Marketing criticisms miss the point

[wingsandsword]

How much of the early success of 4e is down to the brilliance of the marketing campaign, and how much of it is due to D&D suddenly being in the news again, due to the death of Gary Gygax?

How much of that success is due to the D&D brand name alone and by simply producing a playable RPG that bears any semblance to previous editions of D&D and giving it a halfway appealing physical layout and printing it and distributing it, it was all but guaranteed to sell big.

The D&D brand does carry a lot of weight. That alone means it's going to be nigh impossible to make something that's a flop right out of the gate.

I think the proof in the pudding isn't in initial sales to casual players, or fence-sitters who might just buy the core rules, or older edition grognards who might buy the core rules just to take a look, or to hardcore players. The proof is in the long term sales, where are the sales of 4e six months or a year later, how will the splatbook of the month sales be in summer of '09 compared to the Splatbooks of the Month from late '01 like Manual of the Planes, Oriental Adventures, and Deities and Demigods?

If 4e is geared more towards newer players and more casual players, how many of these, newer more casual players are going to want to buy more and more splatbooks every months and read them and add them to their game?