turgy22
Nothing Special
After reading the threads following The Wizard's World and Back Issues, I've been thinking more and more about how Wizards of the Coast should be marketing the Pro Tour and organized Magic in general.
First off, I don't think most people have any problem with the Pro Tour. Some people want to go to the tournaments and that's fine. You do your thing, I'll do mine. But the way it's marketed makes it come across as something that every Magic player should be part of and a lot of the casual players get pissed off over hearing about how great it is. However, the Pro Tour is still obviously something that Wizards should be proud of. It separates Magic from other games and can certainly make it more dynamic. So, naturally, they want to keep it supported and will continue marketing it.
This makes me believe that the entire problem with the PT might not be the event itself, but the way Wizards presents it. It's evident that ideas such as the Pro Player Cards did not go over well with casual players because they were viewed as a self-congratulatory gesture to all the WotC insiders who were once on the PT. Same thing with the so-called Hall of Fame. I think both of these were terrible ideas, but they were both probably marketing ploys to increase interest in the PT.
So my question to all of you is how can Wizards effectively market the Pro Tour without upsetting the larger contingent of purely casual Magic players?
One suggestion I had was that the next time WotC finds themselves with some extra money for marketing, they should include token cards in tournament packs and precons instead of Pro Player Cards. Everyone enjoys getting free token creatures because they're actually useful and therefore wouldn't just throw them away, as is happening with the PPCs. On the backs of the token creatures, they could print a giant advertisement for the Pro Tour. It would actually maintain its visibility since people would hang on to them, thereby making it a more effective advertisement, in addition to giving casual players something they actually want.
Any thoughts of other ideas?
First off, I don't think most people have any problem with the Pro Tour. Some people want to go to the tournaments and that's fine. You do your thing, I'll do mine. But the way it's marketed makes it come across as something that every Magic player should be part of and a lot of the casual players get pissed off over hearing about how great it is. However, the Pro Tour is still obviously something that Wizards should be proud of. It separates Magic from other games and can certainly make it more dynamic. So, naturally, they want to keep it supported and will continue marketing it.
This makes me believe that the entire problem with the PT might not be the event itself, but the way Wizards presents it. It's evident that ideas such as the Pro Player Cards did not go over well with casual players because they were viewed as a self-congratulatory gesture to all the WotC insiders who were once on the PT. Same thing with the so-called Hall of Fame. I think both of these were terrible ideas, but they were both probably marketing ploys to increase interest in the PT.
So my question to all of you is how can Wizards effectively market the Pro Tour without upsetting the larger contingent of purely casual Magic players?
One suggestion I had was that the next time WotC finds themselves with some extra money for marketing, they should include token cards in tournament packs and precons instead of Pro Player Cards. Everyone enjoys getting free token creatures because they're actually useful and therefore wouldn't just throw them away, as is happening with the PPCs. On the backs of the token creatures, they could print a giant advertisement for the Pro Tour. It would actually maintain its visibility since people would hang on to them, thereby making it a more effective advertisement, in addition to giving casual players something they actually want.
Any thoughts of other ideas?