Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Less Demons, More Sales

Enworld reports that the "official" D&D 4 Player's Handbook cover is on the WOTC website. What made this interesting was that distributors shared their concern with WOTC about their original, demon-heavy cover artwork and WOTC changed it to the new one. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer the sexy cover.


New Cover


Original Cover

6 comments:

  1. Ah-ha,
    but which one is the sexy cover...

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  2. LOL, that was my first thought as well.

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  3. Man, I hadn't even thought of that. They're both kind of sexy now that I think about it.

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  4. I don't think either one is that great. Just don't like that style.

    I mean, it's D&D - the "grandaddy" of fantasy roleplaying games. Why not go with a classic fantasy art style, like the Hildebrandts or something?

    Or, have two different cover styles - one more traditional for mass market (book stores and such), the other, more "sexy" (and limited print run) solely for game stores.

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  5. Because we are not the target market. I personally don't like the art style, but they're hoping it attracts the average twelve your old boy. As a store owner, anything that brings in younger clientele is great. As a player, it does nothing for me.

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  6. Also, D&D may be the granddaddy of fantasy RPGs, but D&D 4th isn't your granddaddy's D&D.

    So much has changed since 1st edition that aside from some terms that they have in common, they're hardly recognizable as being the same game.

    Castles & Crusades is much closer to the original in terms of mechanics and background, and not coincidentally uses artwork much closer to it as well.

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