D&D 5E 3 Years Later: D&D's total Domination on Amazon (and Earth in General)

[Uchawi]

In regards to rules, I believe it was due to a compromise amongst all editions rules Without some of the DMs championing the cause the grass roots effort would not hold. After that enough new DMs stick with it to start the next generation of gamers. The question is how long before they become bored and move on. There are plenty of systems available to experiment with.

 

[ad_hoc]

According to the ICv2 data on this forum, the overall roleplaying games market is $45 million in 2017. Which is a fraction of the collectibles or miniatures market, but still the equivalent of nearly a million "$50 books" per year. I can believe that WotC has a market share of maybe half that, with all their D&D products combined.

You think it's only half?

Roleplaying games sales have tripled since 2013.

 

[TerraDave]

2E outsold 3E, and going by the size of the market 5E is doing about average for a D&D edition (20 million or so a year).

TSR revenue before it went bankrupt was 40 million apparently not adjusted for inflation. The entire RPG market now is 35 million.


1E 1-1.5 million
Red Box over 1 million
Black Box half million
2E 750k
3.0 500k+ (I have seen some estimates around 750k)
3.5 250k-350k

We also know the size of the RPG market before 5E landed and after (13 million to 35 million now). Peak years at TSR adjusted for inflation they beat that by 2 or 3 to 1. During 3E's run the number 25-30 million was thrown around.

They have made the money on 5E with fewer materials so their overall profit could be beating 3E for example which sold the books very cheap ($20 vs $50).

Its doing good (great?), but its about average for a D&D edition (except maybe for profit), its beating OD&D and 4E though. 3.0 was stupidly front loaded in sales though so its probably doing better than that 3 years in.

5E might also be selling more now than in 2014, it was launch year but they only had 6 months for the 2014 year and from memory the RPG market went from 13 million to 20
million.

The earlier figure of 9000 a month looks good, its around 120k per year but.

3.0 sold 300k in the first month apparently.
2E sold 270k first year.

If they have sold in the 300-400k range its roughly in the middle for a D&D edition outselling 4E, OD&D, and 3.5. Profits should be better though (less product, higher price point on books).

I have always heard that 3E>2E. Though of course 2E was in print for much longer, but it was not considered a great success. And D&D's mainstream visibility, or even prominence among RPGs, faded significantly. And then they went bankrupt.

More generally, I don't know if we can compare the handful of people that made RPGs at WotC now to the hundreds that made them at TSR back in the day. From mid 1E on the model was just to maintain revenues by releasing more and more and more. By mid 2E that meant that every major campaign setting had a monthly release, plus there was other stuff on top of that. Lots of other stuff. In the end I expect that core books where only small part of it. Who started playing D&D in 1997? And then they went bankrupt.

So if revenue is your overall metric, its harder to say. The 3.5 era, which included huge sales of pre-painted minis and wave of hardback splats, may have done great. But they still did 4E.

But if are looking at broader market penetration and sustainability of the model, there are many many indicators right now that D&D is in the best place its been since the early 80s.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think conclusions that 2e was not a success are flawed. TSR didn't suffer because of 2e. TSR suffered because of really bad business decisions (like flooding the market with unsold novels that murdered the profit line of the company). I think people look the company struggling and assume the edition struggled as well. I think for the first time, D&D had real competition in the 90s, with the rise of goth and emo culture driving Vampire and Werewolf to strong popularity. And Magic took off, taking a lot of casual D&D players with it. But I don't know how 2e could have captured that market without doing a completely different ruleset.

So I think 2e did about as well as you could expect, considering the environment of the time, and any struggles of the company are related to other poor decisions from TSR outside of 2e.

 

[JeffB]

I think conclusions that 2e was not a success are flawed. TSR didn't suffer because of 2e. TSR suffered because of really bad business decisions (like flooding the market with unsold novels that murdered the profit line of the company). I think people look the company struggling and assume the edition struggled as well. I think for the first time, D&D had real competition in the 90s, with the rise of goth and emo culture driving Vampire and Werewolf to strong popularity. And Magic took off, taking a lot of casual D&D players with it. But I don't know how 2e could have captured that market without doing a completely different ruleset.

So I think 2e did about as well as you could expect, considering the environment of the time, and any struggles of the company are related to other poor decisions from TSR outside of 2e.

Exactly. 2E sold a pile of material. TSR was run into the ground by poor management and crazy financial decisions, which did involve 2E product sometimes. But it was certainly a success. Enough so that WOTC had to do reprints of many 2E books until 3E surfaced.

There was alot of spew from Propaganda Minister Dancey* out there when WOTC took over, and of course WOTC was in a situation where they were not sure what 3.0 and the D20 license was going to do and had to "sell" it to retailers, distributors, current fans, and fans who had moved on for one reason or another (whether rules, or TSR policies, etc) And "the numbers people" and managers who were @TSR that did not move on to WOTC/Paizo have disputed plenty of Dancey's claims about numbers, so I expect the truth lies somewhere in between.

*Nothing personal against him, I am thankful for his foresight and work on the OGL licensing and such. But it was his job to make the days of TSR look bad (or worse), and the future under Wonderkids of the Coast look like The Seven Heavens of Celestia.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Exactly. 2E sold a pile of material. TSR was run into the ground by poor management and crazy financial decisions, which did involve 2E product. But it was certainly a success. Enough so that WOTC had to do reprints of many 2E books until 3E surfaced.

There was alot of spew from Propaganda Minister Dancey* out there when WOTC took over, and of course WOTC was in a situation where they were not sure what 3.0 and the D20 license was going to do and had to "sell" it to retailers, distributors, current fans, and fans who had moved on for one reason or another (whether rules, or TSR policies, etc) And "the numbers people" and managers who were @TSR that did not move on to WOTC/Paizo have disputed plenty of Dancey's claims about numbers, so I expect the truth lies somewhere in between.

*Nothing personal against him, I am thankful for his foresight and work on the OGL licensing and such. But it was his job to make the days of TSR look bad (or worse), and the future under Wonderkids of the Coast look like The Seven Heavens of Celestia.

That, and when WoTC bought TSR, D&D and Magic no longer were competitive against each other. WoTC could take an approach of trying to make them complimentary. With Magic being hugely popular (based on a core idea of "builds*"), I don't think it's coincidence at all that WotC's version of D&D placed a huge emphasis on "builds" as well. D&D became much like Magic: Take a theme, then select which powers/abilities (feats/cards) you wanted to have the most effective build. And it was a good business decision. Magic was super popular, and 3e had a resurgence and brought back players who liked that style of play. The fact that the whole goth phase of the 90s winding down (and thus bringing down WW sales) certainly helped as well.

*Taking parts from here or there to combine them in the most effective manner to accomplish a theme

 

[Arilyn]

I think conclusions that 2e was not a success are flawed. TSR didn't suffer because of 2e. TSR suffered because of really bad business decisions (like flooding the market with unsold novels that murdered the profit line of the company). I think people look the company struggling and assume the edition struggled as well. I think for the first time, D&D had real competition in the 90s, with the rise of goth and emo culture driving Vampire and Werewolf to strong popularity. And Magic took off, taking a lot of casual D&D players with it. But I don't know how 2e could have captured that market without doing a completely different ruleset.

So I think 2e did about as well as you could expect, considering the environment of the time, and any struggles of the company are related to other poor decisions from TSR outside of 2e.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the rise and fall of particular editions. The very original rules had done well enough that Gygax could do advanced, hard cover books. He also wanted a definitive edition since groups were all playing with their own house rules. Gygax considered Advanced to be especially important for tournament play. Basic was for more casual players, but the term basic turned some people off.

2e came out because TSR had booted Gygax out of the company. 2e did well, especially with supplemental material, but was up against stiffer competition, and criticism that it had not modernised enough. It's main problem, however, was the extreme mismanagement of TSR.

TSR dies. WOTC buys DnD, and creates 3e. The rule set is brought up more to date, and the OGL goes gangbusters. The OGL bursts. 3.5 is still doing well, but sales have slipped, which is inevitable. Fans seem open to idea of new edition, and WOTC is hoping for another spike in sales that a new edition brings. 4e is born, but it feels very different from traditional DnD, and players leave the game in waves. Still has its' fans, however, but not enough to make WOTC happy. Their old system is being adopted by Paizo, and eventually PF becomes number one.

WOTC drops 4e suddenly, and 5e is announced. By this time, the WOTC staff is very small, and they ha e to proceed cautiously, not sure if they can recapture the market. This is the reason for the slow release schedule, and comments about getting game right before adding more options.

None of the above has anything to do with dying from an overabundance of material. Sure, companies run into trouble from over extending themselves, but that has never been the case with DnD. TSR overextended with novels, Hollywood trips, pulling up sunken ships, and other crazy ideas, not the game itself. Paizo has been bringing out a steady stream of products, after all, without killing themselves.

5e is doing well, because it feels like DnD again. It is simpler and more streamlined, which is what players want these days. Geek is hot, which is serving the game well. I assume that sales will slip eventually, and we'll have 6e. New editions are good, however, or we'd all be still scrambling to get a hold of those original little booklets, and playing fighting men all wielding d6 weapons.

 

[Mirtek]

Paizo has been bringing out a steady stream of products, after all, without killing themselves.

Paizo does so for mainly one setting and I think only two settings in total.

TSR tried to simultaneity for more than twice as many settings. When even among the fraction that were the fans of the respective setting only a fraction bought each respective supplement

 

[Jester David]

2E outsold 3E, and going by the size of the market 5E is doing about average for a D&D edition (20 million or so a year).

I've always heard 3e outsold 2e...

TSR revenue before it went bankrupt was 40 million apparently not adjusted for inflation. The entire RPG market now is 35 million.

Where did you get that number?
That's far larger than the reported revenue in the 1980s during the D&D boom.

1E 1-1.5 million
Red Box over 1 million
Black Box half million
2E 750k
3.0 500k+ (I have seen some estimates around 750k)
3.5 250k-350k

We also know the size of the RPG market before 5E landed and after (13 million to 35 million now). Peak years at TSR adjusted for inflation they beat that by 2 or 3 to 1. During 3E's run the number 25-30 million was thrown around.

We know that pretty much this time last years, the 5e PHB sales (after 2 years) were greater than the total lifetime sales of 3.0, 3.5, and 4e. And since then, the PHB has sold at *least* 120,000 copies on Amazon alone.

So, it's very likely 5e has outsold the PHB sales of 2nd Edition after just three years opposed to it's 11 years (uncertain if that's just the original printing on the combined original and black border revisions).

Again, 2-3 years of sales like this (just maintaining, and no surges or spikes of interest) and 5e passes 1e.

 

[Jester David]

I think conclusions that 2e was not a success are flawed.

Well... it was also not a success compared to 1e, which was a phenomena. There was only a couple points of reference at the time.
Looking at 2e compared to 3.5e and 4e, it was probably a pretty huge success.