D&D 5E Amazon: D&D at the start of 2018

[Jester David]

I just think people like to get carried away. If you adjust the old TSR figures for inlfation at its height D&D was twice the size of the current RPG market at its peak and for several years was around the same size (81-83 or so).

The problem with that comparison is that old TSR’s figures also included sales of the multiple other RPGs *and* their many board games. I’ve never seen figures for just D&D.

Even with a 30% drop in 84 which wrecked them (300 odd staff does that) its still bigger than the entire modern RPG market.

Again, TSR =/= D&D.

Also, keep in mind we are talking about when TSR has 1e *and* Basic released at the same time. When it had two games both selling a million copies. So, yes, it could be bigger than the RPG market is right now but D&D 5e could still have sold more than 1e or Basic. It just means not both combined....

(And TSR had notoriously bad bookkeeping. I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers they reported were significantly off.)

Thats why I am sceptical and thats before they starting spamming out stuff to pay the bills. Its plausible D&D has sold a million or 1.5 million or whatever but its not guaranteed.

How much longer do you think it will take.
Again, D&D has been steadily selling more and more. It’s back on the Top 10 of all books again, where it has been living the last six months. With continued sales like that, do you think it will be six months? A year?

Mistwell said that take away he big spikes for sales and there is probably a big drop off between the books higher up the ilists, I would assume its like movies Xanaathars was bonkers for a month or so and Mearls said it was the fastest selling D&D book *beating the PHB IDK?) but that lasted a month or so.

Sure. You could assume that.
Or you could check and find data to back up your claims.
Here’s Xanathar’s sales:



It declined, but no sudden drop.

I highly doubt they are selling 3k books every day, hell We have 3 of the,m probably get a 4th an at $20 a pop on Amazon I would have more.

Even a few hundred sales a day with a nice big spike at the front end of an edition spread over a long enough time will get there. 100 a day is 36k a year roughly so 500 a day is 150k, 1000 a day is 365k average (more than the lifetime sales of 3.5). If they were selling that many I think the RPG market would be bigger.

>500k in August 2016.
365k per year for their last 18 months would be over 540k.

That’s over 1 million. By YOUR numbers.

I guess to hit 9 million players they assumed an attach rate or 5-1 or whatever per PHB per group. Hell our group has a PHB each + 1 extra due to cheap Amazon prices and only 1 of us (me) is a hardcore D&D collector. Since I doubt they have sold 9 million PHB they have assumed some amount of people play D&D per PHB or whatever but if our group is not that exceptional their numbers are going to be very very wrong.

The general thought is sales will follow the Pareto principle (aka the 80/20 rule) where 80% of sales come from 20% of the audience.
20% of 9 million is 1.8 million.

 

[Mistwell]

Maybe but as I said D&D at its height was almost twice the size of the entire RPG market now when you adjust for inflation so I think its unlikely.

You keep saying this, but you don't know that you're anywhere near accurate in that statement, for two reasons.

1) I think you're getting the current RPG Market size from ICv2. If that is the case, then it's inaccurate on it's face. ICv2 only pulls data from local retail game stores. They do not include big box stores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Walmart. So if that is where you're getting your information on current market size, it's only a smaller fraction of the larger total market.

2) For the TSR sales, you're giving figures for all of TSR and it's subsidiaries. You're including money from Dungeon and tons of other board games, the D&D cartoon, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Top Secret, Marvel Superheroes, hundreds of novels (including Dragon Lance), magazines like Amazing Stories, and tons of branded licensed products at the time and not just D&D. If you want to do that comparison, fine, then WOTC and all it's subsidiaries makes TSR look tiny.

We don't have figures for actual D&D sales numbers...Mearls and Crawford have confirmed the records from that era are very hazy, and included books that were returned. Dancy's numbers were all of TSR or at best all of the branded D&D materials and he never drilled down on the data either. You act like you know more than they all do, when they have a LOT more data than you do and they don't know.

I think we're going to settle for "we don't know" until Mearls and Crawford decide to tell us their best guess, if they ever do that.

 

[pogre]

I'm confused by this argument. Why does it matter which edition sold the best?

 

[Zardnaar]

You keep saying this, but you don't know that you're anywhere near accurate in that statement, for two reasons.

1) I think you're getting the current RPG Market size from ICv2. If that is the case, then it's inaccurate on it's face. ICv2 only pulls data from local retail game stores. They do not include big box stores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Walmart. So if that is where you're getting your information on current market size, it's only a smaller fraction of the larger total market.

2) For the TSR sales, you're giving figures for all of TSR and it's subsidiaries. You're including money from Dungeon and tons of other board games, the D&D cartoon, Boot Hill, Star Frontiers, Gamma World, Top Secret, Marvel Superheroes, hundreds of novels (including Dragon Lance), magazines like Amazing Stories, and tons of branded licensed products at the time and not just D&D. If you want to do that comparison, fine, then WOTC and all it's subsidiaries makes TSR look tiny.

We don't have figures for actual D&D sales numbers...Mearls and Crawford have confirmed the records from that era are very hazy, and included books that were returned. Dancy's numbers were all of TSR or at best all of the branded D&D materials and he never drilled down on the data either. You act like you know more than they all do, when they have a LOT more data than you do and they don't know.

I think we're going to settle for "we don't know" until Mearls and Crawford decide to tell us their best guess, if they ever do that.

True but lets face it the TSR golden age was primarily 1E and B/X yes?

Dancey did give numbers, I did say his are 15% higher than others I think he gave 1 million+ for 3E (3.0 and 3.5) while othjers have said 5000k+ for 3,0 and 250-350k fr 3.5. Numbers do also vary for B/X and 1E but its generally in the 1-1.5 million. I used the lower figures.

There other products TSR made were generally cut and some of the other D&D products (adventures) also sold hundreds of thousands. Dragon had 100k subscribers IIRC.

And there is others things lke 2 or 3 D&Ds in print at once, 300 staff, magazines, novels, ET, 17 print runs of the 1E PHB, 6 print runs of the ToEE.

 

[Mistwell]

OK I was curious how close we could try and figure out the total PHB sales.

I went back through the past month of CamelCamelCamel, and ran the chart for just the past month and just the Player's Handbook and just for Amazon sales. I then ran each daily number (which is an estimate, it's kinda hard to figure out the precise day's rank but it's pretty close) and ran each of those daily rank numbers through the TCKpublishing Amazon Sales Calculator by BSR rank.

By that estimate, the Player's Handbook 5e sold about 56,732 that month on Amazon.

To get a total sales estimate, we'd need to know what the other book sellers are selling as a percentage of Amazon.

From there, estimates get more difficult to come up with. Over at Author Earnings, I found some stats that break it up into, "B&N" and "Walmart, Target, etc." and "Independent Bookstores" and "Amazon".

Barnes and Noble has, by one estimate I saw, 20% of the print book market, with 633 stores. So that's roughly 11,346 at B&N. However Author Earnings (which is a good independent group) had B&N at 60% of Amazon for print books, not 20% (though they have B&N a tiny fraction of Amazon for e-book sales, which isn't relevant to this discussion as we're not getting into digital sales). And for example, Books-A-Million has is 40% the number of stores of B&N but are included in "Independent" in that number (which is a tiny fraction of B&N in the Author Earnings chart).

So I am going to run a "low" estimate" and a "high" estimate based on the 20% number from one and the 60% number from the other (and extrapolate for all others as best I can for each estimate) and then at the end I will average the "low" and the "high".

For the low, I cut the Authors Earnings numbers into 1/3 to reflect the lowest possible estimate I saw for Barnes and Noble, and extrapolated that for all the other sales channels listed. Based on that low estimate, using the Amazon baseline, that would put the remaining sources of sales at about 21,146 for that month. For a total sales of PHB in that month of 77,878 copies of the 5e Player's Handbook sold in the past month.

For the high, I used the straight Authors Earnings numbers, which estimates all non-Amazon sales as adding up to about 112% of Amazon sales for print books (that's all channels of sales). That would be 63,540 PHBs sold through those channels, for a total (with the Amazon number) of 120,272 PHBs sold that month.

In terms of how typical the last month is? It looks high, but not totally off in terms of being a representative month. To be more conservative, it looks to me (eye-balling the chart) that the Amazon sales seem to hover roughly around #85 over the term of May 2014 to Mar 2018. #85 translates to roughly 10,659 sales at Amazon per month. By the low estimate, that would be 14,632 per month, and the high estimate would be 22,597 per month. Mind you, I am probably being too conservative. There were some much higher peak sales, particularly at launch, and I am mostly counting the more "norm" numbers and ignoring the peaks and valleys (and there are more peaks than valleys).

And now for some totals (since May 2014 to Mar 2018):
Low Estimate: 675,000
High Estimate: 1,039,462
Median Estimate: 857,231

So there is my best vague educated somewhat conservative guess as to the total number of PHB 5e sales so far: around 857,000.

 

[Mistwell]

True but lets face it the TSR golden age was primarily 1E and B/X yes?

Maybe? And what does "primarily" mean? Does it mean it was the single largest share? Does it mean a majority? I have no idea. Neither do you. I couldn't even come up with a vague guess as to the numbers the D&D cartoon brought in, or how much the board gaming unit was bringing in, or how much Dragon Lance or Gord novels brought in.

Dancey did give numbers, I did say his are 15% higher than others I think he gave 1 million+ for 3E (3.0 and 3.5) while othjers have said 5000k+ for 3,0 and 250-350k fr 3.5. Numbers do also vary for B/X and 1E but its generally in the 1-1.5 million. I used the lower figures.

We're not talking about 3e or 3.5ee, we were talking "the peak" which was in reference to 1e. You even named 1984 as the drop-off date so we agreed it had nothing to do with 3e. So when you say "it's generally in the 1-1.5 million" where are you getting that from? Why do you claim it has any resemblance to "D&D book sales" as opposed to "TSR sales"? There is just no basis to pull a "D&D game book sales" number out of that total TSR estimate (which, in itself, appears to be vague as it appears to have included returns which were common practice at the time).

There other products TSR made were generally cut and some of the other D&D products (adventures) also sold hundreds of thousands. Dragon had 100k subscribers IIRC.

TSR novel sales were a HUGE sales channel for TSR. So were the board games. And the cartoon. And all those branded licensed products including silly things like D&D shrinky dinks. I say again, there is ZERO basis to claim any even vaguely firm number of D&D book sales from that total TSR sales number. You might as well be comparing all of WOTC sales vs all of TSR sales if you're going to do that.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe? And what does "primarily" mean? Does it mean it was the single largest share? Does it mean a majority? I have no idea. Neither do you. I couldn't even come up with a vague guess as to the numbers the D&D cartoon brought in, or how much the board gaming unit was bringing in, or how much Dragon Lance or Gord novels brought in.

We're not talking about 3e or 3.5ee, we were talking "the peak" which was in reference to 1e. You even named 1984 as the drop-off date so we agreed it had nothing to do with 3e. So when you say "it's generally in the 1-1.5 million" where are you getting that from? Why do you claim it has any resemblance to "D&D book sales" as opposed to "TSR sales"? There is just no basis to pull a "D&D game book sales" number out of that total TSR estimate (which, in itself, appears to be vague as it appears to have included returns which were common practice at the time).

TSR novel sales were a HUGE sales channel for TSR. So were the board games. And the cartoon. And all those branded licensed products including silly things like D&D shrinky dinks. I say again, there is ZERO basis to claim any even vaguely firm number of D&D book sales from that total TSR sales number. You might as well be comparing all of WOTC sales vs all of TSR sales if you're going to do that.

Novels came after the golden age for the most part, Dragonlance landed 2 years after the GA peak (UA and DL saved D&D). The massive sellers were 1E PHB, red box and the big sellers were a few of the adventures.

Theres numerous sources from ex TSE staffers, Mentzer, Gygax, Lisa Stevens, Stan!, Sharon Apllecine, who wrote the book on D&D history. They bloated to 300 staff and then ha a 30% downturn and were trying to sell D&D by 1985 and thats when Lorraine stepped in with her money.

Most of the early RPGs and anything that was not D&D was also cut. Hell when TSR went under they were still having revenue of 40 million (just run badly), IIRC novels were bigger than the game line by then. D&D PHB is doing great but they have lost all the support they had over the years (Dragon, Dungeon, novels etc). Technology and changing tastes I suppose.

WotC is a lot better run than TSR that almost went under 3 times (well the 3rd time did them in).

Personally I thik WoTC have probably sold more than a million PHB, but its not 100% clear and some people are getting carried away. Yes D&D is doing very well, I doubt its beating D&D at the height of the golden age (or ever will). These numbers were referenced in court filings for They Sue Regularly (TSR).

It might eventually beat it overall less peaks and valley etc and 1E lasted 13 years and was the only edition to be reprinted into the next edition (B/X maybe but it was more concurrent to OD&D/1E/2E IMHO).

The numbers are not 1000% reliable and they do seem to vary a bit (Dancey adds 3.0 and 3.5 together others provide a guideline ie 500k+ 1 million +, 250-350k etc). Dancey is on the high side of some other estimates but its 15-20% higher not double or triple.

Every time a new edition lands in the internet age (3.0 onwards) there is always a cheer leading group that claims the latest edition is the best/greatest/biggest selling ever etc etc etc. In 6 years give or take 5E will likely end 6E will land and the cycle will begin again. The main point is people get carried away with it. This is my 5th or 6th edition cycle depending on if you count 3.5 (7th if you count Pathfinder).

 

[Mistwell]

Novels came after the golden age for the most part, Dragonlance landed 2 years after the GA peak (UA and DL saved D&D). The massive sellers were 1E PHB, red box and the big sellers were a few of the adventures.

Pretty sure the Gygax novels hit the best seller list. And while I don't know how many of these were sold, I know they all sold very strong initially (which was before the drop-off of TSR): Boot Hill, Gamma World, Indiana Jones, Marvel Super Heroes, Top Secret, and Star Frontiers. So did the Endless Quest books. So did the first Dragon lance books, which were 1984. The D&D cartoon was 1983.

Theres numerous sources from ex TSE staffers, Mentzer, Gygax, Lisa Stevens, Stan!, Sharon Apllecine, who wrote the book on D&D history.

Almost none of which spoke about the thing you're trying to claim they spoke about - D&D book sales. It's not a legitimate argument for you to be making - naming those names as if they back up your claim, when you know darn well none of that had anything to do with claims about book sales.

They bloated to 300 staff and then ha a 30% downturn and were trying to sell D&D by 1985 and thats when Lorraine stepped in with her money.

Yes, I know my TSR history quite well, thanks. You're again talking about all sorts of stuff that doesn't support your point. We know TSR got big...we don't know what PHB 1e book sales or D&D game book sales were.

Most of the early RPGs and anything that was not D&D was also cut. Hell when TSR went under they were still having revenue of 40 million (just run badly), IIRC novels were bigger than the game line by then.

Right...the novels were bigger than the game by then, but you want to pretend all the numbers you've ever heard (which were vague and TSR general numbers to begin with) were all or almost all D&D game book sales. It's nonsense.

Personally I thik WoTC have probably sold more than a million PHB, but its not 100% clear and some people are getting carried away.

Nobody is getting carried away. You're being defensive because you've said a lot about relative sales in the past, made predictions about sales fall-off that didn't come true, and now people are calling you on it. And I understand why you'd be defensive, but you can't flip it on people claiming they're the ones "getting carried away". The most extremist rhetoric at this point, on this issue, is coming from you. You'll concede a point (like 1 million 5e PHB sales) and then a few weeks later will imply the opposite. You'll haul out a list of TSR names as if it supports your claims about D&D 1e game book sales knowing it doesn't. That's much more "getting carried away" with your position than anyone else is doing anymore on this topic.

Yes D&D is doing very well, I doubt its beating D&D at the height of the golden age (or ever will). These numbers were referenced in court filings for They Sue Regularly (TSR).

Yes, for TOTAL TSR SALES. Can you admit you don't have any idea what the actual D&D game book sales were? I can pull those old court docs if you like...you'll rapidly see they don't name D&D game book sales in them. You know what they do name? A huge list of products they sell, which includes a whole lot of things that were not D&D game books.

Every time a new edition lands in the internet age (3.0 onwards) there is always a cheer leading group that claims the latest edition is the best/greatest/biggest selling ever etc etc etc. In 6 years give or take 5E will likely end 6E will land and the cycle will begin again. The main point is people get carried away with it. This is my 5th or 6th edition cycle depending on if you count 3.5 (7th if you count Pathfinder).

Claiming in the past people have gotten carried away with claims about prior editions doesn't actually support your claim either. It's a rhetorical trick. Logically, an edition can in fact be the best selling, even if people previously wrongly claimed prior editions were the best selling. What fans claimed about prior editions doesn't actually support anything about this topic. I say again, this time it would appear you're the guy getting carried away...mostly because you made a series of predictions that were blown.

I totally know how you feel. I predicted 4e would be HUGE. I know how it feels to make a blown prediction on these sorts of things. It's what you do once you know you blew it that really matters. Right now, you're still heavily on the defensive. It seems every time someone brings up this issue you feel the need to jump in and defend the position that D&D isn't doing as well as people think it is (even though all they are doing is expressing their happiness). As if that is about you. Which of course then makes it about you.

 

[Parmandur]

...D&D is doing very well, I doubt its beating D&D at the height of the golden age (or ever will)...

I'm not sure what reason there is to believe either of these central propositions: yes, D&D did very well in the early 80's, despite colossal mismanagement; but I see no evidence that it was doing better than it is now, nor that D&D has anywhere near peaked. One solid hit cartoon or movie could multiply the current success, handily, let alone the linear growth the evergreen strategy is producing.

 

[ad_hoc]

I'm not sure what reason there is to believe either of these central propositions: yes, D&D did very well in the early 80's, despite colossal mismanagement; but I see no evidence that it was doing better than it is now, nor that D&D has anywhere near peaked. One solid hit cartoon or movie could multiply the current success, handily, let alone the linear growth the evergreen strategy is producing.

Yep.

In 1987 Gary Gygax estimated that a total of 10 million people worldwide had ever played an RPG (5 million worldwide actively playing).

A year ago the CEO of WotC estimated that there were 9.5 million active 5e players.