Quote from: StormBringer;320042You will note that I estimated the costs based on common publishing figures, and then presented a range of likely dollar values.  Even if you don't have someone from the financial department on hand, general values can be estimated for a whole host of products available to consumers.

Yes, but you criticized them for selling at $5 rather than $0. We don't have their numbers, and that $5 difference may be critical to the decision. Since they're not just giving them away, there's some reason to infer that it does make a difference to them.

Quote from: StormBringer;320042I have grave doubts that there is a higher priority than sales numbers for decisions they make.

I have grave doubts that profit is not the most important factor in their decision-making.

And what do you mean by "sales numbers"? Do you mean "units sold"? Or are you referring to "sales in dollars", which is what "sales" means by default in the accounting world?

Quote from: StormBringer;320042If stapling a sandwich bag loaded with dog shit to the front cover had no effect on sales, you can damn well bet they would continue to staple bags of dog shit to the covers.

Does the sandwich bag of dog shit cost them anything? If it does, and has no effect on sales (positive or negative), they will discontinue the practice. Why spend money on something (say, the wages paid to someone to collect the shit, but it in a bag and staple it to the cover) if it doesn't boost sales?

Profit is king in business, not sales.

Quote from: Fifth Element;320145Profit is king in business, not sales.

Uhhhh...  How do you generate profit without sales?

Profit = sales.  I mean, this is such a fundamental concept, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around your disassociation of them.

Quote from: StormBringer;320149Uhhhh...  How do you generate profit without sales?

One obvious way of generating profit without sales:  winning lawsuits with huge settlements.

Other methods include extracting cash by intimidation, threats, blackmail, etc ...

Quote from: StormBringer;320149Uhhhh...  How do you generate profit without sales?

Profit = sales.  I mean, this is such a fundamental concept, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around your disassociation of them.

Sales drive profits, sure. But higher sales do not, by themselves, guarantee higher profits. There's far more to the equation than that. If you only pay attention to sales numbers you will quickly go out of business.

Don't make me pull out my resume, because I will. But I'm trying to make an argument rather than appealing to authority.

There's one obvious scenario where profit does not equal sales:  total gross revenue coming in from all sales is less than the costs.  (Profit = gross revenue - costs).  In this scenario, profit is negative in the red.

Quote from: Fifth Element;320155Sales drive profits, sure. But higher sales do not, by themselves, guarantee higher profits. There's far more to the equation than that. If you only pay attention to sales numbers you will quickly go out of business.

Don't make me pull out my resume, because I will. But I'm trying to make an argument rather than appealing to authority.

Oh God, not the resume!  Whatever shall we do against the might of your community college MBA!?  The Internets will never withstand such power!  WE're doomed, doomed I say!

Quote from: J Arcane;320184Oh God, not the resume!  Whatever shall we do against the might of your community college MBA!?  The Internets will never withstand such power!  WE're doomed, doomed I say!

I warned you, don't make me do it! Don't make me pull out my designation! No one wants to see that!

Quote from: Fifth Element;320155Sales drive profits, sure. But higher sales do not, by themselves, guarantee higher profits. There's far more to the equation than that. If you only pay attention to sales numbers you will quickly go out of business.

Don't make me pull out my resume, because I will. But I'm trying to make an argument rather than appealing to authority.

Yes, naturally, it is assumed that sales drive profits if you are selling units at a profit.

However, if you have a manager that skims your line items without delving too deeply into the numbers, they will likely assume you are reporting higher sales to reflect a higher profit.  Especially if you can hide the fact that you had to slash the price to generate sales on other product lines in the fine print.  Double points if you use your head and cover losses from the marketing budget.

And let's face it, I would be greatly surprised if WotC got more than five or ten minutes at a Hasbro quarterly meeting; just enough time to briefly mention new products in the pipeline, their projected numbers, and the sales volume on current products.  It would be highly unlikely that Hasbro execs are going to take 45mins to an hour during a meeting to pore over WotCs books or accounts receivables.  So, WotC says 'PHB sales are up 35% this quarter', Hasbro pats them on the head, and moves on to discuss the cost of plastic in developing countries or whatever.

Hence, $5 PHBs will almost certainly drive sales of the other books, and with the increased profits from selling them directly, the 'loss' of profit on PHBs will be well covered.  Additionally, they get to report record sales numbers for the PHB where it might otherwise be flat or flagging.

Quote from: StormBringer;320189However, if you have a manager that skims your line items without delving too deeply into the numbers, they will likely assume you are reporting higher sales to reflect a higher profit.  Especially if you can hide the fact that you had to slash the price to generate sales on other product lines in the fine print.

Yes, if we can assume WotC managers are incompetent, this is valid. But even you say "if" you have a manager like this. We don't know if they do have a manager like this.

Quote from: StormBringer;320189And let's face it, I would be greatly surprised if WotC got more than five or ten minutes at a Hasbro quarterly meeting; just enough time to briefly mention new products in the pipeline, their projected numbers, and the sales volume on current products.

I expect this is true, but Hasbro isn't the only level of management in the corporate group. WotC has its own managers, its own executives, ones whose entire responsibility is to make sure WotC is profitable. They don't just skim the numbers and say "Hey! PHB unit sales are up 35% this quarter".

Quote from: StormBringer;320189Hence, $5 PHBs will almost certainly drive sales of the other books, and with the increased profits from selling them directly, the 'loss' of profit on PHBs will be well covered.  Additionally, they get to report record sales numbers for the PHB where it might otherwise be flat or flagging.

Obviously that's what they're hoping, they're using it as a loss leader. There's no secret there. But the default "sales" number in business is the sales in dollars, not sales in units. Why? Because you can't compare your sales in units to your expenses to determine how profitable you are. You need sales in dollars to do that.

Quote from: Fifth Element;320202Yes, if we can assume WotC managers are incompetent, this is valid. But even you say "if" you have a manager like this. We don't know if they do have a manager like this.

No, I assume they are standard managers with a multi-billion dollar international industry to run.  I don't know who you generally work with, but most mid-level executives and up don't deal with things like actual sales numbers from small divisions in that size of company.  That is what the junior executives and managers of those divisions are for.

And of course, the division managers will find ways to present good numbers, as will the junior executives, all the way up the chain.

QuoteI expect this is true, but Hasbro isn't the only level of management in the corporate group. WotC has its own managers, its own executives, ones whose entire responsibility is to make sure WotC is profitable. They don't just skim the numbers and say "Hey! PHB unit sales are up 35% this quarter".

There is a level of executives that look closely at the numbers, but that level of executives are typically running the division, and certainly aren't going to make themselves or their division look bad.  They will kill a product line, start a new one, whatever; if they promised better numbers to the junior exec in charge of overseeing their division, however, you can be sure they will deliver better numbers and kill the product line later, if necessary.

QuoteObviously that's what they're hoping, they're using it as a loss leader. There's no secret there. But the default "sales" number in business is the sales in dollars, not sales in units. Why? Because you can't compare your sales in units to your expenses to determine how profitable you are. You need sales in dollars to do that.

Which is precisely why I was saying they can't just give the PHB books away.  You can't count promo give aways as sales, and someone internal to the company would notice that quickly enough, even using the marketing budget to cover the costs.

It could very well be that Hasbro has no idea what they are doing, and don't really care, as long as the sales numbers are in line with projections.  WotC may have simply decided that they can have a bit easier time of it selling the PHB for $5 instead of giving it away, and the psychological difference in price is negligible or non-existant.

Either way, it has the appearance of WotC trying to boost the sales numbers for the PHB, or perhaps the D&D line in general.  As you mention, that isn't public knowledge, or publicly available, so the only customers for that kind of data would have to be the internal folks.  The question is, which internal folks?  If they are getting pressure from Hasbro, it can be somewhat safely assumed that sales aren't meeting projections.  If the pressure is from WotC folks, they may just be shining things up a bit for the next meeting, which would indicate there is no real problem with sales, but they can always look better, and here is a golden opportunity to polish the numbers.

Quote from: StormBringer;320003Interesting, but you don't get to re-define 'any' to mean 'this specific instance that has no other grammatic markers whatsoever'.  It means 'up to and including every other similar instance, severally or collectively'.  What you probably meant to say was "This is just another example where...", or "Here is another case of..."

Any does not mean all.  You seem to be confused about the two.  If I say "I don't see any applies this color green" I do not mean all the other apples are the same color.  "Any" does not in any way mean up to and including every other instance is grouped the same way.

Plus, if you felt that is what I meant, it still does not make sense to choose a different context than the one you were responding to.  If your argument was valid, it would have been valid for the context I was giving as much as for some other context you decided to make up.  The truth is, you knew damn well your argument was not valid for the context given, so you decided to change it to try and slip your point by.  It was a pretty chicken shit move.

QuoteBelieve it or don't, words have meaning.  'Any' doesn't get to apply to a specific instance just because you were caught being a whiny douchebag.

Again, you misused the word any.  Any does not mean all.  Much like "A" means one of many, not all.  Not my fault you fucked up.

QuoteThe context you are referring to, just for clarity, is riddled with bad math.

Oh, so you DID see the context, and admit you took it out of context.  Nice.  Go fuck yourself.  An honest mistake I could understand...but you were just being a dick to be a dick apparently.

QuoteAssume a $40 book. It goes into the distribution channel at $16-$20, and their cost would be something like $8-$10 from the printer, but probably much less, around $5.

Leave cost to the company out of it.  Cost would remain a constant regardless of the source of the sale, so it's not relevant and just adds needless complexity.

QuoteThey can sell it directly for $40, however, at GenCon for a $30-$35 profit.  The PHB is a rider for $5.  So, $45 for both books that cost them $10-$20 total from the printer results in a $25-$35 profit where they would have normally made $60 selling them directly.

Which demonstrates my earlier comment, you have confused profit with revenue and screwed your own example up.  Leave profit out, use the same numbers across the board, and you will find exactly what I said is accurate.  Indeed I got a response at EnWorld from a Big Box Retailer confirming my numbers as almost exactly correct.

QuoteIt's almost as if you find some way to spin WotC announcements into the most positive interpretation possible and utterly reject any negative viewpoints, no matter how slight.

I don't.  I bash WOTC fairly often.  I just don't see THIS as bashworthy.  You don't know my posting habits very well, so it's understandable.  But don't pretend you do.

QuoteYou are objecting to having your words read correctly when you want to pretend they meant something else.  You are backpedalling faster than Lance Armstrong can pedal normally.  You were making a blanket statement that even the slightest negativity towards 4e or WotC aggravates the sand in your vagina to intolerable levels.

No, I was not.  You just don't know what the word any meant in context, and tried to lie to folks by applying a new context.  I mean, why not just apply the context of WOTC eating babies, if you felt "any" meant "anything you can possibly think of" rather than the context I gave?

QuoteWhen you can find these people that always decry WotC, you can attack those people for always decrying WotC.  

If I wanted to name names I would.  I think many of us could name plenty of names that fit that profile. My point was not to pick on people, just to demonstrate the issue and try to persuade people to maybe not make everything a negative, but instead try and find a couple of things that were at least neutral news from WOTC.

QuoteWhen you can't, and you pretend these people exist when they don't, you get to be labelled a douchebag.

Are you in all honesty claiming nobody here tries to spin every bit of news from WOTC as a negative? Really?

Quote from: StormBringer;320223Which is precisely why I was saying they can't just give the PHB books away.  You can't count promo give aways as sales, and someone internal to the company would notice that quickly enough, even using the marketing budget to cover the costs.

I don't understand. Are you saying that if they sold them for $0.01, they could "count" that as a sale, but if they give them away, they can't? I'm not sure what your point is here.

Quote from: StormBringer;320223Either way, it has the appearance of WotC trying to boost the sales numbers for the PHB, or perhaps the D&D line in general.

You could see it that way. Seems more likely to me to be a sale, a promotion tied to Gencon. Retailers have sales all the time for a variety of reasons. You can infer that it means they're trying to inflate sales numbers. But you seem to only be considering unit-sales-driven reasons for the $5 PHBs. There are many reasons why they could be doing this. They could be clearing old inventory, they could be trying to get some goodwill from the customer base, they could be experimenting to see the effect on their profit. It doesn't have to be about units sold.

Quote from: Mistwell;320240Any does not mean all.  You seem to be confused about the two.  If I say "I don't see any applies this color green" I do not mean all the other apples are the same color.  "Any" does not in any way mean up to and including every other instance is grouped the same way.

an⋅y

1. one, a, an, or some; one or more without specification or identification: If you have any witnesses, produce them. Pick out any six you like.      
2. whatever or whichever it may be: cheap at any price.      
3. in whatever quantity or number, great or small; some: Do you have any butter?      
4. every; all: Any schoolboy would know that. Read any books you find on the subject.
     5. (following a negative) at all: She can't endure any criticism.

Quote from: StormBringer;320254an⋅y

1. one, a, an, or some; one or more without specification or identification: If you have any witnesses, produce them. Pick out any six you like.      
2. whatever or whichever it may be: cheap at any price.      
3. in whatever quantity or number, great or small; some: Do you have any butter?      
4. every; all: Any schoolboy would know that. Read any books you find on the subject.
     5. (following a negative) at all: She can't endure any criticism.

OK, so you found a fourth definition that means "all", I was mistaken when I said it could never mean that.  Sorry about that.

But, in the context of my use of the word, you knew up front I didn't mean "all" by it, but meant "one or more without specification", the first definition.  And I gave you one to discuss to make that very clear.  You still have not even tried to explain why you took it out of context and put a new one in to begin with, one which it was pretty darn clear I was not talking about because I had not commented on it.

Face it, you thought you were being cute by being a smart ass and taking my comment out of context.  And rather be an adult about it and just say "fine, you didn't mean that, sorry for trying to put words in your mouth", you're trying to play linguistic game to weasel out of taking that adult position.  Just man up already, this game you're playing is silly.

Quote from: Mistwell;320288Face it, you thought you were being cute by being a smart ass and taking my comment out of context.  And rather be an adult about it and just say "fine, you didn't mean that, sorry for trying to put words in your mouth", you're trying to play linguistic game to weasel out of taking that adult position.  Just man up already, this game you're playing is silly.

No, champ, the real point is, all those definitions point to 'up to and including every instance'.  You have spent several posts strenuously trying to make it sound like you were referring to a single instance, when just about everything you have written provides this context you keep rattling on about; namely, you lose your shit when someone says something negative about WotC or 4e.  When I pointed out that what you said didn't correlate with your explanation, you continued to lose your shit.

Physician, heal thyself:  "Sorry, I have been reading too many threads where all people do is bad-mouth WotC and their products and it irritates me.  I will concentrate more on posting threads about what I like about 4e"

In other words, if you are going to continue being a whiny douche, demands for others to 'man up' are going to fall violently flat.