No 5e threads for now, please

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Fifth Element

They'd be surrendering to who or what exactly?

The "white flag" wasn't meant to be taken literally.

A "final edition" sounds like defeatism.

[Samuel Leming]

Originally Posted by Maggan

It would be interesting to look a bit more closely at the numbers for a while forward. EN World has roughly 83 000 members. TheRPGsite has, let's see ... roughly 2300 members. I can't find numbers for Paizo on their site, which is probably a good idea for them. (EDIT: for competition reasons, Paizo might not want to flaunt their numbers. That's my thinking.)

Paizo has over 50,000 members. They're claiming that there have been over 50,000 downloads of the Pathfinder Beta. Since you have to have a board account to download the beta and they only count the first download it can be extrapolated that their board has over 50,000 members.

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Samuel Leming

Paizo has over 50,000 members. They're claiming that there have been over 50,000 downloads of the Pathfinder Beta. Since you have to have a board account to download the beta and they only count the first download it can be extrapolated that their board has over 50,000 members.

I downloaded the Pathfinder beta, but I've never used it once in any games. I just looked over it a dozen or so times, trying to find obvious deviations from 3.5E D&D.

I don't post on the Paizo boards either. Wonder how many "active" posters they actually really have there.

[Samuel Leming]

Originally Posted by ggroy

I don't post on the Paizo boards either. Wonder how many "active" posters they actually really have there.

The data can be scraped. How's your Perl?

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Samuel Leming

The data can be scraped. How's your Perl?

"while(1) fork();"

[Samuel Leming]

Originally Posted by ggroy

"while(1) fork();"

Ok, you can write a wabbit, but can you program a scraper?

My point is that the answer to your question is there if you want it.

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Samuel Leming

Ok, you can write a wabbit, but can you program a scraper?

I haven't written such a program recently.

I haven't touched perl in over 10 years. Hopefully it hasn't changed drastically from the camel book days.

[Fifth Element]

Originally Posted by ggroy

The "white flag" wasn't meant to be taken literally.

A "final edition" sounds like defeatism.

Is admitting defeat a very different thing from surrendering? In most cases I'd say they're pretty much synonymous.

But moving beyond the semantics, my point remains. Why would it be "defeatism" any more than it would be "moving to a different business model in response to changes in the market?"

If a market or product is no longer viable, then making a change is the only rational thing to do. Responding to changes in a market is not "defeatism". Refusing to respond to such changes is plain stubborness or short-sightedness, and can lead to the downfall of a product line.

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Fifth Element

But moving beyond the semantics, my point remains. Why would it be "defeatism" any more than it would be "moving to a different business model in response to changes in the market?"

What I'm thinking of is the perception of a "final edition". If I was marketing a product, I would certainly not use a name which may have some negative connotations. Placing a label of "final edition" sounds like the company doesn't have much confidence in their own product. Shareholders may also catch on to this, and dump their stock in the process (ie. by the "cockroach theory" whether real or perceived).

Cockroach Theory

If a product line is going to be changed to something else, such as D&D moving to an online DDI type of model, I would certainly not put the words "final edition" on the cover of the core books. Even if the D&D books are going the way of the dodo anyways, I would just let the books sell until hardly anybody is buying them anymore and adjust print runs accordingly. Putting the words "final edition" on the cover would just look bad.

[Fifth Element]

Originally Posted by ggroy

Placing a label of "final edition" sounds like the company doesn't have much confidence in their own product.

Does it? Why doesn't it sound like they have so much confidence in their product that they can't possibly improve on it?

Originally Posted by ggroy

If a product line is going to be changed to something else, such as D&D moving to an online DDI type of model, I would certainly not put the words "final edition" on the cover of the core books. Even if the D&D books are going the way of the dodo anyways, I would just let the books sell until hardly anybody is buying them anymore and adjust print runs accordingly. Putting the words "final edition" on the cover would just look bad.

So don't use the words "final edition". Call it "Ultimate Edition", that's what ultimate means, but it's a much sexier term.

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Fifth Element

Why doesn't it sound like they have so much confidence in their product that they can't possibly improve on it?

I wasn't talking about whether a company can possibly improve on their product or not.

I was talking about the "perception" alone.

Personally, the words "final edition" on a D&D book wouldn't faze me at all since I'm familiar with the product line.

Though, if I was an impressionable teenager today (ie. if I was my 13 year old self again) and saw some D&D books with "final edition" written on the front cover, it would certainly color my perception of the product. My first thought would be, does this book suck and will this company be shortly dropping it anyways. I probably would just pass it by, and see what other rpgs books are on the shelf.

Originally Posted by Fifth Element

So don't use the words "final edition". Call it "Ultimate Edition", that's what ultimate means, but it's a much sexier term.

This would be a better marketing strategy. At least it doesn't have as many obvious negative connotations.

[ggroy]

If I was my 13-year-old self again and saw some "D&D Ultimate Edition" books on the store shelf, I would probably be tempted to open the cover and take a look. If it also had a lot of cool artwork, the more the better. Perhaps it could even convince me to buy it on impulse.

I will admit that I actually first bought the Moldvay basic D&D box set on impulse. I didn't know anything about D&D previously, but I thought the box cover artwork looked cool. At first before opening up the box, I was thinking the box contained a puzzle or board game of some sort.

[Fifth Element]

Originally Posted by ggroy

This would be a better marketing strategy. At least it doesn't have as many obvious negative connotations.

I don't think anyone was actually saying they would print the words "final edition" on the cover. If that's what you were protesting, I don't think anyone would really argue with you.

[ggroy]

Originally Posted by Fifth Element

If that's what you were protesting, I don't think anyone would really argue with you.

That's exactly what I was protesting about.

Though I wouldn't protest about having "D&D Ultimate Edition" written on the front cover.

Perception is everything when it comes to the impulse buying habits of 13 year old kids.

[Fifth Element]

Originally Posted by ggroy

That's exactly what I was protesting about.

You can understand my confusion then. If you check the posts you were responding to, they were discussing a "final edition" business model. I don't see where they suggested the edition would be marketed as the Final Edition.