D&D 5E State of D&D

[the Jester]

Speaking for myself, D&D is doing very well indeed. I have so many players that I am running two groups (averaging somewhere around 2.5 games/week) and may have to start up a third to accommodate some other folks who want in.

 

[darjr]

Yea, same problem here. I could run a game every night with different people if I wanted. A large proportion of them new.

 

[Staffan]

I really wish they had some more Crunch Guys on board. Sean Reynolds and Mike Brock are two I can think of from my pathfinder days that I think could help the company a lot.

I think they do have Veggie Boy there, unless he left again. He posted earlier this year that he had taken a contract position as FR Lore Guy - though I guess that won't involve him doing crunch, more keeping track of fluff.

 

[BryonD]

Are we back to this? And I wonder what would be evidence of thriving?

We know perfectly well that the 5E core rule books have done much better over the last 18 months then 3.5 or 4E ones did. (we don't have enough data to compare to the legendary 1E or 3.0 PHBs and their vaunted sales).

Right now, on amazon the PHB is 222 in overall sales. That is high for a book released over 15 months ago. No game book has ever done anything like that, not even remotely close, at least not in the last 15 years. D&D almost totally dominates the fantasy gaming category, as it has for the last year and a half. (The exception is that Zelda book, which has been hanging around all this time). This was not the case before. Even the MM or DMG having sales in the 400-500 range is amazing this far out.

I've already fully agreed that it is dominating the teapot. My point is that the teapot isn't big enough.

 

[ashockney]

Interview with WoTC CEO: http://icv2.com/articles/games/view/21062/interview-wotc-ceo-greg-leeds-part-1
Over-all our business is up significantly. I think anyone you talk to about what’s going on with Magic and D&D will tell you that we are having very, very strong sales. We are having very strong sales in digital, and we’re having strong sales in mass market, but our strongest sales are in the hobby shops. So that’s working.

 

[BryonD]

Interview with WoTC CEO: http://icv2.com/articles/games/view/21062/interview-wotc-ceo-greg-leeds-part-1
Over-all our business is up significantly. I think anyone you talk to about what’s going on with Magic and D&D will tell you that we are having very, very strong sales. We are having very strong sales in digital, and we’re having strong sales in mass market, but our strongest sales are in the hobby shops. So that’s working.

This still adds ZERO new information.
5E is "strong" compared to anything D&D has seen in quite a few years. So it is completely fair and accurate to make this statement. But it provides no information at all in regard to "are the margins worth investment?".

It was highly clear when 4E was released that they were unsatisfied that the number of people buying D&D products did not approach the number of people playing WoW.
(Standard disclaimer: I do not agree with the 4e = WoW position. It was an TTRPG that tried, and failed, to attract that fanbase, but it was still a TTRPG)
They seem to have moved on from that. But they are clearly not working to grow.
IMO, if they were not positioning for a movie blockbuster Hail Mary then they would be much more active in workign with one or more licensing partners. But the scale of profit potential is so different that they are shy about letting other parties have too much influence on the brand appearance.

 

[TerraDave]

I've already fully agreed that it is dominating the teapot. My point is that the teapot isn't big enough.

Absolute sales of core-books are higher then at any point since the early 3.0 era. Probably higher then most of the 2E era. Its not about some absolute market constraint. For D&D overall market is big as its been in ages. And profit per employee is almost certainly the highest they have ever been.

Yes, business model is obviously different. But the relationship may not be about the "tea pot."

 

[darjr]

Where do you get "they are not working to grow"? The very strategy is designed to grow the hobby. And from my point of view its working. And it seems it's working generally.

 

[Tony Vargas]

does anyone have any statistics to direct me to or article that tell us how D&D5 is doing? Sales wise, most prominently, I guess.

Nope. There are no hard numbers out there, per se, not that people won't give you some of the available softer ones, or make some up...

I'm hoping we, that is D&D is flourishing.

It seems to be in my corner of the world. The local FLGS has six tables of D&D of one sort or another every Wednesday night.

I do have to express great disappointment in the anemic rate of support for the game...So, any thoughts on that? Is the lack of support reflective of the success of the product?

The afore-mentioned 'soft' numbers we do have indicate that D&D is back on top in terms of sales and number of people playing it. It's beating out Pathfinder in spite of PF continuing the 3.5 strategy of rapid releases, so it seems to be working as far as it goes.

It's also a more sustainable, much lower-cost, model. That bodes well for the long-term viability of the D&D brand.

 

[Corpsetaker]

The afore-mentioned 'soft' numbers we do have indicate that D&D is back on top in terms of sales and number of people playing it. It's beating out Pathfinder in spite of PF continuing the 3.5 strategy of rapid releases, so it seems to be working as far as it goes.

It's also a more sustainable, much lower-cost, model. That bodes well for the long-term viability of the D&D brand.

How do you know it's back on top?

Do you have the numbers from Wizards and Paizo to compare? Don't forget that most of Pathfinder's sales comes from their own website and not rely on stores and sites like Amazon, even though they do sell their products through those.