How much value does the WOD being a Huge Brand has to you?

[Nicolas Milioni]

so,it occurred to me that some folks here doesn't seem to consider the fact that the wod is now a big multi media marketing brand,one with a whole lot of games,shows, and overalll exposure. a good thing. i mean,we have more games,more web shows,more audiobooks,more books.The wod is known by so many more folks. the only real and true failure was not getting bloodlines 2,besides that. everything worked out fine. a fair number of people don't like the content of the media,but the media exists.
yet,folks doesn't seem happy with that. I don't know,it just feels like more people should be happier the World of Darkness is bigger than ever now

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Speaking personally, the exposure for W:tA has been a bit like a monkey's paw wish. On one hand, yes, more popular. On the other, the most visible game featuring W:tA (Earthblood) is very meh, and is likely the reason why W:tA is still shackled with the Fianna as a tribe in spite of the stated mission objective of W5 to eliminate the connection between human cultures and Garou tribes. So, while there's been a rollout to gear up, it's kind of started tearing itself apart with amazing speed.

(Hopefully, W5 at least doesn't feature magic poof shapeshifting.)

[Nicolas Milioni]

Speaking personally, the exposure for W:tA has been a bit like a monkey's paw wish. On one hand, yes, more popular. On the other, the most visible game featuring W:tA (Earthblood) is very meh, and is likely the reason why W:tA is still shackled with the Fianna as a tribe in spite of the stated mission objective of W5 to eliminate the connection between human cultures and Garou tribes. So, while there's been a rollout to gear up, it's kind of started tearing itself apart with amazing speed.

(Hopefully, W5 at least doesn't feature magic poof shapeshifting.)

Well let's hope there's something there for everyone

[ArcaneArts]

Mostly, I want other games to be talked about alongside DnD whenever it comes up in the office, so World having had the potential to become that sort of thing was kind of a big deal. Since that got shot, the size of the brand has lost meaning, but who knows down the line.

EDIT: Like, I can only speak to my experience, but it's not like it's any bigger than it used to be in that experience-most people only know DnD, those who do know WoD know it from it's older materials, and are surprised that Chronicles went on into the 2010s as a product. Most of them don't even know about the Paradox Era.

[Nicolas Milioni]

Mostly, I want other games to be talked about alongside DnD whenever it comes up in the office, so World having had the potential to become that sort of thing was kind of a big deal. Since that got shot, the size of the brand has lost meaning, but who knows down the line.

ok, i can understand where you are coming from.

[Dogstar]

When I think of WoD as a brand the first thing that comes to mind is the Bloodhunt game, which spectacularly fails to have anything but the thinnest smear of WoD flavour and, because it's 'yet another' game of it's ilk has already failed and yet the developers wilfully refuse to change direction.

So no, being a 'big' brand is not a good move because what we seem to get is WoD branding smeared over cheap junk, not WoD. If the owners gave a damn about the brand then they'd make sure that it was being represented properly, not flogging off the branding to anyone who will pay.

[Heavy Arms]

I'm going to second Dogstar here.

Being a "big brand," is more than just more products in more different types of media. The quality of the media matters.

Under Paradox, the WoD brand has become one of failure, which is something that yes, I'd like to see reduced because there's a lot more good than bad out there. Bloodlines 2 has fallen into development hell. Swansong has gotten utterly trash reviews. Bloodhunt crashed despite its quality. Earthblood was quickly forgotten because it's more of a demo than a game. The WoD5 gaming books show no signs of being big sellers; just signs that Paradox is spending a lot of money getting the books in more stores. The interactive fiction and actual play content is decent, but it's not some revolutionary success either (and even if it was, it's not going to hold up the brand on their own). Almost all of the various media types have virtually no penetration with wider markets: it's just WoD fans buying WoD stuff in different forms. Comic fans aren't flocking to the new comics despite being good.

Basically, the brand isn't actually big. Paradox is putting a lot of money into puffing it up to make it look larger than it really is, and hoping that something finally hits big to turn around the impression that their big products for the WoD are all doomed to flop.

[Nicolas Milioni]

I see I see. I actually really like the media we have so far,but I understand why you guys might not

[Knightingale]

Adding to what has already been said, the upcoming W5 will be very important for the brand. It should be one of the bigger releases and bring more attention to the brand again. On the other hand, under Justin Achilli's direction, W5 has abandoned a lot of the old WtA-lore. And it will be interesting to see just how many game-developers will be motivated to produce stuff for W5 when the nostalgia for old WtA is incompatible with the new W5 lore. Now WOD5E isn't just about taking the WOD into a new direction but also about severing connections to old editions. And that potentially goes against the nostalgia-value of the brand. You already see this with whenever W5 comes up, people in the comments lamenting not being able to play Get Of Fenris. It goes beyond how not all the Clans were in the V5 corebook by saying you can't play this one Tribe you used to be able to play.

[adambeyoncelowe]

Personally, I was never really interested in the video games, novels, comics, etc. I don't consume the WoD the way I read Aliens novels, for example.

I consume it as a setting and system for games that I intend to play. The fun for me is mostly in the playing, but also in the reading and planning I do before playing.

All those other things are less powerful and immersive to me than playing it at the table. And they're not what I need from the WoD.

So ultimately, I think having a big brand is good for bringing in new players, but it doesn't necessarily offer anything new to me, personally.

That said, a great VTM TV show or movie would be a nice cherry on top of my gaming sundae. I certainly don't need it, but I'd watch it. Video games I'm unlikely to bother with. Ditto with fiction.

[Heavy Arms]

I see I see. I actually really like the media we have so far,but I understand why you guys might not

I for one am not talking about whether I like a specific piece of media or not (if you look at might post, I actually refer to plenty of the recent stuff as good).

The point is that brand (that thing you specifically made the thread about) is bad. The things that are impressing audiences (not just personal tastes, but aggregate looks at reviews and so on) aren't getting pushed to the forefront to show off the value of the brand, and the things that are disappointing audiences are what's getting press. I don't like the brand, because the brand is shit that's hurting the stuff sold under the brand that I like in an industry that has very thin margins and that could easily mean I stop getting stuff I like.

The reason I don't like Paradox trying to make the WoD a, "big multi media marketing brand,one with a whole lot of games,shows, and overalll exposure," is that by every conceivable metric they have failed, utterly, to do this well. Can they salvage it? Sure. That would be awesome to see. But right now they're giving great free lesson on why all publicity is not, in fact, good publicity.

In fact, because this made my recommendations, I watched it, and it's entirely on point here (this is from a channel with ~25 million subscribers and ~110 million regular viewers, so this is what people that aren't plugged into things are hearing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDSXJttA_rg


Swansong got hit with 9th place on the worst video games of this year list there. And this brutal comment: "Vampire: the Masquerade is that one person the peaked in high school and never really amounted to much afterword."

We know that's not really the case. VtM didn't peak in the early 00s with Bloodlines 1. We know how much awesome stuff has been done with it in the past two decades. But because of how bad the brand is, most people presume VtM is long dead and the attempt by Paradox to revive it already failed. The idea of Paradox trying to expand the brand doesn't upset me, but how badly they messed it up just makes it that much harder to convince people that the WoD is actually worth getting into instead of being something that become uncool before they were born.

[Asmodai]

I don't really see how WoD is a big brand. It's a bigger brand than it was before paradox bought it, but that's a pretty damn low threshold to cross.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Nobody hates Star Wars so much as Star Wars fans.


All I see is wasted potential. The best thing we have is a game that's old enough to drink and there's supposedly a few interactive novels that are ok. Everything else is garbage that just weakens the brand. ANY of the WoD lines, at least if we consider pre-revised content, could launch a plethora of surefire TV shows: Serialized fantasies for adults that dabble in politics like GoT, the Witcher or the Mandalorian have been runaway successes despite frequently dropping the ball when it comes to writing quality. People like this kind of stuff, and the WoD (at least before the introduction of metaplot) is very easy to write for. Yet we get... nothing but disappointment.

[TwoDSix]

I also don't think that WoD is actually getting to new audiences as much as it could be. I've had to explain what it is to friends twice in the past month, both in their twenties and into RPGs plus other nerdy hobbies. It's not even resonating with the 20-sonethings who like vampires, who still only know D&D.

It doesn't help that they released the V5 corebook (which actually did pretty well and is a nice book) and two somewhat problematic supplements, then had multiple rounds of cancelling everything and giving the projects to a new team (we're on like version three of W5?) causing stuff like the V5 Players Guide to be delayed for half a decade. Meanwhile we've not seen any real notice ofa movie, a Kindred: the Embraced remake, or something else along those lines. There's been some comics, but I've not heard anything about new novels*, and while we've had good and faithful video games everything that's not been a text adventure or visual novel has been pretty bad.

Although I'm definitely checking if Steam has Out for Blood and that WtA VN on sale once I've finished posting this.

I really don't think WoD is at its peak. Hell, in 2008 I found the nWoD, VtR, and WtF corebooks in my local Waterstones, I don't think I've seen V5 outside of games shops (and Amazon). So I don't really think the brand is any bigger than it was in the late 2000s, despite Paradox's attempts to grow it.

Would I still go to see a World of Darkness film? Definitely, and I'm sure my girlfriend would love to see vampire politics on the big screen as well. But I don't care about WoD being a big brand beyond 'I don't want to play D&D and I'm struggling to find a group'.

* No, this isn't 'comics are worse than novels', I just expected novels to appear.

[TyrannicalRabbit]

I don't think Paradox is a good steward of their ttrpg ips and I'll leave it at that.