D&D 5E Amazon: D&D at the start of 2018

[TerraDave]

How do you figure that a 2e player can learn 5e easier than a 3e or 4e player?

I said they can learn 5E easier then 3E or 4E. 3E and 4E players can also pick up 5E pretty easily. Probably more easily then they could get 2E.

 

[Hussar]

I said they can learn 5E easier then 3E or 4E. 3E and 4E players can also pick up 5E pretty easily. Probably more easily then they could get 2E.

Ah. Gotcha. Sure I could see that. I remember the learning curve going from 2e to 3e and it was pretty steep.




Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

 

[Zardnaar]

Conceptually 5E is closer to 2E than 3E or 4E. The whole play how you want thing and kit/archtypes

 

[Jester David]

In Q4 of this year, D&D arguably had one of it's better quarters ever. The core rulebooks continued to sell very well. Sales of Tomb of Annihilation were steady, and past books continued to perform well. And Xanathar's Guide to Monsters became the fastest selling D&D book ever.

But Hasbro's game division still had a slow quarter, being down 4% in Q4, slowing down growth for the entire year.
An important reality check that D&D can be doing crazy sales, and it's still a blip for WotC, let alone Hasbro...

 

[TerraDave]

In Q4 of this year, D&D arguably had one of it's better quarters ever. The core rulebooks continued to sell very well. Sales of Tomb of Annihilation were steady, and past books continued to perform well. And Xanathar's Guide to Monsters became the fastest selling D&D book ever.

But Hasbro's game division still had a slow quarter, being down 4% in Q4, slowing down growth for the entire year.
An important reality check that D&D can be doing crazy sales, and it's still a blip for WotC, let alone Hasbro...

My guess is that at this point D&D is more then a blip for WotC and that WotC is more then a blib for Hasbro.

But my interpretation of this would be: great, D&D is strongly outperforming the category.

 

[Jester David]

My guess is that at this point D&D is more then a blip for WotC and that WotC is more then a blib for Hasbro.

But my interpretation of this would be: great, D&D is strongly outperforming the category.

Magic the Gathering makes a couple hundred dollars every year, making enough money to be comparable to other Hasbro brands.
D&D makes a tenth that. The entire RPG industry makes less than Magic makes in a single month. I'm sure they’re happy D&D is doing well, but it's not shifting stock prices...

 

[TerraDave]

Magic the Gathering makes a couple hundred dollars every year, making enough money to be comparable to other Hasbro brands.
D&D makes a tenth that. The entire RPG industry makes less than Magic makes in a single month. I'm sure they’re happy D&D is doing well, but it's not shifting stock prices...

Not sure where stock prices came from. Who knows what moves those. But in any large company with lots of brand--Hasbro has hundreds--no single brand will "shift stock prices" but you still have to care about the performance of the brand. I don't think Mearls and co have to worry beyond that.

As for the rest, I think you left something out.

In terms of the numbers:

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/38012/hobby-games-market-over-1-4-billion

Hobby gaming does actually come close to Hasbro's $1.6 billion in revenue. And its not WotC that pulling down their gaming sales (that would be "Baby Alive"). Collectible card games are big, and hence probably big for Hasbro.

The data from above implies that retails sales of D&D are "only" in the tens of millions. Magic might be 12 times as much, though its not clear (with Pokemon as competition, they don't dominate CCGs the way D&D does RPGs). And of course there is this thread, and all the sales that D&D gets through Amazon, which based on other posts here, must be like 1000 times bigger as no one buys anything in stores anymore.

 

[ad_hoc]

Back when Kevin Smith was still making stoner comedies someone asked him this question:

'Do the studios ever get upset with you because your movies only ever bring in $30 million?' (hinting at a comparison to other Hollywood comedies which bring in much more)

His reply was along these lines:

$30 million is a lot of money. My movies only cost $20-25 million or so to make. So that's $5-10 million dollars. Are they upset that I consistently make them $5-10 million dollars? No, they're pretty happy with that. Wouldn't you be?

So yes, D&D is a small part of Hasbro, but they're still going to be happy about making millions of dollars. The brand is also worth a lot of money on its own. There is potential for a movie series to make more than the entire sales history of D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unless the ICV2 figures are completely wrong D&D is making about 25 to 35 million a year.

It's nice adjusted for inflation only a couple of years of D&D can beat that (83 maybe 82 maybe 3.0 1st year).

Not sure what profit margins are and maybe they make a bit shipping to Amazon direct but the paper rpg might only make less than 10 million profit probably no more than 20.

Not sure how much tie in products make. D&D is chump change for Hasbro.

 

[Mistwell]

As of today, Feb 15, 2018, on Amazon:
PHB #34
XGtE #83
MM #146
DMG #140
VGtM #307