Darksun TSR sales! From Benjamin Riggs.

[darjr]

Actual! Dark Sun! Sales numbers!

Dark Sun follows the same pattern we’ve seen with so many other AD&D 2nd edition settings. The first release sells best, sales decline and then fall off a cliff. Follow-up releases fail to do as well as initial releases and then sputter out as well.

Here you will also find a chart comparing Dark Sun’s cumulative setting sales to the other AD&D settings we’ve already discussed. For those of you keeping score at home, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms are the only settings to sell more than 200,000 copies over their lifetimes.

Tomorrow, we will finish our discussion of settings sales with a grand sweep of the company’s remaining settings: Planescape, Al-Qadim, Birthright, Red Steel, Karameikos, etc.

Have you preordered my book on D&D history, Slaying the Dragon, yet? If you preorder now, you get a free Jeff Easley bookplate! This offer ends in a mere six days, so take advantage of it now! Link below!

Also, in comments below are snips of the actual data used to generate the charts.

Preorder here! Slaying the Dragon - Macmillan

 

[el-remmen]

All these stats in the various threads on this have confirmed one thing for me: Our hobby has long been even more niche than I already imagined it was.

 

[grimslade]

So Core Setting releases, do they contain the hardback setting books as well? Or just the box sets?
The Dark Sun nimbers feel about right. We played the heck out of DarkSun in my group but I was the only one to buy the box. Same with Spelljammer, but I knew of no other groups around me running SJ, at least DS had buzz.

Edit: Just saw the Fr and Spelljammer thread. The hardback is included along with the revised.

 

[Parmandur]

So Core Setting releases, do they contain the hardback setting books as well? Or just the box sets?
The Dark Sun nimbers feel about right. We played the heck out of DarkSun in my group but I was the only one to buy the box. Same with Spelljammer, but I knew of no other groups around me running SJ, at least DS had buzz.

Edit: Just saw the Fr and Spelljammer thread. The hardback is included along with the revised.

These are combining core Setting products, whether box sets or the Adventures hardcovers.

While I think time has shown some flaws in Ryan Dancwy's analysis, his takeaway that TSR was cannibalizing their own products makes sense looking st this data. The harder TSR pushed Settings, the worse they all sold.

 

[aco175]

I still do not get the big push for Dark Sun and Spelljammer among players. The numbers show it but there is still those 100% in for the new one to come out. In 30 years I'd be interested to see the new numbers for the books coming out. Hopefully I'm still around in 30 years.

 

[Retreater]

I still do not get the big push for Dark Sun and Spelljammer among players. The numbers show it but there is still those 100% in for the new one to come out. In 30 years I'd be interested to see the new numbers for the books coming out. Hopefully I'm still around in 30 years.

For me, it's because Greyhawk/Forgotten Realms/etc. are all pretty much played out. Even back in the 1990s I wasn't especially interested in basic fantasy worlds. The creativity of settings like Dark Sun were much more interesting to me.

 

[Jer]

I still do not get the big push for Dark Sun and Spelljammer among players. The numbers show it but there is still those 100% in for the new one to come out. In 30 years I'd be interested to see the new numbers for the books coming out. Hopefully I'm still around in 30 years.

For me it's kind of the same desire I get out of watching Marvel movies. It's the same kind of taking of a niche idea that spoke to a small subset of nerds in my youth and figuring out how to make it work now. It's impressive and fun when they pull it off.

These numbers do expose why they're not too terribly afraid of making changes to old settings when they bring them back though. And why they weren't champing at the bit to re-release these settings for 3e or 4e. I'd love to know how many copies VRGtR has sold and how it compares to the lifetime sales of the 2e Ravenloft core products.

 

[Malmuria]

I still do not get the big push for Dark Sun and Spelljammer among players. The numbers show it but there is still those 100% in for the new one to come out. In 30 years I'd be interested to see the new numbers for the books coming out. Hopefully I'm still around in 30 years.

in 30 years we’ll be living in Dark Sun

 

[overgeeked]

That’s wild. Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Al-Qadim, Ravenloft, and Mystara/Known World are my favorite D&D settings.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Spelljammer sold the least and thats the setting WotC has gone with next.

Obviously after that Starfinder money.