Dungeons, Dragons, and Demographics

[Tantamo]

19, started with third, like 4th edition.

Maybe I'm one of them f4nboi's everybody shouts at, I wouldn't be surprised. My 360 is currently connected to xbox live, and is connected to my laptop through a network I installed, which totes a good 5 gigs of illegal anime I can watch through my wireless WEP protected connection in AVI digital format on a LED 1080p HDTV.

Maybe I'm a f4nboi

BUT! I still love the original style of D&D. I really wish they weren't doing away with all of that awesome old fluff, the original Greyhawk, Planescape and Forgotten Realms re-tooling that wizards of the coast is doing isn't really cool at all.

 

[Kaffis]

I find it interesting that the poll shows new blood starts playing the game with each new edition. There is little to no 35+ players that started playing with 3rd or 2nd edition, but plenety of 12-25 and some 25-35. It means new editions bring in blood.

Another factor, the percentages with each grouping that dislike the look of 4e is about half those who like the look of 4e. So, each new edition actually gains more players than it looses if the poll is accruate, as long as the edition is needed.

Interesting Poll.

This was something I noticed, too.

Coming up on 28, here, started playing with 2e, though that's kind of cheating to say, as I think I played in all of 2 campaigns for about a dozen sessions before 3e kick-started my enthusiasm into high gear. 3e was a great, refreshing change in useability in my eyes, as I was just getting used to all the quirks and oddities of the math in 2e, and then 3e came along and just made sense and felt natural out of the box. I shall not mourn you, THAC0, for I barely knew thee!

4th Edition seems to be continuing the trend, and if Saga is any indication, I'm enthusiastically excited about my cautious optimism.

 

[Kaffis]

But thank you for doing so. Next time I'll include height, weight, and number of dependents. Frankly, I'd be interested to see the results!

And you claim to not be a demographer. You filthy liar.

 

[Aristotle]

Yup, you lose 1/3 of your current customers, to sell to 100% of the other two thirds.

Hussar explains this really well. Basically, while 30% seems like a lot of loss, having roughly 70% of your customer base ready to make the investment into the next version calculates as more earnings over time than not releasing the new version and instead just issuing more patches to 100% of the users.

All of this 70/30 talk completely ignores the percentage of new blood that trends seem to show will come along, further diminishing the impact of 30%.

 

[Insight]

If 70% of your current customers buy your new products, that's a win! It isn't like the other 30% are returning 3E. You already have the money from those folks. It isn't going away. Yes, it's possible you won't get future income from them, but it's not a 30% loss. Unless WOTC is expecting 100% of their current customers to run out and buy 4E and that's just insane. Do you think 70% of WOTC's customers bought the Rules Compendium? Or Exemplars of Evil? Doubtful. 4E is going to be a financial windfall for WOTC in terms of their D&D sales when compared to the past few years.

 

[Vigilance]

Just tell them Rebecca Borgstrom is writing 4e.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Thanks.

 

[Vigilance]

Unless I misread the poll result, I find it interesting that more people welcome 4Ed than fear it in each age category!

Interesting, but not surprising.

I get called an apologist for saying this by certain people, but Wizards knows what they're doing, and can hire the best to do it.

 

[KarinsDad]

Interesting, but not surprising.

I get called an apologist for saying this by certain people, but Wizards knows what they're doing, and can hire the best to do it.

At the moment, the percentages of people who like what they see are:

81.7% 12-25
77.1% 26-35
61.5% over 35

And that is a poll skewed by the fact that it is on a 4E forum as opposed to a general forum.

It does appear that from this, 4E will be a success. As long as they did not screw the pooch with the math.