2024 D&D Core Rulebooks Off to "Strongest-Ever" Start for D&D Books

Dungeons & Dragons got a rare shoutout during Hasbro's 3rd quarter earnings report, with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks stating that the 2024 Core Rulebooks were off to a record start. Today, Hasbro released its third quarter 2025 earnings report, with Wizards of the Coast propping up the overall revenue for the company. Wizards of the Coast is up 33% YTD, with Magic: The Gathering having a 40% jump compared to last year. However, Cocks also called out Dungeons & Dragons in his comments, speaking to both the Core Rulebooks and D&D Beyond's Maps VTT.

Cocks' full comments (which are admittedly very brief) can be found below:

The refreshed 2024 editions of D&D’s Monster Manual, Players Handbook, and DM Guide are off to the strongest-ever start for D&D books. D&DBEYOND’S new, accessible virtual tabletop has driven weekly traffic up nearly 50% since its September launch.

Hasbro is having a good year, with total revenue up 7% compared to last year. Wizards is expected to be up 36-38% for 2025, largely due to the performance of Magic: The Gathering.

 

[Greg K]

Teos Abadia usually dives into these quarterly reports to figure out D&D sales. There was some podcast recently where he said the number is between 60M and 70M, but hard to figure out more closely than that as their two methods to do so do not align this time whereas in the past they were a lot closer to each other.

Stephen Glicker also pulled out the quarterly posts. I have never had to deal with quarterly reports which is why I am curious as to others' opinions since I am there are other posters that most likely have.

The upper number would be growth, the lower number would not be, compared to the average 66.6M of the 2014 version he was comparing it to, forgot for what timeline that was the average, probably 2023/24 before the new books, but not sure.

In any case, since the comparison was to initial 5e sales, not peak sales, the statement that it is the fastest selling edition is true, but that obviously was expected, anything else would have been a drastic drop in sales, as in complete collapse

Yeah, since sales can also start strong and then tank. I think one of Stephen's points was strength of sales in terms of copies sold vs overall profit (since digital sales have a lot of advantages for a company profit compared to print).

 

[mamba]

Stephen Glicker also pulled out the quarterly posts. I have never had to deal with quarterly reports which is why I am curious as to others' opinions since I am there are other posters that most likely have.

Hasbro does not break out D&D figures, sometime they say it grew by x%, but that is about it, so you will have to do some math to get to a somewhat reliable range. I’d go with Teos’ conclusions over Glicker’s

Fastest selling when you count the first n months, probably (?) not fastest selling when you compare peak monthly sales

 

[Greg K]

Hasbro does not break out D&D figures, sometime they say it grew by x%, but that is about it, so you will have to do some math to get to a somewhat reliable range. I’d go with Teos’ conclusions over Glicker’s

What about Teos makes his conclusions stronger (Asking as I know nothing about Teos)? As I understand it, Glicker has a corporate background and has dealt with quarterly reports. I might be wrong, but I recall it being mentioned in the past.

 

[mamba]

What about Teos makes his conclusions stronger? As I understand it, Glicker has a corporate background and has dealt with quarterly reports.

Teos has a guy who has been doing this for years now, so they are used to looking into Hasbro figures and refined their approach.

I do not trust Glicker at all after his Bookscan stunt. Someone who reports blatantly obvious nonsense like the PHB selling 3k copies in its first month lacks basic critical thinking skills for this kind of analysis

 

[Greg K]

Teos has a guy who has been doing this for years now, so they are used to looking into Hasbro figures and refined their approach.

I do not trust Glicker at all after his Bookscan stunt. Someone who reports blatantly obvious nonsense like the PHB selling 3k copies in its first month lacks basic critical thinking skills for this kind of analysis

OK. I don't know anything about Glicker and the Bookscan stunt. However, I also don't regularly watch Roll For Combat. I, occasionally, will click on it when it comes across my YouTube feed which is not that often.

 

[mamba]

OK. I don't know anything about Glicker and the Bookscan stunt.

I just explained it, he made a video about how bad 2024 is selling because it only sold 3k copies in its first month (according to Bookscan).

That number is so obviously wrong that him making a whole video just regurgitating it as a fact to me shows that he has zero critical thinking skills, and as a consequence he has zero credibility with me when it comes to anything involving numbers

 

[Zardnaar]

your answer is in my quote, so I could not quote it

“Yes, he mentioned the 100K and that came from Bookscan, However, at one point he mentioned that, unlike with 2014, Bookscan's figures for 2024 are unreliable”

they are also unreliable for 2014, they are probably off by a factor of 4 or 5 from the actual numbers… and they are completely pointless with 2024

Ironically some of the "standard" estimates for 5E sales is 4 or 5 times bookscans numbers.

I look at it more like a poll. Whatever its numbers are its bigger than any poll.

I dont use bookscan for total numbers and as I said we dont know what metrics WotC uses.

 

[mamba]

Ironically some of the "standard" estimates for 5E sales is 4 or 5 times bookscans numbers.

not sure what is ironic about it. You take the estimate you arrived at and divide it by the Bookscan numbers, that is how you get to the factor of 4 or 5. It is not based on the Bookscan numbers but it shows how far off they are…

Estimating D&D’s Revenue | Alphastream

The BookScan data gives us a potential window into estimating D&D’s overall revenue, especially when combined with previous clues. If we can estimate the percentage BookScan might be of D&#038…

alphastream.org

“What percentage might BookScan be for D&D? It is very hard to say, especially given how D&D has been selling directly through its website starting with the Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen book in December of 2022.

Fortunately, in an interview with Stan! about the Pokemon game on the official D&D podcast, Stan! said that there had been around 800k sales in 2017 for the PHB. I have separately heard that the number could be as high as 1M sales in 2017.

On the Roll for Combat video, the hosts showed the image below, which provides us a rough estimate of the BookScan PH sales in 2017, somewhere around 200-250k in sales. This suggests BookScan data may be roughly a quarter of all sales for D&D.”

I am pretty sure that number declined as digital increased, so the factor grew to 5 since then. With the distribution and categorization changes for the 2024 version that factor will be even higher, but I have no idea how high. I would not be surprised if it were 10 or more however

 

[Zardnaar]

not sure what is ironic about it. You take the estimate you arrived at and divide it by the Bookscan numbers, that is how you get to the factor of 4 or 5. It is not based on the Bookscan numbers but it shows how far off they are…

Estimating D&D’s Revenue | Alphastream

The BookScan data gives us a potential window into estimating D&D’s overall revenue, especially when combined with previous clues. If we can estimate the percentage BookScan might be of D&#038…

alphastream.org

“What percentage might BookScan be for D&D? It is very hard to say, especially given how D&D has been selling directly through its website starting with the Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen book in December of 2022.

Fortunately, in an interview with Stan! about the Pokemon game on the official D&D podcast, Stan! said that there had been around 800k sales in 2017 for the PHB. I have separately heard that the number could be as high as 1M sales in 2017.

On the Roll for Combat video, the hosts showed the image below, which provides us a rough estimate of the BookScan PH sales in 2017, somewhere around 200-250k in sales. This suggests BookScan data may be roughly a quarter of all sales for D&D.”

I am pretty sure that number declined as digital increased, so the factor grew to 5 since then. With the distribution and categorization changes for the 2024 version that factor will be even higher, but I have no idea how high. I would not be surprised if it were 10 or more however

Ive seen the X4 multiplier estimate being used as well.

Funny here when you get pushback on bomscan numbers essentially confirming what WotCs already told us lol. Basically the bog selling 5E items eg core rules, tashas+Xanathars, 1st boxed set and Strahd/Dragon Queen which got redone.

Ballpark youre looking at a couple of million phb plus digital plus a few more joining the million plus club.

Could be higher than that as well. I dont think its 10 million phb.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

My in-laws opened it, my wife and I run it, and all 3 of my adult children work here which is pretty darn cool.

I opened Nov 1, 1993 - 32 years ago Today!

I was 19 at the time. Now my kids work here (when they are not too busy with college).