Pathfinder 1E D&D and Pathfinder tied for first place on ICv2 Q3 RPG sales list

[Ferrety]

I believe that these quarterly numbers are more or less meaningless noise, and I am actually hoping that on overall, Pathfinder and 4ed are not even nearly tided at this time. Why?

To my knowledge there has not been any hard numbers available, but by some of their comments, I’ve gotten some sort of gut feeling. I think that Paizo has been doing great and they’ve multiplied their customer base since magazines. But my feeling is that at the moment their base is around hundred thousand customers, not millions. I’d like to believe that their future prospects are even better, but those are still in the future.

On the other hand, I’ve seen some comments reflecting that 3ed had around two million customers. If Pathfinder and 4ed are now tided, that would mean that the brand is in rather dire straits. Dungeons and Dragons can probably live with such numbers, even thought the situation would seem rather abysmal for it.

That is actually pretty grim, that would actually mean that there is not goint to be any "winners", that the Paizo is actually now near their peak. That would mean that people like Dancey and Old Geezer are correct, and the hobby as whole is in a death spiral. This I choose to disbelieve.

 

[prosfilaes]

- If Pathfinder continues to take a significant chunk out of D&D's marketshare, hopefully a 5e will seek to unite the players once more.

I don't see it. One of the fundamental problems with having someone take significant chunk out of your market share is that they're no longer yours. Players of any game are likely to go to the next edition, if not always quietly, but once you lose them, it's a lot harder to convince them to come back. I suspect that no new game is going take those players back from Pathfinder in any time short of a decade; D&D 3 is just too good. (Which isn't to say that D&D 4 is good, but Pathfinder players have already said it's not good for them.) Of course, without the OGL, WotC will have an easier time pulling people from D&D 4 to D&D 5, but making your current customers unhappy to gain new (or regain old) customers is always a risky business.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Congrats to Paizo! Even though I play 4E, I love the gang at Paizo. I also really appreciate their products, having purchased the bestiary and classic monsters revisited. Their books are packed with great ideas, and they are very readable. I seldom read my 4E MM1, but very often leaf through the Pathfinder bestiary, even though I actually play 4E. I'm the only DM in my group (and I love being DM, much more than being a player), but I can't get myself to actually play Pathfinder because of the DM workload.

 

[Herschel]

So right or wrong, for whatever reason, you will never have your hard data, ......

They do not give any numbers because the respective companies do not want such data publicly disclosed.

So you may not want this ranking systems to be "valid", but it is.

This is a complete contradiction. You admit there is no data released to back it up, twice, then claim the ranking system is valid. By definition, the ranking system can't be valid because there's no data to back it up.

 

[dm4hire]

What Treebore is saying is that ICV2 has gathered enough solid data via their questions to be certain of what the industry standard is for sales per company. However, out of respect for each company and to avoid law suits, they choose not to reveal their numbers. Marketing at times is like the cold war. Both the USA and USSR had an idea of how many nukes each had, but neither was going to come out and say one way or another exactly how many they had. WotC knows how much they're saying, Paizo knows how much they are selling, ICV2 has a pretty good guess. Good enough that WotC and Paizo listen as does everyone else in the market. It's also good enough that should they reveal what they know ICV2 would probably get a visit from Hasbro and other companies' lawyers if they ever went public with the details. So just like in the Cold War, each side knows, but is keeping their mouth shut other than to say they know something.

 

[Maggan]

For me the success of Fantasy Flight's Warhammer line of RPGs is good news.



/Magnus

 

[DaveMage]

- If Pathfinder continues to take a significant chunk out of D&D's marketshare, hopefully a 5e will seek to unite the players once more.

I agree - but only if 5E is in Paizo's hands, and is backwards compatible with Pathfinder and 3.5. I'm not buying into any new D&D edition again unless I can use my 3.x/Pathfinder library with it.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Congrats to Paizo for the great performance of the Pathfinder line!

ICv2 is a respected source of industry news; I read their web site daily (and the physical mag at least quarterly, when they do the games industry issues), and have for many years going back through when I was at WotC.

But while their placement of Pathfinder on par with D&D is significant and great news for Paizo, it's important to realize that ICv2 captures only part of the picture. Among other things, they have little insight into the book trade, which is a very big part of D&D's sales--much more so than any other game.

Also, I'm pretty sure they don't capture DDI revenues. And that's every bit as much a product as the print publications.

 

[I'm A Banana]

but making your current customers unhappy to gain new (or regain old) customers is always a risky business.

Unfortunately, the D&D "edition treadmill" model is fundamentally this model.

Which probably has something to do with why there's about 10 x as many "lapsed" D&D players as current players of 4e.

 

[an_idol_mind]

My take on this news is that it may mean nothing regarding the sales of D&D, but it definitely shows that Pathfinder is doing very well. Considering how short a time ago it seemed that Paizo was in hot water from the loss of the magazine licenses, it's pretty amazing that they now have one of the best-selling RPGs in the industry.