Darksun TSR sales! From Benjamin Riggs.

[Mannahnin]

The D&D hobby as a whole was suffering as a whole in the 1990s. All sales for all products take a massive hit in the 1990s because the company itself was failing, and dragging everything down with it. If TS&R could have held the line and managed this loss better, maybe all of these graphs for all campaign settings would be higher, and some might look more successful than others. But that's not what happened.

I think you've got the causal relationship a bit backwards here. I think TSR sank in large part because demand for their products failed. The most direct event that caused their bankruptcy was product returns and Random House demanding repayment, but the reason TSR couldn't repay them was that their revenue wasn't covering their costs, and they were papering it over with cash advances from Random House for books that gradually undersold. Some of it was genuine mismanagement like selling boxed sets whose production costs were actually higher than the price TSR sold them to distributors at. But fundamentally people just weren't buying TSR's stuff in sufficient quantities anymore; even products which were notably underpriced.

I know that a lot of people want to hate Wizards of the Coast for various reasons, but for better or worse, WotC saved D&D. It was in very real danger of fading away into obscurity in the late 90s, and they brought it back to the fore. I understand that this research is focused primarily on TSR, but someday I'd love to see the sales graph stretched out to year 2020. I'd wager that 3E outsold all of these, combined.

No argument that WotC saved D&D. I am curious about 3E, and I'm sure it sold well. Those hardcovers packed with new content were mighty attractive, especially at that initial $20 price point!

But I'm less convinced that they really outsold the AD&D and D&D lines during the fad days. of '79-'84ish. We still haven't even seen sales figures from outside North America, and during the fad period TSR UK Ltd. was a whole subsidiary, distributing books to Europe, and the first couple (at least) BECMI sets were translated into many languages and were the origin point of D&D for a lot of folks in other countries.

 

[darjr]

wasn’t basic the reigning champion until maybe 5e?

 

[CleverNickName]

wasn’t basic the reigning champion until maybe 5e?

I'm not sure. The folks at ICv2 ran an article back in 2002 about the 3E rulebooks having sold over a million copies by August of 2000. If those numbers are correct, 3E D&D outsold all other editions to date, in just the first few months of its release.

Over 1 Million D&D 3E Rulebooks Sold

LOTR Expands Interest in Fantasy Genre

icv2.com

 

[Jer]

I'm not so sure. The folks at ICv2 ran an article back in 2002 about the 3E rulebooks having sold over a million copies. If those numbers are correct, 3E D&D outsold all other editions to date.

Over 1 Million D&D 3E Rulebooks Sold

LOTR Expands Interest in Fantasy Genre

icv2.com

That's if you add together PHB, DMG and MM for 3e though - the article said that they were roughly 300K each at that point. According to the numbers posted the lifetime sales on the 1e PHB was 1.5M by itself, the DMG was 1.3M, and the lifetime sales on the Basic set (admittedly across all iterations of the basic set) was 3.5M. The 2e PHB combined sales (original and revised) was almost 1M for just the one book. So it would kind of depend on what the 3e and 3.5e sales were like from 2002 through the release of 4e in 2008 to see if they peaked over the 1e sales.

 

[Mannahnin]

That's if you add together PHB, DMG and MM for 3e though - the article said that they were roughly 300K each at that point. According to the numbers posted the lifetime sales on the 1e PHB was 1.5M by itself, the DMG was 1.3M, and the lifetime sales on the Basic set (admittedly across all iterations of the basic set) was 3.5M. The 2e PHB combined sales (original and revised) was almost 1M for just the one book. So it would kind of depend on what the 3e and 3.5e sales were like from 2002 through the release of 4e in 2008 to see if they peaked over the 1e sales.

Yup. And Ben didn't count the original Monster Manual.

 

[CleverNickName]

Yup. And Ben didn't count the original Monster Manual.

He did count the Basic boxed set, however. I was responding to @darjr 's comment about the Red Box Basic being the best-selling edition until 5E. The red box set had all of the core books at the time (two books; there wasn't a such thing as a Monster Manual in Basic D&D.)

Fair point about 1E sales not including the MM. I'm not sure how much it would skew the sales to add those values in, but my gut says it's somewhere between +30% and +50%. (Full disclosure: my gut is a liar.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

He did count the Basic boxed set, however. I was responding to @darjr 's comment about the Red Box Basic being the best-selling edition until 5E. The red box set had all of the core books at the time (two books; there wasn't a such thing as a Monster Manual in Basic D&D.)

He didn't count sales outside of North America. Which, IIRC, would add a decent amount.

 

[CleverNickName]

He didn't count sales outside of North America. Which, IIRC, would add a decent amount.

Agreed; it's hard to find data that will compare apples to apples. @Mannahnin points out that the number of books that are being counted don't exactly match. You point out that the sales only include North America. And from what I can tell, that "one million copies sold" article only includes sales through the month of August, which is just the first 8 months of its release.

I couldn't find any data for the entire first year of 3E's run, but it's certainly going to be higher than a million. Including the sales of the 1E MM would certainly give higher sales numbers too. And including the sales outside of North America would also give higher numbers across the board. I would love to see all of the data from all of the angles, but I doubt that will happen.

All I'm saying is, I have found at least some evidence to suggest that 3E was actually the best-selling edition of the game as of August 2000.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Agreed; it's hard to find data that will compare apples to apples. @Mannahnin points out that the number of books that are being counted don't exactly match. You point out that the sales only include North America. And from what I can tell, that "one million copies sold" article only includes sales through the month of August, which is just the first 8 months of its release.

I couldn't find any data for the entire first year of 3E's run, but it's certainly going to be higher than a million. Including the sales of the 1E MM would certainly give higher sales numbers too. And including the sales outside of North America would also give higher numbers across the board. I would love to see all of the data from all of the angles, but I doubt that will happen.

All I'm saying is, I have found at least some evidence to suggest that 3E was actually the best-selling edition of the game as of August 2000.

Well, maybe? Except the Monster Manual (1e) was being sold way back in 1977! And it was always a big seller.

...and we know that for most rules books, there is a peak the first year, and then a drop off after that.

I mean ... it's weird, right? That we still don't know so much about basic things like sales of the various editions? Even this article is, technically, just an announcement from Wizards- and for all we know, they are counting "sales" as going into distribution, not the end-sale. Who knows?

Not to mention if we were really being picky, we'd have to recognize that America gained 60 million people between 1980 and 2000. So, like inflation, we'd have to adjust for that.

I'd love to have someone with all the figures doing a deep dive. My impression is that the "Golden Age" was 1980-1983, there was a second mini boom (a silver age?) when 3e was released, and we are now experiencing a long Platinum Age of sales.

But that's just a gut feeling- and my gut is often wrong too!

 

[Jer]

I mean ... it's weird, right? That we still don't know so much about basic things like sales of the various editions? Even this article is, technically, just an announcement from Wizards- and for all we know, they are counting "sales" as going into distribution, not the end-sale. Who knows?

I'm fairly certain that the numbers that Ben Riggs is posting are also distribution sales, not end-sale numbers. What TSR would care about would be booking the sales they made direct to retailers, sales through their own Hobby Shop storefront, and to distributors. I don't think TSR would have had any way of tracking sell-through at point of sale other than by looking at what stock was returned to them.