D&D 5E D&D 5e nearing 800,000 copies sold?

[darjr]

The Tome Show interviews Stan! Epic figure of RPG goodness and all around nice guy. Despite the exclamation point!

They cover a lot of cool topics, like when he used to work at TSR and after suffering long with foot stools and death trap office 'chairs' they actually found a secret moon room full of chairs! Real chairs! I wonder what ever happened to those chairs. Does WotC have them now?

Any way at about 19:11 or 19:48 he talks about the highest selling RPG ever, the Pokemon RPG he wrote at WotC. It sold 800,000 copies in short order. The very interesting bit I almost missed? 5e is close to selling 800,000 copies! He did say, "I think", and "maybe", but he's at WotC and in a position to know. He doesn't say if that's PHB's or all books combined, but it shure sounds like the he meant the PHB. Nor does he say if it's electronic versions or not.

Finally he talked about a kitbashed 5e version of Spelljammer they are running in the office, at about 43:30 into the podcast. Could it mean? naw! Nothing at WotC starts as a skunkworks kit bashed thing just for fun. Not even 5e.......

Anyway I really like the Gamer to Gamer podcasts from the Tome Show.


http://www.thetomeshow.com/e/stan-gamer-to-gamer/

 

[Jester David]

I had never heard of the Pokemon RPG...
Best seller? Who knew?

I think the 1e PHB or Red Box sold more copies. But that's hard to say as TSR's accounting was so poor. It's a pretty safe bet then that 5e has outsold even the highest numbers of 3e book sales thrown out. Very possibly 3.0 and 3.5 combined!

 

[darjr]

So how many days since it's release? Was it August 19, 2014 like amazon says? 1108 days at 800,000 sold that's like 720+ copies sold a day.

 

[Jester David]

It was released into hobby shops 10 days prior.
But still an impressive figure.

 

[Zardnaar]

Based on what Mearls said not to long ago it has sold in excess of 500k and les than 750k.

That was a while ago so 800k is believable and puts it roughly in the middle. (1E/Basic, 2E or 5E, 3.0, 3.5, 4E, OD&D).

So its roughly around 2E levels but in 3 years vs 11.

 

[Gadget]

I was under the impression that AD&D numbers in the heyday of the 80's rpg craze were in the low millions, but maybe that was over the whole life of 1e. Or maybe, I'm just pulling those numbers out of my hat.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I was under the impression that AD&D numbers in the heyday of the 80's rpg craze were in the low millions, but maybe that was over the whole life of 1e. Or maybe, I'm just pulling those numbers out of my hat.

The only version I know of to break that million barrier is Mentzer's Red Box.

 

[Morrus]

D&D was selling 750K per year in 1984. In 2007 it had 6 million players. WotC keeps the figures secret these days, though.

 

[Morrus]

It was released into hobby shops 10 days prior.

If we're being pedantic, it was 11 days.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I was under the impression that AD&D numbers in the heyday of the 80's rpg craze were in the low millions, but maybe that was over the whole life of 1e. Or maybe, I'm just pulling those numbers out of my hat.

One specific version of the Basic Set was reported at 1.2 million, I think it was and that was the Basic set from c1983, the height of the fad years (with the original game, AD&D, and BECMI all in print at the time, one could speculate that millions of people were playing, or at least had tried, the game, and millions of books, in total, must have been sold). But hard numbers like that have rarely been let slip. This 800k isn't a hard number, it's not a specific book (800k PHs is what I'd assume, but it could be 800k 5e D&D books overall - WWGS, in 1996, claimed Vampire had sold 'over a million books' - but remember, they published a little splat book or two every month.), but it's a damned encouraging number. I mean, not everyone - some groups, not /nearly/ everyone - who plays buys the books, or even just the PH. So that still implies a lot of players, a lot more trying it at least once, and a whole lot more just plain 'presence' of the brand.

D&D was selling 750K per year in 1984.

OK, it's not back to fad levels, but, hey, it's the same order of magnitude!