Dragon & Dungeon Magazines - the numbers tell the story
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
Mouseferatu
Hero
Hey, Merric? If the numbers are available, I'd love to see how the success curve matches up with the other editions. IOW, without taking 2007 into account, your numbers suggest that the magazines slowly crept up from the release of 3E, and then began to fall again after a few years. I'd be interested in knowing if a similar pattern held true for 2E and (so far as their lifespans overlapped) 1E.
Whisper72
Explorer
Interesting figures. I would have guessed Dragon sold about three to four times as many issues as Dungeon, but the factor is more like 1,5X.
Would be interesting to know the average # of readers per mag (estimate off course).
In general, seems like a long term relatively stable readership with a peak around 2003 with a steady decline since, but it is as yet unclear whether this would dip below 2000 figures. If the management had been able to effectuate a similar boost now as they did around 2003, perhaps focused around 4th edition, I do not see how these figures tell a tale that the mags were doomed. More like a new rejuvenation in the product life cycle was necessary, which 4e could easily have given.
Personally, as a marketer, these figures, assuming a readership of above 20K for Dungeon and 35K for Dragon means profitability (don't know enough of the cost structure of these mags), mean to me that the mags were not dead by far and that a golden opportunity for renewal was wasted... THAT is the story these figures tell IMHO...
Would be interesting to know the average # of readers per mag (estimate off course).
In general, seems like a long term relatively stable readership with a peak around 2003 with a steady decline since, but it is as yet unclear whether this would dip below 2000 figures. If the management had been able to effectuate a similar boost now as they did around 2003, perhaps focused around 4th edition, I do not see how these figures tell a tale that the mags were doomed. More like a new rejuvenation in the product life cycle was necessary, which 4e could easily have given.
Personally, as a marketer, these figures, assuming a readership of above 20K for Dungeon and 35K for Dragon means profitability (don't know enough of the cost structure of these mags), mean to me that the mags were not dead by far and that a golden opportunity for renewal was wasted... THAT is the story these figures tell IMHO...
Mouseferatu said:
Hey, Ari!
I don't have the numbers for Dungeon magazine, but I have the Dragon CD-ROM Archive, so I could probably find a few interesting numbers on that.
Easier if I had the actual issues, but we'll make do.
(If anyone can look up Dungeon magazine info from its beginning?)
Cheers!
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Which was the year that Paizo took control?
I remember that when Dragon transferred from WotC to Paizo, international subscriptions disappeared as an option (just before I subscribed too!). I don't know whether they ever came back.
I've got no idea what proportion of sales were international ones, and I wonder whether it had a noticeable effect.
edit: a bit of google foo revealed the following
I remember that when Dragon transferred from WotC to Paizo, international subscriptions disappeared as an option (just before I subscribed too!). I don't know whether they ever came back.
I've got no idea what proportion of sales were international ones, and I wonder whether it had a noticeable effect.
edit: a bit of google foo revealed the following
RPGnet said:
Doug McCrae
Legend
late 2002Plane Sailing said:
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
A modified version of the distribution figures, recalculated for 'average year'. The columns I've added are 'number of months', 'distribution per month' and ''avg distribution over 12 months'. For the sake of the calculation I've assumed Oct 2005
Subsequently removed because I'm a doofus and didn't read MerricB's initial post closely enough - the figures are average per month, not annual totals. Doh!
Subsequently removed because I'm a doofus and didn't read MerricB's initial post closely enough - the figures are average per month, not annual totals. Doh!
Last edited:
ephemeron
Explorer
Sounds like WotC expected more people to mail in the Dungeon and Dragon subscription cards from the backs of the 3e core books than actually did.MerricB said:It should be noted that in 2000 and 2001, Dungeon produced a lot of copies that were marked as "not distributed" - in 2000, 41,145 copies were made, of which 17,372 were "Copies Not Distributed". Whatever that means!
