Has anybody else been pondering this data over on EN World?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php

I am surprised to see D&D 4E (the live and currently running edition) lagging behind Next, 3.5E, and Pathfinder (all individually).  Wouldn't it have been more plausible for 4E to be the lead edition?  I was also surprised that 13th Age is beating out AD&D and the OSR.  

Do I have a really bad sense of the pulse of the RPG hobby?

Quote from: Votan;694769Has anybody else been pondering this data over on EN World?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/hotgames.php

I am surprised to see D&D 4E (the live and currently running edition) lagging behind Next, 3.5E, and Pathfinder (all individually).  Wouldn't it have been more plausible for 4E to be the lead edition?  I was also surprised that 13th Age is beating out AD&D and the OSR.  

Do I have a really bad sense of the pulse of the RPG hobby?

Enworld is basically a WotC-era D&D forum and WotC flushed themselves down the toilet with 4th, so PF is really now the main expression of WotC-era D&D. 4e is dead, hence Next.  People still interested in 4e internet discussions are 4vengers.  Pathfinder is live and going strong, and 3.5 is being quasi-supported by WotC.  Next is new, so of course people are going to be talking about it.

For most of the people interested in older versions of D&D, Enworld is not the place to go to discuss those games.  13th Age is new, has all the 4venger support, plus jettisoned a lot of 4e baggage so has others interested.  13th Age will beat OSR conversation on Enworld and awfulpurple.  The blogosphere and G+, not so much.

In light of what Enworld is, the numbers make perfect sense, as they apply only to Enworld.

I believe En World was just part of the sample. They were tracking other forums and blogs for that data from what was said in the link.

Quote from: Votan;694769Do I have a really bad sense of the pulse of the RPG hobby?

Yes, in the sense you are inflating ENWorld's importance as it relates to the RPG hobby. ENWorld is it's own show with its own vibe and its own cliques. Just like RPGnet. Just like here. Just like pretty much anywhere on the internet. The results you are saying are representative of what's a current subject of conversation for ENWorld users. That's hardly surprising. For a breakdown of why that is, see Krueger's post above.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;694778I believe En World was just part of the sample. They were tracking other forums and blogs for that data from what was said in the link.

I don't think that represents the zeitgeist of the RPG hobby, even in that case. We're inflating the importance of the internet echo chambers in this instance, as though the registered blogs on this or that blog roll represented all RPG blogs, the pannel of forums was representative of the many, many forums out there, and ultimately, as though the internet was representative of the tastes of people who don't give a shit about all the web chatter and just play games for their own private enjoyment.

Yeah, I've always been deeply suspicious of such "metrics" and "algorithms."  Heck, pretty much ANYthing ANY company comes up with to measure a game's impact on society is BS.  For instance, D&D has been wont to claim millions of players (based exclusively on sales figures reported by TSR and WotC), and I just have never seen it.

The first time I saw such a number was a couple million active players domestically in 1990.  That year I was living in a metro area of 700,000 people.  There were two FLGSs, one a wargaming store in a 15'x15' cubby that had a single rack of RPG material (and was about to fail).  Demographically, our area's share would have been something like 6000 active gamers, and sorry, but that just wasn't so.  In those pre-Internet days, that many gamers would have HAD to patronize the Dragon's Lair, and patronize it hard.  They would have been gaming out of the FLGS or at the local schools, and they weren't doing that six thousand strong.  I'm thinking that it was a lot closer to six hundred gamers than six thousand.

I think it illustrates just how big D&D is (compared to the rest of the hobby), and how much a failure 4e was. It really tarnished the brand.

Quote from: Ravenswing;694792Yeah, I've always been deeply suspicious of such "metrics" and "algorithms."

And rightfully so. Even if the ENworld data was correct the only thing it measured was "talked about", which says nothing about acceptance. All those Next threads could be highly critical and negative.

QuoteThe first time I saw such a number was a couple million active players domestically in 1990.  That year I was living in a metro area of 700,000 people.  There were two FLGSs, one a wargaming store in a 15'x15' cubby that had a single rack of RPG material (and was about to fail).  Demographically, our area's share would have been something like 6000 active gamers, and sorry, but that just wasn't so.  In those pre-Internet days, that many gamers would have HAD to patronize the Dragon's Lair, and patronize it hard.

But you are mistaking casual gamers for die hard gamers. Only a small percentage of the gamer community cares about the community aspect, visits stores or local conventions.
Of a group it's usually just the GM that is interested in new product, but from my time as a shop owner I know that not even every GM works like that. Some are just content with whatever system core book(s) that they've got. (My first AD&D group was like that, completely oblivious to everything that happened outside their basement.)

I've got two colleagues at work who are extremely casual, almost lapsed gamers who are capable of telling all the usual Shadowrun war stories ("on our last run...") but don't even know that there are game stores in our city.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;694778I believe En World was just part of the sample. They were tracking other forums and blogs for that data from what was said in the link.

Yup. I still find the methodology questionable at best because it takes into account pretty much only generalist boards and not traffic to dedicated forums, but it does say right there on the page that it's also taking into account a raft of other forums besides ENWorld.

Quote from: Benoist;694779I don't think that represents the zeitgeist of the RPG hobby, even in that case. We're inflating the importance of the internet echo chambers in this instance, as though the registered blogs on this or that blog roll represented all RPG blogs, the pannel of forums was representative of the many, many forums out there, and ultimately, as though the internet was representative of the tastes of people who don't give a shit about all the web chatter and just play games for their own private enjoyment.

I am not saying it does, just that it is not limited to En World.

I cannot bear Enworld, though the sample does include other sites (though largely pro either 3.5/4th Edition D&D). I would like to see the RPG site's own however, though I suspect that D&D Next would also be the front runner here too - after that though I'm not sure. AD&D, Basic, Retro-clones, BRP, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu?

That pie chart is the measure of an echo chamber? Huh.

Going over to where I play, on obsidian portal, there is the data on the number of campaigns: D&D4e - 14,000+, 3.5 - 9,000+, Pathfinder 9,000+; and then nobody else comes close, a couple like Savage Worlds at just over a1000. I don't have a dog in this though, my fav Traveller, is tiny with only 200 some games; it is interesting from a casual viewpoint to look at the statistics.

Quote from: elfandghost;694854I cannot bear Enworld, though the sample does include other sites (though largely pro either 3.5/4th Edition D&D). I would like to see the RPG site's own however, though I suspect that D&D Next would also be the front runner here too - after that though I'm not sure. AD&D, Basic, Retro-clones, BRP, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu?

For most chatter? Here? Fourth edition. No contest.

They are not charting EnWorld.  They are charting thousands of posts through a complex algorithm, that excludes the websites of game companies themselves (but weighted that data before excluding it to test the impact of that exclusion).  It includes G+, 300 blogs, the RPG Blog Alliance of nearly 600 blogs, and Reddit, among many many others.  I suspect it tracks this very site by the way.

It's threads like these that make me really frustrated with this board sometimes.  Just the stupid instinctive nerdrage sometimes here, which overrides even the most basic level of patience in reading something before talking about it.  It's disappointing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;694777In light of what Enworld is, the numbers make perfect sense, as they apply only to Enworld.

It's awesome when people don't read something at all, make bold declarations about it, and then pat themselves on the back for a work of sheer idiocy well done.

Seriously, even the barest of glances at it would have told you what you just said was false.  You couldn't even click the thing you were commenting on.  Were you representative of this board, others could read posts like yours and conclude this board is full of mouth breathing morons.

Quote from: dragoner;694860That pie chart is the measure of an echo chamber? Huh.

Another fucking moron who didn't bother to even look at what he is commenting on.

Seriously, what's wrong with you people that you cannot even bother to read the thing before talking about it?