D&D 4E Sales Figures Debate

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 3:48 am

You assume that WOTC/Hasbro are bloody idiots. I think it is safe to assume that long standing businesses while they may not do perfect actions, they would rarely do completely idiotic ones. They did make some bad decisions like the flash marketing videos and Gleemax. It is not just sales data, but also the company's actions. Like making small print runs (they were in a 3rd printing during the court case), yearly firings of the head of the project, also DnD was seen as a Non-Core brand so they would not have a large amount of funding like MTG.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread ... me-History

It would seem that expectations where keep reasonable, but 4e didn't meet them.

Essentials went against the grain of 4e, it failed because if you loved 4e for what it was you did not like Essentials.

Okay, let's assume that is true... why would they do that? If 4e was so successful why make a product that would alienate the customers? Why not make it a parallel line?

Your belief in 4e's "success" has no foundation at all.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 3:50 am

CaptPike wrote:
virgil wrote:
CaptPike wrote:Essentials went against the grain of 4e, it failed because if you loved 4e for what it was you did not like Essentials.
How do you know Essentials failed?
admittedly true, I do not know but it make sense.
it did almost certainly LOOK like it failed to those in charge, that is about all we can know.

Priceless.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 3:56 am

Leress wrote:You assume that WOTC/Hasbro are bloody idiots. I think it is safe to assume that long standing businesses while they may not do perfect actions, they would rarely do completely idiotic ones. They did make some bad decisions like the flash marketing videos and Gleemax. It is not just sales data, but also the company's actions. Like making small print runs (they were in a 3rd printing during the court case), yearly firings of the head of the project, also DnD was seen as a Non-Core brand so they would not have a large amount of funding like MTG.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread ... me-History

It would seem that expectations where keep reasonable, but 4e didn't meet them.

and of course to get perspective you would need pathfinder data, so...short of you showing up with both those data sets I fail to see what good your links are.
My links showed that Pathfinder was #1 for several quarters in a row.

Your belief in 4e's "success" has no foundation at all.

I assume they are human, that means they sometimes have incomplete data, they sometimes make stupid decisions, and they sometimes make selfish decisions. their actions are not helpful unless I were to know the person who made the decision well.

so your saying pathfinder was number 1 BEFORE essentials? and you were able to grab the DDI data?

because again, unless you have the sales data for both, and the online data for both there is little point in talking you might as well just flip a coin.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 3:56 am

Shady314 wrote:
CaptPike wrote:
virgil wrote:How do you know Essentials failed?
admittedly true, I do not know but it make sense.
it did almost certainly LOOK like it failed to those in charge, that is about all we can know.
Priceless.

...so you find that fact that there exists a person who does not believe in the perfection of a company funny?

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:00 am

No, the mental gymnastics you are going through to keep your cognitive dissonance is the funny part.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:01 am

So your evidence that Essentials is a success is that we haven't demonstrated its failure? How about the fact that it divided the fanbase of a struggling game system and doesn't exist anymore? Or is that too anecdotal?

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:03 am

CaptPike wrote: 4e was widly popular by any and all data I have seen.

CaptPike wrote:
Leress wrote:Um, CaptPke you haven't show any data at all. Also I don't think you even read the links that I posted.
I am wise enough to know the data is not out there (where we can get at it anyway) to prove one way or the other. I THINK 4e was a wild success, but I lack the data to prove that

That's a wrap everyone, good work.

Between blatant dishonesty and lack of proper punctuation and capitalization there's nothing on offer here.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:07 am

Insomniac wrote:So your evidence that Essentials is a success is that we haven't demonstrated its failure? How about the fact that it divided the fanbase of a struggling game system and doesn't exist anymore? Or is that too anecdotal?

*I am assuming you meant 4e rather then Essentials

I have no evidence one way or the other, or rather not enough to matter. I THINK it was yes, from what I know. but I am not the one saying for sure with no doubt whatsoever it failed. I am simply pointing out that NO ONE has the data to prove anything. and I am wise enough to know that its better to just admit that then to assume what you have is enough.

also there exists the very real possibility that ANY 4e would have done so, even if they have made 3.75 because of the number of people who were tired to the same mistakes and incompetence that pre-4e had. admittedly anecdotal but almost everyone I have met that played 4e during its lifespan and had played 3e would not have stuck with 3e. it was time to try something new.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:10 am

Dean wrote:
CaptPike wrote: 4e was widly popular by any and all data I have seen.

CaptPike wrote:
Leress wrote:Um, CaptPke you haven't show any data at all. Also I don't think you even read the links that I posted.
I am wise enough to know the data is not out there (where we can get at it anyway) to prove one way or the other. I THINK 4e was a wild success, but I lack the data to prove that
That's a wrap everyone, good work.

Between blatant dishonesty and lack of proper punctuation and capitalization there's nothing on offer here.

first I admitted I was wrong about the amazon sales list (that it was enough data, not that it pointed to 4e, because it does), that was the data I was talking about.

also...why do you confuse proper punctuation and capitalization for logic and reason? The point of the written word is to communicate, if I have caused confusion with my lack of proper punctuation and capitalization I will apologize and fix it. If I have not what is your problem?

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:11 am

CaptPike wrote:
Shady314 wrote:
CaptPike wrote: admittedly true, I do not know but it make sense.
it did almost certainly LOOK like it failed to those in charge, that is about all we can know.
Priceless.
...so you find that fact that there exists a person who does not believe in the perfection of a company funny?

Because you say that we can't say it makes sense to us why 4e failed, but you can say it "makes sense" why 4e Essentials failed for... reasons.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:16 am

Leress wrote:
CaptPike wrote:
Shady314 wrote: Priceless.
...so you find that fact that there exists a person who does not believe in the perfection of a company funny?
Because you say that we can't say it makes sense to us why 4e failed, but you can say it "makes sense" why 4e Essentials failed for... reasons.

4e tanking is a perfect rational reason for Wotc to have acted the way it did, one of a great many. Until we have more data we can not even say if it tanked nor can we say if that was the reason for their change.

TOZ wrote:No, the mental gymnastics you are going through to keep your cognitive dissonance is the funny part.

I do not trust Wotc, how is that hard to understand?

The only thing I trust is that most decisions would either be made because at the time the person making them thought they would help Wotc OR they would help themselves.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:25 am

It is important to remember that pike has basically told us he is going to refuse to acknowledge any data that isn't exactly what he wants to see.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:31 am

MGuy wrote:It is important to remember that pike has basically told us he is going to refuse to acknowledge any data that isn't exactly what he wants to see.

as opposed to someone who will accept data he knows is incomplete? or are you complaining I laid out exactly what enough data is?

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:49 am

CaptPike wrote:
MGuy wrote:It is important to remember that pike has basically told us he is going to refuse to acknowledge any data that isn't exactly what he wants to see.
as opposed to someone who will accept data he knows is incomplete? or are you complaining I laid out exactly what enough data is?

Oh you are right that we don't have the DDI data. But your reasons for thinking that 4e succeeded are based on nothing. You are making an argument from fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

Now, from the data that we do have, it is more likely that 4e was not as successful as they would have liked. Could the DDI data prove otherwise? Oh course it can but the behavior of the company doesn't really show that.

Now if you want to point out why your arguments make more logical sense then by all means do so. Maybe even something like this:

https://yourbusinesssucks.wordpress.com ... on-part-2/

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:07 am

Leress wrote:
CaptPike wrote:
MGuy wrote:It is important to remember that pike has basically told us he is going to refuse to acknowledge any data that isn't exactly what he wants to see.
as opposed to someone who will accept data he knows is incomplete? or are you complaining I laid out exactly what enough data is?
Oh you are right that we don't have the DDI data. But your reasons for thinking that 4e succeeded are based on nothing. You are making an argument from fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

Now, from the data that we do have, it is more likely that 4e was not as successful as they would have liked. Could the DDI data prove otherwise? Oh course it can but the behavior of the company doesn't really show that.

Now if you want to point out why your arguments make more logical sense then by all means do so. Maybe even something like this:

https://yourbusinesssucks.wordpress.com ... on-part-2/

what Wotc did is not data, no more then what some random guy on the street says about 4e is data.

as I said before I THINK it succeeded, the limited data I have seen shows this. but I do not KNOW. and of course I will admit this, that I do not enough enough data to know, will you? or are you still pointing at some sales records that are some unknown percentage of total 4e sales and saying that it is good enough. Knowning full well it could be 20% as easily as it could be 80%?

"more likely" is not good enough, you might as well flip a coin.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:13 am

CaptPike wrote: what Wotc did is not data.

You do not even know what data is. Why should anyone bother talking to you?

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:25 am

as I said before I THINK it succeeded, the limited data I have seen shows this.

Where is this data?

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:25 am

CaptPike wrote:I do not trust Wotc, how is that hard to understand?

Your trust in any company is irrelevant to the discussion. Your inability to comprehend facts means that no discussion can be had.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:41 am

CaptPike wrote:=he point of the written word is to communicate, if I have caused confusion with my lack of proper punctuation and capitalization I will apologize and fix it.

Egregious grammar errors make sentences more difficult to parse and causes slight, but noticeable, slowing in reading speed even when they do not obfuscate meaning. Particularly when rapidly bouncing between someone with proper grammar and someone without, which prevents the subconscious from adapting to the new style. This is why style guides exist. The irritation at this slowdown is certainly exacerbated by your petulant insistence that the significant preponderance of evidence for 4e's failure should be ignored in favor of a single, solitary scrap of very weak evidence for its success.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:55 am

Shady314 wrote:
CaptPike wrote: what Wotc did is not data.
You do not even know what data is. Why should anyone bother talking to you?

would you rather I put "useful" in front of every use use of data?

Leress wrote:
as I said before I THINK it succeeded, the limited data I have seen shows this.
Where is this data?

the amazon best seller list, anecdotal evidence enough for me to think it did, but no more.

TOZ wrote:
CaptPike wrote:I do not trust Wotc, how is that hard to understand?
Your trust in any company is irrelevant to the discussion. Your inability to comprehend facts means that no discussion can be had.

either say why or stop wasting everyone time. saying "your wrong" is useless saying "your wrong for X reason" is.

---
I understand all of your positions perfectly. You think that a combination of some stranger's actions, part of 4e sales records, and some propaganda from Wotc is enough to KNOW with little to no doubt that 4e failed.

I am saying that you do not have enough, that strangers actions are not usable in any way, that having partial sales records is only usable if you know what part they are (if we knew that DDI was 20%-50% of all money from 4e for example we at least could work on the odds, but we lack even that), and of course I entirely ignore anything Wotc said unless they had a very very strong reason not to lie (both the company and the mouthpiece)

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:00 am

What propaganda are you talking about?

I should have been more clear. Please provide a link to your data.

Also if the data we have present is useless, than so is yours. Which begs the question why did you show up to this thread to talk about how 4e actually succeeded but have no proof to back that claim up?

TOZ · Post by **TOZ** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:06 am

CaptPike wrote:stop wasting everyone time.

The only one wasting peoples time is you.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:08 am

Captain Pike is just another Titanium Dragon. A delusional fanboy who can't even bring himself to make arguments he could possibly win because he just can't let go of 2009 talking points that 4e was a glorious success that was going to take over gaming and only a few neckbeard grognards were going to cling to 3e the way insecure 50 year old virgins keep playing AD&D.

I mean, 4e fanboys could make serious arguments that would be difficult to counter and very hard to dismiss outright. For example:

4th edition was a great game, but it came out during a massive recession and was no longer a "new thing" when the economy had recovered and its sales were permanently hampered by that.
4th edition was a great game, but it was released incomplete - the Paladin didn't have a full list of playable powers in the PHB and the real monster numbers weren't done up properly until the Monster Manual 3. Late period 4e is the best edition, but few people know that because WotC pushed it out the door when it was still basically a rough draft.
4th edition was a great game, but it was failed by marketing. Insulting videos to fans, a complete failure of the promised virtual tabletop to materialize, and so on.

I mean, you could make arguments like that, and people wouldn't point and laugh. I mean, some people would of course, because I don't think that 4e was a great game or even an acceptable game. Indeed, I have counter arguments to those talking points as well. But they aren't slam dunks like they are with delusional arguments that 4e got onto an Amazon best seller list for some number of hours and that therefore it must have been an "objective success."

Anyway, the basic Fanboy Turing Test is quite simple: Can you accept that your fandom is not something that most people care about?

Even if you're a fan of Harry Potter, you're still a minority. And a tiny minority at that. Almost 32 million people went and sat through the 8th movie of that franchise, which is a titanic number. But that's still less than one half of one percent of the people in the world. Most people did not see Harry Potter and the Deathly Whatevers Part 2. And it's of course completely obvious that most of the people who saw the movie are not people who concern themselves overmuch with Harry Potter "lore" and don't care to talk to you about your fan theories.

So if you're a fan of something that is smaller than that - and almost every fandom is smaller than Harry Potter - your cohort is really small. And to be taken seriously as a human being rather than a Pokemon who shouts fan slogans, you need to be able to accept that.

4th edition is unpopular. It's unpopular for an edition of D&D. D&D is in the fantasy genre, and fantasy is a small fandom. D&D is a roleplaying game, and roleplaying is a small fandom. D&D is a tabletop roleplaying game, and that is a small fandom. There's more people who like Scifi than Fantasy. There's more people who watch movies than play RPGs. There's more people who play computer RPGs than tabletop and that's just that. But even within that context, 4th edition D&D is really small compared to 3rd edition D&D. It sold less books of all kinds in the first year than 3rd edition sold of Player's Handbooks alone in the first month. It's literally an order of magnitude or two smaller than the previous edition of the same game.

Any Fanboy who can't successfully admit that their fandom is really small in the big picture is not even a human being.

-Username17

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:17 am

This thread accurately simulates the frustration of spamming at-wills against an elite monster with bloated hitpoints that has already eaten everyone's daily and encounter powers. With that being said...

Pike, I'd rather hear about what you LIKE and DISLIKE and what HOUSE RULES you use for 4e than hearing you talk about sales data, because I like talking about game design.

As you are an expert on 4e, please tell me what you consider to be the best designed classes, best designed powers, and best designed monsters, as that would inform me on how to run 4e the next time that opportunity comes up for me. I would consider it a productive read and not a waste of time.

CaptPike · Post by **CaptPike** » Wed Apr 22, 2015 6:24 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Captain Pike is just another Titanium Dragon. A delusional fanboy who can't even bring himself to make arguments he could possibly win because he just can't let go of 2009 talking points that 4e was a glorious success that was going to take over gaming and only a few neckbeard grognards were going to cling to 3e the way insecure 50 year old virgins keep playing AD&D.

I mean, 4e fanboys could make serious arguments that would be difficult to counter and very hard to dismiss outright. For example:

4th edition was a great game, but it came out during a massive recession and was no longer a "new thing" when the economy had recovered and its sales were permanently hampered by that.

4th edition was a great game, but it was released incomplete - the Paladin didn't have a full list of playable powers in the PHB and the real monster numbers weren't done up properly until the Monster Manual 3. Late period 4e is the best edition, but few people know that because WotC pushed it out the door when it was still basically a rough draft.

4th edition was a great game, but it was failed by marketing. Insulting videos to fans, a complete failure of the promised virtual tabletop to materialize, and so on.
I mean, you could make arguments like that, and people wouldn't point and laugh. I mean, some people would of course, because I don't think that 4e was a great game or even an acceptable game. Indeed, I have counter arguments to those talking points as well. But they aren't slam dunks like they are with delusional arguments that 4e got onto an Amazon best seller list for some number of hours and that therefore it must have been an "objective success."

Anyway, the basic Fanboy Turing Test is quite simple: Can you accept that your fandom is not something that most people care about?

Even if you're a fan of Harry Potter, you're still a minority. And a tiny minority at that. Almost 32 million people went and sat through the 8th movie of that franchise, which is a titanic number. But that's still less than one half of one percent of the people in the world. Most people did not see Harry Potter and the Deathly Whatevers Part 2. And it's of course completely obvious that most of the people who saw the movie are not people who concern themselves overmuch with Harry Potter "lore" and don't care to talk to you about your fan theories.

So if you're a fan of something that is smaller than that - and almost every fandom is smaller than Harry Potter - your cohort is really small. And to be taken seriously as a human being rather than a Pokemon who shouts fan slogans, you need to be able to accept that.

4th edition is unpopular. It's unpopular for an edition of D&D. D&D is in the fantasy genre, and fantasy is a small fandom. D&D is a roleplaying game, and roleplaying is a small fandom. D&D is a tabletop roleplaying game, and that is a small fandom. There's more people who like Scifi than Fantasy. There's more people who watch movies than play RPGs. There's more people who play computer RPGs than tabletop and that's just that. But even within that context, 4th edition D&D is really small compared to 3rd edition D&D. It sold less books of all kinds in the first year than 3rd edition sold of Player's Handbooks alone in the first month. It's literally an order of magnitude or two smaller than the previous edition of the same game.

Any Fanboy who can't successfully admit that their fandom is really small in the big picture is not even a human being.

-Username17

I said that we do not have enough data to know how popular 4e was, and we do not. we do not have DDI sales so we can not know how much money it made, we do not have the pathfinder data we would need to compare them.

for the last time DO YOU HAVE THIS DATA? because if you do not you are guessing, you do not KNOW anymore then I know. And of course we know even less about the state of things today, once they stopped putting out new books we lost any way whatsoever to gadge how many people are playing 4e. THERE IS NO WAY AT ALL TO KNOW HOW MANY PLAY IT TODAY.

4e might have been a huge failure that sold orders of magnitude less then others, or it might have sold more then 3e but that was mostly from online sales. So either tell us about your awesome secret trove of insider Wotc data or admit you are just guessing. You might be willing to assume that DDI was no more then [insert some random percentage here]% of overall sales, so you think you have enough data but I am not willing to guess like that. I use data and only data to form conclusions.

Leress wrote:What propaganda are you talking about?

I should have been more clear. Please provide a link to your data.

Anything Wotc or anyone who works for them says that has not been verified by a trusted third party is propaganda. Same with any other company unless they are admitting to something so heinous that nothing could be worse for them then what they said.

I do not have enough data to know, for the fifth time. My point is that no one here has enough so saying that "4e failed" is at best an outright lie. It MIGHT be right, but you do not know that and can not know that (well if you worked for Wotc and had access to their info you could, but that seams doubtful).