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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6360540" data-attributes="member: 42582">I am going to try and restate your reasoning as I understand it:1. The commercial/publishing success of an edition depends upon ongoing sales over the medium-to-longer term; 2. A significant factor in this is purchases by the "hardcore few"; 3. Another possible factor in this is drawing in new/lapsed players; 4. A useful piece of currently available evidence, that makes you optimistic about (2) and (3) in respect of 5e, is the lack of an "edition war"-style uproar from those members of the "hardcore few" who are not enthusiastic about 5e.I think (1) is probably uncontroversial, as far as RPG publishing is concerned.As I posted, or at least implied, upthread, if (2) is true then that already tells us how small the RPG market is, which in my view is inconsistent with the idea of a new "Golden Era". A new "Golden Era" would falsify (2), because (3) would completely swamp (2).If (2) is true, however, then it is likely that (3) is to some extent a function of (2) ie new/lapsed players are (re-)introduced by the hardcore few. Thus reinforcing the importance of catering to the hardcore few, if (2) is in fact true.What about (4)? I think the presence of edition-war rhetoric can hurt (3), for reasons already given upthread: people trying to (re-)enter the hobby get caught up in a furore that is of no interest to them, but pushes them away. The smaller the overall player base, and the more important the "hardcore few", then the more likely this is to matter.But does the absence of edition-war rhetoric serve as a useful predictor for (2)? If it does, that is a sad thing, because a corollary is that many/most people can't choose not to play a game without feeling the need to launch salvos against that game and those who are playing it.</blockquote>

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