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

[mamba]

I agree you would need to find exact numbers and you would need those numbers before you could support any claim that 5E outsold 1E.

and vice versa...

 

[mamba]

Seems like an awful lot of effort for "I would like them to".

eh, a few posts, no effort at all, esp. since you do not have to put any effort into making a case

 

[Zardnaar]

I skip-read through this thread, so forgive me if some of this is covered...

This has got to be one of the biggest boomer-energy threads I've seen in forever. This is right up there with "GM should start making Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles again" in terms of pie-in-the-sky thinking. It sounds perfectly fine in a nostalgia induced haze, but it doesn't make a lick of sense once cold reality hits.

The market for old editions is small. It is currently well-served by the OSR movement who understand what their audience likes far better than WotC would. WotC doesn't want to design for AD&D any more than Microsoft wants apps to be Windows 95 compatible or Sony wants new games playable on the PS2. They want to move product in thier current material, and devoting resources to make products for old editions are a waste of time and resources.

Even if they created a brand-new AD&D 1e compatible module, the very fandom its catering to would tear it to shreds for no other reason that WotC made it. Many of the players still playing those editions have long given up on WotC, with indifference at best and vitriol at worst. Even if WotC resurrected Gary himself to write it, most people would find reason to deride it. It's absolutely a lose-lose scenario for WotC.

I certainly get the desire to have your favorite version of something supported. But I don't see any way that it is remotely feasible for it work. And to be honest, there are lots of devoted fans and small publishing companies who DO know what their audience wants and has the goodwill of the community to do it. Yeah, Shmayhawk isn't quite the same, but I'd rather have them produce things than WotC fumble itself with trying to court a community who doesn't really want them.

Pretty much agree. A one off AD&D item would be cool though. LMoP converted for example.

 

[mamba]

I am not the one who provided that number, and if you copied a bit more of my post you would see I said "I don't think it is that many"

who provided it then? Is this my Dark Sun 250k number? Because that was all adventures combined, not per adventure.... Granted, that is the best year (just checked), the total is 705k.

 

[mamba]

But you are accounting for 80% of WOTC 5E total sales with those 5 products

just went through the bookscan numbers and no, 80% is way off... those 5 make up 48% of sales in the Bookscan numbers, at least the ones Alphastrream shows in their posts (and there is stuff missing., most notably Monsters of the Multiverse)

Also, the total number is almost 10M units, multiplied by 4 that is 39.5M if you factor in that Bookscan is a fraction of actual sales. Your move

 

[ECMO3]

because I do not have them…

Then you do not have the evidence to back up your claim.

and we know for another fact that the 5e numbers should be multiplied by about 4, and then your 1e numbers are dwarfed

We do not know that for a fact, it is supported by analysis, but that is not the same as fact and to be clear that analysis suggests that the number is anywhere between 25% and 40% which is not the same as multiplying by 4. It would be multiplying by between 2.5 and 4 and your argument is much stronger if it is 4 than if it is 2.5.

yeah, show it

The numbers we have account for about 20% of the 1E products published (not including Dragon magazine).

Even if I use your number of 20k per adventure (which what I have read online speculates they average 50k-150k) that 1.4M in adventures alone. If it is the $100k number it is 7M.

Then you have all the boxed sets and hardcovers not accounted for. Even if they only manage 3M in total that is 50%.

and you have none that it did, yet you keep insisting on it…

And you have none of it either yet you keep insisting 5E sold more.

At a fundamental level you can not prove that 5E sold more than 1E if you don't know how much 1E sold.

Further we can settle this easily by including Dragon magazine.

because selling 10 books at $5 is easier than selling 10 nooks at $50,

Of course it is. That is the main reason 1E sold more. It is the main reason I own more 1E product than 5E product when I purchase almost everything WOTC prints for 5E and purchased comparatively less for 1E.

and you focus on headcount over revenue for no real reason other than that it benefits you.

I am focused on head count because that is what was in my original post that I am being relentlessly challanged on.

Sold more in print. Pretty straightforward.

Also while we can focus on revenue, I don't know that it will make up the difference because the Hardcovers sold for a lot more in real dollars than they sell for now and the soft covers cost way more per page.

Selling just 2 30 page adventures that cost $7 each in 1985 is more than selling one hardcover costing $30 in 2024.

The hardcovers that sold for $19 in the 80s would cost $55 today, almost twice as much.

If we focus on revenue that is going to eat into that "4x" number you keep touting pretty quickly.

We don't have numbers on the adventures which were the cheapest product (other than the magazine). The average product we have numbers for on 1E probably ran about $14 and we have 10M of them we know of on that list ($140M in 1985 or 407M today) and that is without numbers for half the hardcovers or any of the adventures.

Most modules sold so little that combined they sold less than the 5e PHB, and for each one that sold well there is a 5e one that outsold

Do you have evidence of this?

in your dreams, the average sales were more like 25k units

Source please. You can say this over and over, but unless you have a source it is just conjecture

I assume you took the 250k from my Dark Sun number, that was not per adventure, that was all adventures combined (peak year)...

That was 2E which sold A LOT LESS than 1E did. I would agree with 20k per adventure for 2E although I will point out that 250k divided across 6 adventures is over 40k per adventure and this was during the era D&D was declining. If adventures were posting 40k per year in 2E they would have been doing a lot more than that 10 years earlier.

Although I did misunderstand you post, this still strongly refutes your 20k per adventure number.

 

[ECMO3]

just went through the bookscan numbers and no, 80% is way off... those 5 make up 55% of sales in the Bookscan numbers, at least the ones Alphastrream shows in their posts (and there is stuff missing...)

What is missing?

Take out anything that is not 5E or that is not yet printed, then take out the cookbook and the DM screen, then take out the modules. You will be left with pretty close to 80% of what is left I think.

 

[mamba]

Then you do not have the evidence to back up your claim.

just like you... I feel pretty confident given the data we do have however

We do not know that for a fact, it is supported by analysis, but that is not the same as fact and to be clear that analysis suggests that the number is anywhere between 25% and 40% which is not the same as multiplying by 4. It would be multiplying by between 2.5 and 4 and your argument is much stronger if it is 4 than if it is 2.5.

you ignore that Bookscan is US, D&D sells in other markets too. I will stick with a factor of 4

At a fundamental level you can not prove that 5E sold more than 1E if you don't know how much 1E sold.

that is as true for your claim. I am not trying to prove it, I know I cannot, but I can make an imo pretty strong case that it did

 

[mamba]

What is missing?

just updated the post because I found more supplements, the main missing one now imo is Monsters of the Multiverse

Take out anything that is not 5E or that is not yet printed, then take out the cookbook and the DM screen,

never even included that

then take out the modules. You will be left with pretty close to 80% of what is left I think.

why would I take out modules? I thought that is the missing 50% in your 1e number.

 

[Remathilis]

Pretty much agree. A one off AD&D item would be cool though. LMoP converted for example.

If we weren't part way through the anniversary year already, I think an 1e style version of Phandelver might have been a cool project. Get some retro style art, a classic 1e style cover, and maybe some blue ink maps would have been a cool celebration item.

That said, there is a considerable cost in art, layout and conversion that would create a product that can only be used by a very small group of people (those with AD&D books), doesn't guide them to buy anything currently in production, and sows brand confusion to anyone who buys it thinking it's 5e compatible. All for a niche item very few people would actually use.

And that's the problem with this idea: the juice ain't worth the squeeze. Maybe if they had an unfinished manuscript they could toss some art on they did for the Silver Anniversary L3 release, you might have gotten a new old edition item as a limited collector edition item. But I don't think they want to spend the resources to do that again.

Hey, we got a lore book that reprinted the LBBs again. That's probably the best we can hope for.