Quote from: Christopher Brady;877955OD&D hasn't been sold for decades.  Why does it even matter?

It hasnt? What was that special deluxe boxed set then a few years back?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;877955OD&D hasn't been sold for decades.  Why does it even matter?

These are games. None of it really matters.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;877955OD&D hasn't been sold for decades.  Why does it even matter?

Because people love their strawmen.

Quote from: danbuter;877997Because people love their strawmen.

It's not really a strawman but it doesn't actually apply. OD&D did not come with dice. Only the basic boxed sets did starting with Holmes.

However, the AD&D analogy doesn't hold either. While AD&D, and all version since, have required three books, each of those books contained different material. Whereas the FFG SW books contain a large amounts of text cut-and-pasted from one book to the next.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;877452Now, you're just being disingenuous.  I've run D&D in it's various forms for a measly 31 years, and I can tell you, if you want magical items and other rewards for your players, and some monsters that aren't other classes and races in the PHB, the other two books are more than helpful, they're mandatory.

They are mandatory if you are the DM but not as a player.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;877452So you're shelling out $120-160 in one go, assuming you actually have dice, which depending on the style can run you up anywhere from $5-14 more.

That's not the price of entry. FFG has at least Edge of the Empire well below $50 on Amazon (with USSRP of $59.95) if you bypass the starter game. A GM may want to spend $120+ at a time, but its not a player requirement.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;877452The real 'barrier' to FFG's SW games is the funky symbols, not the price.

My reply was about how the dice are a marketing gimmick to both maximize profits and lock in players to their system. I also (assume) the symbols are copyrighted, so not so easy for third parties to poach within the walled garden if you cannot display a matching symbol.

I have a lot of interest in clever marketing. How do you make something more desirable for the consumer and yet more profitable for the company? Can you do it first, or better, keep your competitors from doing it?

This is clever marketing, but its ugly - its like DRM for old world IP - a dongle for your brain. They've packaged it in a pretty way, so it has a high value appearance to match expensive IP they've licensed.  

To me - the symbols on the dice aren't as bad as reading the symbols in the books. When I read a sentence containing a symbol, my reading 'flow' gets interrupted when I hit that symbol. It is worse than the weird fonts / text colors in some of the NWoD books.

Quote from: Lynn;878036My reply was about how the dice are a marketing gimmick to both maximize profits and lock in players to their system. I also (assume) the symbols are copyrighted, so not so easy for third parties to poach within the walled garden if you cannot display a matching symbol.

Gimmick. Yes. Marketing/Monetizing. No. FFG is infatuated with gimmicks for gimmicks sake. There are few games they have acquired, designed, or "borrowed" that they havent glitzed to the gills one way or another.

According to at least one of the designers they are aware that it actually costs them. As do some of their actual marketing tactics. But apparently they make it back eventually with customer loyalty. How? Have no clue.

As for the symbols. Some are Star Wars specific and so owned by Disney now. They are different from the icon game dice that came with the Star Wars figures from Hasbro. All of those were original and not from SW. And those were a gimmick too rather than marketing/monetizing.

Quote from: Omega;878053Gimmick. Yes. Marketing/Monetizing. No. FFG is infatuated with gimmicks for gimmicks sake. There are few games they have acquired, designed, or "borrowed" that they havent glitzed to the gills one way or another.

At $15 a set, they should be pulling in a reasonable profit. But to do that, they need to be ordering huge batches and have them in stock. Id also make sure its an easy 'add on' item that pops up when you order one of the games on the online store.

Quote from: Omega;878053According to at least one of the designers they are aware that it actually costs them. As do some of their actual marketing tactics. But apparently they make it back eventually with customer loyalty. How? Have no clue.

Loyal customers who are properly incentivized buy more stuff.

Quote from: Omega;878053As for the symbols. Some are Star Wars specific and so owned by Disney now. They are different from the icon game dice that came with the Star Wars figures from Hasbro. All of those were original and not from SW. And those were a gimmick too rather than marketing/monetizing.

You seem to define a 'gimmick' as something separate from marketing. It is all marketing - just varying in effectiveness.

Quote from: Lynn;878073You seem to define a 'gimmick' as something separate from marketing. It is all marketing - just varying in effectiveness.

Marketing is when the gimmic is played up. If you hardly even know the gimmic is there then it isnt marketing. Oddly FFG hasnt played up the funky dice. Either that or I missed it. Which is very likely. But the ads I saw for it didnt play up the dice.

Quote from: Omega;878083Marketing is when the gimmic is played up. If you hardly even know the gimmic is there then it isnt marketing. Oddly FFG hasnt played up the funky dice. Either that or I missed it. Which is very likely. But the ads I saw for it didnt play up the dice.

No, but whenever there's a D&D ad, they play up the dice.  So is WoTC using dice as a marketing gimmick, then?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;878215No, but whenever there's a D&D ad, they play up the dice.  So is WoTC using dice as a marketing gimmick, then?

Are they playing up the dice? "LOOK! Poleheeeeeedralssssss!" or just showing the dice in use? "I hit the ogre!"

Quote from: Omega;878278Are they playing up the dice? "LOOK! Poleheeeeeedralssssss!" or just showing the dice in use? "I hit the ogre!"

No.  But they show the image of the dice with the books nearby.  FFG's Star Wars do not, typically.





For the record, I find this stupid.  I get not liking the dice because of the funny symbols on them.  I get that the system is not for everyone, but claiming that they are a marketing ploy, which again, we have someone trying to convince us that FFG's version of the game is wrong, and we're bad players for liking it (not in so many direct words, the constant attacking of FFG as a company for using these dice.  Hell, FATE is the same way, with it's own funky dice system.)

It's getting old.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;878305No.  But they show the image of the dice with the books nearby.  FFG's Star Wars do not, typically.

For the record, I find this stupid.  I get not liking the dice because of the funny symbols on them.  I get that the system is not for everyone, but claiming that they are a marketing ploy, which again, we have someone trying to convince us that FFG's version of the game is wrong, and we're bad players for liking it (not in so many direct words, the constant attacking of FFG as a company for using these dice.  Hell, FATE is the same way, with it's own funky dice system.)

It's getting old.

1: Then no its not a marketing ploy for either.

2: Same. I might have a small axe to grind with FFG for past underhanded antics. But I do not see so far anything they've done with the RPG as overly greedy. In fact from all accounts here and elsewhere FFG has been rather mild with the gimmicks and especially monetizing the game compared to many of their other endeavors.

3: Verily.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;878305For the record, I find this stupid.  I get not liking the dice because of the funny symbols on them.  I get that the system is not for everyone, but claiming that they are a marketing ploy, which again, we have someone trying to convince us that FFG's version of the game is wrong, and we're bad players for liking it (not in so many direct words, the constant attacking of FFG as a company for using these dice.  Hell, FATE is the same way, with it's own funky dice system.)

The dice do seem like a marketing ploy to me. But that doesn't mean you or anyone else is a bad person for liking the game. My cable package is a marketing ploy. So's yours for that matter. So what? I pay for my cable plan to get the features I want. I also get some other shit I don't want, but it's all part of the bundle. Companies come up with their marketing ploys (or plans to be less pejorative) to try to maximize revenue. Good plans work. Bad ones don't. Time may tell which FFG's funny symbol dice is. Though the lack of transparency on industry sales, costs, and profits makes it unlikely that we'll ever really know how well funny symbol dice worked as part of FFG's marketing plan.

All a funky dice marketing ploy does (assuming it actually works) is to

• Extract some extra cash from people who buy or use the system because they also have to buy sets of dice.
• Give people who like unique widgets or toys something to play with. (Which is something a lot of other games have traditionally done.)
• Adds a tiny increase in the switching cost of going to a new system because these dice are useless for other games.

And you are right. FATE dice have similar effects.

Polyhedral dice also have similar effects. Based on what I know of the early days at TSR, I seriously doubt polyhedral dice were part of any conscious marketing plan. But I think the uniqueness of the dice were a draw for the game in the early days. (I distinctly remember the dice as a cool, nerdy aspect of the game.) Those funny polyhedral dice were something games before D&D didn't have. And yes there may have been some other game that used polyhedral dice before D&D. But nothing with the market penetration of TSR D&D used polyhedral dice so the unique widget aspect still applies.

QuoteIt's getting old.

With no snark, maybe take a break from the thread? If our bitching about a game you like is bugging you that much just ignore us for a while.

Quote from: Bren;878329With no snark, maybe take a break from the thread? If our bitching about a game you like is bugging you that much just ignore us for a while.

Oh, I'm done.  There's nothing more for me to say here, without repeating myself.  And I do that enough already.

I'm hoping to make this my last post on this topic.  Peace out and Happy Gaming.