D&D 5E Wanting more content doesn't always equate to wanting tons of splat options so please stop.

[Morrus]

I think a lot of people are just making up numbers in this thread.

 

[Maxperson]

Ahh, that's probably why you really disagree with others. WotC would be unbelievably happy if most customers bought 4-5 books per year. The truth is, most customers (i.e. players) buy 0 books per year. 1-2 would cover the next largest group. 4-5 would probably be a tiny fraction of customers. More than that even less still.

First, we were discussing resources to buy books. Second, since you have said what "The truth is", you can back it up with hard numbers. Let's see them.

 

[pkt77242]

First, we were discussing resources to buy books. Second, since you have said what "The truth is", you can back it up with hard numbers. Let's see them.

In response to this quote, how many people do you think play D&D 5E? 5 million? 2 million? 1 million?

In two years, the by far most commonly needed book (the PHB) has probably sold 600-700K.

Think about that. Not even 1 per player, and most likely more like 1 PHB sold per 3-5 D&D players (or even worse if there is significantly more D&D players).

Splat books, setting books, DMG, Monster Manuels, etc. have even worse market penetration numbers. So what makes you think that the average D&D players is buying so many books?


Also in relation to your many comments that more Splat books = more profits. Well that isn't necessarily true and even if it is true it might lower important numbers such as ROI. Releasing too many Splat books means that they will be competing against each other for sales (and I already showed how little D&D players buy on average).

For example if a company has a ROI goal of 10% per product
1st Splat book = 12%
2nd Splat book in the same year = 8%
3rd Splat Book in the same year = 5%

While all 3 books would add to the profits, the company wouldn't want to release more of them because the more prolific release rate drops ROI. While I don't know if this is what happens, it makes logical sense when you see how few players even buy the PHB, and the competition between multiple products released in the same year for the remaining players/DMs gaming dollars.

 

[Maxperson]

In response to this quote, how many people do you think play D&D 5E? 5 million? 2 million? 1 million?

In two years, the by far most commonly needed book (the PHB) has probably sold 600-700K.

Think about that. Not even 1 per player, and most likely more like 1 PHB sold per 3-5 D&D players (or even worse if there is significantly more D&D players).

Splat books, setting books, DMG, Monster Manuels, etc. have even worse market penetration numbers. So what makes you think that the average D&D players is buying so many books?


Also in relation to your many comments that more Splat books = more profits. Well that isn't necessarily true and even if it is true it might lower important numbers such as ROI. Releasing too many Splat books means that they will be competing against each other for sales (and I already showed how little D&D players buy on average).

For example if a company has a ROI goal of 10% per product
1st Splat book = 12%
2nd Splat book in the same year = 8%
3rd Splat Book in the same year = 5%

While all 3 books would add to the profits, the company wouldn't want to release more of them because the more prolific release rate drops ROI. While I don't know if this is what happens, it makes logical sense when you see how few players even buy the PHB, and the competition between multiple products released in the same year for the remaining players/DMs gaming dollars.

I'm only asking for 1 general content book. Not 3.

 

[pkt77242]

I'm only asking for 1 general content book. Not 3.

You want general content. They don't plan on doing it (or at least don't plan on doing it yet, the big book of crunch will most likely be setting agnostic). Also that 1 general content book will directly compete with their setting specific material (especially since their "setting specific" books are easily portable).

ETA: You also didn't respond at all to me showing that people just don't buy that many books (and that many people don't buy any).

 

[Morrus]

In response to this quote, how many people do you think play D&D 5E? 5 million? 2 million? 1 million?

In two years, the by far most commonly needed book (the PHB) has probably sold 600-700K.

Think about that. Not even 1 per player, and most likely more like 1 PHB sold per 3-5 D&D players (or even worse if there is significantly more D&D players).

You can't perform calculations on numbers you've made up.

 

[pkt77242]

You can't perform calculations on numbers you've made up.

Call it somewhat educated guess. The best numbers I can find is from 2000 or so saying about 1.5 million people play at least monthly. So range of 1-2 million gives it room to have shrunk some and to have grown possibly (5 million would be an extremely optimistic number). Have you seen a more recent number?

 

[Morrus]

Call it somewhat educated guess. The best numbers I can find is from 2000 or so saying about 1.5 million people play at least monthly. So range of 1-2 million gives it room to have shrunk some and to have grown possibly (5 million would be an extremely optimistic number). Have you seen a more recent number?

You've divided an enormous range of 1M-5M by 600K-700K which gives a range of results which are completely useless, from 1.4 - 8.3.

 

[pkt77242]

You've divided an enormous range of 1M-5M by 600K-700K which gives a range of results which are completely useless, from 1.4 - 8.3.

Useless if you need exact numbers.

I don't need exact numbers, Maxperson was saying that the average player buys multiple books per year, and it even the best case scenario under that is that there is about 1 PHB sold per 1.5 players (and it is possibly worse) and the PHB has the largest market penetration of WotC books. All I need to show is that most players aren't buying a as many books as he said and he said that most people probably buy 4-5 books per year which seems unusually high and unlikely.

Yes exact numbers would be better (who wouldn't love that) but in the absent of exact numbers you have to work with what you have and make the best educated guess that you can. So again, if you have better numbers I would love to see them (heck, you would have a better educated guess than me, so go ahead and make one).


Here is the relevant post from Maxperson

Two things. First, I think it's more like 4-5 books a year for most customers. Second, nobody is asking for the 15 per year that 3e/3.5 put out. We're asking them to up the general content releases from 0 to 1 per year, which when combined with their setting specific releases, puts 5e in the 3-4 books a year range

 

[Morrus]

Useless if you need exact numbers.

I don't need exact numbers, Maxperson was saying that the average player buys multiple books per year, and it even the best case scenario under that is that there is about 1 PHB sold per 1.5 players (and it is possibly worse) and the PHB has the largest market penetration of WotC books. All I need to show is that most players aren't buying a as many books as he said and he said that most people probably buy 4-5 books per year which seems unusually high and unlikely.

Yes exact numbers would be better (who wouldn't love that) but in the absent of exact numbers you have to work with what you have and make the best educated guess that you can. So again, if you have better numbers I would love to see them (heck, you would have a better educated guess than me, so go ahead and make one).

Or *any* numbers. Those are not just not-exact; they're completely random. They're not even approximate. A range from 1.4-8.3 is so wide as to be completely useless, even for casual conversation purposes. And even that range was just a guess. Nobody has shown anything other than their ability to generate random numbers.

And no, I have no good guess either. I'm just aware of the fact.