4E Out-Selling Any Previous Edition. Good? Bad.

Imaro · Jun 8, 2008

This is why I'm not buying into the "sold out print run" bit just yet. Yes, plenty of stores have bought the books, but this does not equate to customer sales. I even see that Amazon has all the core books, just not the gift set available. So is it that people only want the gift set and only want the Amazon price, because otherwise they aren't that hard to find.

Scribble · Jun 8, 2008

Games of Berkeley has them, but also apparently had a line of people out the door waiting for the midnight release.

WayneLigon · Jun 8, 2008

Wisdom Penalty said:
Did someone screw up? How can the demand so quickly and so emphatically out-race supply? Isn't that Economics 101?

I would say no one screwed up; estimating level of demand is at best an educated crapshoot for any company. Almost every year at Christmas something happens to make one item The Hot Toy, and a few days after that happens you can't find them for love nor money. There's no way of predicting whether or not you'll be The Hot Toy and if you over-produce and guess wrong then you're stuck with warehouses full of unsellable merchandise.

Psion · Jun 8, 2008

jensun said:
Its more interesting when you realise that 3.5 outsold 3.0.

Those numbers are sales of a single print run, not total sales.

I would honestly be surprised if more 3.5 PHBs sold than 3.0 PHBs.

Fifth Element · Jun 8, 2008

Imaro said:
This is why I'm not buying into the "sold out print run" bit just yet.

What exactly is the "sold out print run" bit?

Wisdom Penalty · Jun 8, 2008

Psion said:
Those numbers are sales of a single print run, not total sales.

I would honestly be surprised if more 3.5 PHBs sold than 3.0 PHBs.

Me too. I can't imagine 3.5 sold more than 3E. Larger initial print runs, sure, but 3E was the Daddy of those two. IMO. YMMV. Sorry for any offense this opinion causes.

Wis

Relique du Madde · Jun 8, 2008

Fifth Element said:
What exactly is the "sold out print run" bit?

Speculation based on this.

In truth it means wizards printed X number of books which WoTC sold to their distributors. The distributors then sold all those books to every store they deal with that are interesting in selling 4e. It's unknown what percentage of those books have or have not truly been sold to the public.

Andor · Jun 8, 2008

ThirdWizard said:
Here

That indicates the size of initial print runs, not total number printed. Of course they've been increaseing in size. 3e was a gamble to ressurect an almost dead game line. by the time 3.5 rolled around 3.0 had been a smash success for 4 years and had reinvigorated the entire RPG industry. 4e is building on that plus another 4 years and it's a pretty easy bet that most of their existing customer base is going to at least have a look at 4e.

Now as to what the total number of printed copies were for 3.0 and 3.5, we don't have the foggiest but you can bet it was a damm site more than the initial print run of 4e and this second batch put together.

I'd love to see those numbers but WotC is pretty close-mouthed about numbers.

Imaro · Jun 8, 2008

Fifth Element said:
What exactly is the "sold out print run" bit?

This...

Relique du Madde said:
Speculation based on this.

In truth it means wizards printed X number of books which WoTC sold to their distributors. The distributors then sold all those books to every store they deal with that are interesting in selling 4e. It's unknown what percentage of those books have or have not truly been sold to the public.

And the fact that I have seen posters on this board and others use this as evidence that 4e is "outselling" (or even the 1st print run is outselling) 3.0 and 3.5. The funny thing is this just isn't a valid statement with the information presented. There are people claiming the books are sold out at Amazon, when they are not...the $50+ gift set is the only thing sold out. There are also gift sets at higher than Amazon and Buy.com's prices...but people would rather wait until Amazon gets some more in. I just feel it's being overblown a bit at this early stage.

Staffan · Jun 8, 2008

Dragonblade said:
Everyone I know who ordered from Amazon had their order delayed, including myself.

Mine wasn't. According to the Amazon/DHL tracking system, it has left Kentucky, entered Ohio, and then left Ohio again. I'm guessing it's currently on a plane across the ocean.