Naming convention cancelled; moved to online only.

[Flick Maniac]

Sorry, I meant 9 years ago.

It was cringe, I tell you.

 

[Horsman]

I'll go with Prodigy doesn't sell because of their customer service and their team members. Their customer service is the worst in the business, they will tell you that their discs don't sell because you don't know how to sell. Their sponsored players are also the least approachable in the game, in general. There are obviously exceptions to this but from my experience, their players are the most cocky out of any manufacturer and can't back it up. Their attitudes are also that of entitled little brats.

 

[hiflyer]

When I was still ultra noob, I was always able to get the disc I was looking for, even when I wasn't sure of the name.
If I was noob now, it've sounded more like this:
"Do you have a, ummm, Dv?, DD? D something disc?"
"Which one? V2, V3, R2D2, C3Po, HIV?"
"No, it definitely started with a 'D.' Eh, nevemind. Do you have a, ummm. I think it was Leopold or something like that."
"Oh, you want a leopard? Sure, what color? Weight?"
"Heh heh, yeah, leopard. Well, I want two discs. Just hook me up with any two leopards."

 

[R-Ogre]

They had a couple of runs that faded in color when exposed to sunlight. Apparently the UV protectant additive was missing.

Champ does that too, I bought a Z Buzzz which has been in my bag and a Champ Valk (which has sat in my garage) at the same time, the Valk has practically no color left and the Buzzz still pops

 

[sidewinder22]

Based on the title I was totally not expecting this as early contender for thread of the year. opcorn:

 

[Emoney]

Story time....

Played a prodigy sponsored tourney in AZ years ago. Was ran by the brother of a Prodigy ex pro.........

Finished 3rd in advanced (or 4th)My plastic grocery bag of predetermined discs had a sticker that said $76 value..

I got 4 prodigy discs.... two of them were base plastic...

A friend got 2nd in AM2....his bag said $106....he got 5 discs...two base plastic... he actually drove back and asked for more plastic or if a mistake was made....super cringe... I would never do that.

Even tho I really like the TD and still do... it gave me another reason to stay away from Prodigy.

 

[elmexdela]

Story time....

Played a prodigy sponsored tourney in AZ years ago. Was ran by the brother of a Prodigy ex pro.........

Finished 3rd in advanced (or 4th)My plastic grocery bag of predetermined discs had a sticker that said $76 value..

I got 4 prodigy discs.... two of them were base plastic...

A friend got 2nd in AM2....his bag said $106....he got 5 discs...two base plastic... he actually drove back and asked for more plastic or if a mistake was made....super cringe... I would never do that.

Even tho I really like the TD and still do... it gave me another reason to stay away from Prodigy.

the drive back is the beauty in that story

 

[oldmandiscer]

As far as Prodigy, decent idea to keep it simple but it ended up backfiring when they realized they needed to make new molds/models to sell more discs. Now the simplification turned into a super complication.

What does a D2 or D2 max do versus a D2V2 or whatever. I have no idea. I also don't think any of the discs do anything better then other discs I already have. I tired a half dozen too, just mediocre products.

 

[zendragon]

In the end, I don't hate their naming because I don't get it, I hate it because the vast majority of customers don't get it.

D2, D2V2, D2Max, D2New, D2Pro, D2Signature. 6 different discs

As a retailer, this was the most frustrating. In my experience, in the years of carrying Prodigy, most of Prodigy throwers that came in here (including die hards), didn't have a clue about any of the differences. People walk in and buy a D2V2. They come back and complain that it flies nothing like the D2 that they lost. I have to explain it to them. They buy a D2Max even though I tell them it's nothing like they're looking for. Of course, they hate it because it's nothing like the D2. They buy something that's not Prodigy. I don't know the percent of customers that moved on to something else, but it was a lot.

Whether it's easy or not, people didn't even care to figure it out. Arbitrary words are more memorable than letters and numbers. Especially when some of the numbers and letters don't line up across the board. "I throw an M4 but it's too fast, so I should go with the A4?" "I want a really flippy fairway like my M5 flies, so I should go with F5?" Those situations don't work.

I wonder where D2Signature, D2New, and D2Pro fit in to their flight chart. Is D2New just a D2V3 replacing the D2V2 which replaced the D2 and the D2V2 disappears? No thanks.

In the end, it was a pain having to describe a whole naming convention all the time. Words that have no meaning make more sense to people than Prodigy's attempt at lining things up.

This problem was made even worse with inconsistent runs. When a friend of mine first discovered Prodigy, he had an F7 that he loved. It was understable, but not crazy understable. Decided to buy a backup, which was of course, way less stable. He also threw M4s, which were a little less stable than his main F7, but not as US as his newer F7. I'd heard good things about the M4 overall, but his experience with it turned me off of trying one. I think I even looked at a few on your site before deciding against them.

As far as Prodigy, decent idea to keep it simple but it ended up backfiring when they realized they needed to make new molds/models to sell more discs. Now the simplification turned into a super complication.

What does a D2 or D2 max do versus a D2V2 or whatever. I have no idea. I also don't think any of the discs do anything better then other discs I already have. I tired a half dozen too, just mediocre products.

I remember saying this exact thing about 4 years ago with a couple of their molds. H molds I think? I know there was a big gap in stability between something like an H2 and H3. I don't remember them off the top of my head.

But yeah, Prodigy names aren't terrible to understand, but they're unnecessary and definitely don't have any sort of selling power to them, and have only gotten worse as time goes by.

 

[Blackburn]

What's a RocX3?

It's a flat top Roc that is extra beefy. Is it 3 times as beefy? I don't know.

 

[ThrowBot]

I'm fascinated by the concept that letters and numbers are somehow a deterrent to selling discs. Literally every disc I've ever bought has had letters and numbers associated with it.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I'm fascinated by the concept that letters and numbers are somehow a deterrent to selling discs. Literally every disc I've ever bought has had letters and numbers associated with it.

We refer to people by names not numbers but we have plenty of them associated with our names that could be used.

 

[ThrowBot]

We refer to people by names not numbers but we have plenty of them associated with our names that could be used.

I've heard Steady Ed referred to as #001.

Sportscasters will sometimes refer to players by their jersey number.

 

[Emoney]

Elon Musks sons name

X Æ A-12

Easy to remember and won't ever be confused for anything other than a person's name...amiright :/

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

My job has taken me to hundreds of other workplaces over the years. I've seen in some factories how they use pictures of animals, etc., to help people more easily remember where skids of parts go, like a rabbit or whatever. I had a summer factory job in 1995 apparently before this was a thing and got in trouble for a parts mismatch because I didn't pay attention and missed two or three digits on a long code.

It's way easier for people to remember the "rabbit" parts v.s. the H2567000089733 parts even though rabbits have nothing to do with them.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I know the numbers in Prodigy and Discmania names indicate the stability on a continuum, but I've had to stop on a few occasions and try to remember which way it goes, like does a higher number mean flippier or more stable? It only takes a moment to go, "oh, yeah" and figure it out, but for some reason it's burned in my brain that Stingrays and Stratuseseses are understable and Firebirds and Raptors are overstable.

Back in the '90s I had all the Discs memorized very easily because that's when I became obsessed with the sport (and there were like 30 you could choose from). Sometime around the early aughts it started getting crazy, like with newfangled Valkyries and whatnot. It's insane how many Discs we have now compared to when I was 25.

 

[Flick Maniac]

Elon Musks sons name

X Æ A-12

Easy to remember and won't ever be confused for anything other than a person's name...amiright :/

But if the next one he makes is more stable, what will that be called?

 

[SocraDeez]

Here's a print advertisement from 1992 for a new Discraft mold called the "Marauder".

Image weblink: https://i.ibb.co/dL9ZwdB/DC-Marauder-Ad.jpg

Check out how the ad maker wields the product name to increase saleability:

• "Robbing strokes"
• "Riding the Marauder down the middle of the fairway to steal the purse"
• "Join the gang and ride like the wind"

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

Here's a print advertisement from 1992 for a new Discraft mold called the "Marauder".

Image weblink: https://i.ibb.co/dL9ZwdB/DC-Marauder-Ad.jpg

Check out how the ad maker wields the product name to increase saleability:

• "Robbing strokes"
• "Riding the Marauder down the middle of the fairway to steal the purse"
• "Join the gang and ride like the wind"

I seem to remember a really good old school pro, I'm thinking it was Mike Randolph, showing up to a local tournament like 20 years ago or maybe a little more than that with just a Marauder and doing very well with it. That same guy also had a milk jug to fill up the free Bell's beer from kegs we had there. Fun times!

 

[DavidSauls]

My job has taken me to hundreds of other workplaces over the years. I've seen in some factories how they use pictures of animals, etc., to help people more easily remember where skids of parts go, like a rabbit or whatever. I had a summer factory job in 1995 apparently before this was a thing and got in trouble for a parts mismatch because I didn't pay attention and missed two or three digits on a long code.

It's way easier for people to remember the "rabbit" parts v.s. the H2567000089733 parts even though rabbits have nothing to do with them.

Parking lots at Disney do this, even though there are only about a dozen of them, and remembering "Lot 8" wouldn't be that hard. But the "Goofy" parking lot is even easier.

Innova wisely does not sell its disc by flight numbers, even though buying a " 4 5 -3 1" would tell me what to expect, a lot more than "Stingray" does.

Cars could be sold by the 5 key digits in their VIN which, once you learned them what they mean, would make perfect sense. Instead, we buy cars with nonsensical model names.

*

I understand the idea. When I started in the '90s, I found it silly that golf discs had these names, and even sillier when premium plastics came out. At least the early ("DX") Eagle had an eagle printed on it; now it just had the name. It didn't seem like the sort of thing a serious sport would do. So I can see why some manufacturers might want to present themselves as a little more serious.

But sometimes principle runs up against practical.