

Dungeons & Dragons, Marketing, and Everything - portentint
http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2011/01/marketing-dungeons-dragons-2011.htm

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GuoQiangBen
I take issue with one of his contentions that people don't root for the bad
guys. There have been many times when I'm watching a film or playing a video
game where I support the antagonist. Often the 'evil' character is the most
dynamic one, the person responsible for actually moving the plot along.
Villains act, heroes react after all.

Now I say this not to just engage in trivial nitpicking, but because I think
his thesis needs to be refined. The author attributes his idea to a moral
compulsion for people to support the 'good' company, or the one thats trying
to slay a monster. What he's actually identified is the natural tendency for
people to define themselves in opposition to the other. You can't be insanely
loyal to a product unless there is a challenge to it. Its less good versus
evil, its group loyalty vs. the outsider.

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lucasjung
I don't think that he was trying to say that people only root for genuinely
good characters. He was saying that when we do root for the bad guy, we
invariably rationalize it to ourselves by finding ways to think of the bad guy
as not being truly evil. "Misunderstood," or "noble savage," or "at least he
has a personal code he follows faithfully," or at the very least, "not as bad
as the other guys."

We may start out subconsciously rooting for the bad guy because of our desire
to see the plot advanced, but when we catch ourselves doing it we come up with
some other reason why it's acceptable to root for the bad guy in that
particular situation. We want to identify with the central character--if the
central character is not a good person, we need to find traits worthy of our
sympathy and/or empathy.

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horser4dish
Along the same vein, Kevin Rose wrote a blog post
([http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2011/1/11/cityvilles-viral-
growth...](http://kevinrose.com/blogg/2011/1/11/cityvilles-viral-growth-hooks-
levels-1-3-deconstructed.html)) about Facebook games and why they're so
popular. He came to the same conclusion that Ian Lurie did: people want to do
stuff and then tell everybody about it. And I have to agree with both of them.

I bought Crysis 2 the other day and started playing through the story. For
those that don't know, it's your standard FPS with the addition of two
superpowers, invisibility and invulnerability. In a nutshell, my classmates
and I end up spending quite a bit of time talking about how awesome our last
session was, and essentially sharing war stories. And the fact is, we keep
going back and playing, as much to finish the game as to have more stories
tomorrow and the day after.

~~~
phlux
I'm predicting the big problem that Kevin Rose will solve on mobile then will
be social task-list which lets you check-in to activities and have your social
graph digg them up.

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acroyear
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_process>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self>

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Tyr42
Hey, this also applies to minecraft. As a walk down the halls at my school, I
hear people talking about what they have build, or the cave they escaped. It's
talk-aboutable. Not to mention the joy of pure creation.

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alanfalcon
TLDR: Ian’s Three Principles of D&D Marketing. Help your audience:

\- Slay monsters

\- Take their treasure

\- Tell the tale

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hexis
After seeing that House of Representatives chart, I can sure believe he's in
marketing.

