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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 5978084" data-attributes="member: 17106">Still skeptical that any of this had any impact on sales.For perspective, the time leading up to and immediately after the 4e release is when I went off to college and took a hiatus from D&D. When my group reconvened, we picked 3e back up without ever even looking at 4e. I don't remember seeing much news about 4e, let alone any debates. This whole "edtion war" phenomenon was something I didn't learn about until a while later when I got back into message board like this one, saw the moderation steps that had been taken, and looked into it.I don't think D&D, 4e in particular, or edition wars make a blip on the radar for most people outside the gaming hobby. Even the people I know who play tactical wargames or crpgs often don't understand what D&D is, let alone have any idea about editions or wars between them. So I'm very skeptical that newcomers were dissuaded by any incivility that occurred. As to the existing gaming population, I think they made their decisions for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with cost, convenience, mechanics, advertising, or something else other than the naysayers. I bet some people read reviews and articles on the topic and were influenced by them, but those are not people rooting for the game to fail. The edition war debates themselves characteristically don't change anyone's mind about anything.Moreover, I think the most impactful edition war salvos, the ones that did get outside of insular online debates, were WotC's own ad campaign, which dissed (3e) D&D pretty badly. So if anyone worked to make it fail, I'd say it was them.</blockquote>

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