Okay, 4E is really doomed.

[Zinegata]

The latest ICV2 report is out, and survey says...

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18504.html

... that Pathfinder has now tied 4E.

Okay, 4E is doomed. Lago, make more 5E threads now.

[For Valor]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[Lago PARANOIA]

WHY GOD WHY

WotC, I know that you have had a problem lately, but seriously, how could you guys let yourself be tied with those Paizil assclowns?

Andy Collins, you rat bastard... I hate you...

[Orca]

Pathfinder's had as much or more shelf space than 4e in my local gaming store for a while now. This is no surprise.

[TheWorid]

So, one bad game wins out over another? Interesting news to be sure, but not the apocalypse. RPGs have always been like that.

Still, time for more 5E threads!

[Fuchs]

Maybe WotC finally will see reason and cans 4E and starts on an edition that is actually advancing the game.

[Zinegata]

God is busy keeping the universe from collapsing unto itself Lago. He doesn't have time to save 4E D&D from this embarassment .

That being said, I'm gonna have to retract my previous position that 4E still had some life in it. Whoever is still working on 4E is probably living on borrowed time now, especially considering how WoTC traditionally cuts staff just before Christmas.

And with Magic doing extraordinarily well (they even got a kudos mention in the Hasbro annual report), I expect the axe to fall on the D&D guys even harder.

[Koumei]

While it's "a bad game beats a bad game", I find it interesting in that Paizo is smaller than WotC - it's a David beats Goliath story (I'm sure we can avoid going from "Biblical reference" to "argument about religion" just this once) and that rarely happens in the RPG industry.

Generally, if you try to be an opponent to one of the big companies, you get strangled out and your game is something that has one book hidden away in the "Misc" section of the store.

Clearly we need to provide support to DrD+ out here on the other side of the iron curtain... which was taken down and replaced with a nice floral design some years ago.

[Shazbot79]

Maybe WotC finally will see reason and cans 4E and starts on an edition that is actually advancing the game.

Which game?

I don't really have any desire to see 3rd edition continued.

Actually...my wacky tinfoil hat theory is that 4E has been a sort of beta test for 5th edition all along, and will go through at least another wholly separate iteration (like a .5, or an Essentials) before we see another official edition change.

[Roy]

So some guy's shitty house rules is on par with professional grade fail? Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Though they are rather similar. Both of them refuse to acknowledge that the game changes fundamentally every few levels and would instead prefer to go out of their way to ensure that it does not.

[hogarth]

The latest ICV2 report is out, and survey says...

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18504.html

... that Pathfinder has now tied 4E.

Okay, 4E is doomed. Lago, make more 5E threads now.

We discussed this before. 4E had very few products out last quarter, presumably because they were tooling up for Essentials, etc. So while it might be bad news for 4E, it's somewhat of a coincidence too (Paizo was in a peak and WotC was in a trough).

[Juton]

Things will be a bit more definitive when we get the Q4 numbers in January, but I expect WotC to get a boost this quarter from Essentials. 6 months from now, I wouldn't be surprised if they lost first place to Paizo.

[Zinegata]

The latest ICV2 report is out, and survey says...

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18504.html

... that Pathfinder has now tied 4E.

Okay, 4E is doomed. Lago, make more 5E threads now.

We discussed this before. 4E had very few products out last quarter, presumably because they were tooling up for Essentials, etc. So while it might be bad news for 4E, it's somewhat of a coincidence too (Paizo was in a peak and WotC was in a trough).

What we discussed before was actually Paizo being a "close second".

I know that the ICV2 numbers track only the hobby channel (so it doesn't track sales from other channels like Amazon). But still, even on a good day D&D should be bigger than everyone else *combined*.

The last time when D&D wasn't bigger than everyone else combined? When it was self-destructing under TSR while White Wolf was peaking.

That's really, really bad news for 4E no matter how you slice it.

[hogarth]

What we discussed before was actually Paizo being a "close second".

"Discuss" is maybe a misnomer, but here's Frank's response to my post from two weeks ago:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=170170#170170

[Zinegata]

Frank's just upset people are implying that Pathfinder got big. We're trying to discuss how 4E is utterly boned because even Pathfinder seems to be a serious threat to it now.

And yeah, "discuss" is a misnomer as I wasn't part of that discussion .

[malak]

We discussed this before. 4E had very few products out last quarter, presumably because they were tooling up for Essentials, etc. So while it might be bad news for 4E, it's somewhat of a coincidence too (Paizo was in a peak and WotC was in a trough).

Indeed. The only new products were dark sun and psionic power. No one in their right mind buys psionic power, so this leaves dark sun...

[Datawolf]

Is it just me or is there a lot of pure, unadulterated crap being published in the RPG industry?

Maybe if 4E tanks, then we'll get a lot of smaller publishers (those left over from the third party d20 craze) putting out half decent material? I'm not about to put my faith in third rate hacks like K-Dawg or J-Bull to drag the RPG industry from the scrappy heap.

It seems almost as if the majority of professionals in the RPG design industry do not learn from their past mistakes or the mistakes of others. Then again, I don't really keep up with the industry as much as a lot of the people on this site seem to so I may be way off base with my cynical, broken-hearted rantings.

Finally, I agree with Koumei: We should see about getting DrD+ published in the rest of the world (might need some rules updates and streamlining, though).[/url]

[TheFlatline]

No wonder Fantasy Flight has been pushing out new games like crazy lately. They're #3 and #4 in the top 5 list. That doesn't even take into account their board & card games.

[Roy]

RPG writing requires talent sets that overlap with many other better paying jobs. There's your explanation.

[magnuskn]

Well, so much for that blanket assertion that "Pathfinder won't be the next big thing" from a few months ago. Good for them.

[Doom]

Actually, I thought Frank commented a few months back on how "catchable" 4e was as a game...and if anything is going to catch it, my money would be on Pathfinder (at least until something else comes out).

[Ganbare Gincun]

Two shitty games, dueling to the death.

[Username17]

Actually, I thought Frank commented a few months back on how "catchable" 4e was as a game...and if anything is going to catch it, my money would be on Pathfinder (at least until something else comes out).

I did that too. According to WotC's own minister of propaganda, their game has one quarter as many players as their own minister of propaganda was claiming about 3.5 just one year before 4e hit the shelves. That's 4.5 million people who were supposedly playing 3.5 in 2007 who are supposedly not playing 4e in 2010. If you can get those people to sign on to your game, your game will be three times the size of 4e. And WotC further claims that the entire demographic of "lapsed D&D players" (whatever that means) is twenty four million people. That is sixteen times the market share that WotC claims for itself.

One year after 4e hit the shelves, WotC went to court, where among other things they stated in sword testimony that they had sold hundreds of thousands of books. Well, they said "core books" but at the time every 4e book was marked as "Core". So it amounts to the same thing (minus outliers like novels). They had produced over a dozen of these books, and while I don't doubt that the 4e PHB sold a lot more than Open Grave, it nonetheless implies sales figures in the tens of thousands range for each of those books unless you are Titanium Dragon. Fuck, there are Shadowrun Soucebooks that have sold 30,000 copies, getting tens of thousands of books sold isn't very impressive.

But that being said, while 4e of course can be caught, it is difficult to say if it actually has. Not all of the game distributors carry all the major labels, and none of the major distributors carry the major labels in the same ratios. One company could be number one for a single distributor simply because they happen to have stuff coming out that day or because that distributor happens to do a lot of business with that company. It's really not like comics, where almost all of the product goes through the same distributor and all has the same release days (Wednesdays) and all has their gross sales tabulated and posted on the internet every month. It's more like soft drinks, where each company has their own distribution channels and does a lot of their sales directly and only posts sales figures if they feel like doing it.

-Username17

[Zinegata]

ICV2 counts only hobby channel sales, so there's still wiggle room for 4E in other sales channels - i.e. online and mass market bookstores.

The thing is, a couple of RPG.net guys went out and checked other online channels. And they found that Pathfinder is also neck in neck with D&D in Amazon. The only places where D&D has a clear lead are places like Barnes & Nobles, which only very recently started carrying Pathfinder.

Regardless, that's a far cry from the lofty heights of D&D being bigger than everything else combined. If Essentials doesn't sell spectacularly well in its first two weeks (and I don't think they'll meet this goal), I suspect a lot of guys are gonna get axed from D&D.

Or, even worse (or even better, depending on your perspective), Hasbro may tell WoTC to let D&D go. It's worth noting that Mark Rosewater has gone out and made a statement that in terms of gross revenues, this was the best year ever for MtG. The way Hasbro gushes over MtG's performances in their fiscal report seems to confirm that this claim is genuine.

Hasbro and their "Mega brand" executives may thus want WoTC to focus on a winning product, as opposed to the disappointment D&D has become.

[Avoraciopoctules]

But that being said, while 4e of course can be caught, it is difficult to say if it actually has. Not all of the game distributors carry all the major labels, and none of the major distributors carry the major labels in the same ratios. One company could be number one for a single distributor simply because they happen to have stuff coming out that day or because that distributor happens to do a lot of business with that company. It's really not like comics, where almost all of the product goes through the same distributor and all has the same release days (Wednesdays) and all has their gross sales tabulated and posted on the internet every month. It's more like soft drinks, where each company has their own distribution channels and does a lot of their sales directly and only posts sales figures if they feel like doing it.

That's interesting. How much regulation is there on posted sales figures? If a company decided that it did want to post sales figures for some RPG books, but someone proved these were false, what sort of legal problems (if any) would the company face?