Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8716229" data-attributes="member: 7023840">That's what I meant. I've known for some time (through rumor and through observation) that Basic did really well in sales, but this is where I am going to differ ... from the OP-Despite the fact that the graph is biased towards AD&D, I believe it still shows the phenomenal strength of D&D.Some observations.+D&D peaked, then AD&D peaked. Did D&D act as an entry point for AD&D?+D&D’s best year was 1981 when it sold 1,039,913 units. AD&D’s best year was 1983, when it sold 1,031,200 units. It’s interesting that in their best years they sold so nearly the same amount of product. Was that a sort of ceiling for the game at the time?The issue I am having is that the speculation seems to be that these numbers (which, again, I am grateful to see) can be used to determine the "strength of D&D" relative to AD&D. I don't think that's fully accurate. In other words ... there are two possibilities-A. These numbers are capturing a vast amount of D&D play that occured during the '80s; orB. These numbers reflect sales (which are good!) but for various reasons are overstating the amount of D&D (as opposed to AD&D) play in the 80s.I lean heavily into camp B, and I think that this is supported not just by recollection, but also by contemporaneous evidence- the number of games at conventions. The amount of 3PP designed for the systems. The number of articles in Dragon (and other magazines) supporting play. And so on. I could be wrong, but I also think that the resurgence of OSR has led people to re-evaluate B/X (which is good!) but also to over-estimate the actual importance of those systems to play in the 80s. </blockquote>

Verification