D&D General Ben Riggs interviews Fred Hicks and Cam Banks, then shares WotC sales data.

[FitzTheRuke]

Somewhere someone at WotC posted it sold more in its first months than the first year of 2014, or something like that.

I think we can conclude that the initial print runs, which they said were so large that they couldn't print all 3 books at once (which lead to MM24 coming out in 2025), consisted of more copies than existed of the same 2014 books until 2016.

And I can attest that they did NOT meet initial demand. I would not be surprised to learn that they sent an order to reprint the PHB24 before the MM had finished printing, and it had to wait!

Further, they may have even shortened the MM's run to cram in a run of PHBs, which would explain why there was only a brief window where supplies of PHBs were low, but a slightly longer (and more surprising) window where MM were hard to source.

I am basing this on personal experience, what I read, what I saw. It's possible that there were regional shortages or shipping issues that explain things differently. But I think that this picture can't be far from correct.

 

[Scribe]

Somewhere someone at WotC posted it sold more in its first months than the first year of 2014, or something like that.

Which again, makes total sense since D&D was effectively dead near 5e release, and the exposure, market size, and existing user base at 5.5 release was orders of magnitude larger.

It SHOULD have outsold 5e dramatically to the point that Hasbro would trumpet the numbers, hard numbers, or following earnings calls.

Weird they didn't...

 

[darjr]

Which again, makes total sense since D&D was effectively dead near 5e release, and the exposure, market size, and existing user base at 5.5 release was orders of magnitude larger.

It SHOULD have outsold 5e dramatically to the point that Hasbro would trumpet the numbers, hard numbers, or following earnings calls.

Weird they didn't...

Oh how soon people forget.

5e sold so well in 2014 that WotC sold out of years (a year?) of PHBs in months. They stopped the printing of the DMG so they could emergency print mor PHBs. They thought something was wrong.

It is true that those sales, as amazing as they were, are probably a fraction of what 2019 were, in fact Ben shows that too.

It wasn’t nothing. It was so many more books than they expected

 

[darjr]

I think we can conclude that the initial print runs, which they said were so large that they couldn't print all 3 books at once (which lead to MM24 coming out in 2025), consisted of more copies than existed of the same 2014 books until 2016.

And I can attest that they did NOT meet initial demand. I would not be surprised to learn that they sent an order to reprint the PHB24 before the MM had finished printing, and it had to wait!

Further, they may have even shortened the MM's run to cram in a run of PHBs, which would explain why there was only a brief window where supplies of PHBs were low, but a slightly longer (and more surprising) window where MM were hard to source.

I am basing this on personal experience, what I read, what I saw. It's possible that there were regional shortages or shipping issues that explain things differently. But I think that this picture can't be far from correct.

I’ve heard similar things from other stores in other regions.

 

[Parmandur]

It feels weird that in less than 10 posts this thread turned into a defense of 2024 D&D, instead of discussing the ramp in popularity (and profit) of 2014 D&D and the things that might have influenced that.

That was a pretty simple reaction to the untouched claim of 5E having peaked.

I think the most interesting bit is how most of that growth is in the actual game as opposed to also with all the side stuff. I wonder if that is what fueled the discussions about monetization of the brand.

No doubt, thwt monetization quote got really twisted out of context: thwt was pretty clearly about D&D as lifestyle branding not being taken full advantage of by Hasbro...and they have been getting better at that.

But if that were the case, why was there never a real push to get the novel market back (fort example)?

In 2013, the novels made about $5.6 million with a bunch of intenral overhead (editors, logistics, etc.). In 2019, with one new novel and a couple new Endless Quest books and no internal overhead (all three books wer licensed out) they made $2 million. And since 2020, there have been 21 new D&D fictio books, so they are definitely taking advantage...just letting professional publishers assume the overhead.

 

[Parmandur]

Somewhere someone at WotC posted it sold more in its first months than the first year of 2014, or something like that.

First month of new PHB > first 2 full years of the 2014 PHB.

 

[darjr]

First month of new PHB > first 2 full years of the 2014 PHB.

Thanks! Where is that from again?

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks! Where is that from again?

“The English language version of the 2024 Player's Handbook alone achieved in just one month what took nearly two years for the 2014 edition across all language versions available in that timeframe,” she [Jess Lanzillo] said in a recent video interview. Suffice it to say, therefore, that the new rules are plenty popular, so much so that Wizards has already ordered a second printing."

“This is a huge, kind of unprecedented print run for us,” she added. “I felt that we had aggressively planned for player demand, and the player demand has exceeded it.”

Wizards of the Coast says it ordered a whole bunch of copies of the Player’s Handbook to meet demand

Compared to 2014, Wizards ordered three times as many copies in the initial run — then ordered even more

www.polygon.com

And from 23 months into the publication of the 2014 PHB:

I mean, long term, will the 2024 books outsell the 2024 books? Maybe, maybe not. I think Hasbro cares more about how many people use D&D Beyond on a regular basis, considering that is what they continue to focus on in reporting on D&D's progress, since users are what lead to that sweet, sweet monetization in the longrun.

 

[Reynard]

First month of new PHB > first 2 full years of the 2014 PHB.

This is an interesting factoid, but hardly surprising considering how many player D&D 2014 added to the pool, and kind of beside the point.

I mean, I understand that EVERY thread even slightly smelling of sales data must immediately become a battleground between people that believe it is a failed edition and that it is proof of 5E's immortality. I just find that the most boring of all possible discussions on the topic of D&D.

Anyway, I would love to see a chart by quarters and try and map it to things that happened adjacent to D&D. It would be fun to see what kind of "lead time" Stranger Things and Critical Role had ahead of the surge(s). And maybe see if there were other, less widely talked about, influences.

In other words, as usual all the fun data is hidden from view.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh how soon people forget.

5e sold so well in 2014 that WotC sold out of years (a year?) of PHBs in months. They stopped the printing of the DMG so they could emergency print mor PHBs. They thought something was wrong.

It is true that those sales, as amazing as they were, are probably a fraction of what 2019 were, in fact Ben shows that too.

It wasn’t nothing. It was so many more books than they expected

We dont know how big that print runs was.

A reve ue figure was mentioned early iirc.

Took a couple of years to ramp up the exploded.

WotC has also claimed sales peaked in covid iirc.

We already knew the game exploded around 2017. I remember WotC saying it hit 50 million and over 100 million and iirc 160 odd.

ENworlds odd. None of this is new information if you've been paying attention.

Its WotC obfuscation and language they use and lack of hard numbers that's causing it imho.

It boils down to 5E doing well and a good launch of 5.5. We already knew that