DDAL 2014 Character Options Will be Playable in AL After the 2024 Release

[Parmandur]

If you look at the Amazon Sales numbers: they're not significant. If you talk to game store owners, you'll see that the sales for books like these drop off over time and become problematic. They are not selling enough to warrant shelf space, but you don't look like a professional store if you don't have the full 5E line available - and you take a hit if people find that you don't carry things that they expect you to carry, even if there is not enough turnover to warrant space on the shelf.

Sword Coast was once top 20 in the best seller list, but is over 2,500 down in the best sellers list - meaning it is in that wacky zone of trivial sales.

There are some great blogs from store owners, like the one from Black Diamond Games in Concord (CA), that discuss the challenges around Board Games, D&D, Pathfinder, Pokemon, Magic, Lorcana, etc... selling. It is interesting stuff, even in you do not ever plan to run a game store.

2,500 out of all books is steady regular sales. And we know from the recent Bookscan leaks that those three books are still regularly selling week to week. That and with how WotC looks to be referring to those books in the new Core rules (based on the text that we have seen), no particular reason to suspect they will be out of commission any time soon. SCAG has been in print and actively selling for over 8 years...meaning longer than the core books for any prior WotC Edition.

 

[Blue]

The choice not to errata existing material and supersede it shows this is not actually the same edition. If it's the same edition it's either the SAME edition and they are the same, or it's the same EDITION and everything from the edition is allowed.

Which pretty much means the edition changed with MP:MotM. Up until then they errata'd everything. Triton gets Darkvision? A bunch of erratas come out for various books.

 

[Parmandur]

The choice not to errata existing material and supersede it shows this is not actually the same edition. If it's the same edition it's either the SAME edition and they are the same, or it's the same EDITION and everything from the edition is allowed.

Which pretty much means the edition changed with MP:MotM. Up until then they errata'd everything. Triton gets Darkvision? A bunch of erratas come out for various books.

Shows the problem with the word "Edition." Communicates very little, in D&D terns.

Is it still Thesseus ship, metaphysically...?

Outside of the straight jacket of Organized Play, however, people can more freely mix and match, and by design. We aren't dealing qith "Editions" with a Capital E. We are dealing with an evolving and living game thst is a spectrum of possibilities.

 

[Blue]

Shows the problem with the word "Edition." Communicates very little, in D&D terns.

Is it still Thesseus ship, metaphysically...?

Outside of the straight jacket of Organized Play, however, people can more freely mix and match, and by design. We aren't dealing qith "Editions" with a Capital E. We are dealing with an evolving and living game thst is a spectrum of possibilities.

I don't think it Theseus' ship anymore - not because of parts replaced, but because there are parts that are of and on the ship but declared as not part of the ship. So the unit is 140% of a ship, and included attached and working parts that are declared as not part of the ship, so the whole which includes them can't be the ship.

I think we've kind of moved in a direction where the analogy doesn't keep up - these aren't worn parts getting replaced, these are working parts.

 

[bedir than]

If you look at the Amazon Sales numbers: they're not significant. If you talk to game store owners, you'll see that the sales for books like these drop off over time and become problematic. They are not selling enough to warrant shelf space, but you don't look like a professional store if you don't have the full 5E line available - and you take a hit if people find that you don't carry things that they expect you to carry, even if there is not enough turnover to warrant space on the shelf.

Sword Coast was once top 20 in the best seller list, but is over 2,500 down in the best sellers list - meaning it is in that wacky zone of trivial sales.

There are some great blogs from store owners, like the one from Black Diamond Games in Concord (CA), that discuss the challenges around Board Games, D&D, Pathfinder, Pokemon, Magic, Lorcana, etc... selling. It is interesting stuff, even in you do not ever plan to run a game store.

Tasha's sold more than the 3e PHB.

You're making a counterfactual argument in suggesting that these don't sell. SCAG has outsold other editions DMGs.

 

[jgsugden]

Tasha's sold more than the 3e PHB.

You're making a counterfactual argument in suggesting that these don't sell. SCAG has outsold other editions DMGs.

Current versus past tense. It doesn't matter what they sold - the current edition is more popular than any prior edition, afterall. What matters is how much they'll sell going forward - and that is a much smaller number. Again, go check out the Blogs from store owners.

 

[bedir than]

Current versus past tense. It doesn't matter what they sold - the current edition is more popular than any prior edition, afterall. What matters is how much they'll sell going forward - and that is a much smaller number. Again, go check out the Blogs from store owners.

The assumption that I'm uninformed is rude.

That you are making a prediction for the future while using the present tense shows that you aren't currently right. You're guessing

 

[Parmandur]

Current versus past tense. It doesn't matter what they sold - the current edition is more popular than any prior edition, afterall. What matters is how much they'll sell going forward - and that is a much smaller number. Again, go check out the Blogs from store owners.

We have the numbers from bookscan that are recent. These books are actively selling today.

 

[Iosue]

We have the numbers from bookscan that are recent. These books are actively selling today.

For reference, here’s Alphastream’s blog post detailing the Bookscan numbers. SCAG has already sold over 4,769 copies in 2023. This doesn’t count copies bought in hobby stores, or directly from Wizards/D&D Beyond.

Tasha’s has 18,726 sales this year, and Xanathar’s has 17,727.

Curse of Strahd is just behind SCAG in total sales, and has sold 7,348 copies this year. Which is just…wow.

Edit: These numbers are recent as of July 18, so the final numbers for the year are likely to be close to double that.

 

[Parmandur]

For reference, here’s Alphastream’s blog post detailing the Bookscan numbers. SCAG has already sold over 4,769 copies in 2023. This doesn’t count copies bought in hobby stores, or directly from Wizards/D&D Beyond.

Tasha’s has 18,726 sales this year, and Xanathar’s has 17,727.

Curse of Strahd is just behind SCAG in total sales, and has sold 7,348 copies this year. Which is just…wow.

Edit: These numbers are recent as of July 18, so the final numbers for the year are likely to be close to double that.

Right, and that doesn't include any FLGS or other hobbyist channels or Beyond copies, so @Alphastream has estimated they represent about a quarter or at most a third of actual sales.

So, conservatively, SCAG is maybe selling 550 copies a week. After 8 years.

Most authors would kill to sell 550 copies a week on a new book.