D&D General Richard Whitters poll on twitter, "Will you be buying the newest edition of D&D?"

[Quickleaf]

A representative sample, proper sourced would be necessary for me to take it seriously.

Hundreds out of tens of millions, self-selected, literally means nothing. Certainly not enough to make me question my own personal experience for a second.

It isn't thar I trust WotC numbers because they are WotC's: I believe they are using sound big data research methods and stands
Ard market research, and acting in their financial best interests based on their findings.

If WotC was reversing course rapidly and dropping the Advebture Fay, I would believe my own experience ia the statistical outlier. Since they are relqxedly relying on it to remain the cornerstone of their game design, it is pretty simple to conclude that their statistics say it isn't a problem for most tables at all.

I think I understand your perspective better, thanks for breaking it down for me. I like having that kind of very thorough standard, it's what we all should strive toward when thinking of trends and data.

I'm sure you recognize that "representative samples that are properly sourced" are almost impossible to find in the RPG industry. So, as I understand your view (correct me if I'm wrong) it's that: In lieu of hard data with representative samples and proper sourcing – which does not exist in the RPG industry for the most part – you believe that the marketing decisions of Hasbro/WotC reflect the trends in how the game rules are being used. Is that pretty close?

One of the challenges I've noticed in sharing dissenting viewpoints with you on ENWorld is that I embrace anecdotes. I value the N of 1, and attempt to understand that person's perspective. Perhaps what is objectionable to you is when I or others attempt to expand that small data as some form of umbrella truth? And that leads to the breakdown of communication?

I've attempted to stop doing that for my personal experiences – I recognized years ago that I represent no one in tabletop gaming except me, and I am an outlier in many ways.

 

[KYRON45]

look at his past titles...
Freelance drawing guy. Previously Art Studio Lead for Dungeons & Dragons, Art Director Larian Studios, and Lead Concept Artist for Magic the Gathering.

Twitter tends to show you stuff from people you follow & posts that the almighty algorithm thinks are relevant to your interests rather than random nonsense. I would expect that a great many of them are people who enjoy the art in one ore more of those three wotc/d&d products?

So the poll could be showing up in the feed of millions of art fans who have never played any game ever?
Can you see why I am asking these questions? This forum is rife with pedantry yet everyone is taking a random access poll to mean something?
I'm curious about the numbers. I don't own stock in Hasbro. How much they sell of anything means nothing to me. I handsdown prefer the 3PP stuff exponentially more than WOTC. I'm just wondering how valid a poll from a person who is currently not part of the marketing team for a book has any value to anyone.

 

[KYRON45]

It's just an informal Twitter poll. Don't read anything more into it than that. It has no official weight or bearing. Plus, you don't have to worry about me. I'm not on Twitter, so I can't respond to the poll.

However, my skin crawls when I hear things like being worried about "non-gamers" taking the poll or having to prove yourself as a "gamer." It reminds me all too much of how similar gatekeepery language was used during Gamergate days.

I'm questioning a poll about a thing and you think it doesn't matter if people are in any way related to the thing that they are answering questions about?

 

[KYRON45]

However, my skin crawls when I hear things like being worried about "non-gamers" taking the poll or having to prove yourself as a "gamer." It reminds me all too much of how similar gatekeepery language was used during Gamergate days.

I have no influence over anyone. If a random person walked up to me and asked me to play a game with them I would. I encourage everyone i meet to play games...any game...all games. From tic-tac-toe to chess (i'm terrible at both). I think games should be part of the academic program of every school everywhere. No one anywhere would ever give me a key to any gate. I'd probably lose it. True story.

 

[Umbran]

Does that mean only gamers are responding? If one of the estimated 556 million X users stumbled upon a random poll and answered it wouldn't that skew the results more than a little? I'm seriously asking.

From several responses here, it seems like folks could use a bit more in the way of statistical literacy.

In short: Statistically, that twitter poll is garbage, and should not be taken as evidence of anything. Same goes for other twitter polls in general, or polling threads here on EN World - they don't even reliably represent the opinion of EN Worlders.

At slightly more length: Proper polling calls for a random sample of the population of interest. When you allow a broad population to self-select whether they will be respondents to the poll, the result isn't random. It is generally skewed in several ways.

That people who aren't actually rpg fans might join in is probably the least concerning possibility. You'll gets a skew towards people with strong opinions, or who have a point to make or axe to grind, and an under-representation of people who feel less strongly. Then, there'll be bias coming from the network connection of people, and the kind of responses twitter tends to favor. Not to mention biases brought on by twitter's algorithms for whether or not they show you an item.

And that's just a few obvious things. Overall, this is not how you determine how people broadly feel about something. Even calling it an "informational" poll is giving it too much credit. There is no reliable information there.

 

[tetrasodium]

So the poll could be showing up in the feed of millions of art fans who have never played any game ever?
Can you see why I am asking these questions? This forum is rife with pedantry yet everyone is taking a random access poll to mean something?
I'm curious about the numbers. I don't own stock in Hasbro. How much they sell of anything means nothing to me. I handsdown prefer the 3PP stuff exponentially more than WOTC. I'm just wondering how valid a poll from a person who is currently not part of the marketing team for a book has any value to anyone.

Twitter For Dummies

 

[KYRON45]

Twitter For Dummies

Topic avoidance for forum posters.

 

[Aldarc]

So the poll could be showing up in the feed of millions of art fans who have never played any game ever?
Can you see why I am asking these questions? This forum is rife with pedantry yet everyone is taking a random access poll to mean something?
I'm curious about the numbers. I don't own stock in Hasbro. How much they sell of anything means nothing to me. I handsdown prefer the 3PP stuff exponentially more than WOTC. I'm just wondering how valid a poll from a person who is currently not part of the marketing team for a book has any value to anyone.

I don't think that people are taking this poll to mean anything other than the informal Twitter poll that it is. From what I gather, @darjr the OP is using this Twitter poll as a way to invite similar discussion on the subject in this forum and posters here are supplying their own answers as part of that discussion.

I'm questioning a poll about a thing and you think it doesn't matter if people are in any way related to the thing that they are answering questions about?

Most scientific questionnaires typically include questions that let you filter responses, though not by notions of "true gamer" or "fake gamer." However, I think that most people here are able to recognize that this is an informal Twitter poll, which is why most people aren't working themselves up to attack the validity of an informal Twitter poll on scientific grounds. So I presume people here use their own sound and reasonable judgment to put a limited amount of stock into any conclusions drawn from said poll. As @Umbran says, a Twitter poll will not produce a poll with scientific rigor. Of course, that also doesn't preclude people from being interested in the results of an informal Twitter poll.

 

[Desdichado]

It's just an informal Twitter poll. Don't read anything more into it than that. It has no official weight or bearing. Plus, you don't have to worry about me. I'm not on Twitter, so I can't respond to the poll.

It's probably more a veiled allusion to scientifically correct polling methodology and sample selection. While that's not entirely inappropriate as a caveat, in my experience it's mostly pulled out to dismiss data sight unseen that contradicts the narrative that the person making that allusion wants to believe. Good data about gaming is hard to come by, and we have to work with what we've got, in spite of the possible sampling bias inherent in this type of poll. Otherwise, we have no predictive model at all, not even an imperfect one, and have nothing to talk about, and have to just be surprised at whatever happens because we were too pedantic and purity-spiraling to use what data we could get.

 

[KYRON45]

From several responses here, it seems like folks could use a bit more in the way of statistical literacy.

In short: Statistically, that twitter poll is garbage, and should not be taken as evidence of anything. Same goes for other twitter polls in general, or polling threads here on EN World - they don't even reliably represent the opinion of EN Worlders.

Proper polling calls for a random sample of the population of interest. When you allow a broad population to self-select whether they will be respondents to the poll, the result isn't random. It is generally skewed in several ways.

That people who aren't actually rpg fans might join in is probably the least concerning possibility. You'll gets a skew towards people with strong opinions, or who have a point to make or axe to grind, and an under-representation of people who feel less strongly. Then, there'll be bias coming from the network connection of people, and the kind of responses twitter tends to favor. Not to mention biases brought on by twitter's algorithms for whether or not they show you an item.

And that's just a few obvious things. Overall, this is not how you determine how people broadly feel about something. Even calling it an "informational" poll is giving it too much credit. There is no reliable information there.

Thank you. This is an answer. My overall point is/was....in the not too distant future someone is likely to reference this poll as gospel and I just wanted to know what if any value it has. I'm just a guy with too much time on his hands trying to engage.