WOTC is angry!

[Hervé]

I don't see DD4 as a bad thing. If we don't like it no one forces us to play it.
But I think any attempt to emulate the market by publishing more "mainstream" products can be good for the industry as a whole.

 

[flatscan]

Nobody said WOTC is going to fold. I'm not taking it that far, but I think it's obvious that a sudden concern over supposed IP regulation at the beginning of the next major marketting phase of this game reeks of internal profit concerns, full stop.

No, it's really not obvious at all. You don't know what's happening at WotC right now. You only know what you read on blogs, message boards, can conjecture, and what you WANT the situation to be. I imagine every corporation operating in the U.S. is having internal profit concerns. You posit they pulled the PDFs because they're cutting into 4e profits? The money is going to WotC either way.

Put it another way (although I think someone else already did), if 4th edition is doing gangbusters sales, then whu be concerned atbout 3.X content? <snip>

Why/how does one follow the other? Any way you slice it it's better for WotC to control distribution then continue distribution through third party retailers. They have more control over their products and get a larger percentage of the sale. It pissed off a lot of people, sure, but the internet is not everybody.

<snip> Yeah, Mongoose comes up with theri supplements too, but they didn't put out Conan 2nd edition with marketting stating "there's other classes and feats too, but they're coming later".

Are you forgetting the multiple PHBs for 3.5, multiple DMGs for 3.5, and 5 MMs for 3.5? Did you NEED any of those extra core books to play 3.5? I'm sorry, but I can't believe this needs to be stated. You don't NEED PHB2 to play D&D 4e. At all.

Fact is, Paizo and Mongoose are doing well enough, so well in fact, without a massive marketting campaign that there are thousands of people on this forum who buy their product via nothing more than word of mouth, and have produced three edition of Conan, two of B5 RPG and many other RPG products...with zero marketting and consistant sales. They published COncn 2nd edition with no marketting to speak of save the chatter here, in the forums, and all of us doing thier work for them (and prously, I must add).

Nice revisionist history there. There wasn't nearly as much advertising for Conan 2e as for D&D 4e but there were magazine ads. And they were lame as hell too. Some construction worker holding the book between two slices of bread with a single-word headline, "Meaty." With embarrassing ads like that I can see why they don't do much more.

I will state this though. I never claimed Mongoose was hurting. Conan is my #1 fav RPG and I don't play D&D 4e anymore. I own a single book, the first PHB, and the group I played with are still going through the adventures that came out at release with only PHB 1. I could give a rats ass about Paizo though. Never bought anything from them and probably never will.

 

[Sutek]

You only know what you read on blogs and can conjecture, and what you WANT the situation to be. I imagine every corporation operating in the U.S. is having internal profit concerns. You posit they pulled the PDFs because they're cutting into 4e profits? That's absurd. The money is going to WotC either way.

I don't read blogs, I just have a good grasp of marketting strategies, and WOTC has been doing this sort of thing since the initial release of Magic. SO, to me, it's obvious. To you, maybe not so much.

Also, you completely misunderstand me: I don't assert that third party 3.X PDF sales are cutting into 4th edition profits. I assert that 3.X still being in existance scares the hell out of WOTC, and one way to recoup the effective loss of it's continued life afte 4th edition is to hone in on securing as much of it as they can, such as cutting off third party 3.X PDF sales on the web and taking it on themselves, re-branding and remarketting it so that generated revenue goes solely to WOTC.

3.X is still going strong, and that's a damper (not to mention a thumb in the eye) on the success of 4th edition.

Any way you slice it it's better for WotC to control distribution then continue distribution through third party retailers. They have more control over their products and get a larger percentage of the sale. It pissed off a lot of people, sure, but the internet is not everybody.

Erm...WOTC don't control third party retailers, other than to allow them to sell product via lisence. In other words, RPGNow may sell 1000 copies of 3.0 PHB for $10 each, allowed by WOTC, but WOTC don't have any control over how they sell it, or how many sales are made. That's why they want control to revert to them by rescinding the distribution liscenses and selling those files themselves. They can then put a limited life on it, and kill it if they want, hopefully taking th esteam out of the 3.X resurgeance in spite of 4th ed mass marketing. Or, they simply control the property, it becomes a success and they profit from both lines, but increase cost to $12...or whatever.

My guess is that they want to do the former before the latter in hopes of killing off 3.X, or by re-writing those 3.X materials to be suitable for 4th ed also, merely taking away the sales from third party vendors in hopes that those sales losses will make it hard for sits like RPGNow to still opperate with qulity material.

What part of this do you not get? You don't NEED PHB2 to play D&D 4e. At all. Are you forgetting the multiple PHBs for 3.5, multiple DMGs for 3.5, and 5 MMs for 3.5? Did you NEED any of those to play 3.5?

I do "get it". There's no need to get all riled up, here.

The multiple 3.X PHBs were mutually exclusive and were modifications of the core rules. 4th ed PHBs are not going ot work that way. The are additions to the rules, such that Feats and Exploits listed in PHB2 on out can be used by characters generated with classes appearing in PHB1. The philosophy is that players will consider the PHB2 on out with a greater option to buy because it can directly effect play. 3.X PHB2 wasn't like that. It was game expanding, but not to the degree that 4th edition is.

I thik we just fundamentally disagree here, so let's drop that aspect of debate.

Fact is, Paizo and Mongoose are doing well enough, so well in fact, without a massive marketting campaign that there are thousands of people on this forum who buy their product via nothing more than word of mouth, and have produced three edition of Conan, two of B5 RPG and many other RPG products...with zero marketting and consistant sales. They published Conan 2nd edition with no marketting to speak of save the chatter here, in the forums, and all of us doing thier work for them (and prously, I must add).

Nice revisionist history there. There wasn't nearly as much advertising for Conan 2e as for D&D 4e but there were magazine ads. And they were lame as hell too. Some construction worker holding the book between two slices of bread with a single-word headline, "Meaty." With embarrassing ads like that I can see why they don't do much more.

I didn't see a single Conan ad in, say EGM, or my X-men comics, and I never even saw this "lame" ad you refer to. WHether it was lame or not is the pinicle of irrelevance, however, because my point is still factual and you've totally failed to address it. MGP didn't market Conan Hardcore and it's one of the better selling 3.X products out there, as evidences by what I see at local game and book stores. If there's one copy of Conan 2ed next to five copies of PHB2 on the shelf, a huge stand containing more copies of it, and a large poster int he window...I read that as Conan still doing better because there's fewer product with WAAAYYY less exposure. If you're selling you product with no advertising, then the quality is what's driving success, not pretty pictures and loads of marketting dollars.

I will state this though. I never claimed Mongoose was hurting. Conan is my #1 fav RPG and I don't play D&D 4e anymore. I own a single book, the first PHB, and the group I played with are still going through the adventures that came out at release with only PHB 1. I could give a rats ass about Paizo though. Never bought anything from them and probably never will.

Uhh...okay.

Not sure why the totally negative attitude towards Piazo, but if you like Conan, I'd say that Pathfinder is definitely worth a glance as it really is, in my opinion, a lot closer to a D&D 4.0 than 4th edition turned out to be. Okay...maybe it's D&D 3.75, but it's really good and really solid and has a ton of nice fixes to many 3.X rules glitches along with some very well thought through new rules, from classes to combat. It's worth a look, and you can download the Beta set for free still, I think. Hardley a huge risk there.

 

[decker423]

You only know what you read on blogs and can conjecture, and what you WANT the situation to be. I imagine every corporation operating in the U.S. is having internal profit concerns. You posit they pulled the PDFs because they're cutting into 4e profits? That's absurd. The money is going to WotC either way.

I don't read blogs, I just have a good grasp of marketting strategies, and WOTC has been doing this sort of thing since the initial release of Magic. SO, to me, it's obvious. To you, maybe not so much.

Also, you completely misunderstand me: I don't assert that third party 3.X PDF sales are cutting into 4th edition profits. I assert that 3.X still being in existance scares the hell out of WOTC, and one way to recoup the effective loss of it's continued life afte 4th edition is to hone in on securing as much of it as they can, such as cutting off third party 3.X PDF sales on the web and taking it on themselves, re-branding and remarketting it so that generated revenue goes solely to WOTC.

3.X is still going strong, and that's a damper (not to mention a thumb in the eye) on the success of 4th edition.

I have to agree. I've mentioned it twice but I'll expound. There is a chain of used book stores in east TN (Oak Ridge, a few in Knoxville and 1 in the Tri-cities, where I live). Weeks before 4th edition came out A LOT of gamers (many who I don't know, it seems they came out of the woodwork) traded in or sold their 3.5 stuff to the bookstore (the store refuses to take 3.0 game material, have done so for years since they have gamers on the staff).

Now, the Role Playing Section of the book store is so large that it is in essence a gamer's store. I"m talking several BIG shelves full of RPG products. D&D took up half the space.

Before the release of 4.0 D&D any and EVERY 3.5 book was there. Everyone was anticipating D&D 4.0.

I'm pretty old so I prefer to wait and see how things go before selling/trading books or buying new ones.

Within 1 week of 4th ed. coming out almost everyone I knew said it wasn't that good (some said worse).

Within 3 weeks of 4th ed. coming out I run into a few copies of 4th ed. material in the "used RPG" section. I'm astounded. I heard it wasn't good but obviously some people thought such ill of it that they were trading it in before the damn books were 1 month old (purchase wise)!

Speed up to today- there's hardly any 3.5 D&D material in that store. Where once I could have bought anything for a decent price, I can't find ANYTHING. I CAN find quite a few 4.0 D&D books and adventures and stuff.

I said before, people vote with their feet and their money. It may be different where you live but in my area, it is obvious that the gaming community overall prefers 3.5 to 4th edition- they're buying back their own books for Gawd's sake!

My 2 cents.

 

[Sutek]

We've got a huge local store that essentially feeds the nearly 7 million residents of the Houston area. There are smaller stores in outlying areas (the 500-800 sq ft variety) that keep the pace and allow folks to not have to drive into Nan's Game Headquarters, a massive 1500 sq ft titan of gaming and comics, so far as my experience goes.

The only 3.X material that the keep on shelves without selling completely out is Spycraft and Modern. It's not what's "in" right now.

The 4th ed books have dust on them.

Now this, and the used books story above, are likely isolated, but it speaks to the trend of people, gaming customers, not buying into the hype and jumping fuly on the 4th ed bandwagon. There's a loyal base, and product moves, but once reorders come in, the slaes stall.

Remember back to when White Wolf changed up Vampire. The tweaked the system, altered the clans, and almost changed up the game world wholesale. Since then, most WW games just sit. Another bungle that lasted them about 3 years tops, and then resulted inthe last gasp, a brand new Hunter game which also aappears to not be successful.

These are all just observations. I'm not some sort of game industry insider or jedi or anything (lol), but I can see whrn things aren't churning, and the current tactics or WOTC just appear to be more desperate than calculated.

 

[flatscan]

I don't read blogs, I just have a good grasp of marketting strategies, and WOTC has been doing this sort of thing since the initial release of Magic. SO, to me, it's obvious. To you, maybe not so much.

Nice back-handed insult. I guess my degree and professional career in advertising is subordinate to your gut. :roll:

Also, you completely misunderstand me: I don't assert that third party 3.X PDF sales are cutting into 4th edition profits. I assert that 3.X still being in existance scares the hell out of WOTC, and one way to recoup the effective loss of it's continued life afte 4th edition is to hone in on securing as much of it as they can, such as cutting off third party 3.X PDF sales on the web and taking it on themselves, re-branding and remarketting it so that generated revenue goes solely to WOTC.

This makes no sense. 3.X is still WotC products. Why would PDF sales of their products scare them? Seriously man, your theory is sounding more tinfoil hat wearing by the second. But as you said, time will tell. And right now, reality, and the numbers evidence say 4e is selling well. Yes, yes, you have an editorial that some guy wrote saying bestseller lists mean nothing. Awesome. Amazon's bestseller list is based on sales through Amazon. So ignore the WSJ all you want.

3.X is still going strong, and that's a damper (not to mention a thumb in the eye) on the success of 4th edition.

It is? Going strong you say? You have numbers or evidence to back this up yes? And I'm not talking about what you and your buddies spend your dollars on. I'm talking hard numbers (at least nation-wide) evidence.

Erm...WOTC don't control third party retailers, other than to allow them to sell product via lisence. In other words, RPGNow may sell 1000 copies of 3.0 PHB for $10 each, allowed by WOTC, but WOTC don't have any control over how they sell it, or how many sales are made. That's why they want control to revert to them by rescinding the distribution liscenses and selling those files themselves. They can then put a limited life on it, and kill it if they want, hopefully taking th esteam out of the 3.X resurgeance in spite of 4th ed mass marketing. Or, they simply control the property, it becomes a success and they profit from both lines, but increase cost to $12...or whatever.

Re-read what I wrote previously slowly and carefully. You may come to realize I made no claim that WotC controlled third party retailers. In fact I said the opposite, essentially agreeing with you. WotC having control of their distribution by ending relationships with 3rd party PDF retailers works in WotC favor because in that manner they control the means of distribution. Whereas with third party distributors selling the PDFs get a cut of the sales goes to the retailer.

The multiple 3.X PHBs were mutually exclusive and were modifications of the core rules. 4th ed PHBs are not going ot work that way. The are additions to the rules, such that Feats and Exploits listed in PHB2 on out can be used by characters generated with classes appearing in PHB1. The philosophy is that players will consider the PHB2 on out with a greater option to buy because it can directly effect play. 3.X PHB2 wasn't like that. It was game expanding, but not to the degree that 4th edition is.

New feats were introduced in COUNTLESS 3.X supplements. You could choose to use them or not. The same is true for 4e. Nobody from WotC is going to your house to force you to use new feats from new 4e books. You are claiming things that are simply not true. You can play 4e just fine without EVER picking up PHB 2. There are plenty of groups out there that are doing just that.

I didn't see a single Conan ad in, say EGM, or my X-men comics, and I never even saw this "lame" ad you refer to. WHether it was lame or not is the pinicle of irrelevance, however, because my point is still factual and you've totally failed to address it. MGP didn't market Conan Hardcore and it's one of the better selling 3.X products out there, as evidences by what I see at local game and book stores. If there's one copy of Conan 2ed next to five copies of PHB2 on the shelf, a huge stand containing more copies of it, and a large poster int he window...I read that as Conan still doing better because there's fewer product with WAAAYYY less exposure. If you're selling you product with no advertising, then the quality is what's driving success, not pretty pictures and loads of marketting dollars.

No. Your claim was that Mongoose didn't market Conan AT ALL and it was just the awesome power of the boards and the product itself that sold it. That is patently false, marketing existed for the Conan RPG. Just because you didn't see the ads doesn't mean they didn't exist.

Not sure why the totally negative attitude towards Piazo, but if you like Conan, I'd say that Pathfinder is definitely worth a glance as it really is, in my opinion, a lot closer to a D&D 4.0 than 4th edition turned out to be. Okay...maybe it's D&D 3.75, but it's really good and really solid and has a ton of nice fixes to many 3.X rules glitches along with some very well thought through new rules, from classes to combat. It's worth a look, and you can download the Beta set for free still, I think. Hardley a huge risk there.

Mainly, it's the elitist attitude of Pathfinder and Paizo fans that have turned me off of buying their products. You guys have trumped Paizo as the way the truth and the light and it's basically house rules to 3.X. It works for you. Great, have fun gaming. 4e works for a WHOLE bunch of gamers. You don't want it to, so you believe it doesn't. Your belief is irrelevant though as the numbers show (again, look at Amazon's numbers if you don't believe the WSJ numbers are honest) it's selling well. Hell, just look at Obsidian Portal and other wiki sites for the amount of 4e games being played. Right now the numbers on OP are D&D 3.5 (1139) games being played, and D&D 4E (2098) games.

Look man. You don't like 4e. Ok. That's fine, that's your opinion. Play what you enjoy. But you and some noisy jerks on the internet complaining about 4e does not equal all of gamerdom. Remember Snakes on a Plane? That movie (along with Serenity) showed that just because a lot of voices on the internet feel strongly about a product does not mean the product will succeed or fail based on those internet voices. There is material data out there that speaks contrary to that. D&D 4e is going to be here for at least as long as 3.X. Even Mongoose and Paizo are supporting it with products. Better get used to it.

 

[Sutek]

Nice back-handed insult. I guess my degree and professional career in advertising is subordinate to your gut.

Going strong you say? You have numbers or evidence to back this up yes? And I'm not talking about what you and your buddies spend your dollars on. I'm talking hard numbers (at least nation-wide) evidence.

Mainly, it's the elitist attitude of Pathfinder and Paizo fans [...]. Hell, just look at Obsidian Portal and other wiki sites for the amount of 4e games being played. Right now the numbers on OP are D&D 3.5 (1139) games being played, and D&D 4E (2098) games.

A) If I were going to even attempt to insult you, I'd do it. As far as your career choice and how good you feel you are at it, yeah...I'm gonna say I'll trust my gut and 40 years of gaming more, because...

B) ...you throw being an advertising professional around, and demand I show numbers that 3.X is going strong and challenging 4th edition, and then you do it yourself. Granted, it's internet requests for games or whatever, but without direct marketing/sales data from Mongoose, Paizo and WOTC to compare to one another...I'll take you Obsidian Portal numbers. 1139 for 3.X versus 2098 for 4th = slightly less than a 2:1 ratio, mister "my degree and professional career in advertising is subordinate to your gut". If you don't think that an aproximate 50% active market share is a significant enough threat to 4th edition, I'd suggest checking the seal on your diploma, mate.

You're the one being nasty, elitist, argumentative and beligerent here, and I can understand that losing and argument can bring that aout in people sometimes. I do the same thing sometimes: turn into an arrogant jerk when I know that I've been proved wrong in the face of overwheling evidence. It must really be embarassing to be so incorrect with all those fancy diplomas and degrees in advertising that you suddenly seem to want to show off, so I totally get you attitude.

See if you can find the insult in that.

I'm jsut tryingo to carry on a discussion based on the premise set in the initial post. You want to simply have this end "your way" and now that it's probably not going to, you have decided to become defensive and insulting, and that's too bad. You usually seem like a pretty okay guy, but ignoring facts to be rude is lame.

My ultimate point is that WOTC are syphoning 3.X material back under their control because they (a) don't want other third party sellers to make money off of it, (b) they are hurting with regard to 4th edition in competition with what amounts to a discontinued version of the game, (c) all in the face of thier assertion that 4th edition would be the be-all-end-all of RPGs, and the players are saying otherwise with their wallets. The mere fact that ANYTHING 3.X is still selling is proof that they were wrong about how marvelous 4th edition would be, and, if the numbers you yourself put forth are an indicator to how tough it really is for them, 3.X are being played...still...and at a little more than half as much as what was advertised as the penultimate RPG.

Facts are, not everyone is buying into the WOTC party line, and WOTC wants to regain as much ground as possible. The easist way to do that right now is eliminate third party sales of 3.X PDF material.

 

[Hervé]

I'm sorry to interfere in your fight but you both got it wrong here. You're reasoning with your hardcore veteran gamer mind. DD4 wasn't meant for people like you (or me, as we belong the same category). The examples (like Obsidian Portal or other specialist "hardcore" sites) you are both taking don't reflect at all DD4 market. DD4 represents far more than "an approximate 50% active market share" when compared to 3x, as the means of distributing the product are different and wider.

The numbers on Obsidian Portal are not reflecting the gaming industry as whole, people, not at all. Remember that we are not the main targets for DD4. The game addresses to a wider range of people, not only to hardcore old timers like us...

It's not because there are people still playing ADD2 today than DD3x didn't wipe it out. It is just the same with DD4. There will still be people than keep on using 3x, and probably third party publishers that will keep on printing material, but it would be a major mistake to narrow DD4 market to the people or sites you are familiar with...

Some of us just have a hard time accepting than 3x has become a Dinosaur, a bit like all of us. BTW who's under 30 or 35 on this forum?
I'm 44 and I know that DD4 wasn't designed for people like me but for a whole new generation of players who grew up with MMOs and fantasy movies.

Evolve or die. That's what life is about, pals...

 

[Krushnak]

BTW who's under 30 or 35 on this forum?
I'm 44 and I know that DD4 wasn't designed for people like me but for a whole new generation of players who grew up with MMOs and fantasy movies.

Im 23. i play wow and i cant really see anything new that it has done that i would want to see in a pen and paper rpg. oh and fail move by wotc.

 

[Demetrio]

I agree with Herve.

It seems to me that a lot of 3.5 players hate 4th ed. and therefore want it to fail. So they seize upon anything that would back up that assumption, or could be intepreted as backig that assumption. It's very natural to do so. But it doesn't actually make it so.

Maybe 4th ed. will fall flat. Maybe. But just remember that 3.5 had loads of fauls and loads of detractors. And it still sold strongly

 

[rabindranath72]

I don't know how 4e is going, but I can tell for sure that I bought it, tried it, and even liked it, but not as D&D.
Also, the new idea behind the marketing is that every book is core (at least judging from what WotC itself says on its website). The old "three books model" has been replaced by "N books model". Obviously one can play only with the first 3 books, but the problem is: will I find references to PHBx, DMGx and MMx, for x>1, when, say, a new campaign setting is published? With D&D 3 almost all of the supplements, adventures and settings only required the 3 Core books (and in fact, I only own the 3.0 PHB, DMG and MM; they have been more than sufficient to use the settings I was interested in)
With 4e it seems it won't be this way. The FR4e setting only uses the first three books, since it was the first published setting. Perhaps Eberron will tell if they are really going the route of N core books or not. I hope not.

 

[kintire]

But just remember that 3.5 had loads of fauls and loads of detractors. And it still sold strongly

So I'm not the only one suffering massive deja vu?

This is exactly the argument that raged when 3rd edition came out. Almost to the word.

 

[rabindranath72]

But just remember that 3.5 had loads of fauls and loads of detractors. And it still sold strongly

So I'm not the only one suffering massive deja vu?

This is exactly the argument that raged when 3rd edition came out. Almost to the word.

Yes, truly! And quite annoying, to be honest.

 

[Bygoneyrs]

Hey speaking for myself I have been playing D&D in one version or another for over 32+ years now. Now I liked D&D v2.5 the best, but have a huge/vast collection of resorce to support v3.5 too. I have read D&D v4 and it is just not for me, so this 45 year old gamer chooses to just drop going on to D&Dv4. Now my two sons (13/10) I have shown many systems such as; Hero's System v5 revised, Traveller, D20 (many other besides D&D v3.5) like Conan. If either of them want to pursue D&D v4 I will help them by buying them the books, but they both like HS v5 Revised and or the d20 system. I collect a wide range of stuff beyond just my focus games/systems to also add to my gaming library, but everything is resource materials to my view for my various campaigns.

So I wish D&D v4 WOTC good luck, but I will not throw the gobs of cash I could at it because I have chosed to not bother with it because it is not what I consider true D&D that I know and love plus have played now for as I said 32+ yrs.

Penn

 

[decker423]

I agree with Herve.

It seems to me that a lot of 3.5 players hate 4th ed. and therefore want it to fail. So they seize upon anything that would back up that assumption, or could be intepreted as backig that assumption. It's very natural to do so. But it doesn't actually make it so.

Maybe 4th ed. will fall flat. Maybe. But just remember that 3.5 had loads of fauls and loads of detractors. And it still sold strongly

For me, I don't want it to fail. I'm going to be 40 shortly. I began playing in 1980. I've played all varients of D&D. I've played and run multiple games from different companies (Shadowrun, Rifts, Legend of the 5 Rings, Cthulhu, etc.).

I like to think that I know games. Not necessarily the game industry but games.

I like most games, love a few and dislike maybe 2-3. I admit to also being one of those people who initially didn't like White Wolf's change in Vampire (and I still don't but that didn't stop me from buying the books and running a campaign in the latest edition).

It is my opinion (mine, I only speak for myself) that for what I've read of 4.0 (the actual books, not mine, a friend's) and multiple conversations with quite a few games (both experienced, newbie and intermediate) that 4.0 D&D, in my area anyway, isn't exactly a hit.

I don't want it to fail and I didn't want it to. A lot of people here were actually looking forward to it. It's just that when it arrived in the area, it seemed to either fall flat or dissapoint a lot of people in a short amount of time and word of mouth spread.

Marketing, research, distribution, etc., I leave that to WOTC.

Bottom line, I don't want it to fail but I won't buy into a game system that I'm convinced doesn't improve on the previous edition.

 

[decker423]

Remember that we are not the main targets for DD4. The game addresses to a wider range of people, not only to hardcore old timers like us...

Some of us just have a hard time accepting than 3x has become a Dinosaur, a bit like all of us. BTW who's under 30 or 35 on this forum?
I'm 44 and I know that DD4 wasn't designed for people like me but for a whole new generation of players who grew up with MMOs and fantasy movies.

I agree, mostly, I don't think 3.0 or 3.5 are dinosaurs but I TOTALLY agree of the demographic that WOTC is going for. There is a generationa gap between us (those in our late 30s, 40s) and those in their 20s. I've noticed it for some time. Good point Herve'.

 

[flatscan]

The numbers on Obsidian Portal are not reflecting the gaming industry as whole, people, not at all. Remember that we are not the main targets for DD4. The game addresses to a wider range of people, not only to hardcore old timers like us...

Sure. As I said, the internet does not equal all of gamerdom. However, Sutek didn't accept numbers from Amazon, or the Wall Street Journal's bestsellers list. He expected us to accept his gut instead of numerical evidence. I posted the Obsidian Portal numbers because you can't simply discount those by saying "bestseller lists don't count." Those are user created wikis for specific games. And on that site (the only one of it's kind AFAIK), D&D 4e is king. This opposed, again, by no evidence by the man, other than his appeal to his gut. :roll:

BTW who's under 30 or 35 on this forum?
I'm 44 and I know that DD4 wasn't designed for people like me but for a whole new generation of players who grew up with MMOs and fantasy movies.

I'll be 30 this year. New, young players are the target market for WotC and I don't fit into that market either. But I'm ok with that. Thank you for getting it Herve.

Evolve or die. That's what life is about, pals...

That's signature worthy. :wink:

 

[Sting52jb]

Did you ever consider that the reason 4th edition was bigger on obsidian porthole then 3.x is the fact that the demographic that they are looking for is a generation much more familiar with the workings of the internet and a generation who live on such websites as Myspace and Facebook.

Many of the hardcore 3.x gamers are in their early 30's to mid 40's would be my guess and not as prone to utilizing a resource such as Obsidian Porthole. I personally have an Obsidian Porthole account and I just use it to back up my information in case my computer crashes so I don't loose anything important.

A lot of the other games I've seen on there especial 4th edition games seem to be played utilizing Obsidian Porthole as a gaming tool itself, not a resource. And from what I've heard 4th edition caters to this style of play. Hence a reason why 4th edition rains supreme on Obsidian Porthole.

Just my theory.

 

[Demetrio]

I think he did consider that, yes.

But the very fact that it is a success on OP kind of points to the fact that prople are buying the game in numbers. And that is supported by the other statistics mentioned.

 

[Sutek]

Dang...Demetrio sunned ne up in two lines. (lol)

I was in fact point out that if Obsidian Portal is worth quoting as an accurate source of what's popular in RPGs, then 3.X games are active around 50% of what DD4 games are. That's less "popular", but it also could be a factor od a younger, more net savvy DD4 crowd posting more DD4 requests. I don't even know what Obsidian Portal is (lol) so I likewise don't know if it's a good yardstick by which to measure an RPGs sales successes, but I'm going to guess that it isn't, and so it doesn't.

However, as Demetrio cleaned it up nicely, I've got little more to say. I think DD4 is doing alright sales-wise, but WOTC is sucking up as much 3.X PDF product in order to repackage it and sell it off thier own site as exclusive content.

As an aside, I see that WOTC has come out with fig packs with three figs to a pack, each pack being one of their new "power source" categories, such as three Primal, or three Arcane figs per pack. Again, an obviousl calculated ploy on theit part to tie on a collectible aspect the the RPG. Now the sub-division of Classes in that way finally makes sense. :wink: