D&D 5E 5E Lifetime Sales in North American Big Box Stores Revealed

[dave2008]

I think that FLGS and Amazon make up a hefty chunk of sales not counted here, which suggests some hefty numbers under the surface to my mind.

Assuming an average rank of 150 (which I think the PHB actually beats) the PHB would have about another 820,000 in sales per the online calculator I found.

 

[darjr]

Assuming an average rank of 150 (which I think the PHB actually beats) the PHB would have about another 820,000 in sales per the online calculator I found.

Can you link that calculator?

Anybody got a thumbnail about FLGS?

 

[dave2008]

Can you link that calculator?

Anybody got a thumbnail about FLGS?

Here you go: Amazon Book Sales Calculator

Note: The calculator provides sales by day and month and I extrapolated out to nine years.

EDIT: I found another calculator that rates the number of books much lower

 

[ECMO3]

Some figures came out in another post and criss referencing multiple numbers (eg tsr sales 1983,adjusting for 8
inflation etc, size of RPG market last 10 years) was guesstimating 2-3 million give or take. Broadly speaking around double or triple 1E or red box.

I do not think this is true. Slaying the Dragon has supposed 1st edition sales numbers, according to them Basic D&D (which would be the red boz) was selling 500,000 units a year in the early 80s and the 1st edition PHB and DMG at the time were each selling over 200,000 units a year.

Here is one post from the past on this:

D&D General - TSR D&D sales numbers compiled by Benjamin Riggs

D&D historian Ben Riggs--author of the upcoming Slaying the Dragon, which is a history of TSR-era (not that TSR, the real one) D&D--compiled some sales figures of AD&D 1st Edition's Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide from 1979-1990. Behold! Some actual D&D sales numbers! While...

www.enworld.org

 

[Stalker0]

I find it interesting that the dmg outsells the MM, since the MM is much more “essential”. I assume some non dms buy the DMG as well, but generally there is only 1 MM per group

 

[Parmandur]

I find it interesting that the dmg outsells the MM, since the MM is much more “essential”. I assume some non dms buy the DMG as well, but generally there is only 1 MM per group

The PHB has a bunch of stat blocks, and the SRD or Basic Rulea are out there.

 

[John Lloyd1]

The PHB has a bunch of stat blocks, and the SRD or Basic Rulea are out there.

Maybe players like to have access to the magic items?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Maybe players like to have access to the magic items?

And a lot of people like to have the lore, and to get an idea of whether they want to DM. A lot of people decide to DM and then never do, or take a long time to get around to it.

 

[darjr]

OK looks like the folks over at the Mastering Dungeons Podcast discord figured out that bookscan includes Amazon sales.

Also Teos from the same podcast noted that back when we found out the PHB had about 800k to a million in sales book scan shows 225k in sales, about a quarter of the total, maybe a little more.

Does that mean PHB sales might be edging 6 million?

 

[Zardnaar]

OK looks like the folks over at the Mastering Dungeons Podcast discord figured out that bookscan includes Amazon sales.

Also Teos from the same podcast noted that back when we found out the PHB had about 800k to a million in sales book scan shows 225k in sales, about a quarter of the total, maybe a little more.

Does that mean PHB sales might be edging 6 million?

Wouldn't it be less if it includes Amazon? Amazon apparently is 30%

Professor Dungeon whatever his name did a follow up video and doubled the book scan numbers for a 3 million estimate maybe 4 5+ unlikely.

My personal estimates are similar to his numbers based on numbers we gave seen and golden age sales adjusted for inflation.

They've sold something like double or triple 1E phb numbers and probably more boxed sets than B/X and kept it up around twice as long or bit longer.