What do we actually know about WotC's market research?

[Raven Crowking]

On a number of threads, the idea that the 3e game arose from the direct contributions of WotC's market research has arisen. A few times, some specific problems with that market research has also arisen. I, for one, have never been approached by WotC in terms of market research, although I have spoken to WotC in terms of store/venue support.

So, my question is this: What do we actually know about WotC's market research? Have any of the results ever been shared with the gaming community? Have we ever seen how those results were arrived at? Who did they ask? How did they develop their survey pool? What questions were asked? What were the raw numbers? Did any specific question/answer combos disqualify a respondent from the survey? If so, which combos, and how did that skew the data?

In other words, when a poster says, "WotC's marketing research shows that...." do we have any basis to believe that such statements carry any weight whatsoever?

These are serious questions, not simply trolling. If there is a link to this data anywhere, I'd appreciate someone posting it.


RC

 

[Umbran]

The only WotC market research I ever refer to is fairly old (dating back to 2000) and is summarized by Sean K Reynolds:

Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0

Breakdown of RPG Players

Rarely, if ever, do companies disclose the full details of their market research as you suggest. Quite frankly, they pay a lot for this stuff, and it doesn't pay for them to release their methodologies or information for other folks to use. At those two links, we got a heck of a lot more than one could usually hope for.

Do we have any reason to trust it whatsoever? Well, how much trust can you ever put in research you didn't do yourself? At a bare minimum, you can only trust it as far as you trust the people who talk about it.

Do we have any particular reason to not trust it? Not a general one like "You can't trust a corp!", but a specific reason to think they'd lie on this topic?

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thank you, kind sir.

 

[Glyfair]

The only WotC market research I ever refer to is fairly old (dating back to 2000) and is summarized by Sean K Reynolds:

I believe Sean Reynolds is just hosting the information, it was originally summarized by Ryan Dancey.

Also, a lot of the design articles and side discussion (including on Eric Noah's messageboards) had other tidbits mentioned from that survey (mostly by Ryan Dancey. bit I believe from a few others). I remember comments about the average campaign lasting less than a year, and the average group consisting of about 4 players. Also, it was mentioned that D&D was by far the most played RPG, but the majority of gamers haven't been purchasing any RPG products in a long time (i.e. have been playing in the same game with no purchases for a long time).

 

[Troll Wizard]

If you attend their yearly state of D&D at Gencon, they usually provide some data. I have been to a few, this last year they stated some of their best sellers (Spell Compendium, ToB, ToM) and what was too niche (not good) (MoI). They read their own boards for feedback..., but the final impact is, how many of x books sold? Which is pretty much common sense, write/develop/print the books the consumers are buying, with occassional new stuff to test the water for possible new expansion products.... Tome of Battle (good seller) so I would expect another similar book in a year or so, Magic of Incarnum very niche, maybe a token thing in a book or two....

some othe links for D&D and othe game market research
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/demographics.html

http://www.theescapist.com/WotCsummary1.htm

http://www.ogrecave.com/archives/004091.shtml

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/wotcdemo.html

http://digg.com/gaming_news/Dungeons_Dragons_maker_looks_for_success_in_competitive_gaming_market

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/3163.html

You might want to search ICV2, it used (and perhaps still does) have the marketing/research firm names that WOTC uses for D&D and MtG.

 

[Nellisir]

(Spell Compendium, ToB, ToM) .... Tome of Battle (good seller) ....

Do you mean Heros of Battle? I don't remember seeing or hearing anything about a Tome of Battle.

 

[Glyfair]

Tome of Battle.

Tome of Battle aka The Book of Nine Swords

 

[Asmor]

Do you mean Heros of Battle? I don't remember seeing or hearing anything about a Tome of Battle.

The full title is Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords

Personally, I usually call it the book of nine swords since that's the more prominent part of the title.

 

[Asmor]

Tome of Battle aka The Book of Nine Swords

Drat and double drat! You've confounded me for the last time, Glyfair!

 

[Raven Crowking]

From http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/demographics.html

The best known survey done of gamers was conducted by Wizards of the Coast in the summer of 1999. A short post-card questionnaire was sent to over 20,000 households. Based on results of this, a more detailed followup survey was sent to 1000 respondents. A summary of the results of this have been made publically available as the "Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary", available at the RPGnet website among other places.​

Is this accurate? 1,000 respondents is far from exhaustive research, IMHO.

On http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/demographics.html we are told that

Information from more than 65,000 people was gathered from a questionnaire
sent to more than 20,000 households via a post card survey.​

which seems to indicate that every postcard was intended to glean information on 3 or more individuals. In other words, for every "primary" respondant, information was given second-hand on 2-3 others, seemingly skewing the results drastically toward second-hand information.

Is there something here I'm not seeing?