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

[Bluenose]

Lets talk about this because it was a bone of contention between me and neonchameleon in another thread where he claimed FATE was the 2nd most popular roleplaying game next to the D&D games (Of course citing this chart as proof). First I'm curious... how do we compare the sales of these games? Because in September of 2013 both Numenera and 13thAGE ranked over FATE. I also think there is an inordinate number of discussions centered around FATE because there are alot of people trying to understand alot of it's jargon (aspects, invokes, compels, etc.) and concepts (Approaches vs. Stats for FAE)... but I could be wrong... so tell me what sales figures do we use to check these rankings?

Evil Hat have published sales figures before, though I don't think yet for Fate Core. But they told us how many copies of the Dresden Files RPG they printed, and that they had to have a reprint three months later. If IcV2 is in any way reliable, those 10,000 items got Dresden Files into 5th place in their RPG sale chart. Given that the Fate Core Kickstarter actually exceeded those numbers, I think we can assume that it is also selling rather well. Other companies seem less inclined to put sales numbers out, and I'm not prepared to put in the money to get a look at the Bookscan data - which anyway would cover few of the games in question.

Now this next bit is more speculative, but Fate Core had 10,103 backers; Numenara had 4,568; a ratio of 2.2 to 1. The Hot games list has them at 189 and 109, 1.7 to 1. I see little reason not to assume that there's about a 2 to 1 ratio of interest/play of Fate to Numenera; or to think that probably doesn't extend to purchases too.

 

[Imaro]

Evil Hat have published sales figures before, though I don't think yet for Fate Core. But they told us how many copies of the Dresden Files RPG they printed, and that they had to have a reprint three months later. If IcV2 is in any way reliable, those 10,000 items got Dresden Files into 5th place in their RPG sale chart. Given that the Fate Core Kickstarter actually exceeded those numbers, I think we can assume that it is also selling rather well. Other companies seem less inclined to put sales numbers out, and I'm not prepared to put in the money to get a look at the Bookscan data - which anyway would cover few of the games in question.

Now this next bit is more speculative, but Fate Core had 10,103 backers; Numenara had 4,568; a ratio of 2.2 to 1. The Hot games list has them at 189 and 109, 1.7 to 1. I see little reason not to assume that there's about a 2 to 1 ratio of interest/play of Fate to Numenera; or to think that probably doesn't extend to purchases too.

Now to add some anecdotal data on top of the data here... My entire group bought Numenera, but weren't part of the kickstarter, we got our books (5 copies) from Amazon because we don't like the risk involved in Kickstarters and we weren't sure we would like Numenera until we had read some reviews.

Below is some data from two other sources...

Right now Numenera is #27,048 in books
Fate Core is #85,845 in books
Dresden Files is 167,787 in books

So we've got the kickstarter saying one thing yet the sales at amazon saying a totally different story...

In Rpg Now's top 100...
Numenera is ranked #19
Fate Core is ranked #43
Dresden isn't ranked at all

So again we've got the kickstarter saying one thing but another sales source saying something totally different... So what do these data points tell us? Is this enough to cast some doubt on your assumptions above?

EDIT: Another thing that could skew the data is that FATE doesn't have it's own company forum, so all conversations about it are being (theoretically) counted in the hot list... while games like Numenera, which do in fact have a company forum have their biggest area for discussion discounted.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So again we've got the kickstarter saying one thing but another sales source saying something totally different... So what do these data points tell us? .

that none of us have all the data or the skill to read and interpret said data if we had it?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...none of us have all the data...

WHOOP- there it is!

 

[NewJeffCT]

that none of us have all the data or the skill to read and interpret said data if we had it?

Nope, none of us has all the data, and I'm sure that even if we had the skill to interpret the data, there would be multiple ways to interpret the data. (Hearkening back to my reading a book in middle school, "How to Lie with Statistics")

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Nope, none of us has all the data, and I'm sure that even if we had the skill to interpret the data, there would be multiple ways to interpret the data. (Hearkening back to my reading a book in middle school, "How to Lie with Statistics")

"There are three types of lies, Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics"

 

[Mistwell]

The following are the main reasons I think D&DN is going to be in trouble.

1. Lack of online excitement...apathy...

When someone says this, then the "Hot Games List" serves to refute it pretty strongly. Obviously, a lot of people are talking about D&D Next. More than any other RPG in the world right now. It's incorrect to say there is mass apathy and lack of excitement, when the only objective data you have points the other direction.

So, whatever dispute people might have concerning the precise meaning of finer distinctions from the Hot Games list, at least the broad direction and rough sketch of the issue is painted pretty well by the List. And that is, a lot of people are interested in talking about D&D Next. Some is good, some is bad, some is unsure, but an awful lot of people are interested enough to want to talk about it with others, often.

And I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that people tend, on average, to buy things they are interested in talking about. At least they tend to buy things they are interested in talking about more than they tend to buy things they are not interested in talking about, on average.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"There are three types of lies, Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics"

It's worse than that- all of your market research data can be unanimous...and your product will still fail because, even if it makes people happy, it isn't what they want. Exhibit #1: New Coke.

Coke's extensive testing showed New Coke's taste beat the original recipe AND Pepsi every damn time, in all markets, in all demographics. And yet, the can't fail product became THE textbook example of the perversity of humanity in the market. People didn't want a Coke that tasted like a better version of Pepsi. They wanted their Coke to taste like Coke.

 

[Derren]

When someone says this, then the "Hot Games List" serves to refute it pretty strongly.

You put a lot of faith in this Hot Games List but fail to realize that a measurement of how often a name is mentioned at a single source is absolutely no indication of if people are interested in it. When most threads are "I don't care about D&D Next" or "I don't see a reason to switch to D&D Next" then no matter how high it is on that list it will fail.

Also, as the measured sites are primarily blogs and news sites, the ranking is also heavily influenced by how much marketing the product gets. The more articles and news a company releases, the more things there are for people to talk about it. Compare two products with exactly the same number of players. The one which releases a news every 3 days will rank much higher on that list than the one who only does so once a month.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You put a lot of faith in this Hot Games List but fail to realize that a measurement of how often a name is mentioned at a single source is absolutely no indication of if people are interested in it. When most threads are "I don't care about D&D Next" or "I don't see a reason to switch to D&D Next" then no matter how high it is on that list it will fail

Also how does it mess with D&D Next numbers if a D&D Next fan keeps typing D&D Next into a post about D&D Next? Would a group of D&D Next fans typing D&D Next into a bunch of D&D Next posts totally swing the D&D Next numbers compared to games not D&D Next. I wonder if any of those numbers for D&D Next could take into account a jerk typing D&D Next dozens of times well argueing if D&D Next was mentioned more or less then other non D&D Next games? I do believe D&D Next is going to do well, not because I tped D&D Next a bunch of times, I really copied D&D Next then pasted D&D Next a bunch well writeing this to not be sick of typing D&D Next.


D&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D NextD&D Next
[sblock=being funny] maybe you can't tell but that was a joke...D&D Next[/sblock]