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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5350334" data-attributes="member: 18280">My opinion, of course.  Hence the "IMHO" and the use of a subjective criteria, rather than attempting to make a claim of objective fact.The only "proof" you will ever be able to get of a subjective opinion is (1) the person stating the opinion, and/or (2) the person's behaviour either aligning with, or seemingly in contrast to, the opinion they state.See, apart from the uses of the words "we", "massive", and "bleeding" (which have subjective values), here you are making a claim about an objective phenomenon without any evidence to back it up.We can look at TSR's sales figures, and we can determine whether or not there was a loss of sales.  Yet, we are told that TSR sunk a lot of money in non-D&D products, and did massive print overruns, so we have no firm evidence that TSR's financial troubles were due to flagging sales of core products.  The initial reports from WotC about TSR's finances were countered by at least one TSR insider at the time, and the individual responsible for WotC's report has since lost some credibility (IMHO).Yes, WotC says that their recent survey shows that there are many lapsed gamers.  No, WotC's survey does not define lapsed gamers as people who are no longer playing older products, but rather people who are not buying WotC products now.  According to the WotC survey, I am a lapsed player.  I can assure you that I still play rpgs.The WotC survey could be an indicator that 20 million people have simply dropped the hobby, or could be an indicator that 20 million people chose to play other games.  Including older versions of D&D.  WotC doesn't tell us.  Anything we infer from the data....perhaps other than that WotC is "bleeding players" and is doing damage control.....is speculation at best.  And I am not even willing to credit that "perhaps" as being necessarily accurate.Thankfully, I don't need to know that there are 20 million players of older games out there, or where they are, to know that you don't know that there are not.  Nor does saying that you do not know there are not imply that I know that there are.  Neither one of us knows anything related to the question.I am simply aware that I know nothing related to the question, and am pointing out that, despite your protestation, you are in the same boat.  You may feel that you are right.....you may even be right.....but you have no means to know if that feeling is correct, even if it is.  We simply lack the necessary data.RC</blockquote>

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