D&D 5E Amazon US book sales rank.

[darjr]

Ray Winninger has chimed in on the question of 5E sales:

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Some more of the exchange.

 

[darjr]

Six million plus. Maybe.

Thanks @Alphastream

 

[Parmandur]

Six million plus. Maybe.

Thanks @Alphastream

It's definitely a high water mark for TTRPGs.

I think @MerricB makes a good point about how other entertainment is way bigger, such as Mario Kart 8 which came out around the same time as the 5E Starter Set selling like 70 million copies in the past decade.

But still! It's been a great run.

 

[MerricB]

Six million plus. Maybe.

Thanks @Alphastream

Big maybe. But if true, at least three times the sales of the AD&D PHB. Probably four times.

Lifetime sales of the AD&D PHB seems to be approximately 1.5 million, for comparison. Honestly, I'm getting very sick of the OSR grognards who insist the game was bigger in the 80s. It really wasn't. (There are plenty of wonderful OSR folk, but way too many of the toxic element online).

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Zardnaar]

Some more of the exchange.

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My personal estimate is around 5 million+.

Depends on the % one thinks book scan represents. Its the hest data available and a bigger % than say polling.

Low end you're looking at 3 million.

 

[Parmandur]

Big maybe. But if true, at least three times the sales of the AD&D PHB. Probably four times.

Lifetime sales of the AD&D PHB seems to be approximately 1.5 million, for comparison. Honestly, I'm getting very sick of the OSR grognards who insist the game was bigger in the 80s. It really wasn't. (There are plenty of wonderful OSR folk, but way too many of the toxic element online).

Cheers,
Merric

I mean, it was definitely big in the 80's! Just bigger in the Teens-20s.

An interesting comparison, I just decided to Google data about my dad's hobby, model trains. Pretty mainstream and fairly common enough hobby in the U.S.,but apparently that comes out to about 500,000 hobbyists. So D&D in the 80s was...bigger than model trains. By a lot! And now it is even way bigger than model trains.

In comparison, the vookscan data we had about 5E showed the 3E core books having way, way lower numbers...and probably representing a higher percentage of 3E sales, all things considered.

 

[Zardnaar]

Big maybe. But if true, at least three times the sales of the AD&D PHB. Probably four times.

Lifetime sales of the AD&D PHB seems to be approximately 1.5 million, for comparison. Honestly, I'm getting very sick of the OSR grognards who insist the game was bigger in the 80s. It really wasn't. (There are plenty of wonderful OSR folk, but way too many of the toxic element online).

Cheers,
Merric

Unlikely but 80s had 2 editions going at the same time. If you count both of them togather combined it's towards the lower end of plausible 5E estimates.

Red box and 1E phb combined have outsold that 2 million figure for example.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I mean, it was definitely big in the 80's! Just bigger in the Teens-20s.

An interesting comparison, I just decided to Google data about my dad's hobby, model trains. Pretty mainstream and fairly common enough hobby in the U.S.,but apparently that comes out to about 500,000 hobbyists. So D&D in the 80s was...bigger than model trains. By a lot! And now it is even way bigger than model trains.

In comparison, the vookscan data we had about 5E showed the 3E core books having way, way lower numbers...and probably representing a higher percentage of 3E sales, all things considered.

I doubt that bookscan would represent a higher percentage of 3e sales than it does 5e sales. FLGSes don't report to bookscan - and certainly didn't then - and I'd expect that with 3e, the VAST majority of its sales were still from hobby stores and the like.

 

[MerricB]

Unlikely but 80s had 2 editions going at the same time. If you count both of them togather combined it's towards the lower end of plausible 5E estimates.

Red box and 1E phb combined have outsold that 2 million figure for example.

A lot of people who got the AD&D books also got the D&D Basic book.

Interestingly, based on Ben Riggs' figures, Red Box sold less than Moldvay Basic!

(Red Box figures - 1.1 million lifetime sales. Moldvay Basic - 1.26 million lifetime sales).

 

[darjr]

A lot of people who got the AD&D books also got the D&D Basic book.

Interestingly, based on Ben Riggs' figures, Red Box sold less than Moldvay Basic!

(Red Box figures - 1.1 million lifetime sales. Moldvay Basic - 1.26 million lifetime sales).

Yup. Moldvey Basic is the king.

It’s interesting that I think WotC has known this internally for a long time. If you squint at 2014 5e I’ll think you’ll see it’s Moldvey nostalgia.

I always wanted to ask @mearls about that, if it was intentional.