Is it WotC’s responsibility to bring people to the hobby?

[Maggan]

Nobody is disputing the publicly available sales numbers at this point

I'm very interested in how the market works, and would like to read more about these publicly available sales numbers. I seem to have missed them, unfortunately.

ICv2 has a ranking, and I guess Amazon has a ranking of sorts, and we have the DDi numbers and whatnot, and Paizo is a sucess as far as anyone can tell, but I'd very much like to get some more details to mull over.

Thanks!

/M

 

[Umbran]

Nobody is disputing the publicly available sales numbers at this point

It is hard to dispute what isn't present. To my knowledge, WotC hasn't released sales numbers. Period. How can you claim what they've lost, if you don't know what they had before and after? I know a lot of weird math, but none that lets you do that with a straight face.

Listen, it is all well and good for you to say that, in your opinion, it was a failure. That would be cool, indisputable, untouchable. But claiming specific market facts without backup is uncool. It is that simple. Data, or it didn't happen. Back it up, or don't claim it.

People disputing these things at this point are just clinging to their own denial.

What I am disputing is, "losing half the market," specifically. That is a very specific sort of claim, sir, and if you want to make it, you ought to be able to back it up. I am disputing the rhetorical form where people make up unsupported numbers and then take them as rationalizations. We should strive for better.

So, can you back it up, or can't you? I'm guessing you can't, or you would have, and made short work of the issue.

Edit: see below.

 

[Umbran]

It was correctly pointed out that the message of the tail end of my last post was muddled. So, let me bring it out here instead. I had said:

"Going ad hominem is not a suitable substitute [for data]. If you cannot handle someone disputing you on a specific factual claim, you shouldn't make it in the first place. You certainly don't get to be insulting in response. "

This is rather important. The world is full of people making unsupported claims, and then using those claims to hang reasoning upon. If you (general "you", the reader) are going to make a specific claim that goes beyond opinion, you should expect that someone will ask for support - only very few people get to make successful Appeal to Authority, and you probably aren't one of them. Just because you assert it, does not make it so.

If that happens, and you don't have the data, ADMIT IT, please. "I'm sorry, I don't have support for that handy" is sufficient. If your point falls apart if your assertion is not accepted, that's your own fault. Getting personal in response is not acceptable. However effective you hope that tactic may be, the ends do not justify the means. The success of your argument does not justify casting aspersions on your fellow gamers.

 

[Jacob Marley]

But D&D needs marketing and development support. It can't afford to just sit there as an established brand like a board game can. Board games don't have to change. They don't have to evolve. D&D does. D&D needs marketing and development, without them it's dead.

Yes. And those funds will be generated through regular business operations. What WotC loses by D&D not being a Core brand is the ability to request additional funds from corporate to build upon their existing marketing and R&D budgets.

The breakdown between Core/Non-core should not be used as a comment on the success or failure of a brand/product line. It is only a statement on how Hasbro, as a corporate entity, is structured.

Look, I am not arguing against what you think WotC needs for D&D to be successful; I'll let someone else jump down that rabbit hole. I am arguing against what you said Hasbro defines as successful because your definition is not what Hasbro actually said.

Sure, but we also happen to know that Hasbro considers any property that is under $50 million/year a failure.

You're conflating Non-core with failure.

 

[S'mon]

I'm very interested in how the market works, and would like to read more about these publicly available sales numbers. I seem to have missed them, unfortunately.

ICv2 has a ranking, and I guess Amazon has a ranking of sorts, and we have the DDi numbers and whatnot, and Paizo is a sucess as far as anyone can tell, but I'd very much like to get some more details to mull over.

Thanks!

/M

Paizo has been quite open talking about their sales AIR, you can probably find some comments from Stevens & Mona if you google. The Amazon rankings are only useful if you keep checking them over a long period of time, day to day they're too ephemeral.
Distributors' published numbers are useful, but don't cover every channel.

Going in your FLGS and seeing what stuff gets the prime real estate and what gets relegated to a back-shelf can also be useful to get a feel for the market. Eg most OSR stuff is a lot more obscure off-line than online, Lamentations of the Flame Princess an exception. I remember I was pretty shocked when I walked into Orcs' Nest in late 2010/early 2011 and saw that Pathfinder had taken over the premium shelves (eye level, facing the door) from 4e D&D, with 4e in the shelves immediately below. It's stayed there ever since.

I don't think we need to know all of 4e D&D's exact income or RoI to know that WotC/Hasbro judged 4e D&D a commercial failure, anyway. You could just pick up the Menzoberranzan book and note that the lack of 4e D&D in it!

 

[Maggan]

Paizo has been quite open talking about their sales AIR, you can probably find some comments from Stevens & Mona if you google. The Amazon rankings are only useful if you keep checking them over a long period of time, day to day they're too ephemeral.
Distributors' published numbers are useful, but don't cover every channel.

Going in your FLGS and seeing what stuff gets the prime real estate and what gets relegated to a back-shelf can also be useful to get a feel for the market. Eg most OSR stuff is a lot more obscure off-line than online, Lamentations of the Flame Princess an exception. I remember I was pretty shocked when I walked into Orcs' Nest in late 2010/early 2011 and saw that Pathfinder had taken over the premium shelves (eye level, facing the door) from 4e D&D, with 4e in the shelves immediately below. It's stayed there ever since.

I don't think we need to know all of 4e D&D's exact income or RoI to know that WotC/Hasbro judged 4e D&D a commercial failure, anyway. You could just pick up the Menzoberranzan book and note that the lack of 4e D&D in it!

Yeah, I do and I've done most of that (although I'm not familiar with the word "AIR" in this circumstance?). I was hoping for some official, "we sold 100 000 Pathfinder rulebooks every year for the last five years" and/or "our sales of D&D books have halved since the release of D&D4, from 100 000 to 50 000 per year".

The only "hardish" figure I've seen was when Dresden Files made the ICv2 list in 2010 after selling 5000 copies. But that's it, and that doesn't really scratch my itch for publicily available sales numbers.

That Pathfinder is outselling D&D at the moment is accepted fact. I'd like to know the magnitude, which I really can't get a handle on from the more touchy feel methods.

Cheers!

/Maggan

 

[S'mon]

AIR - As I Recall.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think we need to know all of 4e D&D's exact income or RoI to know that WotC/Hasbro judged 4e D&D a commercial failure, anyway.

It is possible that 4e was a failure. It is also possible that 4e did just fine and made a tidy profit, but the writing is on the wall that it will not continue to be as much of a success in the future. These are not the same thing, but both are reasons to move into developing a new edition now. However, people tend to conflate the two, or forget the latter is an option.

So, part of it depends on your definition of "success". Is it a success if it earns you a boatload of money for 4 years? Or is is a success only if it does so for 8+ years? Who is making that determination?

 

[Desdichado]

In my experience, most of the folks who want to talk about sales numbers and the "competition" between 4e and Pathfinder (or any other major block of D&D-style game players like lingering 3.5 players, or the OSR) have little to no understanding of statistics, or the limitations of whatever data they do have.

In my opinion, it's helpful to keep your conclusions a bit on the vague rather than quite specific side, and not be afraid to admit when you're being a bit speculative based on data that is somewhat circumstantial.

For example, I believe that the player bases for Pathfinder, 4e, 3.5 and the OSR are all on the same order of magnitude right now. That's already an interesting situation to discuss--assuming that my assumptions and reading of circumstantial data is correct--and there are plenty of interesting (albeit also speculative, obviously) things that can be said about that in relationship to the development, release and marketing of 5e.

I don't see any need to try and quantify which of those four major blocks of D&D-style gamers is "winning." Not only do I not find that a very interesting thing in its own right, it doesn't really yield a conclusion that's particularly meaningful anyway. The fact that the base is fractured as it is is interesting and meaningful. What caused that and what are appropriate reactions from games producing companies (such as WotC or Paizo) is interesting and meaningful. Who's "winning" isn't.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The only "hardish" figure I've seen was when Dresden Files made the ICv2 list in 2010 after selling 5000 copies. But that's it, and that doesn't really scratch my itch for publicily available sales numbers.

That Pathfinder is outselling D&D at the moment is accepted fact. I'd like to know the magnitude, which I really can't get a handle on from the more touchy feel methods.

WotC have brought out 4 D&D books this year, one of them systemless and only just released (Mezzobaran), one of them half an advert for other products (Dungeon Explorers' Handbook) and one of them a poor update to an old product (Undermountain). Paizo on the other hand brought out three Pathfinder books in April - and I'm not aware that was special..