4E Out-Selling Any Previous Edition. Good? Bad.

[Henry]

I pre-ordered from BAMM a month ago; according to UPS, it's due on my doorstep Monday. I think the "sold out" bit is a little too speculative; the book is "sold out" as far as WotC's inventory is concerned, not the resellers, as Relique noted.

 

[Adso]

Thanks. I am not necessarily convinced, but I assume Mearls has spoken to somebody in the know.

Mearls didn't talk to someone in the know...he looked at the sales numbers. The same sales numbers I looked at.

We are not blowing smoke up anyone's 'you know what' here. I realize there are a number of folks who haven't seen the actual numbers (or at least not in a good long time) who've postulated that 3.5 could not have outsold 3.0. And I guess you can put me in the ranks of fool, but I for one will take a posteriori knowledge over a priori knowledge any day...at least when it comes to sales numbers.

 

[Andor]

Mearls didn't talk to someone in the know...he looked at the sales numbers. The same sales numbers I looked at.

We are not blowing smoke up anyone's 'you know what' here. I realize there are a number of folks who haven't seen the actual numbers (or at least not in a good long time) who've postulated that 3.5 could not have outsold 3.0. And I guess you can put me in the ranks of fool, but I for one will take a posteriori knowledge over a priori knowledge any day...at least when it comes to sales numbers.

And those numbers are...?

(Gotta try. )

 

[Matthew_]

Mearls didn't talk to someone in the know...he looked at the sales numbers. The same sales numbers I looked at.

Thanks for taking the time to address this, Stephen. The question was not one of total sales numbers, but of print runs. I can believe that 4e had a larger initial print run than 3.5, the question was whether 3.5 had a larger initial print run than 3.0. If you are saying that the sales numbers contain that information and confirming that it indeed did, then thank you for doing so.

We are not blowing smoke up anyone's 'you know what' here. I realize there are a number of folks who haven't seen the actual numbers (or at least not in a good long time) who've postulated that 3.5 could not have outsold 3.0. And I guess you can put me in the ranks of fool, but I for one will take a posteriori knowledge over a priori knowledge any day...at least when it comes to sales numbers.

So, can you tell us what the sales numbers actually were/are? How many 3.0 PHB/DMG/MM were in total printed and sold versus 3.5? How many 4.0 PHB/DMG/MM have been printed and sold so far? How does this compare to 1.0 total sales of the PHB/DMG/MM? Is this information available freely somewhere?

To be clear, I am not questioning your integrity, it's just that inquiring minds want to know, and when specific information is withheld regarding sales, but vague hints are dropped, then those minds are prone to drawing whatever conclusions seem probable or, indeed, possible, given the information and speculation.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

And those numbers are...?

(Gotta try. )

Dig through some Hasbro quarterly reports. The information is in there somewhere.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

To be clear, I am not questioning your integrity, it's just that inquiring minds want to know, and when specific information is withheld regarding sales, but vague hints are dropped, then those minds are prone to drawing whatever conclusions seem probable or, indeed, possible, given the information and speculation.

Companies usually do not make it a habit to report specific numbers to every Redgar and Tordek on internet message boards just because they asked, albeit politely.

As The Kid said, you may - may - be able to find numbers in reports to shareholders. But I doubt it.

No, all we have here is that A > B > C. I don't see anything "vague" about this whatsoever. I'm not sure what conclusions are to be drawn, other than the obvious ones...which have already been stated in this thread.

Thanks Stephen, for stopping by.

Wis

 

[Adso]

Thanks for taking the time to address this, Stephen, but I think you're reading me wrong. The question was not one of sales numbers, but of print runs. I can believe that 4e had a larger initial print run than 3.5, the question was whether 3.5 had a larger initial print run than 3.0. If you are confirming that it indeed did, then thank you for doing so. .

The number I've seen was about copies sold, not revenue taken in. I can only assume that the print runs were larger as well, or we wouldn't have had that many copies to sell.

So, can you tell us what the sales numbers actually were/are? How many 3.0 PHB/DMG/MM were in total printed and sold versus 3.5? How many 4.0 PHB/DMG/MM have been printed and sold so far? How does this compare to 1.0 total sales of the PHB/DMG/MM? Is this information available freely somewhere?

To be clear, I am not questioning your integrity, it's just that inquiring minds want to know, and when specific information is withheld regarding sales, but vague hints are dropped, then those minds are prone to drawing whatever conclusions seem probable or, indeed, possible, given the information and speculation.

Many inquiring minds want to know this sort of information...fans, competitors, Wall Street, sometimes all three wrapped up in a one-person package. This is why publicly traded companies release quarterly results and their foot soldiers talk in generals about such things. Spilling spreadsheets, very specific numbers, and such is a good way to turn in your letter of resignation when you are working in a publicly traded company.

As far as people drawing their own conclusions...I can't stop that from happening. I also can't make you believe me. But you should. Because anyone who knows me can tell you that I don't spread manure...I'm just plain bad at it.

 

[Matthew_]

Companies usually do not make it a habit to report specific numbers to every Redgar and Tordek on internet message boards just because they asked, albeit politely.

Absolutely, I agree.

No, all we have here is that A > B > C. I don't see anything "vague" about this whatsoever. I'm not sure what conclusions are to be drawn, other than the obvious ones...which have already been stated in this thread.

No, no, that's not what I was referring to. What was being asked was why WotC compared the initial 4e print run to the initial 3.5e print run, and not the initial 3.0e print run. The speculation was that the initial 3.0e print run was greater than the 3.5e print run. That was said not to be the case by Mearls, which as I indicated above, I assume to be true, but am not necessarily convinced of (since I cannot tell you what conclusions I would draw myself without seeing the sales data).

The number I've seen was about copies sold, not revenue taken in. I can only assume that the print runs were larger as well, or we wouldn't have had that many copies to sell.

Thank you for clarifying.

Many inquiring minds want to know this sort of information...fans, competitors, Wall Street, sometimes all three wrapped up in a one-person package. This is why publicly traded companies release quarterly results and their foot soldiers talk in generals about such things. Spilling spreadsheets, very specific numbers, and such is a good way to turn in your letter of resignation when you are working in a publicly traded company.

Absolutely, that is business, and when money is involved there is speculation about the meaning of press releases.

As far as people drawing their own conclusions...I can't stop that from happening. I also can't make you believe me. But you should. Because anyone who knows me can tell you that I don't spread manure...I'm just plain bad at it.

Hey, if I believe David "Zeb" Cook when he says that Drizzt was not the inspiration for introducing fighting with two weapons as an ability of the ranger class in AD&D 2e, I can believe you when you say that your analysis of sales data indicates that the 4.0e initial print run is larger than the 3.5e initial print run, which was larger than the initial 3.0e print run (and thus that 4.0e has sold to distributors more initial print run copies than either 3.0e or 3.5e did).

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Well, I was in Glasgow on Saturday.
2 game stores in city ("Static Games" and "Dragon and George") are about 50 yards form each other. I spent an hour in in Dragon and George and 10 mins in Static, I saw 1 4E sale in Static (PHB iirc), and two core set buys in Dragon and George.

I also bought a PHB from both, to support each, and for my player pals as gifts. yes I'm an amazing DM, I know
paying for it now though, me buggered :/

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Look, I'm happy the design and development direction of 4E has attracted an unheralded customer base. I'm hopeful some of those customers are new gamers or gamers from 1E who are returning to the fold (like myself). Every indication is that it's a huge success on many levels. Great.

But...and this is a big "but"...shouldn't we have been better prepared to handle the demand? Amazon, in particular, has known pre-orders for some time. How can it be out?

I went to four different bookstores today in my area. Sold out. Sold out. Sold out. Sold out. And these are with significant numbers previously ordered (comparable to the size of the store and past D&D demand).

Did someone screw up? How can the demand so quickly and so emphatically out-race supply? Isn't that Economics 101?

A second printing before the release date? Again, that's great for our hobby. But doesn't that point to some pretty bad estimates going into this thing?

I hope we (and by 'we' I mean - WotC) learns it's lesson from this and does a better job of giving the community what it wants, when it wants, in the future. While there certainly won't be the number of sales for subsequent books (splat book volumes supposedly suck when compared to core book orders), I'd hope there's a better estimation process in place.

Ah well...I guess it's better than if sales were the same as 3E or what-not. But it's still upsetting.

End whine.

Wis

We made the books our customers (stores) told us to make based on their orders. We knew it would be huge, told them it would be huge, and even made more books than they demanded because we knew it would be huge but...

I have to say many stores doubted us. I saw orders from core hobby stores like 2 PHB, 1 DMG, and 1 MM ??? These order wouldn't even cover a manager or employee order let alone customer demand.

The good news is we have more books in our warehouse (loose PHB, DMG, MM) with more on the way including gift sets. I am sure the phones will be ringing off the hook in our sales dept come Monday and our warehouse will be shipping overnight like mad.

I am sorry if you are frustrated about not getting books yet. Shorting the market would not be a good model for us and we don't do that, we want you playing, we want to sell books.

Hang in there help in the form of more books are on the way!