New Faces (Forked: Its the terminology that kills me...)

[Hussar]

<shrug> I don’t know a lot about it. What I do know, is that among the people I know, more don’t play it than do.

Yes, because your experience is a better metric than the fact that WOW has a larger player base than many countries have population.

Odd example that. Last time I fished, it was no different than the first time. Bamboo pole, line, sinker, bobber, and worm. And I certainly enjoyed it more.

Plenty of fishermen are happy doing it the way they always have. Some people actually don’t have attention deficit disorder, and ADD is probably even less prevalent among fishermen than the population at large.

Anyway, I don’t think we’re going to come to any agreement along these lines.

Again, I would point to endless TV fishing shows, entire industries based around fishing and tons of magazines and websites that think that you're wrong.

Yeah. For me, I think I’ve learned that my energy is better spent worrying about what is good for my group rather that what is good for Wizards, the industry, or the hobby. In fact, ironically, I think that ends up being better for the hobby.

Worrying about your group is what brought us 1e and 2e. If TSR had done any market research twenty years ago, they'd likely still be in business. Heck, a bit of business acumen and the history of the hobby would have been very, very different.

 

[ironvyper]

Yes, because your experience is a better metric than the fact that WOW has a larger player base than many countries have population.

Actually according to a huge fan site that tracks wow numbers http://www.warcraftrealms.com/temp/activity-2008-06.htm

They peaked at just over 900,000 active premium users, and that was months ago. Not to mention according to june numbers they are in a 4 month long membership decline.

900,000 viewers wont even keep a half hour show on the air on the lowest of cable channels so i wouldnt exactly say that WoW is all knowing and all seeing when it comes to gamers tastes. Hell the warcraft franchise before WoW sold 19 million units altogether so that game isnt even good enough to get 5% of the blizzards fans to play it much less represent the multitudes of other gamers out there.

You might want to do a little bit of research on your actual numbers before making wild claims like that.

Again, I would point to endless TV fishing shows, entire industries based around fishing and tons of magazines and websites that think that you're wrong.

Actually theres about 100 fishing shows. http://www.fishingworks.com/television/

many only on small niche markets with very few viewers. And considering that according to the us fish and wildlife services over 34 million people bought fishing licenses in the last yearly survey (not to mention those who dont buy a license or over fish the one they have)
in the U.S. alone, 100 fishing shows arent that many. 1 show per 340,000 fisherman, not including commercial fisherman.

Would you say that one product per 340,000 gamers would be too few, too many, or just right?

Worrying about your group is what brought us 1e and 2e. If TSR had done any market research twenty years ago, they'd likely still be in business. Heck, a bit of business acumen and the history of the hobby would have been very, very different.

Worrying about our group is what brought us great games and kept us playing the game and buying to books to get to 3rd and 4th edition. If no one was worrying about their game then what would TSR have asked for their research? And what your missing is that the history of the hobby is just fine. Its done very well for a niche hobby with a high learning curve, a high initial expense, social challenges, and networking obstacles that all had to be overcome to ever get to where it is.

If no one had cared about "their group" instead of what any company TSR or not was doing then they would have been running crappy games because their focus was elsewhere and everyone would have left this hobby decades ago.

 

[Agamon]

The term I hate most is gish. And that's not from new people whom I would give the benefit of the doubt, that's from people who should know better. *tsk, tsk*

 

[Nifft]

The term I hate most is gish.

You may be looking for the terminology thread that this was forked from.

Cheers, -- N

 

[RFisher]

Yes, because your experience is a better metric than the fact that WOW has a larger player base than many countries have population.

I never said that. Just that WoW doesn’t convince me that even the Platonically ideal RPG (if I still believed such could be achieved) would get a significant portion of “everybody” into the hobby.