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Rath
Skirmisher
39 Posts
    
 | | 08/03/2008 9:15 AM |
| I was looking at the reviews that have been given to the players handbooks on Amazon.com from 2E through 4E and noticed something interesting. The 4E players handbook is, by far, the lowest rated version of all the players handbooks.
2E Players Handbook (116 total reviews), 97 of these reviews are 4 or 5 star ratings and there are only 8 ratings in the 1 or 2 star category
3.0E players Handbook (382 total reviews), 318 of those are either 4 or 5 star ratings while 45 of the ratings are in the 1 or 2 star category
3.5 Players Handbook (124 total reviews), 86 of those are either 4 or5 star ratings while 31 are in the 1 or 2 star category. Personally, I think the negative ratings for 3.5 are largely a result of the revision being released so soon after 3.0 first came out... but even with that backlash the reviews are still very favorable.
4E Players Handbook (151 total reviews), 68 of those are either 4 or 5 star ratings and a whopping 71 reviews are in either the 1 or 2 star category.
Going by this unscientific rating system, it would seem as though 4E is largely unpopular. I suspect that after the initial large purchases of rulebooks by hardcore fans, sales will rapidly fall off (if they haven't already done so). This will leave Hasbro with a failed version of the game and I can't help but wonder where they will go from there. I think 5th edition will come a lot sooner than anyone realizes.
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wicked cool
Underboss
2151 Posts
| | 08/03/2008 12:21 PM |
| | only time will tell | |
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zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 08/03/2008 12:30 PM |
| I have a feeling that the high volume of low reviews is less due to the content and more due to the ink smudge problems. If WotC fixes the problem then there probably won't be as big of a drop in sales.
Also, 151 reviews out of several million copies sold is hardly a large enough sampling pool to generate any sort of conclusion from. | |
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Zenako
Commander
3472 Posts
| | 08/04/2008 10:03 AM |
| Actually assuming no organized bias is present, those numbers of reviews would (with the caveat that they were self selected members of the population) be a pretty representative population, especially if we can assume that whatever review bias is present is present in each of the sets of responses.
It also reflects what I see in many forums. The reaction to 4th Ed is somewhat bipolar without too many in the middle. | |
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Choco Monster
Ghendar
Warlord
13099 Posts
Mud Lick, Kentucky
| | 08/04/2008 10:23 AM |
| What it really comes down to is the pro-4 folks will downplay these numbers while the anti-4 folks will hype them up.
I agree with Wicked Cool. time will tell | |
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Puggins
Sergeant
622 Posts
| | 08/04/2008 12:30 PM |
| Never confuse objective evaluations with emotional responses.
Those reviews on Amazon are full of biased reports by people that have an emotional reaction to 4e. Now, reviews on both sides of the tracks have such bias, but it's pretty obvious which side has more emotional involvement.
Here's a historical example: the 3.5e player's handbook
Of all reviews in the first three months:
***** 15
**** 10
*** 3
** 3
* 13
I wasn't expecting it to match 4e's reviews perfectly, but the amount of correlation here is almost eerie. The average review would be.... 3.25 stars, which happens to be 4e's average review.
Isn't it interesting that most of the negative reviews came as 3.5e debuted, replacing a popular edition? A huge portion of 3.5e's negative reviews were written immediately after its release. I expect the same to occur for 4e. | |
References: http://www.maxminis.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7231 | |
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AmishBurrito
Skirmisher
15 Posts
| | 08/04/2008 2:44 PM |
| Well put, Puggins.
I suspected the same thing, but you brought out the data to prove it. :) | | | |
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Awesome Sauce
Teflon Jeff
Warlord
7908 Posts
Sector 2814
| | 08/07/2008 4:04 PM |
| Agreed, thanks puggins.
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