D&D 5E Amazon: D&D at the start of 2018

[Mistwell]

Players seem to buy them online more. Even in 3.5 you might have 2 or 3 phb. I have seen a few 3 or 4 D&D groups and almost every player has a PHB sometimes 2.

Amazon existed in 2000/2003 but online shopping was not such a thing then and that was pre social media. 4E kind of crapped the bed so 5E is basically the 1st D&D benefitting from social media/YouTube/online selling which was in it's infancy for the most part as late as 4E launch.

Buying online was trend setting in 2004 for example with Netflix/Amazon/steam/debit cards and things like xboxlive/PS4 store even in the last 5 years it's become a lot more common to buy online.

For books, this is just plain not true. Generic "buying online" was not huge for Amazon in that year, but buying BOOKS specifically was HUGE HUGE HUGE in that year. And they did in fact sell the 3e PHB a whole heck of a lot on Amazon. It was $20 for a long time there, and they sold gobs of them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh sure. I think 5e is more popular than 4e and Pathfinder was benefiting from 4e's unpopularity with some players. I think Starfinder might be cannibalizing some of the Pathfinder people too.




They seemed very loud during the 5e development time but I suppose that doesn't really prove anything.





The newest edition is always the easiest to get players. I think many parts of the game are well thought out. It probably depends on what you liked about the older editions. But surely this had to be where they drew in a lot of new players. And of course new people who've never played before are attracted to a simpler game in general I think. I know the drive for simplicity was something I approved of myself when they were in the production stages.

They were loud but could not figure out why they kept getting outvoted during D&D Next. The noise was mostly a few dozen posters on 3 or 4 sites.

Most people who disagreed with them left for other sites as they got shouted down. Also was the beginning of fake news lol. Anything negative towards 4E was regarded as either lies or everyone else did not get it.

 

[Zardnaar]

For books, this is just plain not true. Generic "buying online" was not huge for Amazon in that year, but buying BOOKS specifically was HUGE HUGE HUGE in that year. And they did in fact sell the 3e PHB a whole heck of a lot on Amazon. It was $20 for a long time there, and they sold gobs of them.

The main point was it was a different time, I have always had 2 or 3 copies of the PHB for example along with some of my friends. We would go to a gamestore and get them, and train people to play D&D. Online shopping existed but it was not so ubiquitous like it is now. I first bought D&D books online in 2004 but I rememebr going to work and the average person had no idea about Amazon or Ebay or things like that.

Remember there was no social media as such either (forums existed) and online gaming was mostly restricted to hard core PC gamers. Xboxlive was in its infancy, PS2 was barely online at that point(1 or 2 games IIRC if that might have been 2005 IDK), and you could go and rent DVD's (no Netflix as such). I had my TV connected to the internet in 2004 (Halo 2) but even then it was not the same as 2 years later when I had Call of Duty 2 on the 360 with things like friends lists.

We bought all our 3.5 books form the local comic book store and later a gamestore (before it closed down). These days I go into a 30 person teamspeak channel and 5 or 6 people play D&D, the younger D&D groups have a PHB each mostly all bought online either Amazon, Bookdepository (cheaper ofr NZer's) and people like using sites like Mighty Ape here which has D&D books, games etc. They did not exist back in 2003 or were in their infancy (technically Amazon had been around 8 years or so at that point). CUlturally people were kind of starting to by online although the trendsetters I suppose were doing that in the 90's (most people were not).

IDK how many copies of 5E are sold in New Zealand, statistically probably not that much but what happens when you apply the same things happening here to Australia, UK and Europe as D&D traditionally has been more USA and maybe UK based. If you are German for example you do not have to track down a gamestore just a couple of minutes online and wait a few days/weeks etc.

Virtual table tops did not exist back then (well maybe they did but once again not that well known/used relative to now).

IDK how many people are buying D&D online now vs back then but I suspect it has increased a lot, we don't even have a gamestore but everyone has 5E PHB (at least those that want them). Apart from postage you can buy them here cheaper than you could in 1995 ($45 vs around $40). Postage usually brings that up to USA non Amazon prices though.

People have gotten a lot more used to buying things online now than in 2003 (and we know 3.5 did not do that well for a D&D edition) so the last time D&D was popular you are looking at 2000. In 2000 you could not really play games online on your TV (well you had Dreamcast which virtually no one had).

5E is the 1st D&D where things like social media, a popular edition, online shopping and consumer culture have converged. Its like someone in 1963 crowing about how good their jet is relative to 1945 or comparing mass airplane transport in 1980 vs 1962. 3.5 was about half as popular as 3.0 and 4E was probably less popular than that once the initial sales surge was over.

Sure jets existed in 1945 a big difference to 1963, same thing with Amazon. Hell when 4E launched Facebook was new along with twitter. Neither one existed when 3.5 launched.

To argue that the gaming environment is not drastically different now is disingenuous at best.

 

[ad_hoc]

The newest edition is always the easiest to get players.

While true, no other edition has attracted this many new players to it.

I think many parts of the game are well thought out. It probably depends on what you liked about the older editions. But surely this had to be where they drew in a lot of new players. And of course new people who've never played before are attracted to a simpler game in general I think. I know the drive for simplicity was something I approved of myself when they were in the production stages.

I wouldn't characterize it so much as simple but more as streamlined and focused on the narrative and player choice rather than simulation and numbers.

 

[Emerikol]

While true, no other edition has attracted this many new players to it.



I wouldn't characterize it so much as simple but more as streamlined and focused on the narrative and player choice rather than simulation and numbers.

Well for D&D it’s simpler. D&D in general is on the heaver side of the spectrum.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh sure. I think 5e is more popular than 4e and Pathfinder was benefiting from 4e's unpopularity with some players. I think Starfinder might be cannibalizing some of the Pathfinder people too.




They seemed very loud during the 5e development time but I suppose that doesn't really prove anything.





The newest edition is always the easiest to get players. I think many parts of the game are well thought out. It probably depends on what you liked about the older editions. But surely this had to be where they drew in a lot of new players. And of course new people who've never played before are attracted to a simpler game in general I think. I know the drive for simplicity was something I approved of myself when they were in the production stages.

Talking on forums is different from what surveys reveal: 4E fans played a loud social media campaign, but they were a minority on most points of gameplay preference.

 

[Hussar]

Talking on forums is different from what surveys reveal: 4E fans played a loud social media campaign, but they were a minority on most points of gameplay preference.

I'm not really sure you can say that though.

After all 5e is far, far closer mechanically to 4e than it is to any other edition. Truncated skill lists, two step healing systems and non-magical healing, action economy, faster leveling, class rather than equipment being a primary source of PC power, DC calculations (5e is basically the 4e treadmill with the level adjustments removed) etc. Much of the mechanics of 4e made it into 5e. The primary difference being writing style, rather than substance.

Are they different games? Sure. I'll agree with that. But, trying to say that 5e isn't the direct child of 4e ignores a lot of what was developed during 4e.

 

[Mistwell]

The main point was it was a different time, I have always had 2 or 3 copies of the PHB for example along with some of my friends. We would go to a gamestore and get them, and train people to play D&D. Online shopping existed but it was not so ubiquitous like it is now. I first bought D&D books online in 2004 but I rememebr going to work and the average person had no idea about Amazon or Ebay or things like that.
Remember there was no social media as such either (forums existed)

Well that's not accurate either. There was MySpace and Friendster and IRC and Rec.Arts.[Various RPG places]. Lots of people talked D&D online. D&Ders were early adopters for the most part. This message board was huge then as well. It's not like 2004 was the dark ages of the Internet...that's post dot.com boom and bust. Those were the years Cyber Monday became a huge thing. And Ebay was really quite big those years as well. I really think you're forgetting. Or maybe New Zealand was behind? Those were prime Internet years. It had already well and truly busted out to be the norm in America.

Virtual table tops did not exist back then (well maybe they did but once again not that well known/used relative to now).

We were playing on Klooge back then I seem to recall.

People have gotten a lot more used to buying things online now than in 2003

And there you go again, returning to the generic "buying" rather than "buying books". Amazon was HUGE in books back then. It was their entire focus that year. D&D sold a whole lot on Amazon that year. It wasn't just "buying online" it was "buying BOOKS online" and yes it was big that year.

I think i could find some Ryan Dancey quotes on how important the internet was to their sales of 3e. You're a fan of his, would you trust him at least?

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm not really sure you can say that though.

After all 5e is far, far closer mechanically to 4e than it is to any other edition. Truncated skill lists, two step healing systems and non-magical healing, action economy, faster leveling, class rather than equipment being a primary source of PC power, DC calculations (5e is basically the 4e treadmill with the level adjustments removed) etc. Much of the mechanics of 4e made it into 5e. The primary difference being writing style, rather than substance.

Are they different games? Sure. I'll agree with that. But, trying to say that 5e isn't the direct child of 4e ignores a lot of what was developed during 4e.

It's using 4E mechanics to duplicate older D&D playstyle.

That tactical grind was the real problem with 4E.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well that's not accurate either. There was MySpace and Friendster and IRC and Rec.Arts.[Various RPG places]. Lots of people talked D&D online. D&Ders were early adopters for the most part. This message board was huge then as well. It's not like 2004 was the dark ages of the Internet...that's post dot.com boom and bust. Those were the years Cyber Monday became a huge thing. And Ebay was really quite big those years as well. I really think you're forgetting. Or maybe New Zealand was behind? Those were prime Internet years. It had already well and truly busted out to be the norm in America.



We were playing on Klooge back then I seem to recall.



And there you go again, returning to the generic "buying" rather than "buying books". Amazon was HUGE in books back then. It was their entire focus that year. D&D sold a whole lot on Amazon that year. It wasn't just "buying online" it was "buying BOOKS online" and yes it was big that year.

I think i could find some Ryan Dancey quotes on how important the internet was to their sales of 3e. You're a fan of his, would you trust him at least?

Its more or less what I am talking about lol. WTF is Klooge, Myspace and Friendstar are basically gone. Amazon was barely making a profit back then, IIRC 2004 was the 1st year they actually made money.

NZers do not use Ebay that much due to postage costs especially for books, it used to be cheap circa 2004 or so when you could buy books for a $1 or $2 and post them for $8. Now its more like $20.

I do buy some stuff off Amazon (1st time in 2004) especially when they do a free postage deal (which they have not done for years AFAIK), but there are other sites to get RPG books from. If I lived in America I wold buy a lot more of Amazon (paperbacks $8 here they are $25 (17 USD approx).

Amazon now is a lot bigger though. Imagine if it existed in 1981-83 and the golden age books could be purchased for half price (in an era with 90 million less Americans).

The main point is still that Americans and posters on sites in particular forget that they are in the minority. Most people do not post in online forums, most people do not use VTT and in 2004 that % would have been even smaller. Let alone 2000.

I mean what part of the following statement is untrue. 5E D&D is the 1st edition of D&D where a popular edition, social media, online gaming/shopping have converged for the 1st time. 4E is the only other edition you could really make that comparison to IMHO but the problems there were how unpopular the edition was. 3.5 was not that popular either, 3.0 was but that was 18 years ago when a lot of things were in their infancy or did not exist.

NZ has been behind in some ways ahead in others as companies often use us as a test market (not for D&D). For example we had electronic debit type cards late 80's and were very common by the mid 90's.

Hardcore gamers on PC were online gaming 1995 for the ultra hard core I suppose but for the masses it was more 2006 onwards with things like consoles connecting to TVs (PS3/Xbox 360) before it came a family thing from 2002 it was a hardcore thing with the Xbox. I was streaming things back in 2004 or so most people were not and it did not really become a thing for the majority until Netflix rolled around.

Hell it was around 10 years ago VTTs even started to be talked about on forums in any serious way and most of the D&D playerbase is not active on forums (I doubt 1% are).

5E doing well on Amazon? I'm fairly convinced that in America most D&D books are probably sold on Amazon. Hell I have bought them myself and paid the $20 postage and its still cheaper than getting them here in some cases.

I also would not get to excited though as the Amazon rankings are actually indicating that D&D sales are falling with the exception of the PHB. Its not doom and gloom of course just once you get outside the launch window of a product sales go down.