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

[TerraDave]

That is the D&D understatement of the year.

Well, its from the original post from over 3 years ago.

 

[ad_hoc]

Well, its from the original post from over 3 years ago.

Oh I see, fair enough.

 

[Zardnaar]

In honor of the anniversary and all, I thought I would bring back some comparative numbers.

From here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ellers/page4&p=6526238&viewfull=1#post6526238

I use to use the wayback machine to get numbers like this, but then amazon put bots on it to stop that. Oh well.

Here is what I got:

4E PHB

Started at 33

Fell to 54

After six months its at 2,390

After one year: 6,435

That’s a big drop off. One issue could be other ways of getting it—there was a three book box set, a deluxe version, the pdf, and of course the character builder—but still, that’s a big drop.

We can also look at 3.5 PHB

After about 1 month its at 122

After 6 months 274

At the one year point it has dropped to 4844

But then rebounds, hanging around 1000, and reaching 969 two years after launch


5E is looking good compared to these, at least so far.

3.5 did not do that well as far as D&D editions went. Every edition of D&D has beaten 3.5 except for OD&D and maybe 4E. It was an awkward .5 edition and the whole d20 bubble popped 2004 IIRC. Still interesting about the severe drop off of 4E though.

Also IDK if Amazon data from 15 years ago is a fair point of reference. That is before things like facebook, youtube, Amazon being as big as it is now. Hell Amazon was losing money back then IIRC (or close to it).

 

[TerraDave]

Now we have this:

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

All the talk on the front page article is on "D&D esports" which is not actually said, though digital games certainly are.

This is the CEO telling investors that the game is seeing double digit growth in users and has had its biggest year ever. In this context, they are really not suppose to fib, and why would he, he has plenty of other brands to mention if D&D wasn't doing great.

 

[darjr]

Also dragon talk said that the population is 40% non male!

 

[TerraDave]

Also dragon talk said that the population is 40% non male!

For me, that is still more like a rumor. Its felt like 10% for a long time.

Lots of women are into hobby gaming, and lots are into fantasy (and always have been), so you would expect some overlap. Hopefully its true.

 

[ad_hoc]

For me, that is still more like a rumor. Its felt like 10% for a long time.

Lots of women are into hobby gaming, and lots are into fantasy (and always have been), so you would expect some overlap. Hopefully its true.

I think it is more that 5e has bridged the gap beyond hobby gaming. Just like how hobby board games did it with the rise in popularity of Settlers of Catan.

D&D is now being played by the sorts of young people who frequent board game cafes and the like. Anecdotally I've seen it too. People I meet either have played or have friends who have played and none of them identify as hobby gamers.

 

[darjr]

The Ravnica book in presale is in the 500s on Amazon.



From https://camelcamelcamel.com/Guildmasters-Guide-Ravnica-HC/product/0786966599?active=sales_rank

 

[Zardnaar]

3.5 did not do that well as far as D&D editions went. Every edition of D&D has beaten 3.5 except for OD&D and maybe 4E. It was an awkward .5 edition and the whole d20 bubble popped 2004 IIRC. Still interesting about the severe drop off of 4E though.

Also IDK if Amazon data from 15 years ago is a fair point of reference. That is before things like facebook, youtube, Amazon being as big as it is now. Hell Amazon was losing money back then IIRC (or close to it).

Wouldn't get to excited.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw...-does-it-take-to-be-an-amazon-bestseller.html

https://okdork.com/hit-1-amazons-bestseller-list/

Article I read last week seems to indicate Amazon might be around 50% of sales, these sites here quote 30%.

If you can get to number 1 on Amazon seems you can do it on a few hundred books sold (average per day). If you can do that for an entire year that is great but I would not be surprised if the difference outside the top 10 is a few hundred books total between say number 400 and 500.

This is also funny.
https://qz.com/902504/how-to-become...on-amazon-in-five-minutes-with-three-dollars/

Gonna write a book. "My Cat".

 

[darjr]

Those articles don’t say what you think they say.