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Friday, March 14

White Wolf's Petty Tactics

Some marketing genius at White Wolf bought into the partisan tactics we read so much about on the Internet and thought that people who don't want to play D&D 3.5 would be so pissed as to trade in their PHBs for a brand new copy of the Exalted RPG rather than upgrade to the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Read more at http://secure1.white-wolf.com/graduateyourgame/

Which is a fine idea unto itself. Except that the marketing campaign is predicated on the notion that you're "graduating" complete with a certificate. Cause, you know, people who play D&D are emotionally and socially retarded.

Here's the thing. Gamers aren't an either/or lot. They can't be. The gaming population is too small. The grouchy jerks I tangle with on the Internet occasionally often aren't actually PLAYING the games they so righteously defend. Or to put it another way, the asshole telling you the one true way to play his game is probably not actually playing it at all.

So listening to those people is a mistake, and it's that kind of thinking -- that you only play ONE kind of gaming system -- that leads to this kind of pathetic marketing ploy. On top of that, the notion that editions actually stopped being played is equally fallacious. RPGs don't have expiration dates. They can be played forever. Any game that's been sufficiently published in large quantities can live on through inertia alone. So it's likely there will be people still playing 3.5 and NOT moving to 4.0. And they will also happily play Exalted.

But here's the real stickler, the thing that really pisses me off...from http://secure1.white-wolf.com/graduateyourgame/retailer.aspx

Retailers must take all D&D 3.5 Player’s Handbooks that are exchanged, tear out the pages, and return the full cover with the consumer forms using the return label provided in the book kit. Note: Returned book covers must be post-marked by June 30th.
We will check the returns against the participating retailer list, making sure the number of returned book covers matches the quantity of Exalted books requested. For copy of Exalted you receive that does not have a corresponding D&D 3.5 cover, you will be charged an additional $20.

This is spiteful, petty, wasteful, and disgusting in our eco-conscious times. These books are being torn up? Hell, I don't care if you hate D&D. But you don't need to literally destroy books to promote your own product. For shame, White Wolf -- you turned a promotion of your own game (reasonable) into an insulting, degrading slap on the very people you're trying to recruit (unreasonable) and worse, are destroying perfectly good books out of spite (just plain stupid).

Labels: gaming news

posted by Mike Tresca at 9:11 PM

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