BryonD
Hero
I think one issue is it keeps getting put into these "huge success" or "sliding into oblivion" buckets.Frankly, at this point I wouldn't say that 4e was a mistake - they did listen to a portion of their audience, and that portion is happy with 4e.
Perhaps not the game for either you or me, but it does have its fans.
It is not 'failing and sliding into oblivion', though I think that it may be stagnating at the moment.
Neither is accurate.
I have consitently been in the camp that DDI *IS* a big success. I agree it is making a ton of money, is a great model, and is a step on the path to the future of the marketplace.
And DDI may very well be making a lot more profit per unit of market share. I don't know, but it seems reasonable and I'm more than willing to assume that for sake of discussion.
But there is also no way to reasonably not take notice of the difference between the market domination of 3E and the current position of 4E. During 3E there were complaints about it actually stiffling innovation because it was so firmly dominant in the industry.
That isn't happening now.
I agree that 4E was clearly a bigger seller than 3E. At first. Hell, I bought 4E. There are TONS of people that bought 4E who are no longer interested in playing. That is not to make any point remotely claiming that there are not still many people still playing 4E and loving it. But comparing the out of the gate snapshots of two editions and ignoring the life cycle overall is a really big mistake.
DDI is huge and a great model. And there is no telling how massive D&D and that model would now be if 4E had the overall market appeal that 3E demonstrated.