D&D 5E Are D&D sales declining? Teos Abadia takes a look.

[Quickleaf]

Great article, as always, @Alphastream ! Thanks for highlighting it @darjr !

Will be on the edge of my seat to see what you guesstimate the BookScan data represents as far as % of D&D sales.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think we have good data on how many subscriptions are paying subscriptions vs free subscriptions. Hasbro has shared data points such as 13 million DDB users, up from 10-11 at time of purchase, but it is unclear what that really means for income. They also said at that time (2022 December investor call) that 90% of the paying customers were DMs and they wanted to change that. So far, no initiatives seem to have tried to change that. We later heard the call to monetize the game better, but again, no initiatives have done that and Hasbro seems to be stepping back from the idea of D&D becoming a $1B brand. All investor data that is digital is heavily influenced by Magic, so it hasn't so far been possible to even guess at DDB income.

I think the vast majority are, like myself, free accounts only for getting freebies and UA and such. However, if a low percentage buys a physical/digital bundle or just a digital version of a book for their table once in a blue moon...that can add up to an impact on Bookscan numbers.

 

[Alphastream]

However, I did note that the period shift @Alphastream notes seems toncorrespond with when WotC really began going hard for Beyond. That will have at least cannibalize some significant number of Bookscan sales, even if the ratios are still accurate.

At a Bae minimum, even the latest products still selling what I would call "well", I don't see WotC pulling out of print books or anything.

I don't have good data for this, but what I hear and see suggests that D&D isn't achieving its awesome growth on the backs of hardcore invested gamers. Just as 50% of all 5E players are new to the hobby with 5E, I think a lot of purchases are point-of-sale type impulse/interest buys for new and casual players. I suspect that it is a fairly narrow segment (more invested, less casual) that would find itself on D&D Beyond purchasing Planescape vs the far larger group that would purchase the book via a store or online retailer.

D&D is big enough that it really matters what is on a shelf and how the products appeal to the person that happens to walk or scroll by. What can happen is that the shelf can become confusing and overwhelming.

Something I like to do when I travel around the US is look at the gaming shelf in a store (whether big box or local gaming store). I pretend I'm a new gamer. Can I find the products I should buy? Can I easily find this edition and the latest books vs traps? For much of 5E, it was pretty clear. The Starter Set and Essentials were equally great on-ramps, the core books were pretty clear, the adventures were all equally good/bad for new DMs. Now, you might find five Starter Sets (do I start with Rick and Morty?) and you might find an old Mordenkainen's or Volo's vs a Multiverse set. And next year you might get confused between 2024 and 2014. That's where the glut really has an impact, rather than the more narrow issue of releasing 8 books in a year. The shelf glut is a big problem for walk-ups. The 8-in-a-year is a bigger impact for the hardcore gamer (which also can impact the shelf glut).

 

[Reynard]

That's why WotC spends so much time and energy on school outreach: they will be saturated for older demos, but people turn 12 or go to college all the time.

I did not know they had a big school program but some quick reading suggests it is pretty extensive. That's pretty awesome. I did not dig deep enough to know whether they are making a special effort to reach less advantages schools (rural areas, inner cities, reservations) but I hope so.

 

[Alphastream]

OK I’m going to state them. Maybe it just isn’t that big a deal to folks.

He detects that the OGL debacle didn’t hurt sales measurably and there was a bump in sales due to the movie.

To be clear, this isn't my assertion. It's what the data showed very clearly in the original video on the Roll for Combat show, disclosing the BookScan data. They looked at overall sales during the first months of 2023 and could see no drop at all from the OGL. Instead, two very clear spikes upward in sales around the time of the Super Bowl adds and the movie release.

 

[Scribe]

D&D is big enough that it really matters what is on a shelf and how the products appeal to the person that happens to walk or scroll by. What can happen is that the shelf can become confusing and overwhelming.

Hmm, a wise, handsome older gentleman mentioned something similar in a different thread.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't have good data for this, but what I hear and see suggests that D&D isn't achieving its awesome growth on the backs of hardcore invested gamers. Just as 50% of all 5E players are new to the hobby with 5E, I think a lot of purchases are point-of-sale type impulse/interest buys for new and casual players. I suspect that it is a fairly narrow segment (more invested, less casual) that would find itself on D&D Beyond purchasing Planescape vs the far larger group that would purchase the book via a store or online retailer.

D&D is big enough that it really matters what is on a shelf and how the products appeal to the person that happens to walk or scroll by. What can happen is that the shelf can become confusing and overwhelming.

Something I like to do when I travel around the US is look at the gaming shelf in a store (whether big box or local gaming store). I pretend I'm a new gamer. Can I find the products I should buy? Can I easily find this edition and the latest books vs traps? For much of 5E, it was pretty clear. The Starter Set and Essentials were equally great on-ramps, the core books were pretty clear, the adventures were all equally good/bad for new DMs. Now, you might find five Starter Sets (do I start with Rick and Morty?) and you might find an old Mordenkainen's or Volo's vs a Multiverse set. And next year you might get confused between 2024 and 2014. That's where the glut really has an impact, rather than the more narrow issue of releasing 8 books in a year. The shelf glut is a big problem for walk-ups. The 8-in-a-year is a bigger impact for the hardcore gamer (which also can impact the shelf glut).

I absolutely agree with what you are saying here l, for sure. I haven't seen the original or ST/R&M Starter Sets in Target for a while locally, or even the core books, just the Stormreck Isela dn Essentials Kits and a selection of recent Adventure books. So Target seems to be trying to make a purchase easy to understand for a new cuatomer...and not.stock the books being replaced next year already.

I do think that in the 20's D&D' social media account heavily pushing for Beyond on Instagram etc. may be aimed at today's casual purchase by teens and twenty-somethings, however. And they push Beyond and the Bundles hard online. But even assuming the ratios remain the same, as you say in the article this is still a very big departure from the historical crash and burn scenariom

 

[darjr]

I did not know they had a big school program but some quick reading suggests it is pretty extensive. That's pretty awesome. I did not dig deep enough to know whether they are making a special effort to reach less advantages schools (rural areas, inner cities, reservations) but I hope so.

They want to and as far as I know have been trying. Check to be sure but I think it includes free books and access to a paid level account on DnDBeyond for free.

 

[darjr]

To be clear, this isn't my assertion. It's what the data showed very clearly in the original video on the Roll for Combat show, disclosing the BookScan data. They looked at overall sales during the first months of 2023 and could see no drop at all from the OGL. Instead, two very clear spikes upward in sales around the time of the Super Bowl adds and the movie release.

I didn’t realize that about the add buy. I wonder if it was worth it?

A superb owl bear

 

[Parmandur]

To be clear, this isn't my assertion. It's what the data showed very clearly in the original video on the Roll for Combat show, disclosing the BookScan data. They looked at overall sales during the first months of 2023 and could see no drop at all from the OGL. Instead, two very clear spikes upward in sales around the time of the Super Bowl adds and the movie release.

The OGL disaster was enough to get bad press in mainstream outlets and people heard about it...but I think they turned around and corrected their mistake quickly enough and hard enough that it won't have a lasting impact in the zeitgeist, although CC will remain a huge historical landmark for the hobby.