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

[Thomas Shey]

There are websites that pirate the books, and poor college students will sometimes just download a pirated version for free.

I mentioned that earlier, but the question is whether that's common enough to perturb the numbers meaningfully.

 

[darjr]

The visibility of D&D almost certainly contributes to the perception that licensed RPGs are a good idea to license holders. I suspect in many cases (this has chronically been an issue with big ticket ones) the perception of how well such products will sell is unrealistic, but there's no help for that (I'd be interested to be a fly on the wall when Modiphus does their sales pitches to see if they make that clear to the licensors).

In this case it’s more than that. Hasbro essentially made a division to create that game and two others related to Hasbro properties. Wizards isn’t working on it, a different group is. It sounded like it was an idea from Hasbro because of D&D success. Probably based upon internal numbers they are privy too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In this case it’s more than that. Hasbro essentially made a division to create that game and two others related to Hasbro properties. Wizards isn’t working on it, a different group is. It sounded like it was an idea from Hasbro because if D&D success. Probably based upon internal numbers they are privy too.

Oh, yeah, wasn't even thinking about the fact it was, effectively, an in-house operation.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, but are you fishing in the D&D populace (well, outside of Level Up which of course is) or are you fishing in the extent non-D&D RPG populace, who's growth may or may not directly tie into that (as I'd expect is the case with WOIN)? Do you have any way to know?

My customer base is primarily people who read what is - mainly - a D&D site. I have to think the former.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My customer base is primarily people who read what is - mainly - a D&D site. I have to think the former.

Fair. I wasn't sure you had reason to think your customer base was that ENWorld-centric.

 

[Alphastream]

We could spend days discussing why 5e is the hit it is or... we could wait for @Alphastream to answer all our questions in the next article!!

Please don't stop! I'm enjoying this discussion. I'm a fan of D&D and of other RPGs and this subject is a lot of fun for me. I think many of you are thinking along the lines I am when it comes to part two. (I'm finishing it up and should have it up early next week.)

 

[Alphastream]

The first stage of the phenomenon was at the release of 5e. 2014 when the PHB was released.

In fact the supply they gave Amazon, an amount meant to last months or a year, sold out in days.

They stopped the printer from printing the next book to rush out more PHBs.

They were so stunned at WotC they thought surely something was wrong.

Along these lines, I recall coming in to my FLGS and seeing five 4-foot stacks of one brand-new D&D supplement (not a core book). I couldn't believe they had ordered that many. "Oh, we should sell out of these in a week." My jaw dropped.

 

[darjr]

Oh, yeah, wasn't even thinking about the fact it was, effectively, an in-house operation.

I pulled out the FreeRPG day book for it.

Power Rangers, GIJoe and Transformers.

It’s from Renegade Game Studios which isn’t a Hasbro Company. But they do have a lot of Hasbro licensed properties.

It is a third party license.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I pulled out the FreeRPG day book for it.

Power Rangers, GIJoe and Transformers.

It’s from Renegade Game Studios which isn’t a Hasbro Company. But they do have a lot of Hasbro licensed properties.

It is a third party license.

But being a Hasbro product, there's obviously more than usual reason for them to think an RPG might be a good idea (in contrast to, say, the checkered history of licensed Marvel RPGs).

 

[Alphastream]

Only a million?

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

Excellent question. We don't actually know the number sold. Stan! says around 800k. I've heard over a million in 2017. I think 2017 is around the time 5E really took off. I would guess that shortly after this is when it stopped feeling at all like a regular game. But, it's just my guess.

I also suspect the 50 million is a number based on various factors and extrapolations, including anyone who ever played. They aren't necessarily customers. (Edit: and, as others have pointed out, it's likely a number of all players ever, not current active 5E players.)

Here's the kind of thing that can happen. During 3E I played in the Living Greyhawk organized play campaign. I moved to Portland, and there were about 80 hard-core D&D players in the area playing the campaign. This being my world-view, I assumed that was the entirety of people in the area interested in playing D&D in a public space.

So, 4E launches and we have the Encounters store program. I volunteered to help organize it at my FLGS, and we quickly have 4 and then 6 tables. I realize I know a single person. It was my job to report numbers to the Wizards Play Network, so I started looking at the numbers. In a single season we had more than 300 unique players. Of these, I knew 6 of them. That's how much tunnel-vision I had regarding what I thought of as possible players in my city. We went on to have many more players (though I was no longer tracking numbers). It's safe to say we have thousands in the area. They come, they go, they may or may not buy stuff. But the potential market is enormous.

So, 50 million may be a made up corporate number, or even a bad extrapolation. Or it may be accurate. Either way, it suggests to me the potential audience for D&D (and, to a lesser extent, any RPG) is enormous.