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I totally hear you. I also want to stress that at 5E's scale, even if all of your friends and their friends were exactly the same, this would still be anecdotal data. 5E is so huge that you really need thousands of data points to draw conclusions.

Thanks! Please do consider the mailing list so you don’t miss any. I appreciate the kind words. This series was a lot of work, made possible by the kind folks supporting my efforts.

The negative numbers are explained in Ben’s book. TSR had a very strange arrangement where they essentially received a loan on books they sent to be distributed and sold. Every new release was therefore a source of cash (but a loan!) and encouraged management to make more products. But, these...

Thanks for pulling these together! It took me forever to find these two weeks ago, so I'm really glad you shared them so others can find them more easily!

It feels like you want a particular answer on the Pathfinder/switching question. Let me turn it around and ask you, what do you think happened, and why is it an important question?

The normal expectation would be for each successive release to do worse than the prior ones and for sure to do worse than core books and similar products. A starter set (typically sold at a loss) should sell better than an accessory, for example. There are always some surprises (if we look at 2E...

The scale of D&D is entirely different than for other RPGs. Whether they stick or not is important to the other RPGs, not to D&D. Some for sure did, some for sure didn't, but nothing in the data shows an impact - as expected. D&D doesn't compete with other RPGs. D&D competes with other forms of...

Decline here is for new products. For much of 5E's life, each new product did better than the previous one. That is essentially unheard of in our hobby. Crawford and other staff have cited this, as they should, because it is tremendous. What the data shows is that this is changing. Releases...

To be clear, this isn't my assertion. It's what the data showed very clearly in the original video on the Roll for Combat show, disclosing the BookScan data. They looked at overall sales during the first months of 2023 and could see no drop at all from the OGL. Instead, two very clear spikes...

I don't have good data for this, but what I hear and see suggests that D&D isn't achieving its awesome growth on the backs of hardcore invested gamers. Just as 50% of all 5E players are new to the hobby with 5E, I think a lot of purchases are point-of-sale type impulse/interest buys for new and...

I don't think we have good data on how many subscriptions are paying subscriptions vs free subscriptions. Hasbro has shared data points such as 13 million DDB users, up from 10-11 at time of purchase, but it is unclear what that really means for income. They also said at that time (2022 December...

Thanks. I wish the industry were different. For one, I would love to work in it full-time, but I can't afford to do so and cover costs like retirement, health care, kids' college, etc.

I am glad to see rates increase, though it may be of interest to folks what those word rates really translate to in terms of yearly salaries. Even the MCDM rate of .25/word, which is a fantastic rate for the industry, is a challenge in most parts of the US. I talk about why that is the case in...

These may be arriving in waves. Mine arrived this morning.

It was intentional and positive. Both Matt and James have mentioned Shadowdark in positive ways in the past. Matt's acknowledging how cool Shadowdark's concept is, while stating that the MCDM RPG has a different style (for example, not wanting to track torches). Matt and James are both big fans...

Spoiler: In the latest Neverwinter module, Gromph Baenre is again involved, and another spell seems to have been cast, impacting Menzoberranzan.

Should it be of interest, I should add that I've been slowly and steadily capturing the Lore of Neverwinter, including the old and current Drow storylines. I do this because I find the lore interesting, but also because the visuals can be amazing fodder for DM creativity. It try to highlight...

The Neverwinter team has done a nice job of integrating Out of the Abyss and the novels. They worked directly with R.A. Salvatore and his son to build the narrative. Lots of appearances from novel NPCs.

Thanks! I feel really fortunate to be a part of the project!

It is a true pleasure to work with the creative minds at MCDM!