Black Diamond Games Blog - An Experiment

[cdrcjsn]

Not to mention that even those who actually are in love with 4e are also likely to never ever use their PHBs anymore because they have both DDI and the new Rules Compendium.

Getting rid of a book you never use to get a $25 discount is a pretty good bargain, especially considering the fact that most people actually seem to like playing multiple game systems.

 

[Stormonu]

So all in all... if Black Diamond maybe exchanged one Pathfinder book for every twenty 3.5 or 4E books, it wouldn't shock me a bit. But it also wouldn't necessarily mean anything substantial in terms of the quality of the three games.

That's the only thing that's unusual. No one exchanged a Pathfinder book; Its turn in value was 0%. People were willing to buy into it, but for whatever reason, no one was "quitting" it for this trade-in deal. With the lack of more information why, Pathfinder was a one-way street; acquisitions only.

Apparently, people were either:

1) Switching from 3E to 4E
2) Switching from 3E to Pathfinder
3) Switching from 4E to Pathfinder
4) Planning to play Pathfinder and 4E (and turned in 3E books to get either Pathfinder or 4E books, while already having the other book)

No one (for this deal) apparently:

1) Switched from 4E to 3E
2) Switched from Pathfinder to 4E
3) Switched from Pathfinder to 3E

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I personally would have traded in my pathfinder core for somthing else. Pathfinder didn't change enough to warrant a book on my shelf.
I also would have tried to get a better deal trading in my Warhammer fantasy Roleplay. I'd ask for at least 50% of ITs value, not 50% off

 

[DEFCON 1]

No one (for this deal) apparently:

1) Switched from 4E to 3E
2) Switched from Pathfinder to 4E
3) Switched from Pathfinder to 3E

See, I wouldn't even consider this unusual... going under the belief ( that in my opinion is quite rightly) that all of these players started with playing 3E. Thus... these people already own all the 3E books they need.

As a result... no one would swap out their 4E book for 3E, because they already own it. No one would swap out their Pathfinder for 3E, again because they already own it. And as I said above... no one would swap out Pathfinder for 4E, because the fact they were playing Pathfinder tells us they wanted to stay d20.

The only type of person who would ever use this Black Diamond deal to swap out of Pathfinder and go to 4E would be the person whose D&D career began straight into Pathfinder... like perhaps the new player who found a Pathfinder game through a friend and was inspired to buy a PF book. If this particular player and/or player's game then decided to make the transition to 4E in recent months for whatever reason... that player might then decide to make the Black Diamond deal.

Although honestly? I don't even think that player would exchange his Pathfinder for 4E for the simple fact that if he liked roleplaying enough to buy these books in the first place, he probably would want to hang onto his Pathfinder book in case he ever got into another Pathfinder game. We never know what's going to happen. I know this is why I still own my 3.5 books even though I'm currently playing 4E... I never know when a 3.5 game might pop up.

So again... the Black Diamond results are not (to me) surprising at all.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Just doing a quick look on e-bay, another possibility is that the value of an unwanted Pathfinder core book on e-bay ($25-30) is higher than 50% off a 3.5 or 4e book (~$12-15), while the reverse is not true.

 

[Wycen]

Another successful Game Store (insert Economics/stock/promotion) ________ spell cast, eh, Gary?

Cool news about a Paizo intro set.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Teh Edition Warz, now showing at a FLGS near you!

On another note, I made the following comment on another forum:

Frankly, I only own 4E because I like to read. Sometimes when I feel like reading, I'll pick up a copy of The Weekly Standard, or some nonfiction book on WWII I've read 12 times. Other times, I'll grab a book off my D&D rack. Generally when I buy a copy of the new D&D books, I'll have it read cover to cover within the week.

When I want to use D&D, I grab DDI tools. In fact, I generally wait until the DDI tools catch up before I use the book I just bought. You can ask anyone in the games I DM, official campaign policy is that if it hasn't been put in Character Builder, it doesn't exist yet.

Point being that with the DDI, 4E books might be worth more in trade than sitting on the shelf considering how much some people actually use them.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Point being that with the DDI, 4E books might be worth more in trade than sitting on the shelf considering how much some people actually use them.

Ding-dong.

The 4E PHB just isn't very valuable anymore, given all the other stuff (essentials, rules compendium, etc.). The Pathfinder PHB has worn quite well with time, mostly because stuff hasn't replaced it, and you can't get the rules in other places.

Ideally, everyone who is turning in that 4e PHB is already giving WotC $10/month or so. It's not exactly lost sales.

Of course, there's no way to prove any of that. But it feels truthy to me.

 

[BryonD]

Ideally, everyone who is turning in that 4e PHB is already giving WotC $10/month or so. It's not exactly lost sales.)

So we have concluded that the DDI subscription numbers tell us how many people are playing 4e? At least close enough that it dominates any assessment of the marketplace?

 

[I'm A Banana]

So we have concluded that the DDI subscription numbers tell us how many people are playing 4e? At least close enough that it dominates any assessment of the marketplace?

I wouldn't say it's one-for-one, but I would say that it's probably a big factor (and I say this only from Truthiness, not from any actual factual information ).

Y'know how 3e's big business model was to drive people to buy Core Rulebooks? You sold supplements, and you used the d20 System, to attract people, ultimately, to your PHB, which you sell over and over and over again.

I think 4e is more trying to drive people to the DDI. The supplements and the PHB's and the constant upgrades and the yearly model all funnel into the DDI. This also plays into a "no OGL" way of thinking: they don't want to have to add everyone's content to the DDI every month (not that they do now) or have anyone make a DDI clone that does it better than them (not that they do now).

Like the 3e Core Rulebooks, not everyone who plays the game gets a DDI account, and not everyone with a DDI account is an active player, but I think a reliable monthly subscription largely takes the place of steady core rulebook sales as a "baseline" for D&D income.

The supplements, the card games, the board games....these are all additive.

Of course, given the rumor that WotC was kind of hosed on the cost of the DDI so far, and given the lousy economic state of things, I think 4e, like every other industry, is under a lot of additional pressure to make sure those additive purchases pay off. But I see a DDI subscription as analogous to buying a 3e Core Rulebook Set. Over the course of time, it actually adds more to WotC's coffers, so it's a pretty smart move, if that's the case.

Again, this is all Truthiness, not Truth. For all I know, DDI subscription rates could be more like Kindle book sales than like 3e Core Rulebook sales (that is, only the truly ardent fan, or a special niche market, bothers with them). But even then, returned 4e PHB's could be more a symbol of an ongoing 4e player than a converting 4e player, given things like Essentials and the Rules Compendium and the constant, repeated rules updates making much of the material in the book invalid anyway.

Speculation upon speculation!