ICV2 numbers from GAMA are interesting

[mamba]

If Crooked Moon is only Kickstarter results, that is pretty bad news for retailers, since that was only like 21k backers. I think it is fairly likely that it has a strong shelf presence after a strong Kickstart.

I don’t know, Matt Coleville does not even bother getting into retail shelves because those sales are so minimal that it is not worth it, and based on his statements he thinks that this is / should be true for basically any TTRPG. D&D (and maybe one or two others) being likely exceptions to the rule

 

[Parmandur]

I don’t know, Matt Coleville does not even bother getting into retail shelves because those sales are so minimal that it is not worth it, and based on his statements he thinks that this is / should be true for basically any TTRPG. D&D (and maybe one or two others) being likely exceptions to the rule

Right, Draw Steel didn't even make this list, even including crowdfunding.

 

[zakael19]

Yeah, I'm not really sure how valid that table is for anything but "comparing within GAMA's focus area and survey." For instance, as you note DS! doesnt chart (because they relied on survey responses from retailers mainly and its KS was 2024 I guess?). The DS! Kickstarter likely performed about as well as Free League did in total 2025 sales, certainly more than either of those games they have on the list.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, I'm not really sure how valid that table is for anything but "comparing within GAMA's focus area and survey." For instance, as you note DS! doesnt chart (because they relied on survey responses from retailers mainly and its KS was 2024 I guess?). The DS! Kickstarter likely performed about as well as Free League did in total 2025 sales, certainly more than either of those games they have on the list.

Draw Steel! had about 30k backers, to Crooked Moon's 21k. Given DS has no retail presence, and Crooked Moon is 5E, not hard to imagine Crooked Moon gas out sold it. Nor Pathfinder, nor Daggerheart.

 

[mamba]

Right, Draw Steel didn't even make this list, even including crowdfunding.

it’s been out a while, so that fulfillment would not show up in this quarter, no idea if it did back then

 

[Parmandur]

it’s been out a while, so that fulfillment would not show up in this quarter, no idea if it did back then

Maybe, maybe not. Doing well in crowdfunding and we'll in retail are not mutually exclusive, and this Crooked Moon supplement does seem very cool, and I honestly hadn't heard of it before this list so it wouldn't surprise me if people picked it up at a store, took a look...and bought it.

 

[Parmandur]

@FitzTheRuke hope you don't mind me summoning you...as someone owning and operating a FLGS, do you have any opinion on how this sort of tracking historically correlates with your local experience?

 

[zakael19]

it’s been out a while, so that fulfillment would not show up in this quarter, no idea if it did back then

DS! started shipping physical fulfillment in end of Q3 '25 afaik. Most of that was the direct sales from the KS/Backerkit, so existing sales from '24. I think it's started to hit the distribution channel in either Q1 '26 (is this calendar year or FY style where October 1 is a new year?) or Q4 '25.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

@FitzTheRuke hope you don't mind me summoning you...as someone owning and operating a FLGS, do you have any opinion on how this sort of tracking historically correlates with your local experience?

I'm happy to be called, though I'm not sure that I have much insight here. I don't quite understand how this chart is compiled and what factors it considers. For my store, we've kickstarted a few things (A5e, Daggerheart, Draw Steel, Shadowdark, Shadow of the Weird Wizard, Nimble, and a few others I'm not remembering) but we are often limited by two factors: Our main distributor (Universal) doesn't carry (nearly) anything from KS, and shipping across the Canada/US border usually eats up any sort of profit that we are likely to make on KS stuff. So it's more a labor of love than a business decision, and we're often not able to replace anything once we sell out of our original KS-delivered books.

Because of that, there are a number of items on that list that I simply have never had, much to my dismay. So I don't know how they'd fare in my store, if I could get them.

All that said, I find the list a little bit surprising. (For example, Starfinder beating Pathfinder - to me, SF is a distant cousin of PF) but Daggerheart has definitely outsold PF2 at my store.

So... I guess what I think of the list is this: It's interesting, though not particularly exciting. The best thing about it is that I will have a look and see if I can get any of the ones that I've never before looked into, which is probably its main point for existing.

 

[darjr]

All that said, I find the list a little bit surprising. (For example, Starfinder beating Pathfinder - to me, SF is a distant cousin of PF) but Daggerheart has definitely outsold PF2 at my store.

I think Daggerheart has generally been outselling PF2 as well, it’s kind of why I thought this list was interesting.

Maybe these numbers cover the period when Daggerheart was unavailable?

The other thing I think is going on, is that games like Daggerheaart and Shadowdark are at fewer stores than PF2 or D&D for a variety of reasons. Shadowdark not even being in traditional distribution. I think that partially explains the oddness of this list.