Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder sales

[Dannager]

I understand that, but you are forgetting that the entire debate is founded on the presumption that DDI is significant.

Either DDI has a very high adoption rate, which speaks extremely well for DDI, or D&D has a very large player base, which speaks well for the game in general.

I mean, those are really the only two ways this gets to pan out, since we know there are more than 50,000 current DDI subscriptions.

And, regardless of what changing the assumptions would do, it remains that yours were HIGHLY optimistic.

You haven't demonstrated that, and I don't think they are.

Wow.

You REALLY don't see the difference between me offering an intentionally crazy high number to make the point that even with that the total is low and you using an even crazier higher number to then compound with other wildly hopeful presumptions to try to demonstrate a high result? REALLY?

I see. Four players per D&D game is a crazy high number to you. This explains a lot.

I'm pretty convinced here that you are not even grasping the concept being expressed. Yeah, if we assume my intentionally stupid number designed to stack the deck against myself is suddenly not stupid

Since the number that you're calling stupid here is your own "four players per D&D game" figure, I'm thinking you probably need to revisit this.

LOL, ok, you gonna try to sell me a bridge now?

What this discussion has devolved into: calling the person you disagree with a liar and a charlatan.

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[pemerton]

No, they just sell accounts that happen to be accessible from multiple computers, and just happen to have cloud storage for more than an entire party's worth of characters in the character builder. They don't sell group accounts, they just happen to sell accounts that are easily and frequently used by the whole group.

Which is of course a violation of the terms of service.

Whether everyone is doing it or not, it is still a violation of the EULA and somewhat frequently noted to be against the intent on the WotC forums as well for those that might not have taken time to read the EULA.

I certainly can't speak for WotC's actual opinion, but I would find it easy to believe that their marketing and sales strategy is based on an assumption that many users will violated the EULA.

The function of the EULA, after all - as a standard form contract between parties who are not even in physical contact with one another - is not and cannot be primarily to regulate user behaviour. It is to vest rights in WotC which they can then exercise if and when they deem it worthwhile to exercise them.

If one DDI account leads to another 4e group coming into being, and therefore opens up the door to future subscriptions and/or future sales of books, I would be surprised if WotC did not regard that as a good outcome, even though they also retain the right to take action against the subscriber who used the DDI account in violation of the terms of the contract.

 

[pemerton]

Any way you slice it the data "strongly suggests" that D&D as a brand is not what it once was.

I don't know much about private sector management in general, let alone private sector management in the games and publishing business.

But I would assume that if management in such a firm shifts a good number of full-time employees from production of RPG books, to production of board games, that is a sign that management believes there is money to be made in board games rather than in RPGs.

If management also reduces the output of RPG books, I would also assume that that is a sign that management believes there is less money to be made in RPGs.

I don't think this says too much about the D&D brand overall - my understanding is that the novels have always been bigger than the game, and I wouldn't be surprised if that soon becomes true of the boardgames.

But I do think it gives hints about the D&D RPG game - or, at least, its non-online publishing arm.

 

[delericho]

Either DDI has a very high adoption rate, which speaks extremely well for DDI, or D&D has a very large player base, which speaks well for the game in general.

I mean, those are really the only two ways this gets to pan out, since we know there are more than 50,000 current DDI subscriptions.

Actually, if DDI has only 56K subscribers, then that's a really bad sign, whether the adoption rate is 100% or 3%.

Consider this: when it was cancelled, Dragon had 46K subscribers (plus an unknown number of additional sales, plus an unknown but significant income from advertising). IIRC, I was paying about $3 an issue, as I'd taken a multi-year subscription out just before they withdrew that option, so had the most efficient payment option. (That would be equivalent to the $6 level for DDI subs.)

Based on that, it's not unreasonable to posit that DDI is bringing in three times as much as Dragon (56K * 6 vs 46K * 3 and giving DDI the benefit of any inefficiencies in the system).

But, in addition to the cost of producing the monthly Dragon material, DDI must now also provide all the Dungeon material, pay for the ongoing maintenance of the software tools, pay for the ongoing revisions to be applied to the tools, pay for the development of new tools, pay for the upkeep and running of the servers, and so on. (Of course, print-Dragon had printing and distribution costs...)

In addition to this, print-Dragon was in addition to book sales. We know that DDI has, at least to some extent, canibalised print sales. (And it's done so in the worst possible way, by eating sales of crunch-heavy books; WotC decided long ago that fluff-heavy books were generally not worth their while to print.)

Plus, the whole reason WotC farmed the magazines out to Paizo in the first place was that they deemed the revenues to not be worth bothering about. Back when Dragon had some 49K subscribers.

The big unknown is how many DDI subscribers there are that aren't part of that 56K number we know about. I rather hope that is a big number, because otherwise things could be a bit rough going forward.

(What really worries me about this is that I can seem WotC moving away from content production almost entirely. They've already pulled out of books almost entirely. They're talking about merging the two "magazines", a move that will probably see a further reduction in content as the months go by. Which seems fair enough - the major benefit of the DDI is in the tools anyway. But the problem is that without new content, their ability to attract new players (and so new subscribers) is compromised - you need new content to generate buzz to attract new people.)

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

Eventually you just start tuning them out.

There is a lot of that going around I suppose.

 

[Echohawk]

If you want to talk non-print, that's fine. And as I've described before, if the DDI subscriptions are VERY charitable multiplied by 5 to assume that ONLY DMs subscribe and they have an average of 4 players each, and we further assume that it is a significant portion of the 4E fan base, then the D&D fan base has taken a major blow.

There are in excess of 50,000 active DDI subscriptions with associated community accounts. If we assume that 50% of DDI subscribers (a generous figure) also took the time to create community accounts, then we have over 100,000 DDI subcribers. D&D is designed for a group of five players and one DM, with roughly equal groups hitting both above and below that figure (another safe assumption), so we multiply by six. That gives us 600,000 players. If we assume that 50% of groups have DMs with DDI subscriptions (another generous figure), that gives us 1,200,000 total 4th Edition players. I remember seeing the 1,000,000 player number thrown around a few years back, so contrary to what you conclude, your own math exercise leads us to the conclusion that D&D is actually doing just fine. And the numbers that I used were conservative; in actuality, it is likely that the total is significantly higher.

I'm afraid that I have trouble with both of your analyses of DDI subscriptions. But first, I want to take issue with this statement:

Any way you slice it the data "strongly suggests" that D&D as a brand is not what it once was.

I have a really hard time seeing any basis for conclusions about the D&D "brand", and certainly nothing that comes close to "strongly suggesting" anything at all. What we have (and I think the only thing we have), is some evidence that Pathfinder has done (or is doing) better than D&D4e in print sales of RPG products. I haven't seen any "data" on sales of D&D board games, D&D novels, participation in D&D events (such as Encounters) or on general consumer awareness of the D&D brand. I've seen a tiny amount of data on D&D computer games -- specifically that Daggerdale held the #1 slot rather briefly.

As an observer, it seem clear to me that WotC has specifically adopted a strategy of broadening the range of D&D branded products beyond print RPG. (I think they have even stated as much in editorials and podcasts.) So to conclude anything at all about the D&D brand based only on the limited information we have about RPG print sales seems highly problematic.

But back to those DDI figures...

All we know is this:

• There are, as of right now, 59751 DDI subscribers who are also registered users of WotC's forums.
• There are also an unknown number of DDI subscribers who are not registered users of the WotC forums.
• An unknown number of DDI subscriptions are used by more than one person.

What we do not know is this:

• What proportion of people who play 4e are DDI subscribers.
• What proportion of DDI subscribers are DMs versus players.
• How many DDI subscribers are not registered users of the WotC forums.
• The average number of users of each DDI subscription.

I think it is problematic to make any of the following assumptions:

• Only DMs subscribe to DDI.
• That there are five or six (or any number) of 4e players for each DDI subscriber.
• DDI subscribers represent a significant portion of the 4e fan base.

Frankly, I don't think either [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] nor [MENTION=73683]Dannager[/MENTION] is making credible extrapolations above. To put that another way, and to link back to the original post: "Citation needed"!

 

[MerricB]

I think it is problematic to make any of the following assumptions:

• Only DMs subscribe to DDI.
• That there are five or six (or any number) of 4e players for each DDI subscriber.
• DDI subscribers represent a significant portion of the 4e fan base.

Frankly, I don't think either [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] nor [MENTION=73683]Dannager[/MENTION] is making credible extrapolations above. To put that another way, and to link back to the original post: "Citation needed"!

The first is definitely false: I have players who do not DM who are subscribed to DDi. In fact, most of the players in my campaigns are current subscribers of DDi. However, not every D&D 4E player I know is.

I'll have to discover how many of our D&D Encounters players are subscribers.

What I can say is that DDi number (of people who have Wizards forum accounts) has increased since last we looked.

Ant, did you keep track of the numbers by month? (per this post).

In July this year, there were 56523 subscribers.

In just under two months, the number has gone up to 59750... or 3,227 more subscriptions. (Ant, someone left since you looked! )

Cheers!

 

[Echohawk]

Ant, did you keep track of the numbers by month? (per this post).

Only for a little while, and very intermittently thereafter:

Sep 2009: 7972
Oct 2009: 14392
Nov 2009: 18911
Dec 2009: 21570
Jan 2010: 23816
Feb 2010: 26101
...
Jul 2010: 35997
...
Aug 2011: 59750

 

[Dannager]

But back to those DDI figures...

All we know is this:

• There are, as of right now, 59751 DDI subscribers who are also registered users of WotC's forums.
• There are also an unknown number of DDI subscribers who are not registered users of the WotC forums.
• An unknown number of DDI subscriptions are used by more than one person.

What we do not know is this:

• What proportion of people who play 4e are DDI subscribers.
• What proportion of DDI subscribers are DMs versus players.
• How many DDI subscribers are not registered users of the WotC forums.
• The average number of users of each DDI subscription.

I think it is problematic to make any of the following assumptions:

• Only DMs subscribe to DDI.
• That there are five or six (or any number) of 4e players for each DDI subscriber.
• DDI subscribers represent a significant portion of the 4e fan base.

To put that another way, and to link back to the original post: "Citation needed"!

We're just making educated guesses about the final set of assumptions, and I've never pretended otherwise. My guesstimations were as follows: 50% of DDI account holders have registered forum accounts, on average there is one DDI account for every two D&D groups, and there are five players in your average D&D game. While I feel that these figures are reasonable, I'm sure they are also wrong to some degree. However, I don't feel confident that they are wrong in one particular direction or the other, so they strike me as reasonable middle-ground figures. I'm certainly open to alternative suggestions backed up with a good argument.

 

[BryonD]

I see. Four players per D&D game is a crazy high number to you. This explains a lot.



Since the number that you're calling stupid here is your own "four players per D&D game" figure, I'm thinking you probably need to revisit this.

I give up. You really don't grasp this do you?

Yes, my number WAS stupid. It was INTENDED to be stupid. That was the point. I was making a case and intentionally stacking the deck WAY against myself to show the case still works. That is a rational form of argument. If one can use extreme worst case scenarios and then demonstrate that one's position still stands, then that provides a logical case.

Taking those extremes and instead putting them IN your favor and then compounding them, on the other hand, is not REMOTELY a rational form of debate.

And, I never said four players per D&D game was crazy. I said assuming that as a multiplier is crazy because it assumes every single subscriber is a DM and through all these thousands of hypothetical players not a SINGLE ONE is a subscriber.

That you don't grasp either of these points is highly enlightening on the entire debate.

What this discussion has devolved into: calling the person you disagree with a liar and a charlatan.

This is why we can't have nice things.

You said you hear of new people starting 4E "every day". "Every Day."

I'm not calling you a liar because I disagree with you. I'm calling you a liar because you said you meet new people starting 4E "Every day".

If you want "nice things" in a conversation, don't poison the conversation with patently asinine claims.