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

[Mighty Veil]

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

It's focused on a few specific ninche and fringe demographics, chosen by the current writing and development team. And not targeted to a general audience, so sadly its sales are doomed to fail. But it's good news for WoW though.

 

[jeffh]

It's focused on a few specific ninche and fringe demographics, chosen by the current writing and development team. And not targeted to a general audience, so sadly its sales are doomed to fail. But it's good news for WoW though.

Considering that 1) it led to a level of financial success unprecedented in PnP RPGs, 2) though it targeted specific demographics, it's misleading at best and downright false at worst to call them "niche" or "fringe", 3) it is vanishingly unlikely that the then-current writers and developers were the ones who designed it, and even if they were, there has been considerable turnover in that area since... geez, was anything you said in this post true?

 

[WizarDru]

It's focused on a few specific ninche and fringe demographics, chosen by the current writing and development team. And not targeted to a general audience, so sadly its sales are doomed to fail. But it's good news for WoW though.

Actually, from what we've been able to glean, even in this thread alone, this is demonstrably false. WotC's marketing research targets it's customers, which are a niche audience (when compared to the general populace) but they also do plenty of research into the penetration of the brand among more general gamers and the public at large.

Indicating that their research would be faulty for asking gamers about their games doesn't seem to make much sense. You don't ask a person who has never picked up an RPG how long their game sessions last. As we've heard several times above, research would begin at the more generic and then drill down with specific targets. I'm not sure how you determine that 6 year-old research is doomed to fail, since WotC has managed to stay afloat through some pretty unpleasant market conditions. WotC's success with 3e is the second most successful run the game has had, as far as we can tell without access to their private financial records.

As far as response rate is concerned, I'm assuming that when they say a sample size of 1000, they mean literally that for their targeted marketing (i.e. that they worked with a sample of 1000 actual responses or interviews, as opposed to merely getting a few hundred cards).

 

[kenobi65]

As far as response rate is concerned, I'm assuming that when they say a sample size of 1000, they mean literally that for their targeted marketing (i.e. that they worked with a sample of 1000 actual responses or interviews, as opposed to merely getting a few hundred cards).

That's correct; the "ending sample" was 1000, and they sent out more questionnaires than that in order to get 1000 completed ones:

A follow up survey was completed (emphasis mine) by about a thousand respondents from the screener.

 

[Glyfair]

I'm not sure how you determine that 6 year-old research is doomed to fail, since WotC has managed to stay afloat through some pretty unpleasant market conditions. WotC's success with 3e is the second most successful run the game has had, as far as we can tell without access to their private financial records.

In fact, they were one of only two major companies that significantly grew their RPG business during the RPG collapse of the last few years. (At least the early part of it, Mongoose looks to be growing towards the end).