Camstuff: More of the same.
Jul. 28th, 2003 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavySo WW have announced that The End of the World in their product line (Gehenna, Long Winter, call it what you will) will take place in 2004-5. I'm not surprised by this, as I've been smugly predicting just that since 1999 based on the presumption that a game product line has a 5-year lifespan and their sales will now have fallen off to a point to make killing off this line and making another one economically viable.
This also gives them a fine opportunity to reset the international chronicle of the Cam to their own specifications and, as the Cam represents their greatest buying market, this also represents a fantastic opportunity to maximise revenues by putting out chronicle specific product from now on. Not only that but by resetting the chronicle. It allows them to weed out any number of rules and conventions within the society that they don't much like; essentially creating a large and dedicated buying group for their product, which they can activey tailor to their product. In essence, this is a marketeers dream.
I don't think that this is why WW took over the Cam - I was there and I saw what happened when the takeover occured. I think this is an unforseen but not unwelcome benefit to them and they'll seize it with both hands.
So what can the Cam expect from 4th edition (which is what the new product line will effectively be)? The predictable answer is: very much more of the same. They can't risk alenating their big market by changing it beyond recognition, and so we will still have Vampires, Werewolves, Wizards, and Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my, and they will still be largely recognisable from what has gone before. Some new clans or groupings perhaps. Different political stances and factions. One or two funky new superpowers or combinations thereof. But the core product will not change - if there is one lesson that New Coke taught the marketting industry it is that if you have a large and loyal audience for your products, don't change it beyond recognition because you will just piss off your customers: and a pissed off customer is a hard-to-retain customer. Much easier to give them more of the same.
This is being dressed up in terms of 'exciting roleplaying opportunities', which I suppose for many people there will be. There will also be some - but not many - pissed off and alienated WW devotees which someone else will grab as a market opportunity (Millennium Moon anybody?) but ultimately I think we can expect a clearance of a lot of chaff and nonsense, and than business to continue pretty much as usual.
This also gives them a fine opportunity to reset the international chronicle of the Cam to their own specifications and, as the Cam represents their greatest buying market, this also represents a fantastic opportunity to maximise revenues by putting out chronicle specific product from now on. Not only that but by resetting the chronicle. It allows them to weed out any number of rules and conventions within the society that they don't much like; essentially creating a large and dedicated buying group for their product, which they can activey tailor to their product. In essence, this is a marketeers dream.
I don't think that this is why WW took over the Cam - I was there and I saw what happened when the takeover occured. I think this is an unforseen but not unwelcome benefit to them and they'll seize it with both hands.
So what can the Cam expect from 4th edition (which is what the new product line will effectively be)? The predictable answer is: very much more of the same. They can't risk alenating their big market by changing it beyond recognition, and so we will still have Vampires, Werewolves, Wizards, and Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my, and they will still be largely recognisable from what has gone before. Some new clans or groupings perhaps. Different political stances and factions. One or two funky new superpowers or combinations thereof. But the core product will not change - if there is one lesson that New Coke taught the marketting industry it is that if you have a large and loyal audience for your products, don't change it beyond recognition because you will just piss off your customers: and a pissed off customer is a hard-to-retain customer. Much easier to give them more of the same.
This is being dressed up in terms of 'exciting roleplaying opportunities', which I suppose for many people there will be. There will also be some - but not many - pissed off and alienated WW devotees which someone else will grab as a market opportunity (Millennium Moon anybody?) but ultimately I think we can expect a clearance of a lot of chaff and nonsense, and than business to continue pretty much as usual.
