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    • The sound of one hand clapping

    Editorial

    I have to admit to being confused by Wizards. The company produces games such as Axis and Allies, Star Wars Starship Battles and the upcoming Axis and Allies: War at Sea and does little to nothing to promote them. Mind you, the gaming industry isn’t renowned for its ability to self-promote but a company the size of Hasbro, which owns Wizards of the Coast, should certainly have the wherewithal to be able to send out some press material in order to get gamers interested in their products.

    Recently some members of my local gaming group expressed their interest in the War at Sea game after reading about it here on TGN. Now while I am pleased as punch whenever I can help connect gamers to new games it strikes me as odd that they should be getting news about this product from TGN considering that it is set, I believe, for a March 2007 release. I’m pleased by this site’s track record for getting news to readers but people should be surprised by a new Pig Iron or Alpha Forge release. Not a release from Wizards.

    Naturally I spend a lot of time looking up news for this site and also to satisfy my own curiosity and when I did initially find out about war at Sea some months ago it took me aback that I hadn’t heard about it previously but also that I was finding out about it via a message board post based on someone reading an advance copy of a WotC catalogue. I know that the Internet is a great way to disseminate information but the relative lack of activity in promoting their own games also make me wonder what Hasbro and WotC are up to. Or if perhaps wargamers are an ancilalry market that WotC is happy to acquire but isn’t aiming it s products at?

    And it isn’t that they don’t have hard-working people trying to get information out. I know several of the people that handle PR for WotC both internally and externally and I have no doubts about their work ethic or desire to promote the products they are responsible for. It just seems that Hasbro, right or wrong, appears to think that they don’t need to do much advance promotion for titles like War at Sea or even for Starship Battles. Certainly that appears to be the case as boosters and starters for Starship Battles flew off the shelves at my local game store. Maybe some games just don’t need promotion? But our most recent poll currently has the “Not aware of the game” answer as the most common response in realtion to the War at Sea game and that can’t be good unless Wizards isn’t aiming the product at wargamers.

    You can’t argue with sales and if Wizards can move Starship Battles boosters without breaking a sweat in their promotions department then all power to them. But Wizards does heavily promote other games such as Magic. I knew about and had detailed information about the last Magic release and the stores were filled with promo cards and posters. So what is it about their Avalon Hill branded games that they don’t require the same level of promotion? Only Wizards knows for sure.

    This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 and is filed under Editorial.

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    4 Responses to “The sound of one hand clapping”


    Stu says:
    November 26th, 2006 at 3:46 pm

    I can see any Star Wars licensed game is pretty much guaranteed to be a seller, but would have thought the cost of said license would pretty much require advertising as well.

    Is A&A:War at Sea an entire game in it’s own right? Or an expansion to the A&A main game? Expansions usually receive zero marketing don’t they?

    It may have something to do with the places these games are sold? Presumably they appear not only in specialist game stores, but also in much more common toy stores/toy superstores? At that point the punter is already in the store to buy toys, so the display stand appearance and location is more important than whatever reason the customer originally travelled there?
    Zac says:
    November 26th, 2006 at 3:50 pm

    >> Is A&A:War at Sea an entire game in it’s own right?

    You shouldn’t even have to ask that should you? :-)

    Its a stand-alone game that uses the Axis and Allies game engine with some tweaks to make it work at sea.

    >> At that point the punter is already in the store to buy toys, so the display stand appearance and location is more important than whatever reason the customer originally travelled there?

    That may be it. They may get enough “walk by” sales. Or maybe they dedicate their marketing efforts to other venues that cater to a younger audience that is closer to their target?
    PMMJ says:
    November 26th, 2006 at 7:29 pm

    Walk-by sales aren’t as important these days, IMHO. I’d tend to believe the internet is better word of mouth than, uh, word of mouth, in today’s era of gamer diaspora.
    Jeff Cope says:
    November 27th, 2006 at 6:37 am

    Unfortuantely, for the most part, it seems that marketing in the gaming industry caters to “preaching to the choir”. Or better put, publishers seek to win “new players” to their new game by luring players away from games they already play. There seems to be little effort to truly reach “new” players (i.e. non-gamers). It is much like the comic book industry which acknowledges its readership has grown older, but does little to attract younger readers.

    I saw a Magic:TG ad on TV the other night and almost fell off my sofa! It’s so rare to see something like that. Sure, it’s WOTC with the marketing strength of Hasbro behind them, but where’s the television advertising for D&D (RPG and Minis), Star Wars, etc.

    To their credit, WOTC has been running ads for some time in some non-gaming (but still “geek culture”) magazines such as EGM and ToyFare.

    I think companies depend alot upon the ‘net these days, and they should. It’s the language of the current culture and many depend upon volunteer demo teams to attract new players to their product.

    What’s the answer? I don’t know. I’m sure there’s more that could be done on industry level and I know there’s more that could be done on a retailer level.

    But it we want our hobby to truly grow we need to break out of the gaming sub-culture and try promoting games to non-gamers.

    Jeff

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