D&D 5E 3 Years Later: D&D's total Domination on Amazon (and Earth in General)

[Tobold]

According to the ICv2 data on this forum, the overall roleplaying games market is $45 million in 2017. Which is a fraction of the collectibles or miniatures market, but still the equivalent of nearly a million "$50 books" per year. I can believe that WotC has a market share of maybe half that, with all their D&D products combined.

 

[Oofta]

According to the ICv2 data on this forum, the overall roleplaying games market is $45 million in 2017. Which is a fraction of the collectibles or miniatures market, but still the equivalent of nearly a million "$50 books" per year. I can believe that WotC has a market share of maybe half that, with all their D&D products combined.

Which is not bad considering that the long tail for WOTC. Decent profits for a relatively low investment. I'm glad they're not going crazy like TSR did and flooding the market.

I'd love to see a AAA D&D video game for example but it's a huge investment with no guarantee of success.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Even with the required grain of salt, this does suggest that DnD is doing well. That's good enough for me.

Sent from my VS990 using EN World mobile app

 

[Zardnaar]

Well, remember fantasy gaming has non-rpg products. There was a Zelda tie in book that hung around in there for a long time, and sexy truth or dare shows up around Valentines day.

But also, in the 4E era more recent products where top sellers, what is notable here is lock of the core products.




Its certainly the cheapest way to buy it. But we know from IVC that D&D also dominates retail, and there has been a growth of millions in retail sales for RPGs. Most of that has to be core books...its not like there is much else to buy for D&D.

But let us resume our standard discussion.

We know from past threads that 5E has demolished 3.5 and 4E in terms of Amazon sales rankings, and almost certainly more books are sold through Amazon now then then. So a higher relative ranking must account for much higher relative sales. Plus, remember that growth on the retail side.

So I am calling it: 5E way better then 3.5 or 4E.

But thats a low bar you say, and you are right.

What about 3E? That was supposed to be huge out the gate. But just 3 years later they launched 3.5. Hmm, 3...years...later.

We know it was launched to make up for lagging sales. 5E sales aren't lagging, by some measures they are growing.

So I will say it 5E > 3E.

Ok, 2E. We know that was a lackluster edition. 3E > 2E. Hence 5E > 2E.

That leaves the big boy: 1E. And I can't call it. Sales in the early 80s where insane, and it was kept in print for a really long time. Of course the Blume brothers wasted a bunch of that money (and there was Gygax, living it up in Hollywood), but that is another thread.

Still, the best selling edition in decades. And on its way to best selling of all time, if not already.

2E outsold 3E, and going by the size of the market 5E is doing about average for a D&D edition (20 million or so a year).

TSR revenue before it went bankrupt was 40 million apparently not adjusted for inflation. The entire RPG market now is 35 million.


1E 1-1.5 million
Red Box over 1 million
Black Box half million
2E 750k
3.0 500k+ (I have seen some estimates around 750k)
3.5 250k-350k

We also know the size of the RPG market before 5E landed and after (13 million to 35 million now). Peak years at TSR adjusted for inflation they beat that by 2 or 3 to 1. During 3E's run the number 25-30 million was thrown around.

They have made the money on 5E with fewer materials so their overall profit could be beating 3E for example which sold the books very cheap ($20 vs $50).

Its doing good (great?), but its about average for a D&D edition (except maybe for profit), its beating OD&D and 4E though. 3.0 was stupidly front loaded in sales though so its probably doing better than that 3 years in.

5E might also be selling more now than in 2014, it was launch year but they only had 6 months for the 2014 year and from memory the RPG market went from 13 million to 20
million.

The earlier figure of 9000 a month looks good, its around 120k per year but.

3.0 sold 300k in the first month apparently.
2E sold 270k first year.

If they have sold in the 300-400k range its roughly in the middle for a D&D edition outselling 4E, OD&D, and 3.5. Profits should be better though (less product, higher price point on books).

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Which is not bad considering that the long tail for WOTC. Decent profits for a relatively low investment. I'm glad they're not going crazy like TSR did and flooding the market.

No, they are leaving that to Paizo. I tried to keep up with Pathfinder, but after the first year or so, I gave up because of their flood of products.

 

[robus]

No, they are leaving that to Paizo. I tried to keep up with Pathfinder, but after the first year or so, I gave up because of their flood of products.

I still think Paizo would make a ton of money by converting their older APs over to 5e. They don't have to switch to 5e entirely, but they're leaving money on the table by not making it easy to run their older stuff on the most popular system - and perhaps new stuff should be published in both 5e and Pathfinder formats. (I know Morrus, for one, vehemently disagrees )

But flooding the market is never a good plan. They should do 1 a year IMHO.

 

[Mistwell]

The earlier figure of 9000 a month looks good, its around 120k per year but.

3.0 sold 300k in the first month apparently.
2E sold 270k first year.

If they have sold in the 300-400k range its roughly in the middle for a D&D edition outselling 4E, OD&D, and 3.5. Profits should be better though (less product, higher price point on books).

9000/month is now, three years in, when it ranks #86, for just the PHB and not for all their books. It was ranking #1 during the first year sometimes, and top ten for much of the year. The estimate is 700,000 to 800,000 as detailed earlier in the thread. Those are fair approximations, though as mentioned probably low on the conservative side, and also not counting all other sales.

 

[Arilyn]

I still think Paizo would make a ton of money by converting their older APs over to 5e. They don't have to switch to 5e entirely, but they're leaving money on the table by not making it easy to run their older stuff on the most popular system - and perhaps new stuff should be published in both 5e and Pathfinder formats. (I know Morrus, for one, vehemently disagrees )

But flooding the market is never a good plan. They should do 1 a year IMHO.

This would be a very bad idea on Paizo's part. They do not have the time to focus on a system that is not theirs. Why would they go back, even part time to supporting WOTC?

People seem to think that Paizo must be upset about losing their number one spot, but only reason Paizo held that spot was the failure of 4e. The brand name of DnD usually dominates the market. Paizo knows this, and actually came out and said, during early years of PF, that DnD doing well helps whole industry. 5e has brought back a lot of lapsed players, and tons of casual players, but from what I have seen, Paizo has been little impacted financially.

Paizo is an extremely successful company with a large, loyal fan base. Why on earth should they change course? If they are making money, why should they slow down production, which would mean less profit for them? WOTC can have slower schedule, because they have a much smaller staff, fans who don't want to buy too much, and Magic, bringing in oodles of money off of fans who do spend money, and are thoroughly addicted.

 

[hejtmane]

This would be a very bad idea on Paizo's part. They do not have the time to focus on a system that is not theirs. Why would they go back, even part time to supporting WOTC?

People seem to think that Paizo must be upset about losing their number one spot, but only reason Paizo held that spot was the failure of 4e. The brand name of DnD usually dominates the market. Paizo knows this, and actually came out and said, during early years of PF, that DnD doing well helps whole industry. 5e has brought back a lot of lapsed players, and tons of casual players, but from what I have seen, Paizo has been little impacted financially.

Paizo is an extremely successful company with a large, loyal fan base. Why on earth should they change course? If they are making money, why should they slow down production, which would mean less profit for them? WOTC can have slower schedule, because they have a much smaller staff, fans who don't want to buy too much, and Magic, bringing in oodles of money off of fans who do spend money, and are thoroughly addicted.

I got the magic addiction now dam kids sucked me in

 

[robus]

This would be a very bad idea on Paizo's part. They do not have the time to focus on a system that is not theirs. Why would they go back, even part time to supporting WOTC?

I dunno seems like low-hanging fruit and it introduces new people to Paizo's products? Currently there's no reason for all the new 5e players to even think of Paizo.

People seem to think that Paizo must be upset about losing their number one spot, but only reason Paizo held that spot was the failure of 4e. The brand name of DnD usually dominates the market. Paizo knows this, and actually came out and said, during early years of PF, that DnD doing well helps whole industry. 5e has brought back a lot of lapsed players, and tons of casual players, but from what I have seen, Paizo has been little impacted financially.

From what I understand Paizo got their user base from WotC. What evidence is there that their user base is expanding?

Paizo is an extremely successful company with a large, loyal fan base. Why on earth should they change course? If they are making money, why should they slow down production, which would mean less profit for them? WOTC can have slower schedule, because they have a much smaller staff, fans who don't want to buy too much, and Magic, bringing in oodles of money off of fans who do spend money, and are thoroughly addicted.

That's great - I was just suggesting it as a likely way for them to make a ton of easy cash (and potentially introduce people to Paizo) but, wow, looks like I keep touching the third rail of RPGs. I'll stop bringing it up as it obviously upsets people

Disclosure: I know little about Paizo, but I do own the combat pad (which I like) and have a mild interest in running Rise of the Runelords in 5e. Shoot me now!