Pramas: Does 4E have staying power?

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think you can easily scapegoat the economy entirely. Seasonal layoff cycles happen. While the economy might have worsened them/hastened them, it didn't make them, here after a new edition's build-up was over. We'd probably see layoffs at WotC no matter the price of oil right now.

I don't think it's simple skepticism, either. Pramas is a fairly measured and reliable source on this info, so I think the "core book spike" is real enough.

I'm pretty sad to hear that the GSL is still causing shenanigans throughout the 3rd party. It's unfortunate that there's no unifying 3rd party force at the moment, no strong leader to take up the standard like WotC was in the 3e days. They need to get a big chunk of companies on board with one thing, and stick with it, warts and all. I'm not sure Pathfinder can be that, but as long as 4e has the GSL, 4e can't be that, either.

 

[Fifth Element]

Yeah, I can see the case that the core books are inferior goods, but supplements are likely luxuries.

I don't know about that. Core books are still a luxury item in some sense. As consumer income increases, I expect sales of core books do increase slightly. But not as much as supplements, I agree there.

 

[Darkwolf71]

I can only speak for the UGT, not gaming as a whole, but I think that I am the only one of our group to have bought any release after the core books. Now, I run our 4e game so that may be part of it, but we're talking about a group of guys and gals that collectivly has, at least 2 copies of any particular (WotC) 3/3.5 book and as many as 5 or more of many of them.

After finishing KotS we went back to our high level 3.5 game and no one is really bugging to get back to 4e. I'm sure we will return to it, since we rotate games and GMs fairly regularly, but no one is exactly chomping at the bit to do so.

 

[LostSoul]

When he says

One of them told me that 4E supplements were selling at the same level as 3E supplements at the beginning of this year (i.e. 8 years into 3E's lifecycle).​

does he mean that the sales for the Adventurer's Vault are the same as those for Complete Champion?

Or does he mean that Martial Power and the Adventurer's Vault have the same sales as all 3E supplements?

edit: Or what, exactly? It's ambiguous.

Maybe it means that 20k units of Martial Power were sold, and that equals the 20k units of Complete Champion. Maybe it means that 1k units of Martial Power were sold, the same as Sword and Fist. Maybe it means 50 units of Martial Power sold, the same as a rare 3rd party 3E adventure. Maybe it means that 100k units in total were sold of all 3E supplements, and 50k of each Martial Power and The Adventurer's Vault.

What is a supplement, anyway?

 

[Fifth Element]

When he says

One of them told me that 4E supplements were selling at the same level as 3E supplements at the beginning of this year (i.e. 8 years into 3E's lifecycle).​

does he mean that the sales for the Adventurer's Vault are the same as those for Complete Champion?

Or does he mean that Martial Power and the Adventurer's Vault have the same sales as all 3E supplements?

I read it to mean that any given 4E supplement is selling at about the same level as any given 3E supplement was.

 

[Darkwolf71]

I read it to mean that any given 4E supplement is selling at about the same level as any given 3E supplement was.

Yeah, seemed pretty straight forward to me.

 

[Mark]

When he says

One of them told me that 4E supplements were selling at the same level as 3E supplements at the beginning of this year (i.e. 8 years into 3E's lifecycle).​

does he mean that the sales for the Adventurer's Vault are the same as those for Complete Champion?

Or does he mean that Martial Power and the Adventurer's Vault have the same sales as all 3E supplements?

edit: Or what, exactly? It's ambiguous.

Maybe it means that 20k units of Martial Power were sold, and that equals the 20k units of Complete Champion. Maybe it means that 1k units of Martial Power were sold, the same as Sword and Fist. Maybe it means 50 units of Martial Power sold, the same as a rare 3rd party 3E adventure. Maybe it means that 100k units in total were sold of all 3E supplements, and 50k of each Martial Power and The Adventurer's Vault.

What is a supplement, anyway?

Seems to be saying that non-core first year 4e books are selling in number of units comparable to non-core eighth year 3.xe books. I do not know how well non-core eighth year 3.xe books sold but maybe Chris will stop in and clarify.

 

[xechnao]

When he says

One of them told me that 4E supplements were selling at the same level as 3E supplements at the beginning of this year (i.e. 8 years into 3E's lifecycle).​

does he mean that the sales for the Adventurer's Vault are the same as those for Complete Champion?

Or does he mean that Martial Power and the Adventurer's Vault have the same sales as all 3E supplements?

It means, more or less, that the monthly sales of 4e supplements so far are similar to the sales of January regarding 3e supplements.

It may sound pretty bad because one may think that the 3e supplement sales in January or February should have been pretty limited considering the tour of promoting the new edition -even worse (and perhaps by an order of magnitude) if what he says is to be taken with outmost precision, since there were not any new 3e supplements produced means that the sales account for the sales of the older books only.

 

[Roman]

I would like to take the time to thank Chris Pramas for sharing this with us. Sure, his sources are somewhat anecdotal, but they seem like very large anecdotes (large chains), which means they are probably somewhat indicative of the overall situation. Thanks for sharing this with us, Chris, most of the time we hear very little on this important topic from sources that have access to reliable or at least somewhat reliable information.

 

[Mark]

It means, more or less, that the monthly sales of 4e supplements so far are similar to the sales of January regarding 3e supplements.

It may sound pretty bad because one may think that the 3e supplement sales in January or February should have been pretty limited considering the tour of promoting the new edition -even worse (and perhaps by an order of magnitude) if what he says is to be taken with outmost precision, since there were not any new 3e supplements produced means that the sales account for the sales of the older books only.

You're saying you believe that he meant that 4e supplements were not selling at all? I know that cannot be true.