4 years of 5E on Amazon: same old same old

[GreyLord]

Again with the “trust me but I won’t tell you why” baloney. What is it about Nathan? You’ve already called him a criminal and a lier. I bet if you state exactly why, you’d kill your already flagging credibility.

????

I haven't responded to you because I don't care about your accusations typically. I really don't care what you have to say in regards to those acusations, you haven't said anything useful to me at all thus far.

I would like to say though, that I have not called him a criminal OR a liar once I learned that he was the source of all your information. I do NOT consider him as such. I have NEVER CLAIMED such. Please do not claim I stated things that I have NOT stated.

I think what he said MAY have been misinterpreted by many here, and he was talking something entirely different then what people assume when he was talking about players (meaning he was not talking about active players).

What I DID say is that I'm going to wait and see what comes out on the reports to see what is reflected THERE in them. If it turns out he DID mean active players it should be reflected. If he did NOT mean active players but something else (which I entirely expect it will, this I think is the most likely outcome) it will also be clear to those who need to know when the report comes out.

IF he meant that those are active players, reinforces it, and the reports don't reflect this...there will be questions most likely asked.

If anything I have acknowledged his statements and given them weight on my own part in building on saying if what he stated IS true it makes sense other claims made are also true.

If it means that D&D is a major brand now making over 100 million a year, I'll be delighted, mayhaps more than many of you.

Overall, I still think the onus is on those making assumptions as to what he actually means in that statement and it might not mean what many think it means, but hey, if he is going to claim 15 million, I'm going to stop talking crossroads at him and saying a different number regardless of what it means or is defined as.

I found the source (no thanks to you) of the information, and I'll going to see where it goes.

HOWEVER, I really don't care what you think of my "credibility" and from most of your responses it probably would be best if you just pretended I didn't even exist in this thread. If I cared about "credibility" I would probably have probably acted far more differently. I don't really care if people think I'm credible or not. Why should I?

Almost anyone I would think are interesting about the early days of TSR have been chased off to one degree or another, and those who are NOT part of WotC's official offices have never really been taken seriously...so what does "credibility" do for me? Even if I was "credible" that just seems like it would be a way to be harassed about a bunch of things that I have no desire to discuss.

If people don't find me credible, more power to them. It's their privilege to think one is credible or another is not. It is your privilege as well. I'm not here to discuss my credibility (or yours or most others). YOU can think what you want of AD&D or other editions and I can think what I want. It really doesn't matter what either ONE of us thinks in regards to what actually happened. What happened cannot be changed by you or I or anyone else at this point (unless someone invented a time machine, it might matter to them), what we can do is debate about it.

Which is a large amount of what we have done in regards to my thoughts in this thread. Never once stated I needed to be "Credible" nor that I desired to be "credible." I'm sorry if that's what you wanted out of me. That was never my design nor intention. My design was simply to figure out why what I was seeing and read was so different than what seems to be the common narrative on ENworld's 5e forum.

At this point, I think I've found the main reason why.

 

[OB1]

Add to [MENTION=21556]Jester[/MENTION]david - even if the average spend per player were only $10, that would mean $150M over 4 years, just under $40M per year.

Or if the player base increased from 10M to 15M from 2017 to 2018, that would mean $50M in sales.

The reason Hasbro doesn’t yet list D&D as a franchise brand is likely because of the low average spend per user. I have a feeling that the survey they released yesterday is looking for ways that they can increase that number.

At the same time, the crossover with one of their premier franchise brands this winter will likely lead to another increase in the player base, and with a demo that shows it will spend money. It’s a very smart move by Hasbro.

 

[GreyLord]

Which feels counterintuitive to me.
Mearls is the designer. He makes the game. He does the rules. He has no buisness doing the financials or worrying about that other stuff.


You mean stuff like the CEO of Hasbro name dropping D&D repeatedly:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?443728-Hasbro-CEO-quot-D-amp-D-is-Really-on-a-Tear-quot

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/38069/games-drive-hasbro-sales-jump

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/23/hasbro-ceo-dungeons--dragons-is-having-its-best-year-ever.html


Look up the Pareto Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
Basically, 80% of your sales are going to come from 20% of your audience.

That's really augmented with D&D, as tables are built around one player, typically the DM, who buys all the books. Everyone else buys the dice, which are a negligible purchase. (And a one time purchase not made each year.)

Again, not everyone buys splatbooks or accessories. Most groups don't. D&D ends up being a one time purchase. They buy the core rules and stop.
As you break down, this is a $150-70 purchase. Likely closer to $90-100. With 15 million people, you might have 300,000 DMs and buyers each making $100 purchases for total sales of $3,000,000. Which is waaaaay less than $50 million per year WotC is pulling in.

So D&D players are spending significantly MORE than you'd expect for the hobby, buying the accessories, and multiple players buying PHBs.

15 million divided by 5 is actually 3 million. 3 million x $75 to buy the core rulebooks is actually $225 million.

Even with 300,000 x your $100 is 30 million (not 3 million). at 300,000 DM's and only 300,000 groups you are saying each DM has 50 people in their group.

I think your math is a little off.

In regards to quarterlies and annuals, I'm not referring to name dropping on the internet. These are hard numbers that investors get in reports to their investments. In addition, I think Hasbro regularly makes the annual public and maybe even the quarterlies. These are reports on how Hasbro as a company is doing, and financials and other information.

 

[GreyLord]

You do see that amount of money, being spent on Amazon: that's the thread topic, the ridiculous amount of money being spen at Amazon on D&D. Again, the $55 million doesn't include the Amazon sales.

Yes, but it SHOULD be in the quarterlies and annuals.

 

[darjr]

After the quarterlies and annuals will you come back here and report what you find?

 

[Jester David]

I think your math is a little off.

Yeah... I got called away halfway through writing and carried on without checking my math. And then has to run to pick up my son, posting too soon...


Okay, 3 million DMs paying an expected $300 million. Give or take.
But that’s over the entire four years the Edition has been out.

Going back to ICv2. The role-playing game industry was $15 million in 2013. That’s when D&D wasn't releasing anything major to stores. This means the $10 million boost between 2013 and 2015 is pretty much D&D.
We can ballpark D&D’s sales then as $7.5M, 10, 20, 30, 40 for a total of roughly $107,500,000. Again, this is retail stores only. And the 2018 numbers aren’t out yet. Amazon can easily double this, if not triple.

Which is right about what we’d expect.

 

[Mistwell]

In regards to quarterlies and annuals, I'm not referring to name dropping on the internet. These are hard numbers that investors get in reports to their investments. In addition, I think Hasbro regularly makes the annual public and maybe even the quarterlies. These are reports on how Hasbro as a company is doing, and financials and other information.

You probably should look at the links you just dismissed as "name dropping on the internet."

None of the three were that. All three concerned quarterly and annual reports. The first was the transcript of a quarterly report call that's done each time with shareholders, and the second and third were interviews with the Hasbro CEO on CNBC's Mad Money show concerning the quarterly report that had just been released and the annual report. He gives some good numbers. His comments are covered by FTC regulations as forward looking statements.

Here are some of those comments from Hasbro Chairman and CEO Brian Goldner:

"Dungeons & Dragons is seeing its best year ever...People are more into 'Dungeons & Dragons' today than ever before...[Hasbro saw] double-digit new user growth [in the prior year]."

 

[Parmandur]

I mean,if CEOs and Brand Directors are saying "best year ever" and "more people than ever" on the record to the media...seems legit.

 

[darjr]

Back to real data.

Waterdeep Heist got up to 37 in preorder at Amazon

https://camelcamelcamel.com/Waterdeep-Dragon-Heist-HC-Adventure/product/0786966254?active=sales_rank

https://camelcamelcamel.com/Waterdeep-Dragon-Heist-HC-Adventure/product/0786966254?active=sales_rank

 

[Oofta]

Back to real data.

Is that allowed? I thought this thread was about random tidbits of information posited as facts with just a hint corporate malfeasance.

But it is good that Waterdeep mod is selling well, I'd be curious to see what Ravnica does. Of the two, I'm looking forward to playing/running the former because it sounds like a solid city espionage campaign that I can adopt to my own campaign world. The latter? Meh. Feels more like a chance to cash in on MTG, but I'll still check out the reviews.