"?

I guess I'm not seeing your point in this particular bit of thread-steering.

GMS

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I think he just doesn't want the topic to wander too much. Several posts on the marketing of beer, you see. You can discuss the marketing of beer as long as you can bring it back to RPGs and it makes a relavant point about RPGs or the marketing thereof.

[Ron Edwards]

Jack's correct, Gareth. This isn't a forum for musing about various takes on advertising and culture in a general sense.

Best,
Ron

[GMSkarka]

Jack's correct, Gareth. This isn't a forum for musing about various takes on advertising and culture in a general sense.

Ah.  OK---I get it.  I *totally* mis-read what you were saying.

I think my brain needs new transmission fluid or something.  :)

GMS

[JSDiamond]

efindel's post nearly bull's-eyed it.

The d20 push reinvigorated the almost virulent brand identity enjoyed by AD&D in the eighties; this is the 'illusion' Ron mentions in "The Nuked Applecart" article, which I urge that you all re-read.    

Wizards had two things to work with.  Money (for marketing) and a waning -but yet existing brand (for identity).

Those two things are at the core of any sales endeavor.

Why any of *you* care is beyond me.  You all publish good games with solid mechanics.  And none of us has a blank check for marketing, so all we're left with is establishing an identity.  But happily that's really the best thing to have in this hobby.    

So if there is one influence on the 'industry' that the d20 push should have had, -it's to wake the rest of us up.