Basic D&D rides again!

[Krieg]

Bingo.

Take a look at this poll I did a while back... http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=44019

This tells me that while the "bell curve" of the current gamer population is dominated by late-twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, this is NOT indicative of the age at which most people "discover" roleplaying. That age is rather heavily skewed around the "late elementary school-to-junior high" age.

Which is certainly interesting as it seems to corroborate most of our personal experience & directly contradicts WoTC marketing research. Hmm...

 

[Maggan]

As a foreigner a Basic Set looks good

Easy. From the introduction and then step by step through character creation. Or do you all just flip randomly through the pages until you have a Eureka moment? I suppose it could be confusing if you used the books stupidly.

Where I think a basic set really has value is in the time issue. Its a question of prep time, not of confusing complexity.

There is another side of the coin here in the we-don't-speak-english-as-a-native-languge part of the world. Even though people here aren't using the books stupidly, it can get very complex for us. Not only do we have to read and understand the rules, but we have to struggle to understand the language.

A large obstacle for the 11-year olds I'm teaching D&D now. They would not have started on their own with the Core Books, but they might have started with a Basic Set.

Has nothing to do with how we use the books.

Cheers!

M.

 

[Keith Strohm]

Which is certainly interesting as it seems to corroborate most of our personal experience & directly contradicts WoTC marketing research. Hmm...

Two questions:

1. How does this contradict WOTC marketing research?

2. How does a poll of self-selected individuals from a specific community become a statistically valid sampling of the whole D&D marketplace?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but it seems to me that a poll placed om ENWorld would still be a collection of anecdotal evidence.

I am not, however, an expert in market research.

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Two questions:

1. How does this contradict WOTC marketing research?

2. How does a poll of self-selected individuals from a specific community become a statistically valid sampling of the whole D&D marketplace?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but it seems to me that a poll placed om ENWorld would still be a collection of anecdotal evidence.

I am not, however, an expert in market research.

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing

Wow, jeez, Keith, long time no see! Where ya been? Good to see you!

 

[WizarDru]

Two questions:

1. How does this contradict WOTC marketing research?

2. How does a poll of self-selected individuals from a specific community become a statistically valid sampling of the whole D&D marketplace?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but it seems to me that a poll placed om ENWorld would still be a collection of anecdotal evidence.

Hi, Keith. You may not be a researcher, but you are right. The ENWorld poll referenced above has 358 votes on a message board with thousands of members. It is a good representation of a subset of ENWorlders, and not much more.

The data that Ryan Dancey tabulated that would be relevant was:

[font=Arial,Helvetica]Of the people who reported playing a TRPG, we further screened for people who played D&D and asked those individuals some more detailed questions. This data comes from people who have played D&D, not necessarily those who play monthly.[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica]Age:[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] <12[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] 12-15[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] 16 -18[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica]19-24[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] 25[/font]+
[font=Arial,Helvetica]Learned D&D:[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] 23%[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] 41%[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica]15%[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] 12%[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica] 9%[/font]
​

The local poll skews those numbers much higher for the 9-12 age group. The problem? The WotC poll doesn't even ask anyone under the age of 12...so even if we assume the ENWorld poll is accurate (which I don't believe), it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. WotC choose a limited data set to work with, and was focused on a target core audience. In point of fact, one thing their data revealed was that younger gamers (i.e. 12-17 for the puproses of the data) didn't spend that much on games, and as such was not their core target audience.
​

The data here doesn't contradict WotC's data from three years ago in the slightest.

 

[Keith Strohm]

Wow, jeez, Keith, long time no see! Where ya been? Good to see you!

Thanks! I've been kicking about the industry and then took a half-year hiatuis. There's supposed to be a press release floating around somewhere about my association with Paizo Publishing.

Anyway, good to hear from you. I'll be posting more as I ease into my role here at Paizo.

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[Keith Strohm]

The local poll skews those numbers much higher for the 9-12 age group. The problem? The WotC poll doesn't even ask anyone under the age of 12...so even if we assume the ENWorld poll is accurate (which I don't believe), it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. WotC choose a limited data set to work with, and was focused on a target core audience. In point of fact, one thing their data revealed was that younger gamers (i.e. 12-17 for the puproses of the data) didn't spend that much on games, and as such was not their core target audience.
[/center]

The data here doesn't contradict WotC's data from three years ago in the slightest.

WizarDru,

Thanks for the details. At the end of the day, the D&D strategy (around the launch of 3rd Editrion) had a detailed and comprehensive acquisition component. While 18-24 year olds may represent the sweet spot in terms of market activity, targeting younger kids for acquisition is a smart move.

It will be interesting to see exactly what strategy WOTC executes for the new acquisition box.

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing, LLC

 

[johnsemlak]

Perhaps this has been dealt with in this thread already (OT--I hate these long threads ), but can someone explain why exactly the already existing D&D boxed set introductary game (I forget its exact name) fails to fill the bill of a 'low entry bar' into D&D, in terms of being a low-cost, rule's light game aimed at younger/less experienced players?

 

[WizarDru]

It will be interesting to see exactly what strategy WOTC executes for the new acquisition box.

Keith Strohm
Vice President
Paizo Publishing, LLC

Agreed (and heck, I know you knew that...I was pointing out for others ). I thought the whole strategy of how WotC approached 3e was a key part of it's success...namely with a plan. Oh, and let me join the Colonel in saying it's good to see you about again!

 

[WizarDru]

Perhaps this has been dealt with in this thread already (OT--I hate these long threads

), but can someone explain why exactly the already existing D&D boxed set introductary game (I forget its exact name) fails to fill the bill of a 'low entry bar' into D&D, in terms of being a low-cost, rule's light game aimed at younger/less experienced players?

Well, I may be mistaken, but the problem is that you can't play D&D with it, just the adventure game in the box (the "D&D Adventure Game"), which uses a scaled down version of the rules. You could play six mini-adventures with one of the pre-built characters, and that's about it. It was more of a hybrid between a standard board game and D&D. You weren't heading to the Keep on the Borderlands, just exploring the same map, with a different layout each time.

It's more of a sampler than an introductory game, from what I've heard.