D&D 5E I think the era of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons had it right. (not talking about the rules).

[Corpsetaker]

5E is the 1st D&D to sell more than the previous edition for 30+ years. At least in PHB A.

Which is great and all but means nothing in the scheme of things because all editions were sold under different conditions. If it wasn't for Amazon selling the PHB so cheap, do you think it would have sold so many copies? If DDI didn't exist, how many PHB do you think 4th edition would sold? How many 3rd edition PHB's do you think would have sold had Amazon been as popular and giving discounts as today?

There isn't a lie going on but the whole story isn't being told. It would be like someone saying that Rory McElroy is a better golfer than Arnold Palmer because Rory broke Arnold's record for tournaments won. The part about breaking the records is a fact, but the being the better golfer is another story. We would never know because the conditions and equipment would have been different. You would have to even the playing field to get an accurate determination as to who is better.

 

[Corwin]

There isn't a lie going on but the whole story isn't being told.

Please tell us the whole story.

 

[Mistwell]

Which is great and all but means nothing in the scheme of things because all editions were sold under different conditions. If it wasn't for Amazon selling the PHB so cheap, do you think it would have sold so many copies?

Not only did Amazon sell both 4e and 3e at launch, but 3e sold for $20 initially to generate heavy sales in the PHB. And 5e STILL outsold the entire lifetime of 3e PHB sales in under two years. And it also outsold the entire lifetime of 4e PHB sales in under two years, though that is less impressive than the 3e outsell (which itself outsold Pathfinder). My point is, conditions didn't change. This is also the most costly PHB even assuming online discounting.

If DDI didn't exist, how many PHB do you think 4th edition would sold?

Nobody knows. Which is why it's speculation and not data. Challenging actual hard data as "half-truth" and "twisting" with speculation is, at best, deceptive. I am waiting still for some hard data from you, on anything.

How many 3rd edition PHB's do you think would have sold had Amazon been as popular and giving discounts as today?

It was popular that year for book sales (it just got even more popular over time), and again the PHB sold for a reduced price of $20 initially to generate sales. That's less than the 5e PHB, even if you adjust for inflation. AND the 3e PHB initially came with a CD with a character generator on it, AND it had some monsters in the back of the book as an extra insert. But bottom line, Amazon sales specifically for books were plenty popular that year. And the PHB didn't even make the top 100 for that year (which you can still check by the way - Amazon was already 5 years old at that point apparently and keeps all their bestseller data up for all prior years). And Mearls said it outsold the entire lifetime of 3x PHB sales. Which means it includes people who bought additional copies over time (like a lot of people here at EnWorld said they did, and like I did).

There isn't a lie going on but the whole story isn't being told

Right. So stop calling it "half-truth". It's not a half truth if you tell all you know but you don't tell what you don't know. That's a bad misuse of that phrase "half-truth". That phrase means being intentionally deceptive. Knock it off unless someone is actually telling a half-truth.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No, it isn't. Because I didn't claim that more complex classes are invariably more powerful; I was arguing that they shouldn't be.

You said that the higher system mastery player gains access to more powerful classes that aren't suited to the new player. you listed that as a direct consequence of classes that are more complex being rewarded. When I pointed out hat rewarded=\= more powerful than other classes, all of sudden you never said what you said?

Ok, man.

 

[PMárk]

WOTC does have their own webshop. But more importantly...

You can't buy their 5e hardcovers from it you could from amazon and those ratings are what's coming up every time.

Every single objective indicator we have, indicates that 5e is well outselling Pathfinder right now.
The Amazon Bestseller List.
The Barnes and Noble Bestseller List
The New York Times Bestseller List
The ICv2 Report of Retail Sales
The Hot Games List of what RPGs are being discussed on the Internet Right Now
The Hasbro Quarterly Report which (under FTC regulation for accuracy) listed D&D as materially profitable to the company (it's first mention that way ever).
Mearls and Crawford confirming the PHB has outsold the PHB from any other edition on record, with Eric Mona confirming the Pathfinder core book sold less than one of those prior books.
Mass media coverage of D&D by non-D&D sources compared to mass media coverage of Pathfinder.
Eric Mona admitting the entire RPG market was lifted by D&D 5e coming out and describing Pathfinder in terms of a "post-5th Edition paradigm".

There are more but by now I hope I made my point. And most of these indicators were perfectly acceptable to Pathfinder fans when Pathfinder was the game that they were indicating at the time was doing better than D&D, so it would be pretty hypocritical to claim suddenly they're not good indicators now that they are indicating something different.

You're stressing something I'm not arguing with. 5e makes bigger sales than PF and have bigger recognition. I didn't said otherwise, like never.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not only did Amazon sell both 4e and 3e at launch, but 3e sold for $20 initially to generate heavy sales in the PHB. And 5e STILL outsold the entire lifetime of 3e PHB sales in under two years. And it also outsold the entire lifetime of 4e PHB sales in under two years, though that is less impressive than the 3e outsell (which itself outsold Pathfinder). My point is, conditions didn't change. This is also the most costly PHB even assuming online discounting.



Nobody knows. Which is why it's speculation and not data. Challenging actual hard data as "half-truth" and "twisting" with speculation is, at best, deceptive. I am waiting still for some hard data from you, on anything.



It was popular that year for book sales (it just got even more popular over time), and again the PHB sold for a reduced price of $20 initially to generate sales. That's less than the 5e PHB, even if you adjust for inflation. AND the 3e PHB initially came with a CD with a character generator on it, AND it had some monsters in the back of the book as an extra insert. But bottom line, Amazon sales specifically for books were plenty popular that year. And the PHB didn't even make the top 100 for that year (which you can still check by the way - Amazon was already 5 years old at that point apparently and keeps all their bestseller data up for all prior years). And Mearls said it outsold the entire lifetime of 3x PHB sales. Which means it includes people who bought additional copies over time (like a lot of people here at EnWorld said they did, and like I did).



Right. So stop calling it "half-truth". It's not a half truth if you tell all you know but you don't tell what you don't know. That's a bad misuse of that phrase "half-truth". That phrase means being intentionally deceptive. Knock it off unless someone is actually telling a half-truth.

Had game stores back then and I don't recall amazon selling it for $14 as 5E has been getting 40% discounts.

3.0 was also heavily front loaded in sales 300 first month. There was also 3 versions of 3E which cut into lifetime sales togather they have outsold 5E almost 2 to 1 and are the only things coming close to 1E/Red Box sales. 3.x has sold somewhere around 1.1 to 1.3 million copies.

5E will probably hit saturation point with PHB sales soon and IIRC Amazon was selling around 4k s month and Amazon sells about 30% of book sales these days and I suspect it's higher for 5E.

That's still a great number though sales of 100k or so a year after the launch craziness is great if they can keep it up for a while and if it's higher tag that even better.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't think Mearls is lying and if he is wrong it's not by very much.

5E is the 1st D&D to sell more than the previous edition for 30+ years. At least in PHB A.

Apparently, somebody's being inconsistent with the stats. Considering the way WotC used to claim that each edition was 'selling better than they expected' and 'better than the prior edition' at launch. Now, you say they're claiming that not only their own editions, but fan-favorite 2e, were suffering from steadily declining sales with each new release?

Doesn't sound good.

OTOH, We've long heard that sales decline within the life of each edition, markedly so after the initial release (and 5e is bucking that trend so far).

Not only did Amazon sell both 4e and 3e at launch, but 3e sold for $20 initially to generate heavy sales in the PHB. My point is, conditions didn't change.

Conditions have changed a lot, the market in terms of on-line vs brick-and-mortar was completely different in 2000 vs today, the economy is quite different than in 2008. There isn't the edition-warring against 5e there was against 4e (or even 3e, for that matter), there is a huge resurgence in board games (that tend to be sold in the same stores as D&D, an which RPGs may finally be clinging to the coattails of) etc, etc...

...but none of the hemming and hawing changes the fact that 5e is having a level of success that's unprecedented for D&D (or any RPG) outside of D&D, itself, in the fad years.

And 5e STILL outsold the entire lifetime of 3e PHB sales in under two years. And it also outsold the entire lifetime of 4e PHB sales in under two years, though that is less impressive than the 3e outsell (which itself outsold Pathfinder).

The 4e PH was really only the flagship product that the 5e PH is for 2 years, then it was redundant (tridundant?) with Essentials HotFL and HotFK, so two years vs two years seems a very fair comparison. OTOH, 'the 3e PH's whole run' comparison - which'd necessarily include both the loss-leader 3.0 PH and the 3.5 PH (that many of us felt we 'had' to buy both of) - would seem wildly unfair compared to only 2 years of PH 5e sales - were it not that 5e wins the comparison. The incredibly stilted in favor of 3e comparison. ;>

Threads like these really are horrible and pointless - appealing to popularity to paint one version of a game 'better' than another, when, the whole hobby the game, itself, is part of, is terribly unpopular - but bits of them are fun to see none the less.

 

[Hussar]

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Depending on how you count, we've had 3-5 D&D PHB's released in the last 15 years or so. A new core set every three years? That's a ridiculous business model. It's a huge risk. It's not like a new edition is guaranteed to succeed is it? 4e proved that. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, did they sink into each new edition?

So, now, they're giving up on that model. Two years in and not so much as a whisper for a need of a new edition or a half edition. FANTASTIC. Instead of trying to sell us, yet again, the same bloody book, they're actually doing new, original material. And, for some reason, this is a bad thing?

Good grief, I have or had, on my shelf, a 2e Complete Fighter, a 3e Sword and Fist, a 3.5 Complete Warrior, and there was also a 4e fighter book whose name I forget. Do we really need a 5th fighter book? Seriously? Thousands and thousands of pages of material for given settings, but, apparently, we need to churn out more and more?

It makes me really, really happy that D&D is owned by businesspeople and not hobbyists. I really want to have my hobby around in ten years, unlike the vast majority of RPG companies. "Owned by a small company"? No thanks. Two hardcovers a year and a handful of Pdf's, all of which selling about 20k copies at the absolute outside? Welcome to the death of D&D.

What blows my mind here is how anyone can look at the history of the hobby, where every single edition that had higher release rates failed after three years, and think that a higher release rate is a good idea. Let's not forget that 2e, with the highest release rate, nearly shut the doors for good.

I dunno about you folks, but, I'm perfectly happy with a sustainable release rate that is hugely successful.

 

[Zardnaar]

It was not wizards thst claimed the each edition sold less. Numbers have come out in recent years and combined with old knowledge roughly match up with some of the estimates that have been around since the 80's.

In terms of PHB

1E outsold 2E, which outsold 3E which outsold 3.5 ed which outsold Pathfinder and PF outsold 4E.

5E bucked that trend. If you ignore the extremes like the golden age and OD&D, 2E,3E,5E have similar levels of interest and 5E is on track to beat them in a few years although I expect sales to decline.

Depending on how well Pathfinder has sold since 2014 it's possible it has outsold 3.5 but idk. Low end estimates of 3.5 are where PF was 2014 so if PF has sold 100k units last two years they have beaten 3.5 and may have beaten them already.

 

[Shasarak]

It would be great to see some new original material.

That would be fantastic, so yes please to that idea!