D&D 5E D&D 5E’s Top-Selling Adventures and What It Means for the Hobby from Teos Abadia aka Alphastream.

[ersatzphil]

Following up: Any argument that WotC has "learned its lesson" given the presumably terrible response to the Spelljammer slipcase format should be taken with a few grains of salt.

I’d be curious to see Spelljammer sales numbers against the Ravenloft and Eberron books, personally.

 

[Stormonu]

Spelljammer was still the third-best-selling adventure in the early part of this year. Look at the data; its success is not just preorders.

I wish there was some way to split Spelljammer the campaign setting data from the Light or Xarysis adventure to see how the adventure portion was received.

Though it is still a shock how well Spelljammer itself sold, despite how thin its content was.

 

[dave2008]

I’d be curious to see Spelljammer sales numbers against the Ravenloft and Eberron books, personally.

They said they are looking settings in a future article - so you should get your wish!

But form his previous article Eberron sold similar to Spelljammer in its first year (89,408 for Eberron and 84,283 for Spelljammer):

 

[ersatzphil]

They said they are looking settings in a future article - so you should get your wish!

But form his previous article Eberron sold similar to Spelljammer in its first year (89,408 for Eberron and 84,283 for Spelljammer):
View attachment 296612

Wait, is that right? The 3.5 PHB only sold ~140k copies!?

 

[Stormonu]

They said they are looking settings in a future article - so you should get your wish!

But form his previous article Eberron sold similar to Spelljammer in its first year (89,408 for Eberron and 84,283 for Spelljammer):
View attachment 296612

Any data on Van Richten's guide? My eyes ain't what they used to be if it's on the spreadsheets shown.

 

[Stormonu]

Wait, is that right? The 3.5 PHB only sold ~140k copies!?

5E. For the first year. Back when D&D was just coming off of being pummeled for 4E and people having moved away to OSR & Pathfinder. RTD (Retail to Date?) is 1.5 million.

 

[Parmandur]

I’d be curious to see Spelljammer sales numbers against the Ravenloft and Eberron books, personally.

That's the next blog post, upcoming.

 

[Parmandur]

Wait, is that right? The 3.5 PHB only sold ~140k copies!?

In bookscan outlets, so that doesn't include any FLGS sales. All of thisnis only for B&N, Amazon, Target, WalMart, Books a Million, etc. Not hobbyist channels.

Still, 5E has royally spanked 3E in sales, yup.

 

[dave2008]

That is correct, the 3.5 PE only sold just over 140K for the life the product. Makes you understand why 4e became a thing!

EDIT: @Parmandur explained it with regard to what those sales where with regard to only counting big box numbers. So the actual numbers are higher, but that is true 5e too. However, I thought it didn't include Amazon numbers, but I could be wrong on that. Correction:

"It excludes direct sales, digital sales, gaming stores, and comic book stores. It includes Amazon, though Amazon in some years (especially during the pandemic) provided either no data or partial data out of worries that it disclosed too much about Amazon sales."

Wait, is that right? The 3.5 PHB only sold ~140k copies!?

5E. For the first year. Back when D&D was just coming off of being pummeled for 4E and people having moved away to OSR & Pathfinder. RTD (Retail to Date?) is 1.5 million.

 

[Parmandur]

5E. For the first year. Back when D&D was just coming off of being pummeled for 4E and people having moved away to OSR & Pathfinder. RTD (Retail to Date?) is 1.5 million.

No, that's the lifetime sales for the 3.5 PHB he is referring to on the chart, this data is for all editions of D&D tracked by Bookscan. Rising from the Last War has outsold the 3.5 PHB, and no other 3E books made the list.