6 ms·

Major franchises that have a lot of nerd crossover (marvel, Star Wars, etc.) keep a lot of influencers on the payroll as “advisors” or various types or consulta

Major franchises that have a lot of nerd crossover (marvel, Star Wars, etc.) keep a lot of influencers on the payroll as “advisors” or various types or consultants for events like this. Expect some mea culpas and some Twitter threads from respected people saying, “WotC made a terrible mistake but with the latest changes it’s better now.” Someone at corporate will take a public decapitation as the fall guy with a nice severance package. If you actually are emotionally invested in this, you don’t want to hate WotC. You want vengeance and to feel you are heard. So a veneer of listening will be embraced and show the little guy makes a difference, everything better, let’s add this to the Wikipedia History section.

beebmam 4y ago
I have plenty of friends who are emotionally and physically invested in MtG and they certainly want to hate WotC. People love to hate things, especially gaming communities, in my experience. Hating something invigorates a community. Game companies need to make serious plans to not anger their players.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Somehow, Games Workshop still thrives with a lot longer of a history of fan and customer abuse.
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    They’ve very much turned things around in that respect over the last few years though
- wmanley 4y ago
  Or make plans to anger them in ways that are useful to the gaming company. As you say: hating invigorates a community
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > People love to hate things, especially gaming communities Video gaming communities seem to only hate in the lightest sense of the word. I think it was quite a shock for WotCBro to see that TTRPGs players actually put their money where their mouth is, instead of just talking.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    I think reality is that bad products can simply just be ignored or not bought. The insane level of overreach that might destroy all other content, yeah that is something that might really hurt. And fundamentally TTRPG is community of content creation, even if only for private use. Now company like WoTC somehow owning it or taking stupid cut. That really riled up the players.
shostack 4y ago
Between this and the recent attempt at looting the D&D community for all it's worth that horribly backfired (https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/01/dd-maker-retreats-from-attempts-to-update-longstanding-open-license/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/01/dd-maker-retreats-fro...) what is there not to hate? As far as I'm concerned I'm done being charitable to them. They've never been fantastic, and Hasbro has clearly been demanding their dues forcing this. My biggest hope is the Magic community has a great open alternative similar to what the d&d community is likely to do in response to this.
- EamonnMR 4y ago
  It's very hard to do an open alternative to MTG. MTG's ecosystem is very closely tied to the economics of the physical cards driving the development and community (ie card shops.) Tools for playing magic without cards of course exist, but the vitality of the community depends on the constant refreshing of the environment tied to carefully balanced development.
  - riskycodes 4y ago
    I think this was true in the past, but communities like Premodern, cEDH and, of course, Old School, have managed to sidestep this issue: in the case of Premodern and Old School by sidestepping new releases, and for cEDH by being lenient on proxies. I don't think Magic will ever _die_, but if it did, these communities could well go on for a lifetime longer.
    - logical_proof 4y ago
      Let me introduce you to the Star Wars Customizable Card Game by Decipher. It lasted from 1995 until 2001 when Lucasfilm sold toy rights to… Hasbro. Hasbro made a terrible card game to replace it for Episode 2 that has fallen into obscurity. The original game still lives on with a Players Committee and new virtual sets. Compared to Magic the game was a niche of a niche and still exists. If magic ever ‘dies’ I am sure there will be a huge community that steps up to keep it alive.
  - 4y ago
vlunkr 4y ago
Do they really pay influencers? I’m skeptical. There seem to be a limitless supply of megafans who will defend the bad decisions of corporations because they’ve invested their personality in it, not because they’re getting paid.
- dmix 4y ago
  RedLetterMedia's fake "Nerd Crew" podcast [1] satirized the fanboy Youtube/podcast community perfectly. You don't need to pay influencers heavily. You just need to make them feel important. You get mid-tier execs to phone them to give them "inside" information. You give them early access to content so they can have opinions before anyone. You invite them to white-glove events (maybe even fly them there for free) and then have your attractive well-spoken marketing people treat them like royalty. You get your social teams to drum up fake viral headlines to generate talking-points for TV interviews/podcasts for hosts that wouldn't otherwise have content. That goes a long way with megafans and most people who aren't business savvy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCIYCaXNe88&list=PLJ_TJFLc25JRrUJFPO6Iwy2vkn8QtqBCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCIYCaXNe88&list=PLJ_TJFLc25...
  - vlunkr 4y ago
    Nerd Crew is brilliant.
- adql 4y ago
  Payment doesn't neccesarily need to be money. Send some pack here, give early access to some info there and it's really easy to cajole average youtuber to shill for you just because they want to keep the priviledges of getting the stuff early to review (as that keeps viewers on channel)
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    When you think about it, exclusivity of early access to information is essentially free advertising for these companies. Just break up your next product into chunk and distribute it to those eager to do free work and advertisement for you. Just for a chance to get that first chunk of audience. Actually it is kinda genius. And then on the other side you have those that are potentially manipulating the market for their gains, who don't need that access.
charlieyu1 4y ago
I don't think the nerd crowds like influencers. Can't be bothered. Just release better content and less drama.
_cenw 4y ago
They certainly tried to do this during the 30A ($1000 for 4 packs of 1993's Beta, not tournament legal) sale, and nobody wanted to be involved. So they went to some people in the Yu-Gi-Oh community who talked up the product for a day until they learned of the collective backlash and pricing for the product and apologized as well. Overall the community seems to be somewhat forgiving of what Wizards R&D does, but definitely not anything that's a result of Hasbro exercising pressure to milk the franchise, and usually it's quite easy to tell which is which as soon as you hear quiet "sorry I didn't decide this" remarks from R&D people. People don't hate the game or the company as much as the obvious ways to segment the audience and generally increase the price of new cardboard rectangles (as for reprints, they're actually doing those, but investor-collectors aren't so happy).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

beebmam 4y ago

I have plenty of friends who are emotionally and physically invested in MtG and they certainly want to hate WotC. People love to hate things, especially gaming communities, in my experience. Hating something invigorates a community. Game companies need to make serious plans to not anger their players.

pessimizer 4y ago
Somehow, Games Workshop still thrives with a lot longer of a history of fan and customer abuse.
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  They’ve very much turned things around in that respect over the last few years though
wmanley 4y ago
Or make plans to anger them in ways that are useful to the gaming company. As you say: hating invigorates a community
Semaphor 4y ago
> People love to hate things, especially gaming communities Video gaming communities seem to only hate in the lightest sense of the word. I think it was quite a shock for WotCBro to see that TTRPGs players actually put their money where their mouth is, instead of just talking.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I think reality is that bad products can simply just be ignored or not bought. The insane level of overreach that might destroy all other content, yeah that is something that might really hurt. And fundamentally TTRPG is community of content creation, even if only for private use. Now company like WoTC somehow owning it or taking stupid cut. That really riled up the players.

shostack 4y ago

Between this and the recent attempt at looting the D&D community for all it's worth that horribly backfired (https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/01/dd-maker-retreats-from-attempts-to-update-longstanding-open-license/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/01/dd-maker-retreats-fro...) what is there not to hate? As far as I'm concerned I'm done being charitable to them. They've never been fantastic, and Hasbro has clearly been demanding their dues forcing this. My biggest hope is the Magic community has a great open alternative similar to what the d&d community is likely to do in response to this.

EamonnMR 4y ago
It's very hard to do an open alternative to MTG. MTG's ecosystem is very closely tied to the economics of the physical cards driving the development and community (ie card shops.) Tools for playing magic without cards of course exist, but the vitality of the community depends on the constant refreshing of the environment tied to carefully balanced development.
- riskycodes 4y ago
  I think this was true in the past, but communities like Premodern, cEDH and, of course, Old School, have managed to sidestep this issue: in the case of Premodern and Old School by sidestepping new releases, and for cEDH by being lenient on proxies. I don't think Magic will ever _die_, but if it did, these communities could well go on for a lifetime longer.
  - logical_proof 4y ago
    Let me introduce you to the Star Wars Customizable Card Game by Decipher. It lasted from 1995 until 2001 when Lucasfilm sold toy rights to… Hasbro. Hasbro made a terrible card game to replace it for Episode 2 that has fallen into obscurity. The original game still lives on with a Players Committee and new virtual sets. Compared to Magic the game was a niche of a niche and still exists. If magic ever ‘dies’ I am sure there will be a huge community that steps up to keep it alive.
- 4y ago

vlunkr 4y ago

Do they really pay influencers? I’m skeptical. There seem to be a limitless supply of megafans who will defend the bad decisions of corporations because they’ve invested their personality in it, not because they’re getting paid.

dmix 4y ago
RedLetterMedia's fake "Nerd Crew" podcast [1] satirized the fanboy Youtube/podcast community perfectly. You don't need to pay influencers heavily. You just need to make them feel important. You get mid-tier execs to phone them to give them "inside" information. You give them early access to content so they can have opinions before anyone. You invite them to white-glove events (maybe even fly them there for free) and then have your attractive well-spoken marketing people treat them like royalty. You get your social teams to drum up fake viral headlines to generate talking-points for TV interviews/podcasts for hosts that wouldn't otherwise have content. That goes a long way with megafans and most people who aren't business savvy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCIYCaXNe88&list=PLJ_TJFLc25JRrUJFPO6Iwy2vkn8QtqBCE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCIYCaXNe88&list=PLJ_TJFLc25...
- vlunkr 4y ago
  Nerd Crew is brilliant.
adql 4y ago
Payment doesn't neccesarily need to be money. Send some pack here, give early access to some info there and it's really easy to cajole average youtuber to shill for you just because they want to keep the priviledges of getting the stuff early to review (as that keeps viewers on channel)
- Ekaros 4y ago
  When you think about it, exclusivity of early access to information is essentially free advertising for these companies. Just break up your next product into chunk and distribute it to those eager to do free work and advertisement for you. Just for a chance to get that first chunk of audience. Actually it is kinda genius. And then on the other side you have those that are potentially manipulating the market for their gains, who don't need that access.

charlieyu1 4y ago

I don't think the nerd crowds like influencers. Can't be bothered. Just release better content and less drama.

_cenw 4y ago

They certainly tried to do this during the 30A ($1000 for 4 packs of 1993's Beta, not tournament legal) sale, and nobody wanted to be involved. So they went to some people in the Yu-Gi-Oh community who talked up the product for a day until they learned of the collective backlash and pricing for the product and apologized as well. Overall the community seems to be somewhat forgiving of what Wizards R&D does, but definitely not anything that's a result of Hasbro exercising pressure to milk the franchise, and usually it's quite easy to tell which is which as soon as you hear quiet "sorry I didn't decide this" remarks from R&D people. People don't hate the game or the company as much as the obvious ways to segment the audience and generally increase the price of new cardboard rectangles (as for reprints, they're actually doing those, but investor-collectors aren't so happy).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]