Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder outsold D&D by 2:1 in 2013

[Ahnehnois]

I think we have very different ideas of what constitutes "very little PF put out in that period".

Have they put out a new game? No. Have they put out a new revision? No. Have they put out new rules supplements? That's where I'd say the "very little" comes in. We've gotten down to things like a magic item book, a race book, and a weird new take on epic stuff over the past couple of years.

Not that this stuff was of no merit, but compared to what WotC's release schedules when they were actually releasing stuff, it's pretty modest in substance and scope. If I'm a PF player and I slept in and missed everything since the APG, I haven't missed all that much. It's still the same game.

Which again, I'm well aware is a purposeful strategic decision on the company's part.

 

[Echohawk]

Because armchair industry analysis is entertaining, let's take a look at the number of D&D and Pathfinder products released last year. In 2013, WotC released eleven "new" D&D titles, while Paizo released more than 70 new products for Pathfinder.

What the report seems to be saying is that 26% of survey respondents listed Pathfinder as a "best seller" for 2013 (compared to 17% for 2012) and 11% of survey respondents listed D&D as a "best seller" for 2013 (compared to 9% for 2012). Linking the number of new products released to this, we can say:

• With more than 70 new Pathfinder releases in 2013, the "Pathfinder" brand was considered a best seller by 26% of retailers.
  
• With 11 new D&D releases in 2013, the "D&D" brand was considered a best seller by 11% of retailers.

I'm extremely wary about using this information to compare the two brands. I'm slightly less wary about leaping to conclusions about each brand independently...

For Pathfinder: Why aren't more retailers listing Pathfinder as a best seller? Seventy products per year is a lot, so either retailers aren't stocking a full range of Pathfinder products, or they are selling limited numbers of the more niche products. They clearly aren't selling vast quantities of all 70 products, or more of them would consider Pathfinder a best selling line. (This leads me to think that their direct sales channel is a much better longer term strategy for Paizo than retail sales. I'll bet their direct sales numbers are more consistent than their retail sales numbers. Subscription model for the win!)

For D&D: How on earth did D&D manage to remain a "best seller" for 11% of retailers with only eleven new products in 2013? How many of those reprints did those retailers sell to be persuaded that D&D still counted as a "best seller"? Are the margins on D&D books better than the margins on other RPG lines or is the D&D brand really strong enough to get that much mindshare with so few products?

 

[Wicht]

I think this says the opposite of what some think it does, namely that D&D is still a hot, hot product.

4e is basically moribund with fewer new groups forming, basically no upgrades to purchase and its, arguably, a fairly unpopular edition. Also a great chunk of the D&D playbase is waiting for 5e to come out.

Despite that its still able to get 50% of the Pathfinders sales.

Thats not bad and if 5e is good Piazo will have a very solid competitor on its hand.

My, how the market has changed.

Just a few years ago, the argument was being made that Paizo would never, ever, not in a hundred years, outsell WotC in the RPG arena. Now the argument is being made the WotC is going to be a solid competitor against Paizo in the realm of RPGs and its now WotC managing to be able to "get 50% of the Pathfinder sales." And the fact that DnD manages to eke out 50% of what Pathfinder sold is seen as a positive sign for WotC and the DnD brand.

Whether or not the numbers in these surveys mean much, it is clear who the perceived industry leader is at the moment.

 

[EnglishLanguage]

"Paizo is outselling someone who hasn't made new products for at least 2 years."

Ok....and this impressive because...?

 

[Imaro]

"Paizo is outselling someone who hasn't made new products for at least 2 years."

Ok....and this impressive because...?

Just read [MENTION=221]Wicht[/MENTION] 's last sentence in the above post...

 

[Lanefan]

My WotC money won't show up because, beyond the core books, all my money went to DDI. I suspect there are a fair number of 4E players that did likewise, and I suspect this was WotC's intention. So quite frankly, the ICv2 numbers are becoming are becoming increasingly irrelevant; hobby & game stores are not how people buy D&D anymore.

Not how *you* buy D&D anymore, you mean.

I won't buy from anywhere other than a physical store, whether it's my FLGS here at home or a vendor at a Con. And I'm not alone in that...

Lan-"though I will agree the actual numbers are almost a work of fiction, the trend they show is very likely true"-efan

 

[pemerton]

Now the argument is being made the WotC is going to be a solid competitor against Paizo in the realm of RPGs and its now WotC managing to be able to "get 50% of the Pathfinder sales." And the fact that DnD manages to eke out 50% of what Pathfinder sold is seen as a positive sign for WotC and the DnD brand.

To repeat what some others have said upthread, that is not what the survey shows.

 

[Echohawk]

Just a few years ago, the argument was being made that Paizo would never, ever, not in a hundred years, outsell WotC in the RPG arena. Now the argument is being made the WotC is going to be a solid competitor against Paizo in the realm of RPGs and its now WotC managing to be able to "get 50% of the Pathfinder sales." And the fact that DnD manages to eke out 50% of what Pathfinder sold is seen as a positive sign for WotC and the DnD brand.

I think it is more of a case of people thinking that D&D being identified as a "best seller" by 11% of retailers with only 11 new products on 2013 (most of which were actually reprints) is a positive sign for the brand. Similarly, I think it's fair to say that the fact that 26% of retailers identified Pathfinder as a "best seller" in 2013 is also a positive thing for the "Pathfinder" brand.

But using this information to compare brands is dangerous!

For fun, I'm now going to make some seemingly reasonable assumptions to reach some extremely dubious conclusions.

Let's assume that it takes about the same amount of total spend on a brand for a retailer to consider that brand as a "best seller". In other words, Pathfinder sales in 2013 need to be >$20,000 (say) for a retailer to consider Pathfinder a "best seller". Let's also assume that the number of retailer responses listing a brand as a "best seller" is proportional to the total volume of sales.

We know from the report that 26% of retailers considered Pathfinder a "best seller", and 11% considered D&D a best seller. Using the above assumptions, we can infer from these percentages that income from Pathfinder products was 2.5 times more than the income from D&D products in 2013. (Since the ratios for 2012 and 2013 in the report weren't too dissimilar, let's also not worry about what proportion of sales was from back stock and what proportion was from new products.)

Let's say the total income from D&D retail sales for 2013 was $X. That means the total for Pathfinder was $2.5X. Now let's divide this by the number of new products released. For D&D, we have $X/11 per product. For Pathfinder, we have $2.5X/70, or $X/28. From this, we can conclude that the average D&D product in 2013 sold 28/11 or ±2.5 times more copies than the average Pathfinder product sold.

In other words: D&D products outsold Pathfinder products by 2.5:1 in 2013.

And surprise, surprise, this is the exact opposite conclusion to that in the thread title .

 

[Nagol]

I think it is more of a case of people thinking that D&D being identified as a "best seller" by 11% of retailers with only 11 new products on 2013 (most of which were actually reprints) is a positive sign for the brand. Similarly, I think it's fair to say that the fact that 26% of retailers identified Pathfinder as a "best seller" in 2013 is also a positive thing for the "Pathfinder" brand.

But using this information to compare brands is dangerous!

For fun, I'm now going to make some seemingly reasonable assumptions to reach some extremely dubious conclusions.

Well your dubious model missed an obvious point.

Let's assume that it takes about the same amount of total spend on a brand for a retailer to consider that brand as a "best seller". In other words, Pathfinder sales in 2013 need to be >$20,000 (say) for a retailer to consider Pathfinder a "best seller". Let's also assume that the number of retailer responses listing a brand as a "best seller" is proportional to the total volume of sales.

We know from the report that 26% of retailers considered Pathfinder a "best seller", and 11% considered D&D a best seller. Using the above assumptions, we can infer from these percentages that income from Pathfinder products was 2.5 times more than the income from D&D products in 2013. (Since the ratios for 2012 and 2013 in the report weren't too dissimilar, let's also not worry about what proportion of sales was from back stock and what proportion was from new products.)

Let's say the total income from D&D retail sales for 2013 was $X. That means the total for Pathfinder was $2.5X. Now let's divide this by the number of new products released. For D&D, we have $X/11 per product. For Pathfinder, we have $2.5X/70, or $X/28. From this, we can conclude that the average D&D product in 2013 sold 28/11 or ±2.5 times more copies than the average Pathfinder product sold.

Fine until here if you replace the word copies with the word volume. What you failed to take into account is the unit price of things sold. Are the 70 items from Paizo priced similarly to the 11 items from WotC? Probably not as the 70 items are mostly adventures with generally low price points.

If the average price point per item sold is $20 for Paizo and $40 for WotC then the number of units sold is (2.5X / 20 = X / 8) vs. X / 40. Or in other words, Paizo outsold WotC approximately 5:1 on a per unit basis.

Based on the orifice-pulled numbers we provided, of course.

 

[Echohawk]

Fine until here if you replace the word copies with the word volume. What you failed to take into account is the unit price of things sold. Are the 70 items from Paizo priced similarly to the 11 items from WotC? Probably not as the 70 items are mostly adventures with generally low price points.

Curse you for pointing out a big hole in my spurious reasoning!

If the average price point per item sold is $20 for Paizo and $40 for WotC then the number of units sold is (2.5X / 20 = X / 8) vs. X / 40. Or in other words, Paizo outsold WotC approximately 5:1 on a per unit basis.

Counter nitpick: I don't think this maths correctly adjusts for different average per unit price.

I think it would then be (2.5X/70)/20 versus (X/11)/40, or 560:440, or D&D selling about 20% more of its twice-the-price products on average.

Based on the orifice-pulled numbers we provided, of course.

Yes, but other than the fact that we're making all the numbers up as we go along, this analysis is clearly spot on.