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<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 9486161" data-attributes="member: 7026617">Note I've limited my comments to design.&nbsp; I'll be the last person to suggest layout, presentation and the like don't matter for usage, but they're not elements of design per se; you can have the same rules and structure laid out well or poorly (and I can think of games where the biggest benefit of some additional editions was that they did a better job with those, even when the design changed minimally).&nbsp; But that's not the actual game, its its presentation.&nbsp; If you want to make an argument that matters and should be part of the overall discussion, I think its at least a valid argument to pursue, but if the most important thing to talk about a game is its presentational strength, that would be damning with faint praise.I've noted a way to do that.&nbsp; Find a comparable game, design-wise, but does not have D&amp;D's exposure, networking advantage and first-entry benefit, and see how it does compared to other games that are operating at a similar level of exposure and networking.&nbsp; At that point you at least are dealing with relatively pure revealed-preference issues.Or forget about all that, and just talk about what features of the game seem to support its theoretical design aim and don't.&nbsp; You can at least at that point have a discussion of the actual design without muddying it with all kinds of things that have nothing to do with that.&nbsp; That doesn't mean you'll get all or most people to agree on all those, but its at least not begging the question.No.&nbsp; I'm going to make this clear, because people are reading into this statement something I try to firmly state differently repeatedly.Like D&amp;D, I consider McDonalds very much in the &quot;good enough&quot; land.&nbsp; To the degree I eat fast food I like a couple things from it fairly well.&nbsp; If it wasn't &quot;any good&quot; it would have failed out a long time ago.People are seriously prone to trying to exclude the middle here, and it does the discussion no favors.&nbsp; My argument is, and has been every time this comes up, that a product that is &quot;good enough&quot; and has enough other benefits in marketing, first-in advantage and other factors, it can very well be at the front of a market over other better products that don't have those advantages.&nbsp; Quality is a factor in success, but its not the only factor, and its not always the primary factor.&nbsp; The best you can say is (at least outside a monopolistic situation) a product has to be sufficiently good to not be&nbsp; dysfunctional.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 9486161, member: 7026617"] Note I've limited my comments to [I]design[/I]. I'll be the last person to suggest layout, presentation and the like don't matter for usage, but they're not elements of design per se; you can have the same rules and structure laid out well or poorly (and I can think of games where the biggest benefit of some additional editions was that they did a better job with those, even when the design changed minimally). But that's not the actual game, its its presentation. If you want to make an argument that matters and should be part of the overall discussion, I think its at least a valid argument to pursue, but if the most important thing to talk about a game is its presentational strength, that would be damning with faint praise. I've noted a way to do that. Find a comparable game, design-wise, but does not have D&D's exposure, networking advantage and first-entry benefit, and see how it does compared to other games that are operating at a similar level of exposure and networking. At that point you at least are dealing with relatively pure revealed-preference issues. Or forget about all that, and just talk about what features of the game seem to support its theoretical design aim and don't. You can at least at that point have a discussion of the actual design without muddying it with all kinds of things that have nothing to do with that. That doesn't mean you'll get all or most people to agree on all those, but its at least not begging the question. No. I'm going to make this clear, because people are reading into this statement something I try to firmly state differently repeatedly. Like D&D, I consider McDonalds very much in the "good enough" land. To the degree I eat fast food I like a couple things from it fairly well. If it wasn't "any good" it would have failed out a long time ago. People are seriously prone to trying to exclude the middle here, and it does the discussion no favors. My argument is, and has been every time this comes up, that a product that is "good enough" and has enough other benefits in marketing, first-in advantage and other factors, it can very well be at the front of a market over other better products that don't have those advantages. Quality is [I]a[/I] factor in success, but its not the [I]only[/I] factor, and its not always the [I]primary[/I] factor. The best you can say is (at least outside a monopolistic situation) a product has to be sufficiently good to not be dysfunctional. [/QUOTE]

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