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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hawk Diesel" data-source="post: 7561486" data-attributes="member: 59848">Sure, not disputing the value of the data. But it also depends on the questions you are asking and what purpose the data will be used for. If WotC is trying to use this data to determine how they approach future content, are they appealing more to the audience that already buys and uses their D&D Beyond? Or are they trying to continue to broaden their audience and get more people to use D&D Beyond? This data is far more valuable for one of those questions than the other.Only to a point. Once again, it depends on how the data is analyzed, what questions are being asked, and how those conclusions will be used and later assessed. If the question being asked is, "How do we get more ladies playing D&D?" and you only have dudes responding, then you aren't likely to get much value from the data or its conclusions.Exactly right. It's not about us. I never claimed that WotC had any duty to release its raw data, especially because it may be proprietary (just that doing so would allow for improved ability to reduce bias and blind spots). But when these things are released, it is important to ask why. This is not done in a vacuum, and while the data and conclusions are cool, a company that is built to make a product and money is not going to release something without a strategy behind it. And so we gotta ask, what is WotC trying to do by releasing this data? How is this going to help them drive sales or increase their relevance as a company? Because we as consumers have no ability to challenge these conclusions without the RAW data, and we cannot attempt to understand their own bias in how they see or analyze the data. WotC is not a charity or a scientific organization. But they are trying to make money. And so, not only are these graphs and their conclusions probably just a commercial for D&D Beyond (Hey shareholders! Look at all this data we can use and how it can shape our future products!), but they can also put out literally any numbers or conclusions they want since no one outside the company has access to that raw data.</blockquote>

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