Marketing In The Nerd World: Game Trade Magazine – Something Something Insert THAC0 Joke Here
8 Comments | Posted: September 3rd, 2008 | Filed under: Thinking about Comics Marketing | Tags: game trade magazine, web marketing
This is Game Trade Magazine, a publication that describes itself as follows:
The serious games magazine for serious gamers, Game Trade Magazine remains the most comprehensive and accessible monthly resource for the latest, up-to-the-minute product information in the world of games, anime, and hobby supplies going on 8 years and running! Packed with reviews, previews, product excerpts, exclusive scenarios, giveaways and collectible inserts from your favorite games and manufacturers, there’s no better source to feed your gaming needs!The magazine is closely associated with Diamond Comics Distributors, which means it’s available in many comics shops and frequently handed out alongside Previews. I’d never seen a copy (as I tend to go to comics shops that just sell comics exclusively) before Pal Dave showed it to me. He then pointed out something interesting involving a contest they’re having in the latest issue (September, 2008.)
Readers can win all of these (apparently very desirable) Dungeons and Dragons 4th editions books if they fill out the form that’s attached and get lucky. They can also visit This is gametrademagazine.com to enter the contest. Or so they claim. When you visit the website, you see nothing about the giveaway or any new content since February 28th of this year.
Yeah, this is what I’d like to think of as a pretty definitive online marketing failure. This isn’t a website not being updated on a Thursday for next week’s comics; this isn’t a publisher forgetting to put easy-to-grab images on their website – this is a company serving a sector that’s hungry for content, that’s generally very computer savvy. From the content that’s present, it looks like there was once an organized effort to maintain and update the site with content from the magazine, but it appears that the organization dropped the ball completely and letting their website rot instead of treating it like a valuable resource.
For the record, I emailed the editor (there’s contact info at the site) and asked what was up. He said they’re working on getting the site back up to speed and said if I send him my info, he’ll enter me in the contest.
Here is my attempt at an appropriate observation:
Looks like they failed their save versus lethargy!
I thank you.
On the subject of gaming and failed online initiatives see also the consistent blundering of D&D’s publisher, Wizards of the Coast. Three months after the release of 4e their much touted suite of digital support for the game is mostly vaporware and their attempt to build a social networking site for D&D players has been shuttered.
Social networking for D&D players? I believe they call that “World of Warcraft.”
Clever, Dorian.
In fact a major goal of WotC’s digital initiative (and almost certainly a design goal of 4e) was to capture some of the MMPORPG crowd — which crosses over with tabletop gamers but is vastly larger at this point.
(Sorry if you already know all that. I know more gamer nerds that cross over into comics than vice versa.)
(Not to say that you, specifically, are a nerd.)
The failure of WotC’s digital stuff is a shame (though not surprising- their website has long been a nightmare to get around.) The whole virtual tabletop is a direction worth going- being able to play “proper” D&D online complete with DM rulings and room to improvise would be a grand experience, and IRC Chat enables something similar, albeit without tactical movement and the like.
As for the site- periodicals are already growing more dependent on online access for survival (newspapers as well), so to neglect this when there are so many gaming websites out there is pretty heinous.
My birthday is Feb. 28th. Is it weird I don’t have a comic for Thursday?