Relation Between Message Board Visitors and Product Purchasers

[KB9JMQ]

Of the six gamers I know (myself included) the board readers ARE the buyers.
I am here 18/7/365 and I am the sole purchaser of the group of any signifigance.
My friend lurks and buys a book here and there (mostly FR stuff) as he can get it.
The four others who do not read the boards also do not make any purchases.

 

[Samothdm]

I doubt they'll even know about online things like DTRPG unless I tell them.

This is exactly the same as the groups I game with.

If this is true, I would be very much surprised if at least 20% of sales of those print runs can't be directly due to folks who frequent message boards and the gaming groups whose buying decisions that they influence.

My theory, which seems to agree with Mark's, is that I don't think that people who are only casually involved with the hobby, who don't frequent message boards, are buying a lot of products.

Consequently, seeing 18 pages on one thread on ENWorld or 63 pages on one thread on RPG.net with fans saying, "We don't like this and don't plan to buy it!" would seem to me to not be the inflammatory ravings of fanboys, but a very sizable, very vocal segment of the market who could potentially have a pretty big impact on the sales of that product.

 

[Piratecat]

As a FYI, EN World has about 5000 "active users" -- non-lurkers who have posted in the last six months. There are at least twice as many people (probably much more than twice) who lurk without registering.

 

[Umbran]

My theory, which seems to agree with Mark's, is that I don't think that people who are only casually involved with the hobby, who don't frequent message boards, are buying a lot of products.

Well, I think it really depends upon who you're talking about.

Last time they checked (back in 1999, I think) there were about 1.5 million players of D&D out there. WotC is selling to them. We message board folks are not significant by comparison. Malhavoc is really probably selling to a much smaller subset of the gamer population, so the power of information becomes stronger.

However, as P-cat notes, there are only 5000 of us. And a 10 page thread here really has only a small number of posters on it. I'm not sure, then, that a messageboard thread necessarily suggests displeasure in the market as a whole. Message board threads are not fairly taken samples of the messageboard population, so their statistical relevance is highly questionable.

 

[Mark]

However, as P-cat notes, there are only 5000 of us.

He didn't say "only" and I think you are missing his point. Barring WotC, there is no OGL publisher who can afford to ignore, or dismiss (especially publicly), the numbers of folks (posters, lurkers, retailers, and distributors alike) who frequent message boards such as EN World, whether it's "statistical relevance is highly questionable" or not. Thinking that those numbers are insignificant is foolish. Telling people publicly that they are insiginifcant, no matter what the circumstances, is shear idiocy.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I don't think that you should forget the number of lurkers that are on the boards either. I think that I have posted to ENWorld in the last 6 months to be considered an active user but it has been a reasonably long time since my last post that I can't be 100% certain!

Even though I don't post very often (Check my post count. It took me a year before I even registered on ENWorld!) I am still on the boards, reading different threads, about 3 or 4 times a week. I currently own about 20 D20 books for 3/3.5E D&D. There may be more people like me out there. On the other hand I am probably just some sort of weird, lurking, D20 book-buying, gaming freak.

 

[Henry]

He didn't say "only" and I think you are missing his point. Barring WotC, there is no OGL publisher who can afford to ignore, or dismiss (especially publicly), the numbers of folks (posters, lurkers, retailers, and distributors alike) who frequent message boards such as EN World, whether it's "statistical relevance is highly questionable" or not. Thinking that those numbers are insignificant is foolish. Telling people publicly that they are insiginifcant, no matter what the circumstances, is shear idiocy.

I'd say 15,000 people who read these forums (which is the number PCat estimated) is a significant audience. But I also know that the publishers out there aren't just blindly ignoring message forums; they DO care what we think, just as they have a business to run, and some tough choices to make. We are a significant data cluster, but are by not means the sole one. That's why I don't lose sleep thinking I alone can change an issue; but neither do I think I'm unheard.

 

[Mark]

We are a significant data cluster, but are by not means the sole one.

I don't think anyone would suggest we are the "sole one", and I am sure you're not saying that anyone did. But, I'd even go a bit further than to say that we a simply significant, because I think I may have been understating the importance of online communities by merely saying that we are not insignificant. It goes beyond the 5%, 10%, 20%, or possibly even higher in buying power (with some titles) that we represent. Those numbers would be impossible to quantify but I have doubts that many posters, or even lurkers, fall into the PHB-only crowd, and some of the collections I have read about are staggering. Truly, I should have put a lot more emphasis on the influence we have (for better or worse) on our gaming groups and the ripple effect that has beyond those with whom we directly interact. I don't think anyone should lose any sleep over any of this, of course, but if some do I suppose consulting with P-Cat might be a good idea.

 

[haiiro]

What's your experience?

My gaming group currently consists of 6 people (myself included), with me as the DM. I and one player spend a lot of time here on the boards, and we both buy a lot of d20 stuff. One other player buys quite a bit of material, but doesn't read the boards; the other three players buy very little and don't read the boards.

Based on my experience, I'd say your perceptions are reasonably accurate. There's nearly always a correlation between DMing often and buying a lot of gaming products, and the same seems to be true about being active on the boards. Where there's overlap -- DMs who are also active on the boards (like me) -- I'd guess that there's an even stronger correlation.

 

[Graf]

There -are- other web sites out there. (RPG net, the Wizards Boards,etc) I know serious players (by which I mean people who purchase a book a month or so) who only go to those sites. I think the wizards boards are much bigger than En, not sure about the others.

EnWorld can help a very small imprint get off the ground, other than that it has no impact*.

For example
a)I expected that the guys who did Magical Mediveval society benifted a bit (Expedious Retreat?). One of the players in my group I thought of as having "hack and slash" tendencies recently got the print version of that product. I'm pretty sure the positive responce on the boards helped them get word of mouth, start their business and expand to a set of players they wouldn't have reached normally.
B)Ditto Wulf's imprint, Of Sound Mind and maybe Hellhounds stuff when he started, etc..
c)When Monte Cook launched Malhavoc postive press here and affection for him personally definitely (IMHO) had an impact. Now that he's grown? Nope. He does weight in and participate and so forth, but I'm under the impression that's mostly his marketing strategy.

But other than that? Nope.
Fast Forward has been routinely canned on the boards, the even the nice reviews struggle to find something good to say. While it may have had some small effect on their sales (when they went nuclear on Psion a while back) they are still churning out book after book so it can't have been siginificant.


*= a segement of folks here are very good at processing rules and analyzing systems (and can write well). I'm pretty confident that the actual information content of critcisim here is often right. So a poorly written, unbalanced book may get a negative review from someone, and also sell poorly. But I doubt strongly that the review itself had much to do with the outcome.