Here's a nice Ryan D quote from the link "Of course, there's very little relation between the number of people
playing TRPGs vs. the number of people
buying them. ". We are certainly seeing that here today.
That is massively important to the long term health of any game.
But it is also important to keep in mind that this entire conversation continues to move the goalposts.
In 2017 Pathfinder was #2. According to a March 2020 post from Morrus (via ICV2,
ICv2 Reports 23% Growth In RPGs in 2019) the TTRPG market was $55M. So by any handwaving that PF2E might be huge now because of 5E numbers, the same reasoning would apply to PF then. But nobody is claiming that. Sounds like a flaw in the logic.
And, again, we have ZERO evidence that PF2E is being played more than PF. To the contrary, what evidence we have suggests the opposite. A significant point that can be found by following up on Hussar's link, but it undermines his narrative.
It is also interesting to note that Hussar is linking to $15 to $35million for TTRPGs in 2017, but the March 2020 link says it was $55M in 2017. So, obviously we have to be very careful in what faith we put in this data.
(The fact that Ryan calls out wholesale is also a big flag)
All we really know is that 4E cratered. (seems everyone agrees with that and Hussar is now trumpeting it).
And then PF was tied for #1 in 2010 and had sole ownership for 2011 through 2014. The March 2020 post says $25M for 2014. Jester David's post from this afternoon references massive growth in PF sales spanning from roughly 2009 through 2011 with increasing print runs continuing to sell out. But, interesting, that is exactly where we don't appear to have data. And then, we see it dropping off by 2013 (+/-), which isn't a surprise to anyone.
So the bottom line is there is a mountain of comparing apples and oranges and giant data gaps. And NONE of it matters anyway because the entire conversation of how PF did early on is a red herring.
Hussar has returned to the same dry well several times by pointing out that 5E is huge and blurs the data. He presents this as a resolution. First, it should be obvious to anyone that this says nothing about what
IS happening. It just attempts to obfuscate.
The real question that keeps being asked is: how is PF2E doing compared to how PF was at the time PF had fallen enough to justify a new edition? We don't need a single bit of data before 2014 (charitably, 2017 more realistically) to try to answer that.
Clearly there was a huge slug of sales at release. We have seen numerous posts presenting 2H2019 as if that represents May 2020 conditions. But we see quickly declining sales trends, a complete lack of online enthusiasm, and VTT data suggesting PF is still played more than PF2E (which Hussar kindly linked a reference noting that this distinction should be kept in mind).
Well back in this thread it was pointed out that the conversations are mirroring those that happened during the 4E era. One thing that happened then was a steady drip drip drip of negative indications. And there was a constant refrain from people such as Hussar that the data was all meaningless and should be ignored. The lack of data supporting an alternative positive interpretation was not relevant, it only matter that we understood that bad data should all be ignored. And presto-abracadabra suddenly without any bad news we are left with the clear conclusion that all is well. But a steady stream of bad news, even if it is implicitly vague, doesn't happen randomly. We don't need to know that the truck is going 75 mph to know that it is moving to the south.
We are now mirroring that part of the conversation.
