D&D 5E Why I Think D&DN is In Trouble

[Mistwell]

I did not claim that at all. I said marketing was getting people to talk about and think about your product.

Ok, so once I worked for certain restaurant review site. What does a restaurant review site do? Who works for them? A bunch of web programmers and admins? Actually, a large percentage of the employees had degrees in marketing. Part of the job consisted of throwing parties with free food and alcohol. I you not. The rest of it involves doing various activities online (like writing news letters and emailing all damn day). Now am I claiming that the employees spent all their time going to other peoples restaurants and websites? Nope. They spent time wooing their high volume and highly rated reviewers. They're the ones that generate content for the site. They're the ones who tell customers which restaurants were good, and which ones were bad. So marketing consisted of talking to these reviewers who in turn discussed the 'products' with customers. Now who provided the free food and drinks for these parties? The restaurants. Now imagine this happening in every city in the USA. It's a lot more complicated than that, but that's an example of how modern local level marketing works.

Stop with the generic marketing stuff. We know the actual names of pretty much every employee at the D&D division of WOTC, and Paizo. They post here and elsewhere. We know what they post and how often they post, and THEY ARE NOT THE PRIMARY DRIVERS OF CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THEIR GAMES. What you're talking about might well be true about a major chain restaurant, but it has nothing to do with D&D/Pathfinder. People talk about those games because they like those games, they are interested in those games, and they buy those games. Or are you seriously claiming nobody actually buys any WOTC/Paizo products? Come on, you've carried this argument as far as you can go, we both know you went a step too far.

OK, I'll give you a few bits:

Equating the popularity of OSR with the term "OSR" is a fallacy. If you rely only on a very specific set of names and phrases for doing search based statistics, then you are working with incomplete data. Most customers in that market segment don't even know what the term OSR means and have not even heard of it. OSR isn't a brand.

He's not equating it with those terms. He's tracking many terms, and the actual games. He included in his 5% estimate all the prior versions of the games, 2e, 1e, B/X, ACK, L&L, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, all that stuff.

The only fallacy here was your assumption he was just measuring for the term OSR...without ever bothering to ask what was meant by that term in his estimate.

Second, the OSR market is not only aimed at those playing retro clone systems and products, but also at those who play older edition D&D games.

Yes, I know. He included those. What's weird is you didn't know that...but didn't ask.

Interestingly, Pathfinder was considered a 'retro clone' by some at release due to 3.x being considered deprecated by 4e. See anybody do that now? 4-5 years later that seems silly. Maybe 5 years from now, all this stuff about 'OSR' being niche will seem silly? (Nah, but for other reasons).

He breaks out anything with a significant chunk of the market and you can then add up their numbers again yourself if you want to check it. It's semantics whether Pathfinder or 13th Age are retro-clones. You have the data to see what people are talking about, and can use it however you want. Any way you add it up, OSR (not including Pathfinder itself) isn't anything beyond a small niche in the marketplace.

Third, this isn't about search analytics, SEO, or SEM. I don't care about those silly pie charts all that much because search analytics don't mean squat for sales that aren't generated via search analytics. They're listed tongue in cheek for a reason.

It's not SEO or SEM. He's just using RSS feeds of over 1000 sites. There is no trickery there. His motive is to know the actual numbers, the actual number of people talking about different things. It's a tool that is of use to him, and it's not as useful if it's not reporting the actual numbers accurately to him.

Think about people buying tablets who don't know what OS or RAM means. Who don't go on forums and talk about tablets.

If something is popular, a fairly representative portion of the people who like that thing do talk about it on the internet. It might not map exactly to the total population, but it's roughly accurate to say that if something is talked about a lot on the Internet, then a lot of people are interested in it. That might not apply well to the hot new electronic toy out next month, as tech-savvy people are more likely to discuss it on the Internet. But as far as a normal product, like an RPG game, then yes it tracks pretty well.

I could go on, but I'm tired of this topic. Done and done for reals now. Keep it sleazy!

Still waiting on even a single shred of objective data, of any kind, from you. Seems like we won't get it.

 

[Nikosandros]

The lists aren't exclusive. Almost all the games in the superhero category track on the main RPG (Icons might be folded into Fate) - but the main list doesn't include the big D&Ds because they would swamp it.

Yes, they would indeed swamp it, but I still would like to see a variant of the main list that includes D&D as well, in order to get some comparison, at least between the main D&D variants and the biggest non-D&D games.

 

[Dausuul]

Still waiting on even a single shred of objective data, of any kind, from you. Seems like we won't get it.

This is pretty much the crux of it. Oracular has made a rather bold assertion, that the OSR has a substantial market share. The one making this assertion has the burden of proof. So far, we've seen no data at all to back it up.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes, they would indeed swamp it, but I still would like to see a variant of the main list that includes D&D as well, in order to get some comparison, at least between the main D&D variants and the biggest non-D&D games.

It's easy enough to work out. You can either mouseover the arrows for some raw-ish numbers, or index by 13th Age which is in both lists.

 

[SteveC]

This thread is heading in some predictable ways, but I wanted to put in a comment about why I agree with the assessment that Next is in trouble, despite not being the sort of person the thread is targeted at.


I’ve spoken about my group before, but since I post here irregularly, I doubt most people would remember, so: I have a large group that ranges from upper 20 somethings to me, who’s ancient and in my 40s. We all have disposable incomes, and are current Wizard’s customers (or at least want to be). We’re customers because we have DDI subscriptions, which is nearly the only product we can buy from WotC at the moment.


My group has purchased some of the PDFs, to round out our collections of earlier products, but, for the most part, we have all of them, so there’s not a rush to get them again now. I have every edition the game has ever had, from the White Box (that’s where I started) up to 4E. They’re all still in usable condition for that matter.


We’ve been active participants in the playtest, giving a LOT of feedback on how we want Next to be shaped. So that’s the background. Why is Next in trouble (in my opinion)?


None of us are interested it as a product at this point. The expansion modules might bring us back, but the product we’re seeing now is some sort of hybrid between 2E and 3E with a dash of the RC thrown it. That’s not a product we’re interested in, and not one we need, because we already have all those editions.


I’ve seen absolutely nothing in Next that speaks of innovation, and I suppose that’s rather the point. We’re going back to the game’s roots, but when you already have all of the root products, what is the interest in buying it again?


The classes and spells we’ve seen so far are so basic and, frankly uninteresting that I have no interest in playing any of them.


Over time, of course, this will change. We’ll have the splats and the game add-ons that will make the game more interesting to us, or to say it accurately: we have the possibility of getting those products if the game sells well enough to generate interest in releasing those products. We only have that possibility if the game reaches the critical mass of sales that justifies making more product to Hasbro.


And that’s the problem. I don’t know if people remember at this point, but there were several products that were developed for 4E but never released. Some of these products would have expanded the game in ways that people who didn’t like it were asking for, but the game wasn’t selling to the point where Hasbro saw the potential to keep making product.


Back in the day where the 3E psionics handbook came out, I remember Bruce Cordell being ecstatic at selling 100,000 copies the first month, and having a Hasbro exec ask why the product was even made if it only sold that many.


So that’s why I think there’s trouble, since I don’t see the numbers, and I don’t see a market past the initial product that’s being released. Now there’s always the curiosity factor, of course, and I expect they will sell a lot of books purely on that fact alone, but … why would you play Next if you like Pathfinder? It would take a dozen splat books to put you at the level of content you have now. Feel free to substitute any other edition you might be playing and happy with at the moment for Pathfinder if you like.


The obvious answer to my query: you buy Next because you want to play the current edition of the world’s most popular RPG. But if that’s true, weren’t you already playing 4E? And that number isn’t enough to justify more products for that edition. So unless there’s a huge influx of players that keep buying product, we have a problem.

Similarly, with the focus on the classic game, you're losing the opportunity to bring in new, younger blood. Next reminds me very much of 70s/80s fantasy, and has very little of what "the kids" are reading today.


So that’s my negative post. It’s coming from the perspective of WANTING Next to succeed, but also not being interested in the product as presented. Ugh. This isn't meant to rain on anyone's excitement about the system, by the way: buy it, enjoy it, tell me about what's awesome about your game.

 

[Imaro]

It excludes marketing. It excludes websites run by the companies themselves. This is just ordinary people, talking about games, on various websites and such. It's a rather good measure of what people are playing (people talk about what they are playing) and interested in (people talk about what they are interested in). If people were increasing interest in the OSR "exponentially", we'd see it reflected in what they're talking about. They would say things like "Should I buy Labyrinth Lord or C&C or ACK?" and it would get tracked.

Does this equate to market share though (which was the original dispute)? D&D Next doesn't have any market share right now but it's the top talked about game, in fact I know a particular forum where it's talked about (negatively) almost continually. So is this really data that proves a game has a higher market share? Does it even tell us what games are liked more than others with any certainty? I think all it can tell us is what is being talked about on the internet and that's about it.

On a side note is there a way to view the history of these charts? I'd love to see how much or how little fluctuation there is over time in the games being talked about. Every time I try to view historical data it doesn't seem to work...

 

[Mistwell]

Does this equate to market share though (which was the original dispute)?

I disagree. That was not the original dispute. He said sales of OSR products have increased exponentially in the past 18 months. And I am saying, if that were true, you'd at least see some upward swing in discussion of the OSR products over that same time frame. Over the last 18 months, OSR products have either maintained or FALLEN in the amount they're being discussed. That doesn't track precisely to sales of course, but I think it disproves his claim quite well. There is no way people would talk about them less, if over that same time they were exponentially increasing their purchases of those same products. Some portion would be saying "Look at this new shiny thing I just bought" and "We just played our first game of X and love it!" online. And that's just not being reflected in the numbers.

And as he backed off his own claim, I think the point is done at this point. Even he doesn't any longer claim their sales grew exponentially.

D&D Next doesn't have any market share right now but it's the top talked about game, in fact I know a particular forum where it's talked about (negatively) almost continually. So is this really data that proves a game has a higher market share?

For OSR purposes, as I explained, yes it is helpful for that. I know you want to talk about 5e and such, but I don't see how that's relevant to this aspect of the thread. If the OSR were growing exponentially over the past 18 months, a lot more people would be talking about it than are. Much like a lot of people are talking about Pathfinder, a lot of people are playing and buying Pathfinder products, and that shows up in the numbers. People talk about their purchases. They talk about the things they want to buy in the future or are considering buying. And yes, they even talk about things they don't want to buy. But if stuff is not being talked about at all, good or bad, I think it's a pretty good sign it's not selling all that well.

Does it even tell us what games are liked more than others with any certainty? I think all it can tell us is what is being talked about on the internet and that's about it.

It's not like you're seeing games universally loathed showing up on that list. In general people talk about the things that interest thing. If something doesn't interest them, they don't read a lot about it and post a lot about it.

On a side note is there a way to view the history of these charts? I'd love to see how much or how little fluctuation there is over time in the games being talked about. Every time I try to view historical data it doesn't seem to work...

Morrus can post history, but most of us cannot. I've been watching it since he created it, and there are a few screenshots here and there that are helpful. When he first started, Pathfinder was clearly beating 5e in terms of things people were talking about. Since then, slowly but surely, 5e overtook Pathfinder, and now it's being talked about by a sizable margin more. Over the same period of time, most other D&D products have fallen at least a bit.

Here are a few:

Sept 11, 2013 from Wayback Machine (no numbers just positions):

Sept 23, 2013:

Dec 3, 2013:

Jan 10, 2014 (today):

 

[Imaro]

@Mistwell ... I was talking about Morrus's claim below...

I

• OSR is awesome, and cool, but unfortunately it's about 3-5% of the market. It's not a sweeping revolution; it's a prominent niche. It's a shame it's not more.

Which was the first time numbers were brought into it and you cited his hot list as evidence for this assertion... I am asking is it really evidence of any market share number??

EDIT: And just to be clear, I agree with you that there is no evidence for an exponential increase in OSR market share either it just seems odd to call out one set of numbers as lacking real data when the original set wasn't backed up either...

 

[Desdichado]

Which was the first time numbers were brought into it and you cited his hot list as evidence for this assertion... I am asking is it really evidence of any market share number??

It is if you accept the assumption that there is a correlation between market share and discussion share. That clearly makes or breaks question.

In truth, there isn't any way to get at the data that we'd all really like to have, so to have this discussion at all, you have to introduce proxy data of some kind, and make a case that the proxy data is reasonably representative to have a rational discussion about it.

That appears to be the assertion here; that discussion share correlates with market share of sales. For what it's worth (i.e., absolutely nothing) I agree that that's at least a reasonable enough to talk about.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I’ve seen absolutely nothing in Next that speaks of innovation, and I suppose that’s rather the point. We’re going back to the game’s roots, but when you already have all of the root products, what is the interest in buying it again?

Some of us want a game that plays and feels like old editions but that also carries some modern design sensibilities and receives support. You know, it's cool to be part of things like living campaigns and D&D Encounters without having to move to 3.X, Pathfinder or 4E. I've played all those games in the past and they are all fun, each on its way, but I'm done with rules-heavy games full of little bits to understand and remember. If there are enough people like me, D&D Next won't be in trouble. Let's wait and see.

Cheers,