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*Dungeons & Dragons
D&D Has the Biggest Playerbase, So Why is it the Hardest for 3rd Party to Market Too?
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<blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 7422402" data-attributes="member: 22424"><p>WotC estimate that they have 12-15M D&D players in NA. They haven't told us how many PHBs have been sold, but it's <em>probably</em> somewhere between 1 and 2 million by now. The majority of people who play D&D buy <em>nothing</em> for the game.</p><p></p><p>Further, we know that WotC's target is for each of their supplements to sell in excess of 100k units. Even amongst those who do buy the PHB only a minority then go on to buy anything else.</p><p></p><p>So you're selling to a small fraction of a small fraction of that player base, and that's <em>before</em> you move beyond WotC's own material.</p><p></p><p>I'm also inclined to note that I, for one, have become very burnt out on buying lots of material for the game - I have many shelves of third-party material for 3e that is almost entirely worthless, and much of which was <em>never</em> of any use to me. (And, frankly, that's also true of my many other shelves of <em>first</em>-party material for 2nd and 3rd editions.) There are some real gems amongst them, but they're very much the exception. My wallet, my shelves, and my back are all rather thankful that there's no longer the same 'need' to buy deeply.</p><p></p><p>(Which puts me in an odd position, because I also actively <em>want</em> more material from WotC. But it's not just a case of wanting <em>more</em> - I'm looking for support for some specific settings and subsystems. But I digress.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="delericho, post: 7422402, member: 22424"] WotC estimate that they have 12-15M D&D players in NA. They haven't told us how many PHBs have been sold, but it's [i]probably[/i] somewhere between 1 and 2 million by now. The majority of people who play D&D buy [i]nothing[/i] for the game. Further, we know that WotC's target is for each of their supplements to sell in excess of 100k units. Even amongst those who do buy the PHB only a minority then go on to buy anything else. So you're selling to a small fraction of a small fraction of that player base, and that's [i]before[/i] you move beyond WotC's own material. I'm also inclined to note that I, for one, have become very burnt out on buying lots of material for the game - I have many shelves of third-party material for 3e that is almost entirely worthless, and much of which was [i]never[/i] of any use to me. (And, frankly, that's also true of my many other shelves of [i]first[/i]-party material for 2nd and 3rd editions.) There are some real gems amongst them, but they're very much the exception. My wallet, my shelves, and my back are all rather thankful that there's no longer the same 'need' to buy deeply. (Which puts me in an odd position, because I also actively [i]want[/i] more material from WotC. But it's not just a case of wanting [i]more[/i] - I'm looking for support for some specific settings and subsystems. But I digress.) [/QUOTE]
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