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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BryonD" data-source="post: 5533854" data-attributes="member: 957">OK, I actually agree with you.But this is certainly where it gets very frustrating because you are VERY much arguing with 4E fans at this point.  Over and over I hear from people who insist that the complaints against 4E are just the absolutely predictable history repeating itself.  My reply has been that two people saying something then and 500 people saying it now is not history repeating itself.It seems we agree on that.Actually, 3E was clearly on the way out.  It certainly wasn't allowed to reach the pits that 2E wallowed in.  But it is interesting that PF seems to be more popular now than 3E was in the last couple years of its life.First, you are falling into the same trap as Hussar.As numerous people have said, myself included on many occasions, 4E is making a lot of money.But the market is deeply split now.  If 4E had not split the market it would be making a hell of a lot more money than it is.  And when I commented upthread about WotC being schizophrenic and swinging back and forth between supporting the 4E fan base and chasing the people they lost, it tied back to this.  I certainly am willing the go out on a limb and presume that WotC's plan was NOT to split the market and they hoped, and expected, to continue being the single 800 lb gorilla.  Wouldn't you agree that is a reasonable guess despite my ready concurrence that we truly don't know anything on that?4E is not "failing".  I don't claim it is.  But the market is deeply split and D&D could have been doing MUCH better and when 4E was first given the go the plan and expectation SHOULD have been that it would do much better.All that said....There is evidence.  It gets absurd when people who don't like what the data say decide they just want to ignore it.I am NOT claiming that I know what 4E makes or what PF makes.  I'm not claiming I know to the nearest 10% what the split in revenue is.  But there is a ton of evidence that things are a lot different now.It is?  I thought you just said there was NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE WHATSOEVERBy itself, I agree.  But there has certainly been a pattern here.Pathfinder was in no small part born from the discontent with 4E in a large segment of the fan base.So no, you certainly can't just look at PF sales and declare that an indicator of 4E.  But if you have been following the story all along, the common source is there to see.I know a bit.  And as I just said above, I agree that just trying to assign direct cause and effect between the two is wrong.  There is more to it than that.Just simply not true.Wait a second.  Just before you were talking about how people buy both games so the "notable" success of PF says nothing about 4E.  And, again, as an isolated comparison, I agree.  But that presumes that a lot of people buying D&D are now just buying D&D plus PF and the pie is therefore growing and instead of one success we have two.  That is certainly a potentially valid model which could exist.  But then you turn around and say "the pie is shrinking".  If the pie is shrinking AND someone else now has comparable amounts of pie as the guy who used to have the majority of the pie, then the only rational conclusion is that the guy now has less pie.Just retained for the record.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Oh, I don't doubt it.  Neither am I.  I did not say no one could find a group.  Hussar said you don't hear that.  I said I have.  Just anecdotes.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />No, that is not true.My point is that his example could not exist in the first place if my position was truly wrong.Obviously PF could not exist as is without WotC's OGL.  Hats off.But the success of PF is still, as you put it, "notable".  And I think is interesting in itself.  The very game that was not doing good enough to continue supporting is now breathing down WotC's neck.  Is Paizo just that much better at marketing and giving the people the material they want?  Is it a case of you don't know what you've got until it's gone?As I said, PF appears to be doing better now than 3E was in the waning days.  There is something going on there.Again, the whole "can't sell it" is either just knee jerk or red herring.But I disagree that a different 4E could not have been vastly more successful.  Now, I certainly agree that it is easier said than done to make a fully new game that still appeals to 3E fans.  But is was certainly more than "conceivable".But the problem is that this was never even WotC's goal.  They made that clear, and early on this was held as a standard and point of pride.  They wanted to vastly increase the fan base of D&D.  They saw tons of people playing WOW* pretending to be an elf and wanted to know why those people were not giving THEM money to pretend to be an elf.  They wanted DMing to not be intimidating and they wanted to lower the bar for entry level play.And the whole "firing" customers thing started as a light hearted off hand comment that certainly got blown way out of proportion.  But it did sum up their position.  If they lost 10 old fans and gained 200 new fans, then they are up 190 fans.  You can't make an omelet and all that.Now that all sounds great.  I'm all for them growing their business and if they lose me but gain just 2 to replace me, then good on them.  I completely support it.  But it didn't work.  And in trying to do that, they passed on trying to keep what they had.  So we will never know if they could have done it or not.  That ship has long sailed.* My standard WOW disclaimer, if you don't know it, ask.</blockquote>

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