D&D 5E Alphastream - Why No RPG Company Truly Competes with Wizards of the Coast

[GreyLord]

According to their staff as recently as 2020, sales of core books – and even supplements – were increasing over time instead of declining. And, new supplements were usually selling better than older supplements. According to staff in 2017, the 5E PHB had sold over 800,000 copies. That number is now well over a million, in all likelihood.

This success was a surprise to WotC, who had planned 5E’s revenue to come primarily from non-book sources.

Why No RPG Company Truly Competes with Wizards of the Coast | Alphastream

Think Dungeons & Dragons has RPG competitors? Let's find out why that isn't true.

alphastream.org

Only a million?

That seems awfully low for a company to claim 50 million players if they've only sold a million PHB's.

3e/3.5 sold somewhere in that range and only claimed 5 million players. They sold like half a million PHB's the first year or two and still didn't claim the numbers that WotC is claiming.

Are they ONLY claiming they've sold 1 million PHB's or is that for one year that they've sold a million PHBs?

 

[GreyLord]

No doubt Critical Role is successful, they have approximately 1.5 million viewers [1]. D&D is played by close to 50 million[2]. The numbers are approximations of course.

I highly doubt the tail is wagging the dog.

If they've only sold 1 million PHB's...that number does not compute.

That is saying 50 players use ONE PHB. I might give leniency if it was 5 per PHB...but 50 per PHB is rather...absurd.

5 Players per PHB is actually pretty lenient to a degree...as even in what I've seen most groups either has every other person (if not every person) having a PHB, or at least one or two in a 4 - 6 person group.

With the numbers being claimed it HAS to be around 1 million PHB's per year or their numbers of how many are playing are WAAAY off no matter how you look at it. Even if we account for 1 million PHB's a year since 2013, that's 8 million PHB's, times 5 would be a MAXIMUM of 40 million...so even there it is not at 50 million. If we say they didn't sell a million PHB's per year until this past year, and it's more around the average of zero to a million each year, averaging around 500,000 per year, that's still around 4 million which would put it at a little over 12 players per PHB (still, what I think is a VERY rather absurd number) if we are claiming 50 million players.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Its possible for someone to play using only digital support, but I have to admit only one in 50 strains my belief a little.

Of course I suppose some of the rest could be made up of those operating on pirate PDFs.

 

[darjr]

The 800 thousand was the number of pokeman RPGs sold in a year. Stan! said the PHB had sold that, in 2017, FOUR YEARS ago. The million isn’t a hard number and I think is a bit of a tongue in cheek comment by Teos.

Also that 50million is D&D players, I’m not sure it’s all 5e.

 

[darjr]

No, Teos didn’t mean it that way. He states in the comments of the blog about that number.

Above 1mil PHBs. Not how much above , though it I was a lot more I’d think he’d say? Maybe? But I agree, even given essential kits, starter boxes, the free basic and DnDBeyond and even some Roll20 stuff, and piracy, it doesn’t quite jive with 50mil players.

 

[darjr]

Also 50million players, it looks like WotC does mean 5e players. Last year the number was 40million.

 

[Mannahnin]

The statement in the May press release/slideshow was that "over 50 million people have played Dungeons & Dragons to date", right? Are we sure they're just counting 5E?

Edit: Right now I'm wishing that I'd read my copy of Game Wizards already and had it handy to check old sales numbers.

 

[Alphastream]

In a sense, they are competing with D&D as any prospective alternative game GM can tell you when they're looking to find players and all they're finding are people who want to play D&D. Every RPG competes with D&D. They just aren't and won't be competitive on its level. They won't have the market share. They won't topple the king (only 1 company has temporarily done so in the last 20 years and that was when WotC's last Hail Mary before 5e ended in a turnover).
But they do have to compete to find a little niche of space for their own - to convince people to play something other than D&D, at least for a while.

I agree that GMs can feel that way. And companies too. But there are a lot of gamers and potential gamers out there. Trying to take on the ones that love D&D is skating up a steep hill when you have level ground right next to you. Find the audience that wants to be found. A lot of RPG creators have promoted their game by disparaging D&D - even writing disparaging remarks in the RPG itself. That's a waste of effort and even hurts the creator by making them look like bad people.

 

[Morrus]

In a sense, they are competing with D&D as any prospective alternative game GM can tell you when they're looking to find players and all they're finding are people who want to play D&D. Every RPG competes with D&D. They just aren't and won't be competitive on its level. They won't have the market share. They won't topple the king (only 1 company has temporarily done so in the last 20 years and that was when WotC's last Hail Mary before 5e ended in a turnover).
But they do have to compete to find a little niche of space for their own - to convince people to play something other than D&D, at least for a while.

See I don't see it that way. I see it as WotC is recruiting my future customers. Sure, I only get a tiny percentage of them, but I only need a tiny percentage to do very well. So I don't compete with D&D -- I rely on it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree that GMs can feel that way. And companies too. But there are a lot of gamers and potential gamers out there. Trying to take on the ones that love D&D is skating up a steep hill when you have level ground right next to you. Find the audience that wants to be found. A lot of RPG creators have promoted their game by disparaging D&D - even writing disparaging remarks in the RPG itself. That's a waste of effort and even hurts the creator by making them look like bad people.

Yeah, any time someone feels a need to point out the things their game does better than D&D, my response is "This isn't 1980, guy."