Is Wotc Slipping?

[Perram]

So Auld, you comment that your store sells less 4e products than PF ones, but you only recommend PF ones to your customers when they ask? Surprised?

As another person who managed a game store... you would be surprised at how little the owner's opinion of a product is taken into account by any customer.

And you sell the product that the customer wants to buy, regardless of what you prefer.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

So Auld, you comment that your store sells less 4e products than PF ones, but you only recommend PF ones to your customers when they ask? Surprised?

*Shrug* They aren't my customers.

I am just the guy who gets called over if I am in the area and someones asks the manager about RPGs - I am not an employee of the store, merely an interested bystander.

I only give my opinion on 4e when I am asked, and even then I hardly ever tell customers that 4e makes an awfully good substitute for Charmin. I tend to use terms like 'overly focused on the encounter at the expense of the setting'. Never coming out and saying '4e is bad', merely that 'Pathfinder is good' or, if asked directly 'I feel that Pathfinder is a better game'.

And the reason I get called over is that folks are more likely to make a purchase, not less. Directing towards rather than away. Well, one of the reasons, I also know a lot more about RPGs in general.

The Auld Grump

 

[xechnao]

Does it really matter.
...

Apparently, yes. There is a fraction of the target population we are bothering discussing about here that its choices are ultimately characterized by the behavior of following the lead.

 

[MrMyth]

You took the most charitable possible interpretation of the pro-4e side and replacing "slipping" with "failing" when assessing the other side. If that is just how you saw it, then fine, I accept that.

But it is no less a double standard.

I'm still not sure what the double standard is, here.

I didn't see Dannager's comment as pro-4E or anti-4E or related to editions at all. It was, as far as I could tell, simply about the foolishness of a game store owner who is more invested in personal bias over actually making good business decisions. You claim I am reading it in the best possible light - I genuinely don't see any other way to read it.

I mean, you later reference it as having something to do with mocking people on "the other side" of the edition wars. I am genuinely curious here - in what way is it doing so??

As for equating "slipping" vs "failing"... Yes, the thread title refers to WotC slipping. I have also seen plenty of people claim that 4E is failing as well. You refer to Black Diamond's statement about 4E's decline. How much difference is there between these words?

You claim a double standard because, presumably, I have read the claims by one side of the discussion in the worst possible light. But the thing is, for me, it is irrelevant. Whether one is claiming that 4E is failing utterly or that WotC has simply fallen behind as industry leader, I find both views equally unproven. One isn't in a worse light than the other - my objection isn't to the claims themselves, but to the evidence used on their behalf.

They are all rooted in the same evidence and logic and arguments. I'm not even saying those details are entirely without merit - I just don't think they add up enough for us to make any true conclusions at this time. Maybe six months from now, maybe a year from now... as it is, I haven't seen any numbers that can definitely show me whether WotC is doing poorly or doing well, nor how it is doing in comparison to other products, or its own past performance.

I've seen a lot of things that, yes, measure one area of the industry. It is clear that 3PP for 4E don't do as well - as a whole - than they did for 3.5... and yet, the ENWorld APs are apparently doing great. I don't know how the sales of their book lines compare to the profit from DDI. I don't know if current book sales, during a period when they have slowed their release of products, are an accurate reflection of how the game is doing as a whole.

And because of that, regardless of whether you are claiming WotC is slipping, 4E is failing, or whatever, I don't feel anyone has presented a compelling argument convincing me any of those possibilities is currently true.

My reference to '4E failing' wasn't an attempt to paint your side of the argument in a bad light, whatever you might believe. It was just a phrase, one I've seen made by various posters in this and other forums, and essentially analagous to the claims made in the thread title. I don't know what else to offer you other than that.

And my point is that the XP was supporting a random claim on the internet in the midst of demanding that such claims from named sources can't be trusted.

It might be that my view is different from others. But I don't think - and I could be wrong here - that Dannager (or ProfessorCirno) has said that claims and anecdotes from other sources can't be trusted. Just that they can't be used to extrapolate the state of the industry as a whole.

That's why this is different for me. I said this in my last post, and you skipped right over it, so here it is again. If ProfessorCirno gives an anecdote about his store, and gives a conclusion entirely about that store, that is a self-contained data and conclusion. If you tell me an anecdote about your store, and conclude that your store is not selling a great deal of 4E material, I will believe you.

What I won't believe is that because your store is not selling 4E, that 4E as a whole is in decline. It may well be possible - but that one piece of evidence isn't enough.

And, yes, there are others who offer similar anecdotes. But there are also those who offer anecdotes of 4E selling well. Either way, I don't find that either can be used to universally depict what is going on.

Whereas ProfessorCirno's one anecdote about his store doesn't try to say anything beyond what it concludes about the store itself.

That's the difference. It's not about trusting one source over another. It is about the conclusion's being completely seperate in scale. Hence why I found it unreasonable to try and compare the two, and point at perceived hypocrisy in favoring one anecdote over the others.

 

[Umbran]

So you wouldn't suggest someone discard information on one side out of hand while casually giving XP to information on the other side.

And you were complaining about me being too general?

If one person is talking about a specific local event, and another is talking about a global issue, then we are talking apples and oranges cases. My criteria for trust in the two cases is not the same.

I made no claim that accuracy was implied by the quantity. I simply pointed out that it was a large amount he was brushing off.

I merely question why the amount is relevant.

The idea that I need to defend observing the irony there is itself ironic.

Need? There is no prize to be won here, and no great loss to be suffered. There is no credible attack against anything of material value underway. If you did not defend, the world would continue on just as it would if you did. Neither WotC nor Paizo nor any other company somehow depends upon the words in this discussion.

So, maybe I do see an irony here, but I don't think it is the one you allude to.

Which is actually a compliment to your post (the one I quoted), I think, rather than a contradiction of it.

Agreed. We have managed to expound on each other, rather than conflict, which is nice.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The idea that me stating "Hey this shop owner was actively telling people to not buy his product then later went out of business, so that didn't work out" is being extrapolated into being part of a nightmarish pro-4e agenda is the most hilarious thing I've read in awhile. How can you even have a pro-4e agenda? This isn't global politics!

Coming in second place is the idea that "Hey this game owner was a jerk to his customers so they stopped shopping there" is equatable to "Let me take a few anecdotes and tell you exactly how the entire RPG industry is working."

Wait Dannager gave me XP, Dannager, you fool, they know you're a part of the conspiracy now!

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

This sounds very, very odd to me.

Your FLGS is selling through the same dozen or so Pathfinder books every single week, and not selling any 4e books? I'm having a really hard time imagining how this could be the case, unless your local Pathfinder community is tremendous (like, amazingly, hugely huge) or your owner/manager are feeding you false info.

It is possible, I don't work there so i dont know for sure, but yes our Pathfinder community is rather large...even on the back wall where there are advertisements for games there are about 4 or 5 PF games to one D&D game. I can only speak of what I have seen, and I don't speak for everybody else. I will also say that the manager could be lying to me so idk.

 

[Hussar]

Something I would point out because I've got this spidey sense tingling that I started this little sidebar on validity.

Never once have I questioned the facts that are being presented. Not once. I never said that what people are claiming are not true, so, there is no double standard.

What I am saying is that because the facts are so irrelavent or anecdotal, the conclusions that people reach from these have far more to do with that person't biases than on any objective analysis.

Again, since you cannot actually answer any fundamental, basic questions, and you cannot even ballpark them, how can you possibly claim that something like Amazon ranking is indicative of anything?

People are taking some very, very narrow bits of information and then trying to spin them into broader facts and conclusions. And, all you have to do is look at the username and you know before even reading the post, what that conclusion is going to be, one way or the other.

 

[S'mon]

, how can you possibly claim that something like Amazon ranking is indicative of anything?

It's indicative of Amazon sales. And Amazon is a big book retailer, probably the biggest by a good margin.

 

[Dannager]

The idea that me stating "Hey this shop owner was actively telling people to not buy his product then later went out of business, so that didn't work out" is being extrapolated into being part of a nightmarish pro-4e agenda is the most hilarious thing I've read in awhile.

And bear in mind that two days ago we were dealing with the ritualistic burning of 4e books as an act of collective emancipation, so this is saying something.

Wait Dannager gave me XP, Dannager, you fool, they know you're a part of the conspiracy now!

Oh crap, they can see XP awards? I thought only members of the conspiracy had access to that information! Next thing I know you'll be telling me they know about the secret volcano lair, or that they can read these posts.