D&D 3E/3.5 5E's Initial Raw Sales Numbers Stronger Than 3E's!

Crothian · Jul 23, 2015

It's not even the number one game book! I never knew Scrabble was still that popular. Unbroken is a great book I really enjoyed that one.

Zardnaar · Jul 23, 2015

Gundark said:
I remember Scott Rouse pointing out that 4e was doing well on Amazon. I don't remember the actual spot.

Here where I live the 5e phb and Hotdq has been selling, this surpised me as I thought Pathfinder had killed D&D and taken it's stuff (locally speaking I mean)

Maybe it was keeping the seat warm.

mechascorpio · Jul 23, 2015

Mistwell said:
No I do not think the Amazon number is pulling from Bookscan. The NYT list does, but not the Amazon one.

I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying that the Amazon Rank has anything to do with Bookscan (or vice versa). I'm saying that since no one except Amazon knows how their ranks translate into units, someone (Publishers Weekly in 2013, IIRC) used Bookscan numbers to figure out how many units per day/week an Amazon Top 10 book was selling. Their best estimation was that it was somewhere over 1000 units/day, or 7000-10,000 per week. Amazon was 30% of the total market (including those who do report to Bookscan), so @ 20k-30k total a week.

Assuming that Rygar and I are even referring to the same studies.

Umbran · Jul 23, 2015

TerraDave said:
It would be great to see that.

Yes and no. I, too, am curious, but we would tend to attach meaning to the numbers that isn't warranted.

In order to really understand what the numbers imply, we'd need context over the years - and even if they gave us numbers for 3e and 4e, we'd have to then make adjustments for time, and economic situations around each release. In short - actually understanding sales numbers isn't trivial, and we'd be unlikely to do it well.

Sailor Moon · Jul 23, 2015

Zardnaar said:
I am 36 if you must know. I do know a lot of the things you posted did exist. Your perosnal experiences probably did not match that of most Americans. The main point being we are far more connected now than we were in 2000 by an order of magnitude. ANd by E-commerce I meant selling normal goods online not just selling online services and things related to websites, telecommunication, ISP's, etc. Ebay was just getting started for example IIRC, and Amazon was not making a profit in 2000. It was early days was the main point, Everquest was not the 1st MMO but it was big by 2000 standards back then.

From the sounds of it you were on the cutting edge. Do you not understand the basic concept that due to increased internet usage since 2000 especially in the explosion of new devices that one can use these days I would expect there to be way more reviews these days than even a few years ago?

I think a better indicator is the relative lack of negative reviews in regards to 5E than the numbers relative to the internet bronze age when 3.0 launched. 5E seems to have had a good launch and the 4vengers types seem to be in a small minority compared to the h4aters that bailed on 4E and left negative reviews. How we buy things and how we communicate has changed in a massive way since 2000. I used steam as an example because I would not be surprised if Amazon, Steam and I-tunes for example end up becoming bigger than brick and mortar stores for purchasing things you got from a store in 2000. That is if they are not there already. Smartphones would be another example of a way to post online and shop as well.

I would call it BS to be honest. There weren't that many people on the internet in 1982 and Danny Mills has a book which contains every user on the internet back then and I seriously doubt Mist is on it.

M.L. Martin · Jul 23, 2015

The 4E core set sold out its original print run before release, and that was a larger print run than the original 3.0 run. People were definitely interested.

It's a new D&D; it's going to dominate the market with anything short of an obvious disaster. That doesn't mean 5E is a failure or anything close to it; it just means that it's too early to tell what the long-term prospects are like.

Mistwell · Jul 23, 2015

never mind, someone already said what I was going to say

Rygar · Jul 23, 2015

The Black Ranger said:
I think some of you are playing it up a bit more than it really is. What constitutes the "Hot new releases" section anyway? How long does a book stay in this category? The other books could have been out for a while so it's natural the sales will decline and when they are going up against a book that just came out, the newer book will come out ahead. Also, it says it's #1 sales in the Dungeons and Dragons section. The only other product it's beating is the starter set while everything else hasn't even come out yet.

The information on sales ranks to units sold is out there if you google it. Generally speaking, the top 5 ranks means it is selling thousands of copies per day and several tens of thousands per week. The way it works is roughly an hourly decay rate based upon copies sold versus time released, such that previous best sellers "decay" in rank so that new best sellers can take their place. It is a "What's popular now" list.

So what this means is that WOTC's moving probably 20,000 to 30,000 units this week on Amazon alone and they're on track for potentially a couple hundred thousand copies in the first month.

Hence why Mearls is celebrating. He's looking at being able to tell senior management he hit 3.x numbers with the Core release.