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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TheSword" data-source="post: 7562024" data-attributes="member: 6879661">Any historian will tell you that any source has to be analyzed. However instead of talking about what data doesn’t tell us, isn’t it more constructive to discuss what it does tell us? We can recognize that the data has limits and imperfections but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to infer information about a broader picture. If I read the diary of a factory worker in 1860’s England, it doesn’t tell me how all workers lived but it might give suggestions for other useful information, items available at the time, current events, forms of entertainment, foods available etc. Let’s question the data more positively...1/ Who is more likely to use D&D Beyond? Younger/older/new players/multi edition players.2./ Who is unlikely to use D&D Beyond?3./ What are the likely differences between these groups? Home campaigns vs published campaigns.For instance while the statement “90% of games end before level 10” might be inaccurate. However if we suppose that d&d beyond is more likely to be used by a more IT savvy generation that have come new to the hobby when D&D beyond was sold as a key tool for the game, the phrase might be modified to say...“90% of games played by the younger, newer players using d&d beyond end before level 10.” This information is still useful to me and I suspect to WOC too. Particularly as we know that younger, new members are responsible for the explosion in sales and therefore people playing d&d.We can ask ourselves are people using d&d beyond likely to favour different character types to those that don’t. If the answer to this is no, then we are free to assume that this sample is more representative.We can recognize that it might hide some information like the difference between paid and free rules. However if that’s an issue I would much prefer to discuss what difference we would expect that to make. Rather than try to invalidate the source at face value. For those who say the data is worthless I say you are using it to answer the wrong questions.</blockquote>

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