(Message luke:67)
Date:    Wed, 02 Jun 1999 11:08:09 PDT
To:      <L5Rinfo@frpg.com>
From:    "Luke Peterschmidt" <Lukeout@frpg.com>
Subject: Parting Salvo

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X-ListMember: andy@cowell.org [L5Rinfo@frpg.com]

Hey All,
   After spending the last 5 hours responding to personal emails about the
card redesign stuff, I think it's escalated to the point that I need to bow
out of the conversation for a while. I have a brand to run and I can't spend
this much time on the topic for a while. Note: this doesn't mean I don't
care about what you all think, I will be lurking as ever, I just won't be
responding for a little while as I catch up on other things that have taken
a back seat lately.
   I know you've all got lots of real concerns about the card designs, and
while this may sound very insulting, except for fixing the printing on the
holdings/events and the Scorpion printing too brown, these are your borders
until the next redesign if there ever is one. Have you ever heard of Milton
Bradley putting up for a fan vote what the new RISK pieces would look like?
Of course not. Packaging is a critical brand building element, and brand
building is a "leadership with data" process. I've got the data, and I've
got to make the decisions and stick with them - or the BRAND becomes like a
reed in the wind and then ceases to exist as anything but a wishy-washy
environment with no real meat. A camel is a race horse built by committee.
At key points, things will happen without polling the entire L5R community.
    When I make a decision of this nature I do it with raw data that I then
extrapolate into a plan. For instance, the data clearly showed that a
barrier to new player entry into L5R was the card frames. They were
non-intuitive and busy. I used that data to make the call to change them. I
used my knowledge of the fan base and figured that this decision would upset
some people, but decided that for L5R to succeeded, I had to take the long
view and that this needed to be done. Once I made that decision I just had
to grin and bear the inevitable complaints that were coming down the pipe.
This is not the same as not listening to my customers - it's not doing what
EVERY customer wants. Doing what every customer wants is impossible as you
can all see from the divergent opinions on this list.
   You can be sure that in the future I will gather opinions and votes for
certain things - that's Ed's whole focus right now. I will also gather DATA
which I will use to make the more strategic decisions. If I had put up for a
vote "Should the DCI do tourney sanctioning for L5R", I have a feeling it
would have been voted down. I instead used data to make that call, and the
return data has shown it to be a very prudent move (even thought it probably
would have been against the general will of the players had I asked the
question). I have a feeling that the new card frames will work out the same
way in the long run. Only time will tell.

Back in a week or so,
Luke Peterschmidt
Brand Manager: L5R, LBS



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