WotC WotC can, and probably should support multiple editions of D&D.

[Micah Sweet]

Depends on your definition of "playing the game". You could play D&D without any of the magic classes or spell rules, but I'm betting a lot of people would find it unsatisfactory. Similar things can come up regarding other games and subsystems.

But the magic classes and spell rules for D&D are in the corebook. If something is not in the corebook, at the very least some influential member of the design team doesn't consider it needed to play the game.

Now I love supplements. I very often buy and use them. But you don't need them to play the game as the original designers (or at least the original publishers) intended, pretty much by definition.

 

[ECMO3]

sure, Bookscan is about 25% of US sales, TSR numbers are 100% of worldwide sales. Stop equating the two. Done...

NOT Done.

To the TSR sales add in Fiend Folio, Legends and Lore, Deities and Demigods, Unearthed Arcana, Battlesystem, Dungeoneers Survival Guide, Wilderness Survival Guide, Tales of the Outer Planes, Lankmar, Moonshaes, Kara-tur, Manual of the Planes, Greyhawk, 70+ modules, and around 10 million copies of Dragon magazine

IF the bookscan is 30% of all 5E sales then it MIGHT have sold about the same amount as 1E IF you don't include Dragon magazine.

So going by your numbers


I get a conservative

PHB 6.5M 5e vs 1.6M 1e
DMG 3.2M 5e vs 1.3M 1e
MM 3.2M 5e vs 1.1M 1e
Sets: 6.5M 5e vs 3M 1e/Basic

But you are accounting for 80% of WOTC 5E total sales with those 5 products (not including sales of the cookbook or DM screens) and only about half of the TSR sales we actually have numbers for and we don't have sales numbers for 80% of the TSR products.

For example - TSR sold 600k copies of Monster Manual 2 and by most anecdotal accounts and commentary sold less of that then they did Fiend Folio.

Deities and Demigods was popular enough it went through 5 separate print editions, caused a nationwide revolt, was burned at book burnings and was actually pulled from shelves ... and we have no numbers for either it or its replacement Legends and Lore (which also had multiple print editions).

They sold around 2 Million Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal sets that we know about and are core rules not included in the basic numbers above.

Like I said if you accept at face value that 5E reported bookscan sales are about 30% of the total you probably are about equal with 1E if you don't count Dragon magazine and still way behind if you do count it.

Done!

 

[ECMO3]

No reason to include the magazine.

In the 1980s it was print copy published by TSR and included several columns, adventures and content from TSR staff. I don't have a full accounting, but most of the stuff we used in play - Archer subclass, new Monk (Something to kick about), new Bard (A New Bard, not Quite so Hard), and the adventures, were not fan content. They were written for the magazine by TSR staff, as were the columns. There were letters and questions from fans, much like any magazine, but at that time there was not much if any content in the magazine from fans. There was content from other games, so it might not be right to count it entirely as 1E.

Keep in mind there was no OGL and fans were not allowed to write anything for profit (or even share anything publicly). I did have a friend of mine submit an adventure for consideration to TSR. It was a short adventure consistent with what they published in Dragon. They replied with a bunch of legal stuff to sign releasing it to them and taking the rights to it and then they never published it anyway.

I think the nearest thing today to the TSR written content would actually be the UA and the You tube stuff and Twitter columns. Crawford's "Sage Advice" started as "Sage Advice" in Dragon Magazine. But today this stuff is not sold.
They were selling this stuff in print during 1E, and if you are comparing what TSR was selling for 1E you should logically include it.

IMO you should not include novels as those are not part of the game.

Tripling or quadrupling all of those books is a pretty big leap past 1E. The modules, by all accounts, did nit sell gigantic numbers.

What accounts? There are over 70 of them, so they don't need to sell gigantic numbers to add up to a lot.

What did sell gigantic numbers by most accounts is Fiend Folio and Deities and Demigods.

..and you triple or quadruple the 5E Adventure book numbers...that's a lot of books.

Not as much as you think. The reported number on all the 5E adventures combined are ~1M. Tripling that is ~3M.

 

[mamba]

Well, a conservative estimate would be 30-40%, to be entirely fair.

yes, but then it is US only, so missing all international sales, so I went with 25% instead of 33% (and anything beyond that really is buffer…). Even if you go with those percentages 5e US outsold 1e worldwide

 

[mamba]

NOT Done.

To the TSR sales add in Fiend Folio, Legends and Lore, Deities and Demigods, Unearthed Arcana, Battlesystem, Dungeoneers Survival Guide, Wilderness Survival Guide, Tales of the Outer Planes, Lankmar, Moonshaes, Kara-tur, Manual of the Planes, Greyhawk, 70+ modules, and around 10 million copies of Dragon magazine

sure, give me those numbers and I need more than PHB and DMG alone to beat 1e, but it remains beat.

We excluded magazines, I see no reason to include them, apples and oranges. Alternatively I add digital sales and DMsGuild as my lemon to the mix

You already give yourself a bit of an advantage because you have so many 32 page modules while 5e has fewer ones, but in the 200-300 page range… so we could also compare $ (adjusted for inflation) instead of headcount, pretty sure you do not want that

But you are accounting for 80% of WOTC 5E total sales with those 5 products (not including sales of the cookbook or DM screens) and only about half of the TSR sales we actually have numbers for and we don't have sales numbers for 80% of the TSR products.

no idea if that is 80%, I doubt it is even 50%… no idea how much is missing for 1e, all of Dark Sun sold like 250k units, so a third of the PHB for 2e, I am not expecting the 1e adventures to fare much better, between the 5e core and expanded core that is probably covered as well, but since we have no numbers that is harder to show

They sold around 2 Million Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal sets that we know about and are core rules not included in the basic numbers above.

oh, so now 5e has to outsell BECMI and 1e combined? It might have done so, not sure, but that was not the initial argument. It probably has outsold 1e and 2e combined though

 

[Zardnaar]

In the 1980s it was print copy published by TSR and included several columns, adventures and content from TSR staff. I don't have a full accounting, but most of the stuff we used in play - Archer subclass, new Monk (Something to kick about), new Bard (A New Bard, not Quite so Hard), and the adventures, were not fan content. They were written for the magazine by TSR staff, as were the columns. There were letters and questions from fans, much like any magazine, but at that time there was not much if any content in the magazine from fans. There was content from other games, so it might not be right to count it entirely as 1E.

Keep in mind there was no OGL and fans were not allowed to write anything for profit (or even share anything publicly). I did have a friend of mine submit an adventure for consideration to TSR. It was a short adventure consistent with what they published in Dragon. They replied with a bunch of legal stuff to sign releasing it to them and taking the rights to it and then they never published it anyway.

I think the nearest thing today to the TSR written content would actually be the UA and the You tube stuff and Twitter columns. Crawford's "Sage Advice" started as "Sage Advice" in Dragon Magazine. But today this stuff is not sold.
They were selling this stuff in print during 1E, and if you are comparing what TSR was selling for 1E you should logically include it.

IMO you should not include novels as those are not part of the game.



What accounts? There are over 70 of them, so they don't need to sell gigantic numbers to add up to a lot.

What did sell gigantic numbers by most accounts is Fiend Folio and Deities and Demigods.


Not as much as you think. The reported number on all the 5E adventures combined are ~1M. Tripling that is ~3M.

You would need to find exact numbers. Most modules sold less than 20k.

And sales of 100k over 12 years for dragon don't add up to 10 million. Idk when Dragon hit 100k in sales either.

 

[mamba]

And sales of 100k over 12 years for dragon don't add up to 10 million.

12 * 100k * 12… but of course that is wildly overcounting

Idk when Dragon hit 100k in sales either.

Found this (emphasis mine)

Thanks Delta. I manage to dig up that old thread.

All collected below. Keep in mind that Erik Mona tells us that circulation under TSR is likely quite inflated. The data is mostly thanks to Erik Mona and MerricB

Dragon
....................Subscriptions....Paid Circulation
Sept 1977 (#12) ...1164.............7381
Sept 1978 (#22) ...1144.............7859
Oct 1979 (#33) ...1951............10885
Oct 1980 (#44) ...4558............20155
Sept 1981 (#55) .11531............48119
Sept 1982 (#67) .19029............60387

Sept 1984 (#91) .36974.........118021
Sept 1985 (#104).36200........107200
Sept 1986 (#115).29589..........88758
Sept 1987 (#127).25003..........73008

Sept 1989 (#151).26800..........99628
Oct 1990 (#163)...27912.........91956

Sept 1992 (#188)..23685........89985
Oct 1993 (#200)...21116........77534
Sept 1994 (#212)..20105.......74753

Oct 1996 (#236)...14357........54812
Oct 1997 (#242)...12435........44163

Oct 1999 (#266)...13224........31536
Oct 2000 (#278)...................38214
Oct 2001 (#290)...................49627
Oct 2002 (#302)...................51831
Oct 2003 (#314)...................68585
Oct 2004 (#327)...................62725
2005 (#339) Jan 06..14762.....54637
2006 (#351) Jan 07..13438.....46250

Dungeon
............................Paid Circulation
Oct 2000 (#84) ..........23672
Oct 2001 (#90) ..........24663
Sep 2002 (#96) ..........36572
Dec 2003 (#107) .........48238
Oct 2004 (#118) .........37141
2005 (#130) (jan 2006 issue) 32195
Oct 2006 (#142) .........31408
January 2007 ...........32391

That gives us about 7.5M copies during the 1e lifetime (77 - 88). Not sure why I should assign all of it to 1e though when BECMI did just as well… so that is an inflated 4M allocated to 1e then

 

[Hussar]

There's a fundamental problem with @ECMO3 's premise.

How many of those that bought 1e, 2e and/or Basic/Expert books have also bought 5e books? In other words, even if he's right and AD&D sold so many copies - how many of those people are still in the hobby but not into 5e? There's no evidence that there is this huge, untapped market of Gen X'ers (which is what we're talking about) who are interested in D&D, but not 5e.

There's a considerable overlap already. @ECMO3 needs to provide some sort of evidence that there would be significant additional sales if WotC were to try to chase gamers who played in the 80's, would be interested in playing D&D, but feel they are not being served by 5e.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's a pretty niche market.

 

[Oofta]

What exactly would keep you from getting that "dozen more years of gaming"? In any case, I'd value those books (so-so is subjective) for reading pleasure and inspiration even if I never played the system they were designed for. Heck, I've used my 2e collection in my 5e & Level Up games many times.

After the publication stopped, the game would slowly die. Without books on the shelves, you don't get new players. Maybe you have a stable group that has been playing together for 20 years but in my experience people drop out because they have another kid, they move or I do, some other life event happens.

A handful of groups would hang on, but the hobby would slowly die or at best be on life support. In any case, it's all hypothetical. I just disagree that WotC needs to publish a ton of material especially when there's vastly more material from 3PP and DmsGuild and other sources than anyone could ever use.

 

[mamba]

There's a considerable overlap already. @ECMO3 needs to provide some sort of evidence that there would be significant additional sales if WotC were to try to chase gamers who played in the 80's, would be interested in playing D&D, but feel they are not being served by 5e.

where did they make that claim? All I see it ‘1e had more sales’