A more interesting post to other people in this thread might include details of what system(s) they prefer instead and why they are not keen on D&D 5e. Do tell!
4 years of 5E on Amazon: same old same old
- Thread starter TerraDave
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A more interesting post to other people in this thread might include details of what system(s) they prefer instead and why they are not keen on D&D 5e. Do tell!
Zardnaar
Legend
A lot of what ifs and for example we don't even know if they are using the same metrics they used 18 years ago to estimate the numbers of players in the late 90's/2000, I remember a figure of 6 million being thrown around but 5 or 6 million is close enough not to nit pick over it.
The 1 million estimate I have seen comes from Dancey, another estimate at Pax East 2014 IIRC was 500k+ 3.0, 250-350k 3.5 so its not much lower than Danceys (and Pathfinder estimates are 250k circa 2014).
We do know the size of the RPG market now and in 2013 (estimates anyway) and we also know Paizo was gertting 12.7 million in 2012 so peak Pathfinder they probably got most of the money in the RPG market.
5E could get there on around 500k-1 million units sold per year (maybe less). That is everything DMG, adventures, PHB etc. Even with the low number of 500k over 4 years that is still 2 million units and if half of them are PHB they would cross or equal the "biggest selling D&D of all time threshold". We know that the PHB is basically the biggest selling 5E item and I think peak years could maybe beat an average 5E year what makes 5E good is its had 4 good years in a row, the peak years were 1983 and 2000, drop off was severe apparently (300k 1st month 3.0, 30% loss in 1984, bankrupt 85, 81 and 82 were not that big comparatively).
Beating 3.5 and 4E is also no great achievement in D&D terms all of them apart from OD&D do that.
If they were selling in the numbers you provided I think the PHB would be higher than what it is atm on Amazon and even with my 500k-1 million units of everything (50% perhaps being PHB) you would still get to 1-2 million PHB sold and 5-10 million using your 5-1 ratio with the disparity perhaps being the starter set, free downlaods, online games on VTTs; D&D Beyond and AL making up the rest (or all my estimates are completely wrong). Hell they may have used the 5-1 attach rate for the free downloads they may have had half a million or a million of them who knows (wotc has a guess I suppose). I'm guessing they got more than 250k which was what the playtest got.
But yeah the actual sales figures could be a lot lower and they could still fit into the numbers they have provided. I don't think they are beating the D&D spike year or years (1983 maybe 2000) but overall its believable IMHO.
Bestseller doesn't really mean what it used to and companies try and spin it in the best terms they can plausibly get away with. I highly doubt they have sold triple the lifetime sales of the best selling D&Ds of all time over 4 years vs a 10 year product cycle. People see bestseller and get carried away IMHO. I think we can say D&D 100% is doing very well, and about 90% it is doing the best consistently overall. The PHB is not in the top 100 that often except for short term sales spikes via discounts. You have to make some very large assumptions and start playing with some very silly numbers to get up into 3 million PHB sold (averaged out over 4 years its something like double the size of the RPG market just with PHB and Amazon has 2 spikes each year with the 5E adventure releases).
I think those 2 big spikes each year+ consistent sales of the PHB+ sales of everything ( all the other books, older releases+ online stuff) else easily accounts for what WotC is claiming and some saner numbers. 1-2 million PHB sold would explain the D&D numbers for example and we don't know how many of the numbers they are claiming comes from online games and free downloads. If that counts for 50% of the players for example it would indicate probably something in the 1-1.5 range.
Note anything over a million is great in D&D terms, only 2 editions have done that maybe 3 if you count 3.0 and 3.5 as one edition (and maybe Pathfinder is needed to cross that as well depending on how accurate Dancey is and what he counted as 3E).
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Aldarc
Legend
Okay. I have been in two major gaming groups, both composed of good friends who can trust each other. One set while I was in America and another here in Austria. I have GMed and been a player alike. The snags in the games of 5E occurred at around the same places.
Group USA: We had previously played through the entirety of Rise of the Runelords using Pathfinder. Afterwards, we switched to 5e D&D in early 2015, not long after discussing the new edition and finishing our previous campaign. The game stopped at around 5-6th level when the GM burned out. The game was lighter and easier than PF1, both to GM and play, which made it easy to teach and run. But the game slowed down at around this time, and a lot of the enthusiasm for continuing just dive-bombed. However, in late 2015, we all split to different corners of the US while I went to Europe. (Education/career related reasons.) So we have never really had follow-ups regarding why things died around this level.
Group Euro 1: This was a comparatively short-lived one, composed of my flatmates and friends from my first year here in Vienna. The first day I moved in, this group began a campaign that I joined. I had asked why they played Pathfinder over D&D 5E. They preferred having greater player-facing options and system mastery of PF over what they felt was a lack of customization options for their characters in 5E. This group in general though preferred rules heavy.
Group Euro 2: This has been my main group for the past few years, made up of my partner and some of our closest friends here. This group, in contrast, hates rules heavy systems. Rules lite is preferred because they don't have time to learn or re-learn systems. Most of the group spoke ill of their prior experiences with Der Schwarze Auge and were mixed about 7th Sea 1e, though an ex-GM flavored their experiences with the latter. They had the most experience with these two systems. Almost all the players, including myself, lean rules-lite to medium-lite.
We played several games of various sizes of D&D 5E over the past few years. But the games rarely, if ever, extended past 8th level before everyone collectively loses their steam. We have started at 1st level and tried starting at 3rd level. We even ran a handful of one-shots at much higher level (15-18), but even then, it was not that fun for us. Magic kinda becomes a fix-all solution, and the PCs too safe. Advantage/disadvantage is easy, but boring. And no one else really wanted to put in the effort of adjusting the dials and knobs in the DMG as most are fairly casual players. Several other people proposed GMing, myself included, but several of us wondered whether D&D 5E is even an appropriate system for the setting ideas.
The GM and her partner prefer more lethality (or the feeling thereof) and felt that 5e is too forgiving. The primary GM and I also felt that the monsters were boring sacks of hit points as written that got monotonous and repetitive to run in encounters. They are gravitating now towards Warhammer RPG. (I believe 2nd edition?) But they are looking and experimenting with other systems. I also ran a one-shot of Index Card RPG in a sci-fi setting and Jade Punk (Fate), which they also found to their liking. But in the mean time, they are slowly working on their own system. Don't know if it will be for the group's liking, but it will be for the GM and her partner at least.
The other set of players in this group have their own issues with D&D and D&D 5E. They felt that 5e is too rules heavy for their liking. My partner feels like the cleric (and healing magic) trivializes their medical career as a surgical nurse. Most dislike how classes and levels are structured. On the whole, they also dislike having to level up to play the character they want to actually play. And D&Disms such as the split between arcane and divine magic. Some find the D&D style fantasy kinda stale. One told me that she prefers science fantasy or just something other than the usual quasi-medieval flair.
As such, several want to go back to Numenera, especially now that Numenera 2 is out and it de-emphasizes combat for more exploration and community-building. Some of those same players also prefer playing Fate because they believe there is more flexibility in the narrative, player-empowerment, and character creation. There were brief talks of trying to replay Titansgrave (Fantasy Age), but that system has its own set of major problems.
So right now our group is basically between games. We want to game, but are mostly trying to figure out what to play. We just know that 5e will probably not be that game for the foreseeable future.
Edit: Apparently I submitted before finishing an explanation or maybe I accidentally cut it out.
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happyhermit
Adventurer
Uhm? Fact check in aisle 9. In the past 12 months AFAICT the PHB has dropped out of the top 100 books for what, two weeks? (In the US, in Canada it does MUCH better). You can find the data on Camelcamelcamel or other places. It's basically the opposite of what you state, it's only short term dips where it falls out.
Parmandur
Book-Friend
I see no reason to believe that the numbers WotC has are extrapolations from book sales: they have relativley easy access to far more accurate market demographic information. Indeed, many groups might not even use any books, between D&D Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, the free rules, Roll 20 and old fashioned teenage piracy (not that I endorse it, but is probably statistically significant in occurrence). WotC is more interested in people playing, because they make the real money from licenses.
Still and app, even at peak D&D, it is worth less hard cash than M:tG or My Little Pony. It is moving the needle enough for Hasbro for the CEO to say nice things about it on investor calls, but peak D&D is still not mainstream...yet?
Parmandur
Book-Friend
It's the first 5E book to have playable material beyond level 15: which is a friend use case, but what demand there is may be pent up.
GreyLord
Legend
More interesting numbers to drop. Remember, everything (including current player base) are complete guestimates. Ever wonder how we got that 25 million RPG player numbers...
1.7-2 million AD&D PHBs.
1.5 - 2 million Red Boxes (BECMI/BX)
1 million 2e PHBs
Grand total of PHB's/players books sold = 5,000,000
Once again, it's the factor of fives.
5 million x 5 = 25 million.
Not something you'll probably see again...but the factor of five is a basic estimation for D&D I'd say for guestimates.
PS: People may bring up OD&D and Holmes...they sold some but comparatively to the rest...are negligible on numbers (from my viewpoint).
PPS: Redbox sales may be an underestimate in relation to the Basic of BECMI. AS per Frank (perhaps the most loyal to Gygax and a great guy in regards to early D&D creators, also one who knows of the period because he was right in the middle of it) The BECMI Red box was the best seller for TSR D&D ever. In that light, it probably outsold the AD&D PHB. I suppose that could be accounted by taking a few million from the AD&D PHB (to 1.7 maybe or more) and adding it Redbox sales (2.3 or more). His memory and recollection is probably better than many.
1.7-2 million AD&D PHBs.
1.5 - 2 million Red Boxes (BECMI/BX)
1 million 2e PHBs
Grand total of PHB's/players books sold = 5,000,000
Once again, it's the factor of fives.
5 million x 5 = 25 million.
Not something you'll probably see again...but the factor of five is a basic estimation for D&D I'd say for guestimates.
PS: People may bring up OD&D and Holmes...they sold some but comparatively to the rest...are negligible on numbers (from my viewpoint).
PPS: Redbox sales may be an underestimate in relation to the Basic of BECMI. AS per Frank (perhaps the most loyal to Gygax and a great guy in regards to early D&D creators, also one who knows of the period because he was right in the middle of it) The BECMI Red box was the best seller for TSR D&D ever. In that light, it probably outsold the AD&D PHB. I suppose that could be accounted by taking a few million from the AD&D PHB (to 1.7 maybe or more) and adding it Redbox sales (2.3 or more). His memory and recollection is probably better than many.
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Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
I didn't post any links. You dismissed three links someone else posted as "name dropping on the internet". Which was ridiculous as it was CEO commentary on annual and quarterly reports covered under FTC regulations as forward looking statements. The full links were posted, AND YOU RESPONDED TO IT. You seem to be saying you were SO eager to dismiss it you not only didn't click on it but you didn't even see it was links? Yeesh.
Zardnaar
Legend
No one knows exactly how much the red box sold. Most estimates are in the 1 to 1.5 million range.
Back in the day I thought AD&D was better. Having played both again in the last 4 to 5 years. BECMI is better IMHO. B/X is even better and joins my holy D&D Trinity along with 5E and 2E.
They're not really better than 5E but do certain things better (settings 2E, hexcrawls and domains B/X).
Back in the day I thought AD&D was better. Having played both again in the last 4 to 5 years. BECMI is better IMHO. B/X is even better and joins my holy D&D Trinity along with 5E and 2E.
They're not really better than 5E but do certain things better (settings 2E, hexcrawls and domains B/X).
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