Broken Base Lookback: Editions

[prosfilaes]

I'm just not sure that any data that's been made available is sufficient to say that the 12 year old picture has changed substantially.

Er, on the list of RPGs, #1, #2, #5, #6 and #10 have gone through radical rules changes and even fluff changes, #3 and #7 are licensed games that went out of print shortly after the survey, were reprinted in the 00s under completely different rules sets and are now out of print in any form, and #11 is out of print in any form for a decade. Only #4, #8, #9 and #12 survive in substantially the same form. How could that picture not change?

And, as I mentioned earlier, even sales data don't tell you what people are playing.

Which has not decisively been the question on the table. Just below you say that "D&D 4e is the 800 lbs gorilla of the market" which is not about what people play.

The null hypothesis, i.e., that D&D 4e is the 800 lbs gorilla of the market just as its predecessor was 12 years ago,

You have no evidence that its predecessor was the market leader! Again, the survey you quote says nothing about how well AD&D 2 was selling. It talks about how many people played D&D--that is, OD&D, Basic D&D, AD&D 1 and AD&D 2.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

The null hypothesis, i.e., that D&D 4e is the 800 lbs gorilla of the market just as its predecessor was 12 years ago, still remains a compelling story.

Well, given that all of the data we do have is insufficient, and given that it was the SAME data we would have been using prior...wouldn't the null hypothesis be:

"We don't know who the leader is, and never have."

Because, if the data is insufficient now, where is the sufficient data from the past that shows D&D was ever a major leader?