D&D General Kobold Press Going Down a Dark Road

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

sure, but at that point it becomes an ‘I do not like the changes’ thing. You have not demonstrated that young / new players like them while old / existing ones do not

This is one old player (and my partner makes 2) who likes the current direction of D&D

 

[Maxperson]

Sure:

"More than 60 percent of ticket buyers were male, while the largest age group was 18-24 (31 percent). Those between ages 25 and 34 followed at 28 percent."

Redirect Notice

I'm not going to keep arguing about the realities of companies marketing to younger people, bit there are resources that you can get through your local library that can give hard data on market research.

That link shows the opposite. 31% was the largest group(18-24), but next highest was 28%(24-35) and 69% of buyers weren't in that 18-24 category. It doesn't show the 17 and under percentage at all, but I sincerely doubt they were large enough to outspend the older folk, even in combination with the 18-24 grouping.

My argument that the 25+ crowd is spending most of the money is backed up by that article.

 

[Maxperson]

Of course the question is not what they spend their money on now, but what they can and how much is available. The point would be to get D&D to bite into the %, that is why you market to them.

Which is fine, but teens at 25% still wouldn't be outspending the other 75% of players.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Well, as you say, the game has definitely evolved in a direction I don't like. The only part of that that's really upsetting to me (apart from what they've done with the settings), is that the conversation has moved on to the next shiny thing for most folks, and I really like talking about D&D. Now I'm inundated with talk about the playtest, and upcoming WotC products, and VTTs, and poster after poster talking about how great something I really dislike actually is. And I get that my opinion doesn't matter, but it still hurts.

It happens, that was 2e mad 3e for us - couldn’t really stomach what they did to “my game!” Of course, I didn’t insult people by suggesting people could only engage with the “next shinny thing,” so I guess we handled better than you.

 

[Maxperson]

never said that, I repeat, you are conflating several things to get from what you show to refute what I claimed. Not all new players are 17 or younger, not all old players are grognards.

I said not to pay too much attention to grognards which you then want to show as relevant through this

You're going to have to prove that older than teen = grognard dude. Not even all 50+ year olds are grognards. The only one conflating here is you. You're conflating age with grognard.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Which is fine, but teens at 25% still wouldn't be outspending the other 75% of players.

I’m not sure, maybe because I haven’t followed this whole chain of posts, but I don’t understand this fixation with how much teenaged buy. The real value of marketing to teenagers is to try to get them to be lifelong consumers.

 

[mamba]

1) Nobody had 5e when it came out.

sure, but new players need to buy it now, the PHB etc is not selling so well because the same people keep buying it every 3 months or so

2) Nobody, young or old has new product when it's released. When Planescape is released out of the 100% of players, 75% of them won't be teens and will have waaaaaaay more spending money to buy it with.

and all of them have the money to buy it if they want to, and it is still selling less than new PHBs do

3) New players are old, too. People start playing D&D at ages other than teen.

I already pointed that out, not sure how that is a point for your case

4) I'm not conflating anything. None of my arguments depend on that sort of thing.

sure they do, because you need to arrive at ‘grognards are relevant’ to refute my post, and your reply to it was the one that started this whole thing

 

[Remathilis]

Okay fine. If you want to believe that the 25% of players who are teens are outspending the other 75% that have much more money to spend, you can do that. [emoji2369]

I bought a more D&D stuff in my youth than I do now. I'm older, but my budget has moved from buying tickets, toys and gas to paying a car payment, mortgage and food. I owned nearly all the WotC 3e/3.5 books during its run (excluding ones I had no interest in) but only a fraction of the much smaller amount of 5e ones. Not everyone grows older and finds they have more disposable income. Sometimes, it's less.

 

[Parmandur]

Which is fine, but teens at 25% still wouldn't be outspending the other 75% of players.

Ever hear of the 20-80 principle...?

Also, how do you account for the release schedule of the big Adventure campaigns being centered on the begginingnof the school year for the past decade...? They come out right as the school year starts, when WotC data shows that high schoolers and College kids start new campaigns...campaigns that fizzle out in May for some reason or other.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I bought a more D&D stuff in my youth than I do now. I'm older, but my budget has moved from buying tickets, toys and gas to paying a car payment, mortgage and food. I owned nearly all the WotC 3e/3.5 books during its run (excluding ones I had no interest in) but only a fraction of the much smaller amount of 5e ones. Not everyone grows older and finds they have more disposable income. Sometimes, it's less.

Yep, when I was young all my income was as disposable. It is only been the last 10ths or so when I began to outpace the disposable purchasing power (because I had not real income) I had as a teenager