D&D General Kobold Press Going Down a Dark Road

[Reef]

This isn't about restrictions. And the fact that you're happy with what they're putting out now doesn't make your opinion any more true than mine. Most folks just don't like to hear people criticize things they like. I know I don't.

And yet...you seem content to come in and criticize the changes the rest of us like.

The playtest discussions aren't stalking you. You're choosing to engage with them. And by engage, I mean mostly tell us how wrong we are and that WoTC should be doing a better job making you personally happy.

 

[Maxperson]

Ever hear of the 20-80 principle...?

Also, how do you account for the release schedule of the big Adventure campaigns being centered on the begginingnof the school year for the past decade...? They come out right as the school year starts, when WotC data shows that high schoolers and College kids start new campaigns...campaigns that fizzle out in May for some reason or other.

U.S. mean disposable household income by age 2022 | Statista

This statistic shows the mean disposable household income in the United States in 2022, by age.

www.statista.com

Notice how the disposable income per household starts at 25-34 with nearly double the income of the 18-25 year range and goes up from there. It drops to nearly double at 55-64 and the 18-25 don't have more(and barely at that) than any category except for 75+.

All these arguments about when things start, expenses for older folks, etc. are Red Herrings. The older folks(25+) would want to buy the vast majority of books released for 5e and have by far the most disposable(that means AFTER expenses) income to buy with.

Teens 17 and under don't run households and wouldn't be on the list.

 

[Reef]

U.S. mean disposable household income by age 2022 | Statista

This statistic shows the mean disposable household income in the United States in 2022, by age.

www.statista.com

Notice how the disposable income per household starts at 25-34 with nearly double the income of the 18-25 year range and goes up from there. It drops to nearly double at 55-64 and the 18-25 don't have more(and barely at that) than any category except for 75+.

All these arguments about when things start, expenses for older folks, etc. are Red Herrings. The older folks(25+) would want to buy the vast majority of books released for 5e and have by far the most disposable(that means AFTER expenses) income to buy with.

Teens 17 and under don't run households and wouldn't be on the list.

Teens may have less disposable income, but are notoriously bad at prioritizing what they have. At least in my day, and I doubt that's changed. I have no trouble believing they're out there buying more D&D books than they technically should be...

Edit: And if anyone doubts that I'm part of the old crowd, I just unironically said "in my day..."

 

[Maxperson]

I’m not sure, maybe because I haven’t followed this whole chain of posts, but I don’t understand this fixation with how much teenaged buy. The real value of marketing to teenagers is to try to get them to be lifelong consumers.

The arguments have been that teens drive the vast majority of the sales WotC is seeing, so the game should be aimed at them. And yes, teenagers become lifelong customers and should absolutely not be ignored, but if you focus on them to a greater degree than those who are spending the money, you will go out of business before they become the lifelong customers that have the money to spend.

WotC should aim the product at those with the money to a greater degree than those without, but still take the youngster crowd into consideration.

 

[Parmandur]

U.S. mean disposable household income by age 2022 | Statista

This statistic shows the mean disposable household income in the United States in 2022, by age.

www.statista.com

Notice how the disposable income per household starts at 25-34 with nearly double the income of the 18-25 year range and goes up from there. It drops to nearly double at 55-64 and the 18-25 don't have more(and barely at that) than any category except for 75+.

All these arguments about when things start, expenses for older folks, etc. are Red Herrings. The older folks(25+) would want to buy the vast majority of books released for 5e and have by far the most disposable(that means AFTER expenses) income to buy with.

Teens 17 and under don't run households and wouldn't be on the list.

Sure, but WotC yearly output is small and cheap: you don't need to run a household to be able tonafford ot.

Listen, WotC advertises D&D as a youth brand: they say their primary audience is youth. Trying to argue against their staked market position of over 20 years a priori doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sure if WotC actually saw more money from an older crowd, they would behave accordingly because they are super predictable.

 

[Maxperson]

Teens may have less disposable income, but are notoriously bad at prioritizing what they have. At least in my day, and I doubt that's changed. I have no trouble believing they're out there buying more D&D books than they technically should be...

Edit: And if anyone doubts that I'm part of the old crowd, I just unironically said "in my day..."

You don't really need to prioritize disposable income. It's disposable. You need to prioritize necessities and debts, which by definition you aren't spending disposable income on. Disposable income is what you have left once your priorities are complete.

Now, you might want to take a trip to Hawaii over buying Mordenkainen's Lifelong Spellbook, so I guess you prioritize in that way, but teens prioritize their disposable income in the same way. Where young people are bad at prioritizing is in spending rent money or Credit Card payment money on things that they shouldn't, but the 17 and under crowd doesn't have those expenses.

 

[Maxperson]

I bought a more D&D stuff in my youth than I do now. I'm older, but my budget has moved from buying tickets, toys and gas to paying a car payment, mortgage and food. I owned nearly all the WotC 3e/3.5 books during its run (excluding ones I had no interest in) but only a fraction of the much smaller amount of 5e ones. Not everyone grows older and finds they have more disposable income. Sometimes, it's less.

Yes. Of course there are individuals that don't fit the mold. As a group, though, older folks have more disposable income, not the same or less.

 

[Parmandur]

The arguments have been that teens drive the vast majority of the sales WotC is seeing, so the game should be aimed at them. And yes, teenagers become lifelong customers and should absolutely not be ignored, but if you focus on them to a greater degree than those who are spending the money, you will go out of business before they become the lifelong customers that have the money to spend.

WotC should aim the product at those with the money to a greater degree than those without, but still take the youngster crowd into consideration.

They aim at people who buy: and WotC isn't focusing on any one group exclusively, at any rate. Even though teens and teens are their target audience, they still do things like make allusions to 80's products all the time. It's an all-ages brand, even if theybfocus on where their money is coming from.

Just because one demographic has money, doesn't mean they will spend it on your product.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet...you seem content to come in and criticize the changes the rest of us like.

The playtest discussions aren't stalking you. You're choosing to engage with them. And by engage, I mean mostly tell us how wrong we are and that WoTC should be doing a better job making you personally happy.

Wouldn't you want WotC to do a better job making you personally happy if you didn't like what they were doing, especially if you've been mostly pleased with the game's evolution since the 80s?

 

[Maxperson]

Not only that, but as we get older, we tend to need less new stuff. I have 5+ editions worth of D&D books on the shelf beside me. I sure don't need more, so I'm pretty picky about which ones I buy. A new player is more likely to buy everything that comes out, because it's all new and shiny to them. Me, do I really need yet another owlbear statblock?

If you want to play 5e, you are going to need the 5e core books. Unless you want to spend a whole lot of time and energy converting old monsters to 5e, you will need to buy the 5e monster books. Unless you want to spend a lot of time and effort converting old classes, prestige classes, magic items, spells, etc. to 5e, you will need to buy those 5e books as well. That's a lot of 5e books to buy, and take on new settings and adventures if you want any of those.

Unless of course you don't want to play 5e. Then you can ignore 5e releases, but are also not in the demographic(5e players) being discussed in this thread.