D&D 5E (2014) Are you going to buy the 5e Core Books?

[Kursk]

An older Poll on percentage of users that bought the 4e books, for comparison...

And one concerning the intent of people to buy 4e

Yep. "Fool me once ..."

 

[Kinak]

An older Poll on percentage of users that bought the 4e books, for comparison...

And one concerning the intent of people to buy 4e

Thanks for digging those up, it's nice to have the comparison.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Wicht]

I'll wait for a few days before commenting on the comparison between this poll and the others but one thing I notice about the other two polls I linked to is that if we take the numbers at face value, almost nobody who is a "might eventually,..." buyer seems to actually buy the books. I recognize that some of the "wait and see" crowd probably didn't and that some of the "might eventually" likely did re. 4e, but they also seem to be something of a wash. Which means that lower initial enthusiasm does equate, in some measure to lower sales (a not unreasonable proposition; actually fairly predictable), which means that a company that wants high sales does well to build expectations as much as possible before the sale, because chances are good you don't get too many additional chances to make a good first impression.

Nothing too original in those observations, but sometimes basic sales principles are good to remind oneself of, as too often fans seem to think that their company of choice might be the exception to the rules others have to run a business by.

 

[Mistwell]

I'll wait for a few days before commenting on the comparison between this poll and the others but one thing I notice about the other two polls I linked to is that if we take the numbers at face value, almost nobody who is a "might eventually,..." buyer seems to actually buy the books. I recognize that some of the "wait and see" crowd probably didn't and that some of the "might eventually" likely did re. 4e, but they also seem to be something of a wash. Which means that lower initial enthusiasm does equate, in some measure to lower sales (a not unreasonable proposition; actually fairly predictable), which means that a company that wants high sales does well to build expectations as much as possible before the sale, because chances are good you don't get too many additional chances to make a good first impression.

Nothing too original in those observations, but sometimes basic sales principles are good to remind oneself of, as too often fans seem to think that their company of choice might be the exception to the rules others have to run a business by.

Reports from WOTC were that the initial sales of 4e were stronger than the initial sales of 3.0e or 3.5e. So the problem with 4e was sustainability of sales longer term.

This new poll has a "maybe" selection, which was not in the prior polls. If you add the probably and yes to about half the maybe (and the other half to the negative), you're getting almost identical "positives" to the 4e positives, and identical "negatives" to the 4e negatives, before it came out.

So, this tells me initial sales of 5e will be strong, stronger than initial sales of 3.0e and 3.5e, and about the same as initial sales of 4e. The question again will be one of sustainability.

That is, of course, if such a small sample from such a select group is representative of anything...which it might not be.

The other missing factor is, apparently, Hasbro intends a massive marketing campaign and related licensing for D&D that they have not done in decades. That could make all this a non-issue, as the quantity of completely lapsed AD&D players is likely greater than the total sum of all current players of all versions of the game (based on the old 1999 survey reports), and then the body of potential new gamers is extremely large. Now I have no idea the extent of those marketing plans and if they will come about and bear fruit, but those factors could well be far more important to the success or failure of the game than all the existing gamers.

 

[Kursk]

So, this tells me initial sales of 5e will be strong, stronger than initial sales of 3.0e and 3.5e, and about the same as initial sales of 4e. The question again will be one of sustainability.

That is, of course, if such a small sample from such a select group is representative of anything...which it might not be.

One HUGE problem here. There is no objective definition of "initial". When dealing with these types of statistics, accurate measurement standards are essential.

 

[Wicht]

Mistwell, I take the 4e sales "figures" compared to 3e with a little grain of salt, as, without seeing actual numbers and dates, its hard to derive any hard conclusions and I am, shall we say, mildly skeptical that 4e was more popular than 3e out the gate. But that's an old debate and one nobody can win without actual figures.

I am still going to wait for more respondents before really commenting, but the trend does seem consistent at this point...

 

[Kursk]

Mistwell, I take the 4e sales "figures" compared to 3e with a little grain of salt, as, without seeing actual numbers and dates, its hard to derive any hard conclusions and I am, shall we say, mildly skeptical that 4e was more popular than 3e out the gate.

I DO know a beancounter in Delaware. WotC saw its long term RPG sales greatly decline with 4.X over 3.X. Hence, 5.x being rushed into production sooner than anticipated.

 

[Mercurius]

If it were out now or coming out soon, I'd vote Absolutely. But seeing as we don't know when it will come out - whether in 2014 (likely?) or 2015 (less likely, but still very possible) - I voted Probably, because I just can't predict where I"ll be in 1-2 years with regards to RPGs. Even if I'm not playing I'll probably still buy the books, but you never know. I guess I'm somewhere between Probably and Absolutely.

 

[GreyLord]

I'm still on the fence. I agree that if they could draw in new blood and even a fraction of the lapsed AD&D players...it would outsell 3e, 4e, and maybe PF sales combined...

BUT....

How in heck would they pull that off.

Thus far, 5e actually does NOT bear enough similarities to older AD&D or D&D to really draw them in for the lapsed players, so you'd have to try a campaign where you fool them into buying (which as we saw with the 4e Starter/Basic redbox set...doesn't work as well as intentioned at times, these guys are smarter then you guys think).

In addition, you're trying to ply on their nostalgia...which while powerful...can also be a hard thing to wake (sure, we have the guys that saw GI JOE and Transformers movies due to their youth...but then you also have flops based off franchises from the past as well).

Which leave new blood...that may or may not work. We'll see what they come up for an advertising campaign.

As it stands now, I think we'll have a surge of people buy the core books, mainly the players now, and some PF players and maybe a few hobbyists. Sales will initially be strong...but after the core I think the old school and PF folks will stick with their games for the most part. I think we'll see more of the old school folks actually play 5e with most of PF being a loss at this point. The 3e players that did not switch to PF, I think we'll get a good chunk of those, and probably 50 - 60% of the current 4e players.

Anything past that will probably depend on the advertising campaign...and much of that will be in regards to new blood. This is a delicate balance. I'd push for a TV and internet search engine/tube campaign in the range of up to tens of millions perhaps...but that is a MASSIVE gamble. You're spending just as much if not more than you expect in the initial sales at this point to try to advertise in that way...which means if you DON'T get the massive new blood input, you've just spent an ad campaign that will sink your product in and of itself alone (in otherwords, the cost of advertising is so much, that even without any other factors, it causes a negative on the product profits).

On the otherhand, a successful one could revitalize D&D. My guess is they will vote against the TV and massive campaign...and go with the softer campaigns to an installed base...in which case I think the sales will follow very similar lines to what I outlined above in regards to core sales and who will stick with it after that.

That's not a great sales line to follow though...and unless we have hardcore followers that buy everything (not really happened with most products in D&D, though I think 3e FR folks may have been the closest to that), I'm thinking this is not a great foreboding for the product line.

However, we'll wait and see what the current managers of the brand come up with in promotions and the end sales results I suppose in regards to D&D next as it's still a while to go and nothing's been written yet.

 

[Jester David]

Mistwell, I take the 4e sales "figures" compared to 3e with a little grain of salt, as, without seeing actual numbers and dates, its hard to derive any hard conclusions and I am, shall we say, mildly skeptical that 4e was more popular than 3e out the gate. But that's an old debate and one nobody can win without actual figures.

I am still going to wait for more respondents before really commenting, but the trend does seem consistent at this point...

I'm skeptical as well, but 3e had a very large following. And more people likely knew the books were coming and when, thanks to the wonders of the internet.
3e likely had a slower build, as people slowly heard of the new edition over time. I was on the internet back in 2000 and discovered 3e by total accident on a comic buying trip. And as 2e had been "dead" for so long and producing such irregular and niche content.

I can imagine a large number of people who bought the 4e books right out of the gate sight unseen. There might have been sizable preorders, either in stores or places like Amazon. The first six months of PHB and Core book sales could easily have been much larger for 4e than 3e.
Sales were supposedly strong for all of 2008. Not as strong as 3e but still strong. So there was the initial spike that dropped off as people decided not to keep buying. This decline likely continued once the character builder was released and people realized they could pay $7 and get the complete content of a $40 book. And the Pathfinder came out and people had another choice.