D&D 5E After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon

[Visanideth]

Tell that to the 160 000 subscribers to the DnD subreddit it's not dead at all.

I'm one of those, and I don't play 5E.

Also, I wouldn't consider 160.000 an impressive number for D&D.

But there's a reason why I say I don't use my anedoctal experience as proof. I know it's not reflecting the actual situation.

 

[Mageman]

I'm one of those, and I don't play 5E.

Also, I wouldn't consider 160.000 an impressive number for D&D.

But there's a reason why I say I don't use my anedoctal experience as proof. I know it's not reflecting the actual situation.

DnD is all versions. DnDnext is 5e. DnD as a whole is doing amazing. A hit tv show only has a few million people watching it. Have that many subs is a great accomplishment.

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[Jester David]

I think there's a lot of merit in your reasoning, but I wouldn't underestimate the impact that the slow and painful death of the brick and mortar bookstore had on D&D's persistance on Amazon charts.

What Amazon charts tell us is that more people are buying D&D on Amazon. We have no way to know if this offsets the fact that less people buy D&D in stores (a lot of store stopped carrying D&D completely before 5E's release, and WotC themselves allegedly choose to ignore certain, previously used channels).

Are people buying D&D more on Amazon because the general interest around D&D has increased, or people are buying D&D on Amazon because the number of viable alternatives has decreased?
Heck, let's ask another one: are people buying D&D on Amazon because it's almost 10$ cheaper than it is in most store?

Except the number of viable alternatives has increased for every book sold on Amazon. The drop in book stores should have a negligible impact on Amazon ratings for D&D books as all books would see an increase in total sales.

In fact, as gamers have another alternative other book buyers do not (game stores) and gamers are incentived to purchase through game stores to support their FLGS (because they play there or want to keep them in business) even if it requires more travel time, the rank of D&D books compared to other books should likely drop slightly. Which it hasn't. It's increased.

My point is that there's a lot of factors that play into 5E's longevity on Amazon, and we don't have enough data to draw clear conclusions from those. I do think this is a good sign (but I don't own a bookstore, cough cough), but I'd be cautious with the sensationalistic conclusions, expecially those that lead to "RPGs are in an healthy state". The metrics we do know - budget, dedicated writers, advertisement and general confidence in the project - aren't exactly reassuring.

Actually, you'd be wrong about that. According to industry numbers, the RPG industry as a whole is actually growing and doing very well compared to previous years. RPGs are doing surprisingly well. There's a veritable resurgence in gaming, and unlike the last rise of small publishers, they're not all doing d20.

I suggest caution. I think it's early to celebrate. As an end user, I can't "perceive" this supposed success - the release schedule is anemic, the production values are really low (even when it comes to artwork, D&D is far from the prettiest game on the market right now) and I'm generally hurting for first-party content. This is subjective, of course, but as an end user 5E to me feels like D&D on life support. It's hard to be too optimistic.

And yet D&D 5.0 PHB has outsold that same book for 3.0, 3.5, and 4e after but two years on the market. The low release schedule seems to be helping rather than hindering the brand, as sales of the PHB are what you want.
(And while not the prettiest RPG in the market, it's in the top ten, and better than it's immediate competitors.)

 

[Morrus]

DnD is all versions. DnDnext is 5e. DnD as a whole is doing amazing. A hit tv show only has a few million people watching it. Have that many subs is a great accomplishment.

We've got 203,000 just on this forum, and I agree that it is quite an accomplishment to have so many communities out there. No other tabletop RPG has multiple communities of this scale.

 

[ad_hoc]

I think it is an interesting question to ask why. Is it something intrinsic to the edition itself? Is it a matter of right place, right time--that the cultural zeitgeist supports D&D now more than it has in previous years, or at least going back to the 80s? Is it the light publication schedule? Something else? Some combination of the above and more?

I think it is the design philosophy.

There is a focus on play. On agency. The '3 pillars of play' is brilliant.

5e doesn't bog down in minutiae. The game itself is simplified while keeping the choices you get to make while actually playing broad.

It is also inclusive. This is actually from the phb: "You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender." At one point in the game your character had to be the same gender that you were, and if that meant a female character you could suffer penalties.

One of the players in my group just bought all of the core books plus SKT and is going to start their own game soon. They are a great storyteller with an exuberance and creativity that I lack. When we were playing 3.x though they had no desire to deal with the tedium of the game.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I think there's a lot of merit in your reasoning, but I wouldn't underestimate the impact that the slow and painful death of the brick and mortar bookstore had on D&D's persistance on Amazon charts.

What Amazon charts tell us is that more people are buying D&D on Amazon. We have no way to know if this offsets the fact that less people buy D&D in stores (a lot of store stopped carrying D&D completely before 5E's release, and WotC themselves allegedly choose to ignore certain, previously used channels).

Are people buying D&D more on Amazon because the general interest around D&D has increased, or people are buying D&D on Amazon because the number of viable alternatives has decreased?
Heck, let's ask another one: are people buying D&D on Amazon because it's almost 10$ cheaper than it is in most store?

I'm not sure of your logic here. If the "slow and painful death of the brick and mortar bookstore" and "the number of viable alternatives has decreased", wouldn't that affect all books equally, ensuring a continued level playing field when it comes to rankings? If not, why would RPG books like the 5e PHB be the exception?

 

[Mageman]

We've got 203,000 just on this forum, and I agree that it is quite an accomplishment to have so many communities out there. No other tabletop RPG has multiple communities of this scale.

That's amazing. DnD is booming

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[PMárk]

(And while not the prettiest RPG in the market, it's in the top ten, and better than it's immediate competitors.)

Naturally it's very much depending on personal taste, although, for me, 5e's artworks are... often bland, or should I say, too generic? It has very good ones, the MM is fairly good but there's some I don't like in the corebooks. Yes, it's full color (although it's not a sign of quality on itself, but I like b&w very much) and the full-page watercolors are mostly very pretty. However, the weapons in the PHB and DMG for example are very bad and the SCAG was a huge letdown. 5e is far better than 3e was and while 4e had top quality arts I didn't parrticularly liked the WoW-ish "everything must glow" style.

Pathfinder, (or the IK rpg) is more of an eyecandy for me on average, but I like Wanye Reynold's style very much and I think Paizo's books have much better page layout and overall graphical design.

But in the end, it's really about personal taste. 5e is good, but it's far from the best, or the 5 (might not be in the 10) best for me.

 

[dagger]

No death of brick and mortar in Texas...they are like weeds

 

[PMárk]

I want to add that I'm happy about the success of 5e, because, while I found it's not my favorite edition if we count PF and far from my favorite RPG, it's a good game, I play it happily when I get the opportunity.

The best part of it that it is a very good game for beginners, easy to learn, easy to play and GMing, friendly to everyone regardless of age, sex, etc. And the zeitgeist helps it, so I'm applauding it's huge contribution to the spreading of the hobby. It's a great springboard. However I'm mostly laughing at the burrying of other games, because 5e in the end is not for everyone on the long term. People might want more depth, more elaboration, more simulation. Or, on the contrary more story-gaming style. Or different genres, different settings. In fact I think it's good for the other games, because more beginners means more potential players who, after some 5e experience might find to want something different. So it's a tide, that's rising all ships.

But it doesn't make it the best game, or anything. It makes it just a good introductory product with the widest brand-recognition, nothing more, nothing less. It's the most mainstream right now, but most mainstrem != best.