Mercurius
Legend
One other thing that might be interesting is how much Pathfinder outsold D&D 4.0. PF is still a pretty strong brand in gaming stores and they are still diversifying further with card games and a movie. WotC is and always has been the 500 lb gorilla but with 4.0 they gave up their market and will still need to get it back.
We'd have to line them up, year by year - so compare 2008 4E to 2009 Pathfinder, etc, so that we compare equivalent years within edition cycles. I'm guessing that 4E outsold Pathfinder for the first couple years, but then Pathfinder zoomed ahead as 4E started floundering in its third year. Not sure, though.
Angling it as a "return to imagination" is a great idea, although that's a plug for parents, not kids. Kids will hate that (just like they hate anything else their parents like).
Right, and we also have the generation gap thing - "In my day we used to use our imaginations."
But I do think a "revival of the imagination" is in our future, but it might be a few years yet when we get so lost in our virtual technologies that we crave something more organic.