Top 5 Sales - Q3 2011 Analysis

Alphastream · Nov 7, 2011

Mark CMG said:
The foreword of that book can be found here among other places, I am sure, but it raises the question, if this is the "post d20 market" as the author contends, why do the sales figures seem to indicate that d20 games are still the overwhelming dominators of the market?

I think the term d20 is really being used beyond Pathfinder and D&D to cover how the rest of the market used the OGL to create a glut of content in support of those games, plus new versions of their own games using the d20 engine. It shouldn't be surprising to still see Pathfinder and D&D use a d20... that has always been the case. Instead, we see the rest of the industry mature and realize that a d20 sticker isn't a path to riches.

Recent years see most RPGs use their own engine. We can look at how Dresden Files might perhaps have been a d20 game back then but uses the FATE engine now. We can look at L5R's return to d10 roll-and-keep. We can see new games like FIASCO gain wider play. While we have third-party products for D&D and Pathfinder, those offerings don't have nearly the volume nor prominence they once did. An RPG company today won't automatically choose d20. It isn't a free ride to riches and thus will be chosen, in general, only if it is the right tool for the job. This is a good change, resulting in more innovation.

What Shannon's numbers seem to indicate is that historically you see D&D in the lead by a fair amount, due to a number of strong releases. Then you have some competition by similar games, such as Tunnels & Trolls or Pathfinder. You also might have a Shadowrun or Traveller or similar game that contends in a non-fantasy category. But, that's about it for the top 10 games in a year. What will be interesting is whether anything changes that. EndGame's list is interesting, because it really is different from that history. But, that just may reflect EndGame's crowd, with many mature gamers. It won't likely represent the many game stores where you can't find such diversity. Will we see more diversity in the future? Will the historical pattern change?

Steel_Wind's question is also a good one. How does the online sales channel change all of this? ICv2 says stores are doing fine, and we see WotC constantly strengthening that channel (Mordenkainen's was only available through brick and mortar stores, several OP games are in-store only). But, it has to be on every RPG company's radar that going online and cutting out the middle person is more profitable. And yet, companies need a way to bring in new users. They won't just stumble onto DDI while surfing online.

Edit: Actually, I'll take a stab at it. Gaming stores are already making their money off of other things (Magic, war minis, etc.). Potentially, an RPG company needs just enough of an in-store strategy to maintain a retail presence that brings in new players. Then you take the buyer online where you make higher profit sales. You want to fine-tune this so you get enough of an in-store presence that you have some evangelists bringing in new folk. Larger companies can afford organized play, smaller companies could experiment with releasing in-stores first and other ways to keep the presence.

Mark CMG · Nov 7, 2011

Alphastream said:
I think the term d20 is really being used beyond Pathfinder and D&D to cover how the rest of the market used the OGL to create a glut of content in support of those games, plus new versions of their own games using the d20 engine.

This has stabilized in great measure but to characterize it as a post d20 era really misses the obvious.

Alphastream said:
Recent years see most RPGs use their own engine. We can look at how Dresden Files might perhaps have been a d20 game back then but uses the FATE engine now. We can look at L5R's return to d10 roll-and-keep. We can see new games like FIASCO gain wider play. While we have third-party products for D&D and Pathfinder, those offerings don't have nearly the volume nor prominence they once did. An RPG company today won't automatically choose d20. It isn't a free ride to riches and thus will be chosen, in general, only if it is the right tool for the job. This is a good change, resulting in more innovation.

There have been plenty of non-d20 games around since the early Eighties, still are, and always were during the last decade. That really hasn't changed.

Alphastream said:
What Shannon's numbers seem to indicate is that historically you see D&D in the lead by a fair amount, due to a number of strong releases. Then you have some competition by similar games, such as Tunnels & Trolls or Pathfinder. You also might have a Shadowrun or Traveller or similar game that contends in a non-fantasy category. But, that's about it for the top 10 games in a year. What will be interesting is whether anything changes that. EndGame's list is interesting, because it really is different from that history. But, that just may reflect EndGame's crowd, with many mature gamers. It won't likely represent the many game stores where you can't find such diversity. Will we see more diversity in the future? Will the historical pattern change?

I'm getting the impression that this "history" isn't as well researched as it could have been and that the editorial content included seems ill-informed.

Alphastream said:
Steel_Wind's question is also a good one. How does the online sales channel change all of this? ICv2 says stores are doing fine, and we see WotC constantly strengthening that channel (Mordenkainen's was only available through brick and mortar stores, several OP games are in-store only). But, it has to be on every RPG company's radar that going online and cutting out the middle person is more profitable. And yet, companies need a way to bring in new users. They won't just stumble onto DDI while surfing online.

In the Chicago area, we've seen a few new stores (dedicated game stores, not comicbook stores with a bit of shelf space) open in the last five to ten years and a great many close, including a chain of gamestores that had been around since the Seventies/Eighties that at its peak consisted of nearly twenty locations (it had about a dozen just before closing for good). I don't get the impression that stores, as a whole, are doing well though individual stores might be doing well enough.

Alphastream said:
Edit: Actually, I'll take a stab at it. Gaming stores are already making their money off of other things (Magic, war minis, etc.). Potentially, an RPG company needs just enough of an in-store strategy to maintain a retail presence that brings in new players. Then you take the buyer online where you make higher profit sales. You want to fine-tune this so you get enough of an in-store presence that you have some evangelists bringing in new folk. Larger companies can afford organized play, smaller companies could experiment with releasing in-stores first and other ways to keep the presence.

RPGs have almost always been a small percentage of any game store's overall profit, unless you include stores that primarily do RPGs, which are few. Magic (CCGs in general), war minis, and numerous other product types are the main fare for most gamestores while RPGs are a small percentage. This has almost always been the case, except during the Eighties during TSR's boom period.

qstor · Nov 7, 2011

hi

It would be interesting to see a better break down of the demographics of Pathfinder and D&D. I still think that D&D attracts of older gamers from in store play or just the name.

Mike

Lord_Blacksteel · Nov 10, 2011

Mark CMG said:
This has stabilized in great measure but to characterize it as a post d20 era really misses the obvious.

He's calling it post-D20 because 7-8 years ago a large percentage of the RPG products on store shelves had a little d20 logo on them and were not published by WOTC. That is no longer the case. I agree that some of the larger systems still use d20's but the cloud of smaller games around them are not as uniform as they used to be.

Mark CMG said:
There have been plenty of non-d20 games around since the early Eighties, still are, and always were during the last decade. That really hasn't changed.

The popularity and number of those games has changed. While d20 was booming it squeezed out material for non-d20 games. We used to see articles and posts from publishers that distributors weren't interested in anything that was not d20. Remember Deadlands d20? Traveller d20? Babylon 5 d20? Games like those popped up then went away along with a whole lotta supplements for the "d20 system". That was a pretty big change when it came in, and another one when it died out.

Mark CMG said:
I'm getting the impression that this "history" isn't as well researched as it could have been and that the editorial content included seems ill-informed.

I wouldn't slag the effort - these are almost all small private companies that don't have to report to shareholders or anyone else so it's going to have a lot of anecdotal stuff, but I always like to see a new take on it. Heck even the ICV2 operation that's decreeing these ups and downs has some super-secret method they use for calculating their numbers - it's not just a ranking of sales figures, it's based on interviews etc. I'm not sure how much truly objective data is out there to be had.

Mark CMG · Nov 10, 2011

Lord_Blacksteel said:
He's calling it post-D20 because 7-8 years ago a large percentage of the RPG products on store shelves had a little d20 logo on them and were not published by WOTC. That is no longer the case. I agree that some of the larger systems still use d20's but the cloud of smaller games around them are not as uniform as they used to be.

The popularity and number of those games has changed. While d20 was booming it squeezed out material for non-d20 games. We used to see articles and posts from publishers that distributors weren't interested in anything that was not d20. Remember Deadlands d20? Traveller d20? Babylon 5 d20? Games like those popped up then went away along with a whole lotta supplements for the "d20 system". That was a pretty big change when it came in, and another one when it died out.

Might be more appropos to call it the Third Party Publisher Era, which has surely waned but even as it has diminished in regard to publishing materials in support of D&D it has also morphed to include many publishers now supporting pseudo-D&D in the form of Pathfinder. Both are d20 games, and one now uses the GSL while the other still uses the OGL, legacies of that d20 boom. I'll need to see how those factors are handled in the text to really know how accurate the reportage on that is, unless you have it and can elucidate me?

Lord_Blacksteel said:
I wouldn't slag the effort - these are almost all small private companies that don't have to report to shareholders or anyone else so it's going to have a lot of anecdotal stuff, but I always like to see a new take on it. Heck even the ICV2 operation that's decreeing these ups and downs has some super-secret method they use for calculating their numbers - it's not just a ranking of sales figures, it's based on interviews etc. I'm not sure how much truly objective data is out there to be had.

I'll have to see more of the book to examine the tone and perspective, but I do see what you are saying about limited hard data.