Pathfinder 2E Release Day Second Edition Amazon Sales Rank

[Jester David]

I was in the questioning side, at least somewhat. My reasoning was that the games are just so different.
But, first, it would be silly to claim the number is zero, and I won't do that.

And, second, you do make me realize I'm probably too into the weeds here.
At the most casual of levels, it is completely true to say that 4E, PF, PF2E (and 5E etc if you want) are very much the same game fundamentally.
Tell a story. Try to do something. Roll D20, add something, compare to something. Repeat.
If you roll a 17, odds are you did good and if you rolled a 3, odds are you did not. So if you are a very casual player, the GM will play a much larger role in the "fun" than the game being played. (I'll 100% being a mechanics wonk and "WHY" you are adding this not that matters to me, but I'm an outlier. I'm sure I'm an outlier in ENWorld, and I'm sure I'm in much closer company on ENWorld than in gamers worldwide)

But there are probably more than a few mechanics agnostics who migrated from 4E to PF. And probably a fair number who simply followed their GM.

But even for someone who is completely mechanics agnostic, the feel of a game will emerge over tens or scores of sessions. (or less). That is why some games are more popular than others. I predicted 4E would drop off over time as the feel, the patterns emerged. It did. (No issue with people who love that feel, just nonjudgmental predicting the broader trend). We are already seeing that as much as there are people who really like PF2E, there are also those who get turned off, and a lot who just become "meh".

I wouldn't be surprised to see a nice Paizocon spike. But it would change the flow of the river.

4e is different from PF, but I imagine a lot of people swapped from 3e to 4e, found they disliked 4e, and moved to PF. Or back to 3e.

But, as you say, the similarities between games really depend on the sample size and other games compared. Comparing 2e, 3e, 4e, PF, and PF2 and the games seem pretty different. When you add Fate, Shadows of Esteren, Vampire, and other systems to the mix the d20 games have a lot of overlap.

 

[Nilbog]

Seems like I'm in a minority, but I really hope paizo turn it round and PF2 becomes successful for them, but I'm biased as I think it's a cracking system and my favourite right now.

 

[BryonD]

Seems like I'm in a minority, but I really hope paizo turn it round and PF2 becomes successful for them, but I'm biased as I think it's a cracking system and my favourite right now.

Don't sweat it.
If you have a group that likes it then you are good for a long time.
Paizo is pretty much locked in for a couple years minimum. And I doubt it will be less than twice that.
But that is just gravy.
4E didn't put a dent in my game table. PF2E didn't put a dent in my game table.
Nothing will put a dent in your game table either.

 

[Mistwell]

Seems like I'm in a minority, but I really hope paizo turn it round and PF2 becomes successful for them, but I'm biased as I think it's a cracking system and my favourite right now.

I don't think you're in the minority. I think most of us want Paizo to succeed.

That is, unless failure means they convert their past adventure paths to 5e. In which case I will greedily say bring on the temporary failure!

I kid.

Mostly.

 

[Hussar]

OK so you go on about lack of knowledge and then just make up $5 million a year based on nothing whatsoever. Seems an odd logic path to star with.
We all agree that 4E cratered. There is no evidence that the TTRPG industry shrunk in that time, so your assumption that PF didn't pick up the lion's share of that is nothing more than sour grapes.

Hang on. Yes we do. We know that the TTRPG industry WITH D&D was around 25-30 million dollars. We know that the TTRPG industry without D&D plummeted to about 13 million. So, yes, the TTRPG industry shrunk substantially with the end of 4e. The period between 4e completely stopping and 5e starting sees the market shrink by about 50%. And, mind you there are still D&D books being sold in that time, just not new books produced.

So, yes, we very much do have evidence that the TTRPG industry shrunk in that time. Or are you seriously suggesting that the TTRPG market, sans D&D, remained at the 25-30 million dollar mark? That Pathfinder, at it's height, was somewhere in the 20 million dollar mark in the industry?

 

[BryonD]

Heh.
You are desperate to keep changing the subject back to the height of PF.
Its bad enough you declare your third hand rumors to be absolute fact and everything else to be voodoo.

But I already explained why I don't care.

Do you have anything to contribute to the topic? I am 100% cool if you don't. By all means, post anything you want.
But I am curious if you have anything on topic to say.

 

[darjr]

@Hussar i don’t think we new what the pre 4e figure for sales was. Not as well as post anyway.

 

[Hussar]

Really?

How big's the RPG market?

How big is the RPG market? Pretty damn tiny, is the answer. As of 2016/2017 it's about $35m in size, according to ICv2. That's of a Hobby Games market currently worth just over a billion dollars. The RPG segment is a mere 2.9% of the overall Hobby Games market, which includes boardgames...

www.enworld.org

However, the entire hobby games market is growing year on year. Just look at the latest stats: the market has grown from $700M in 2013 to $1.19B in 2016/2017. Of that, RPGs have more than doubled in size, from $15M to $35M. Boardgames have over tripled in size. There is definitely a tabletop boom going on right now, powered by a number of factors ranging from Kickstarter, to the introduction of US West Coast media (shows like Tabletop and outlets like Geek & Sundry have helped to mainstream tabletop gaming), and more.

Now, I did use 13 million, but, as I recall, that was for earlier than 2013. But, ok, fair enough, let's use 15 million. So, if the total market in 2013 was 15 million, just how big do you think Pathfinder actually was? Even if it controlled a majority of the market, it's still about 8 million at most. Not really all that far from what I said earlier. Which means, Pathfinder 2 could be doing as well as peak Pathfinder but, we'd never actually know because the market has, since 2013, QUADRUPLED.

@BryonD's point that current Pathfinder 2 is not doing as well as typical (not peak, but, average) Pathfinder 1 sales is virtually impossible to prove or argue because, unless Pathfinder 2 was doing unbelievably well, it won't even register overall. There just isn't a granular enough measurement to know.

So, I'd say we had a pretty good idea how big the market was.

 

[darjr]

Nothing in that talks about PRE 4e sales figures.
In fact that 35million was attributed almost entirely to 5e.
I’m almost certain that there was a drop in sales during 4es run, especially at the end.
But as far as I know I haven’t seen any numbers as hard as those you linked/quoted. Especially to just before 4es release.

 

[darjr]

But maybe I misunderstood you.
It em seems you claim that RPGS were 35+ million BEFORE they dropped to that $15.

not only do I think that’s not true, I’ll need to see where you got that figure from.