"analysis" and "assumptions" are not equivalent words and an argument based on that false premise is guaranteed to be, well, false.arbitrarily excluding anyone over 35 based on their internal analysis (read: assumptions),
"analysis" and "assumptions" are not equivalent words and an argument based on that false premise is guaranteed to be, well, false.arbitrarily excluding anyone over 35 based on their internal analysis (read: assumptions),
It is really easy to assume that your experience was the common experience or representative of some larger truth.
"Arbitrarily" and "internal analysis" from their write-up of the market study don't really work together either. That's one of multiple reasons I interpret their "internal analysis" as being based largely on their own assumptions. Their history of not listening to their market (as I point out Dancey criticized) and stated desire to keep the study to a manageable size and profile really don't give me a lot of confidence that the internal analysis was based on more than assumptions."analysis" and "assumptions" are not equivalent words and an argument based on that false premise is guaranteed to be, well, false.
Nope, it was younger than that.I'm not at all so sure about that, given that in the early 80s at least (i.e. the height of 1e) the main demographic playing was still college-age types like me.
I missed the survey cutoff by 3 years.
Always was, still is, probably will remain so.My recollection is that 1980s D&D was largely a high school and even middle school phenomenon.
WotC doesn't have enough power to change the way people play by releasing a certain sort of product: 3E and 4E proved that. They sell by providing what people actually want, go figure.Well, any theory that requires frequent purchase has a fairly obvious motive.
As a milennial who spent his entire childhood getting bombarded with corporate advertisements from products that thought the way to win our milennial hearts was to make everything "XTREME!!!" as if we represented their shallow idea of Generation X, I longed for nothing more than for corporations to stop marketing to me. If it takes aging to liberate myself from being the target market, then so be it.Agreed.
That said, despite the fact that I am pushing back on some of the assertions of @Lanefan .... I am sympathetic to Lanefan's feelings. It's part and parcel of the process ofgetting oldmaturing.
At a certain point, you realize that a lot of things just aren't made for you. That you are no longer the target market. That people are discussing popular musicians or artists or influencers(?) you might not have heard of.
And yeah .... it does suck. Don't I count? I mean ... I have money and disposable income. What about me and my interests? It's just the circle of life, you know? One day you are insanely cool, and the next day .... you just aren't. Sorry.
But the thing is ... it's a great time to be alive. If you like the old stuff, the old games, the old rules ... well, they are more accessible than ever. It is easy to reach out and find people with shared interests, and it is easier to find and locate things from 10, 30, and 50 years ago.
I mean, they straight up said that the personality profiles they developed were true across age brackets, so they probably checked those, at least.So here's the thing -- I saw the same text as everyone else about who they were and weren't including in their survey. Absolutely regardless of that, I don't for a hot buttered moment believe that they didn't use the data of people over a specific age. Maybe not for the specific marketing decision about which the quote was referencing, but they still looked at the responses and drew conclusions (of some kind). Surveys are too expensive not to. If they didn't draw any hard, usable conclusions from that age group's data, it would be because the response rate was low enough that they didn't feel that the data could be trusted to be representative of that market segment as a whole. Bottlenecking in survey data is a real issue, particularly when someone from a niche sub-group can notice that the survey exists and get all their friends to go take it, making their voice unrepresentatively prominent.
The maxim of that notion is something I've seen plenty of fellow greyhairs espouse--right up until it comes back to mean them.![]()
Sorry about that XTREME stuff.As a milennial who spent his entire childhood getting bombarded with corporate advertisements from products that thought the way to win our milennial hearts was to make everything "XTREME!!!" as if we represented their shallow idea of Generation X, I longed for nothing more than for corporations trying to market to me. If it takes aging to liberate myself from being the target market, then so be it.
Yeah, we sort of went a little overboard with those Hi-C commercials.Sorry about that XTREME stuff.
Yeah, we sort of went a little overboard with those Hi-C commercials.
Having recently aged out of the target market, it's nice. Though now my kids are in the line of fire...As a milennial who spent his entire childhood getting bombarded with corporate advertisements from products that thought the way to win our milennial hearts was to make everything "XTREME!!!" as if we represented their shallow idea of Generation X, I longed for nothing more than for corporations trying to market to me. If it takes aging to liberate myself from being the target market, then so be it.
Was that real? I neve saw it!
Wow, really?So when discussing the game we can never discuss how it's actually played. In addition, I was answering a very specific question "Wouldn't the essence of a thing be the same for everyone, even if the specific permutations of their lived experience of it are different?"
So no, I don't think the essence of the thing, how the game is actually played from one table to the next is different.
But I get it. Anytime I say anything about my game, I'm not only wrong but somehow actively harming the conversation. Right.![]()
This all started with a post that posited that everyone had similar experiences with the game because we start from the same ruleset.Wow, really?
That's your takeaway?
All or nothing? Nothing in between? No attempt whatsoever to understand the context of how other people are discussing things and what they might mean?
And you wonder why you keep butting heads with people?
"Arbitrarily" and "internal analysis" from their write-up of the market study don't really work together either. That's one of multiple reasons I interpret their "internal analysis" as being based largely on their own assumptions.
So, for me, this sits in a position that many conspiracy theories do - they require the subject to be intelligent, but also idiots.
They are intelligent - they do extensive, very expensive market research to know things about their market. They are idiots - they base that research on arbitrary assumptions. This is inconsistent, and you'd have to explain that inconsistency before it'll be convincing.
It is more consistent that their choices were based on business data to which you are not, and should not expect to be, privvy.
If you're over 35: When was the last time you bought a different toothpaste or laundry detergent just to try something different? How many cars or televisions or smartphones have you bought from the same manufacturer? How often do you buy something new to establish a new habit or new taste? If you have, how often have you done it after seeing it become popular among others rather than being more maverick? Would you say your tastes are pretty well established, or that you're always looking for something new or the next new thing? How about when you were 30? 25? 20? 15?
Well, a LOT of kids started playing when things like the cartoon and Red Box appeared (in KB Hobbies, Walden Books, and Dept Stores no less). So, while I agree that MY EXPERIENCE of playing D&D in the early 80's (in College) revolved mostly around people my age, that doesn't say much about the overall demographic of all players. I mean, one of the things I really remember is this younger kid whom we were pretty much tasked with letting into our group (he was fun, but of course annoying to us somewhat older players, being 13 or something like that at the time). Actually, pretty soon all my brother's friends started playing too (they were 4-6 years younger than me). All of them had to have started playing around 1980-84 because I know I introduced many of them to RPGs. Honestly, I'd say they weren't much different from my older friends though in terms of how they played. In fact I have played with all of them off and on for all the years since. So, I'm honestly not sure that including older gamers would have actually made much difference in the numbers. Its an interesting question...I'm not at all so sure about that, given that in the early 80s at least (i.e. the height of 1e) the main demographic playing was still college-age types like me.
I missed the survey cutoff by 3 years.