Quote from: David Johansen on February 21, 2024, 02:26:05 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 21, 2024, 05:34:22 AM
It admittedly feels kind of strange being so disconnected about WOTC. After all, I have been a loyal customer and fan of TSR since the beginning, and even WOTC since they arrived and established themselves. That is literally *decades*--and even 20 years for WOTC as the comany and steward of D&D.

I guess you mustn't have been a Games Workshop or Steve Jackson Games fan.

I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer. I played AD&D as a teenager in the 1980s, but I never had any loyalty to T$R. I hated the tournament style trying to make balanced competition, and I never bought any 2nd ed when they censored demons and devils. By then, I had gotten into new games.

I'll buy stuff from a corporation when it's good, but I don't have any loyalty. With WotC, I briefly played 3rd edition, along with a few D20 games in the early 2000s, but mostly I was playing small-press/indie games or homebrew.

I skipped 4th ed, and I got into 5th ed honestly more because of attention here on theRPGsite than anything else.

Even though WotC has mouthed some empty words about politics closer to mine, that doesn't endear me to them. They're just the same soulless corporation, except now they think they can make money off my demographic.

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PM
I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer.

https://goldenarchesunlimited.com/

I mean...

A corporation can buy my loyalty for a mere $1 000 000 per year, after taxes of course.  I'm just putin' it out there in case any corporations happen to be listening.

Quote from: Brad on February 21, 2024, 09:12:39 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PM
I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer.

https://goldenarchesunlimited.com/

I mean...

I think the better part of corporate loyalty is millenials wearing Nikes with their airpods on protesting for a $30/hr minimum wage.  While just about everything they are wearing is made by child labor who would be lucky to make $30/mo.  They could fix that if they fought against globalization and outsourcing and fought to have American factories going again.  But such is clownworld.

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PM
I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer.

I don't find it so odd.  Being loyal to a person or group is absolutely common, and a corporation is just a group of people organized along specific lines.  Folks may be loyal to a corporation because it provides great products, provides great service, enables a community to form, promotes specific lifestyles or values, or is just familiar.  I feel like a lot of the antipathy towards WotC is because people gave it their loyalty as "the D&D company" and then it betrayed them by making crap products, attacking its surrounding community, and promoting values repugnant to its most loyal followers.  The only thing it really has still going for it is familiarity, and that may be going away with all the changes in 6E

Quote from: Mishihari on February 22, 2024, 04:12:08 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PM
I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer.

I don't find it so odd.  Being loyal to a person or group is absolutely common, and a corporation is just a group of people organized along specific lines.  Folks may be loyal to a corporation because it provides great products, provides great service, enables a community to form, promotes specific lifestyles or values, or is just familiar.  I feel like a lot of the antipathy towards WotC is because people gave it their loyalty as "the D&D company" and then it betrayed them by making crap products, attacking its surrounding community, and promoting values repugnant to its most loyal followers.  The only thing it really has still going for it is familiarity, and that may be going away with all the changes in 6E

Greetings!

Absolutely right, Mishihari!

Yes, I know it is fashionable to hate on the "evil corporations" now...though I fondly recall reading Gygax every month in Dragon, along with Kim Mohan, and others, and none of THEM felt alien, or weird, or hostile, in any way. Even early on with WOTC, in Dragon and Dungeon, for example, it felt like they actually cared about the game, the company, the hobby itself, and the fans. Yeah, the paying FANS that make all of these *dream jobs* and *careers* possible.

All of that mattered, and was important.

Until, gradually, that team of stewards, game designers, and managers, was replaced.

They were replaced by people that do not share those values and priorities. And it shows, as you mentioned, in the company's hostility towards traditional fans and traditional values, in their public statements, and in the shit levels of production quality and standards for the books they have produced. Over and over again. After about 6 failures in a row, people start to give up on a company commercially. Then, when you add more of the hot sauce to the taco--*laughing*--you have the absolute disaster we have witnessed for this company.

I must say though, that Woke companies do this all the time. These morons love being despised, mocked, and ultimately broke and poor. A few of course press the eject button with fat payouts--but a large number of these people, regardless of their once-lofty status and placement--end up as unemployed and broke, or maybe working as a barista at a Starbucks. *Laughing*

Burn it to the ground! *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Just another example of jhkimbot being exposed as an AI. Humans in general are intensely factional about pretty much everything. It's like he never went to a college football game before, or tried to convince someone to drink Pepsi instead of Coke. I worked for a marketing company for 12 years and brand loyalty is like 80-90% of the reason customers will keep buying your product, even when it sucks. The most loyal customers will complain and write nastygrams and badmouth cxompanies on social media AND STILL BUY THE PRODUCT. You have to really fuck up to lose those customers. WotC had a built-in customer base with the D&D crowd, and everything going on now is just a demonstration of how badly they handled the property.

So yeah, just another "contrarian to be contrarian" example based on made up non-world experiences.

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PMI find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer. I played AD&D as a teenager in the 1980s, but I never had any loyalty to T$R.

For me, it was a matter of finding a lot of products I liked all from one publishing group. In the 1970's I enjoyed OD&D, Metamorphosis Alpha, Boot Hill, eventually AD&D. I don't think I ever said, "I'm loyal to TSR" but I did like their stuff and I was more inclined to buy TSR products sight-unseen than I might from other companies.

Today I enjoy Free League's stuff the best. Vaesen, Tales From The Loop, Alien, 5E LotR, Dragonbane and so on. They will continue to get my dollars until they start churning out products I don't like.

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PM
I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer.

You see it all over. Board games see it alot too. Warhammer cultists being a big one. They will buy a product from a company no matter what they do.

Quote from: Mishihari on February 22, 2024, 04:12:08 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PM
I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer.

I don't find it so odd.  Being loyal to a person or group is absolutely common, and a corporation is just a group of people organized along specific lines.  Folks may be loyal to a corporation because it provides great products, provides great service, enables a community to form, promotes specific lifestyles or values, or is just familiar. I feel like a lot of the antipathy towards WotC is because people gave it their loyalty as "the D&D company" and then it betrayed them by making crap products, attacking its surrounding community, and promoting values repugnant to its most loyal followers.  The only thing it really has still going for it is familiarity, and that may be going away with all the changes in 6E.

To be clear, I don't find it at all weird to have loyalty to a person like Gary Gygax. Or loyalty to a church or other institution that has a fixed set of guiding principles. But a corporation is explicitly a way to make money. That's its purpose. It's not even a group of people, as board members will change and get handed over. I can even understand loyalty to a corporation that is a reliable and ethical employer, fulfilling their purpose well. But as a consumer, yeah, I find corporate loyalty weird even though I know it is common.

It seems particularly weird to be loyal to TSR even as they their best to destroy Gary Gygax, like suing him for spurious copyright infringement over the Dangerous Journeys RPG.

As for WotC, I didn't get any feeling of loyalty to WotC ten or fifteen years ago here on theRPGsite. There was a lot of hate on 4e, which very few people were sticking with out of loyalty - though a few people genuinely liked it.

Quote from: jhkim on February 22, 2024, 02:11:30 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on February 22, 2024, 04:12:08 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 21, 2024, 08:41:53 PM
I find it weird to have loyalty to a corporation, especially as a consumer.

I don't find it so odd.  Being loyal to a person or group is absolutely common, and a corporation is just a group of people organized along specific lines.  Folks may be loyal to a corporation because it provides great products, provides great service, enables a community to form, promotes specific lifestyles or values, or is just familiar. I feel like a lot of the antipathy towards WotC is because people gave it their loyalty as "the D&D company" and then it betrayed them by making crap products, attacking its surrounding community, and promoting values repugnant to its most loyal followers.  The only thing it really has still going for it is familiarity, and that may be going away with all the changes in 6E.

To be clear, I don't find it at all weird to have loyalty to a person like Gary Gygax. Or loyalty to a church or other institution that has a fixed set of guiding principles. But a corporation is explicitly a way to make money. That's its purpose. It's not even a group of people, as board members will change and get handed over. I can even understand loyalty to a corporation that is a reliable and ethical employer, fulfilling their purpose well. But as a consumer, yeah, I find corporate loyalty weird even though I know it is common.

It seems particularly weird to be loyal to TSR even as they their best to destroy Gary Gygax, like suing him for spurious copyright infringement over the Dangerous Journeys RPG.

As for WotC, I didn't get any feeling of loyalty to WotC ten or fifteen years ago here on theRPGsite. There was a lot of hate on 4e, which very few people were sticking with out of loyalty - though a few people genuinely liked it.

Company loyalty from customers is a bit odd to me too (especially when it continues after productbl or service quality declines); typical brand and customer loyalty on the other hand is at least focused on the product/service.

I think the former may be a corrupted version of the latter two.

People have loyalty to a brand because they can't easily perceive the people behind the curtain.  Just look at Blizzard, it took years for them to burn through their community's goodwill even after all of their talent had clearly departed and they were just putting out garbage.  People will notice only if a real front and center person like Gygax leaves a company, the rank and file who actually do most of the product work aren't known to the average customer and it can take years before it really dawns on most people that the goose laying the golden eggs is long gone.

Quote from: Valatar on February 22, 2024, 08:20:56 PM
People have loyalty to a brand because they can't easily perceive the people behind the curtain.  Just look at Blizzard, it took years for them to burn through their community's goodwill even after all of their talent had clearly departed and they were just putting out garbage.  People will notice only if a real front and center person like Gygax leaves a company, the rank and file who actually do most of the product work aren't known to the average customer and it can take years before it really dawns on most people that the goose laying the golden eggs is long gone.

In the case of TSR, not only did Gygax leave -- but TSR actively tried to destroy Gygax's career with lawsuits like when he made Dangerous Journeys. 

And over twenty years after TSR folded, people are holding up TSR as "Remember back in the good old days when we could trust and be loyal to a corporation."

Quote from: jhkim on February 22, 2024, 08:54:20 PM

Quote from: Valatar on February 22, 2024, 08:20:56 PM
People have loyalty to a brand because they can't easily perceive the people behind the curtain.  Just look at Blizzard, it took years for them to burn through their community's goodwill even after all of their talent had clearly departed and they were just putting out garbage.  People will notice only if a real front and center person like Gygax leaves a company, the rank and file who actually do most of the product work aren't known to the average customer and it can take years before it really dawns on most people that the goose laying the golden eggs is long gone.

In the case of TSR, not only did Gygax leave -- but TSR actively tried to destroy Gygax's career with lawsuits like when he made Dangerous Journeys. 

And over twenty years after TSR folded, people are holding up TSR as "Remember back in the good old days when we could trust and be loyal to a corporation."

They Sue Regularly

Quote from: jhkim on February 22, 2024, 08:54:20 PM

Quote from: Valatar on February 22, 2024, 08:20:56 PM
People have loyalty to a brand because they can't easily perceive the people behind the curtain.  Just look at Blizzard, it took years for them to burn through their community's goodwill even after all of their talent had clearly departed and they were just putting out garbage.  People will notice only if a real front and center person like Gygax leaves a company, the rank and file who actually do most of the product work aren't known to the average customer and it can take years before it really dawns on most people that the goose laying the golden eggs is long gone.

In the case of TSR, not only did Gygax leave -- but TSR actively tried to destroy Gygax's career with lawsuits like when he made Dangerous Journeys. 

And over twenty years after TSR folded, people are holding up TSR as "Remember back in the good old days when we could trust and be loyal to a corporation."

Gygax did call his first project Dangerous Dimensions and that was just stupid on his part.  Whatever the lawsuit was by TSR to stop him from selling to Games Workshop, again stupid on Gygax's part because he should have used what money he had to talk with a good IP lawyer to be able to design a new IP and not be sued by TSR.  Whatever he did he failed on it.  He also hired that idiot harpy who went after him non-stop.  Mind you I never knew Gary at all and this is all hindsite, but god damn man did he make a series of bad business decisions that fucked him over.  I like the man and his work, but he rolled a 3 for his Business Acumen.