Dragon & Dungeon Magazines - the numbers tell the story

[Rauol_Duke]

Was Paizo a failing business, to judge by the rate of decline in these numbers, rescued from failure in a few years by Wotc's decision to take back the magazines now and put them online?

Was WotC a failing business for experiencing the same decline in sales after 3.5?

I think it's unfair to judge Paizo's success or lack thereof based on the numbers cited above when James and Erik have both posted in this thread that they are but one aspect of the business and not fully indicative of the profitability of the company. Paizo, after all, offers a multitute of products and have continued to (both before the announcement of the end of their license with WotC and after) provide new, exciting RPG and gaming-related products to the market.

 

[MerricB]

These numbers tell an interesting story, but as James said they are only part of the story and they don't accurately reflect profitability.

This is really, really important (take note GVD) - although the numbers might have been going down, the profitability of the magazines was pretty good.

Certainly in 2000, if the numbers I have are accurate, about 50% more magazines than I list above were printed... and not even distributed! So, that's a lot of waste.

What I don't know is how many of the distributed magazines then got "returned" by newstands - one of the horrible things about the business.

Cheers!

 

[tenkar]

I think the larger picture of Paizo is being missed if you think that the magazines were all the company produced and is it's only stream of income. I consider Paizo my FLGS

 

[Shroomy]

The NPR show "Marketplace" had a segment on magazines during their 10-4-2007 PM show. It may be relevant to this discussion and paints a bleak picture of the magazine business IMO:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/04/magazines/

 

[MerricB]

The NPR show "Marketplace" had a segment on magazines during their 10-4-2007 PM show. It may be relevant to this discussion and paints a bleak picture of the magazine business IMO:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/10/04/magazines/

Thanks for the link!

Scott Rouse posted back a couple of months ago that one of the Disney magazines - a magazine with 1,000,000 subscribers - has been cancelled.

Incredible.

Cheers!

 

[Imaro]

Which was the year that Paizo took control?

I believe the first issue published by Paizo was september 2002

On continued reflection, these numbers present me with some puzzlements when I note statements by Paizo folks, post-2003, that they were doing "great" and that circulation was trending "up." Really? Where is that in these numbers? For either Dungeon or Dragon? I don't want to cast aspersions on anyone at Paizo but I'm not understanding something.

Well I don't know about the "trending up" part (do you have a quote), But I do remeber them saying the magazine's were still profitable. This might be further expounded upon by looking more closely at the numbers. WotC published 3rd edition in 2000 and even with a popular and brand new game Dungeon was at an all time low. It began to increase but still wasn't increasing greatly. Paizo takes over at the end of 2002 and 3.5 is released in 2003. Now one could say the magazine spiked off 3.5 mania...but then why didn't we see as large or an even larger spike with 3.0?

The second factor is that even after three years of publishing, Paizo is selling an average of about 9,000 more magazine's per month than Wizard's was three years prior to their takeover. This leads me to believe that it wasn't just 3.5 that helped the magazine but also the actual company publishing it.

The real question is at what level of sales would the magazine have evened out at or, even more likely, what would the spike for 4e done for sales. In the end Paizo didn't let it slip back to the numbers WotC had.

Dungeon has also been called the "common experience" in terms of adventures for 3x. Maybe that is so, even with these numbers, but that "common" is less common that might have been imagined it seems.

I wonder what the average monthly sales of adventures are for WotC...IMHO this would be the only way to even begin to compare whether Dungeon was the "common experience" or not. But since WotC doesn't release those numbers we'll never know. I do seriously doubt they were outselling Paizo's Dungeon on a monthly basis with their adventures.

Also called into fair question, I think, is the idea that Paizo has its "finger on the pulse" of what gamers want, perhaps moreso than Wotc. I'm not saying Paizo ever claimed such but I have seen and heard the argument. Was Paizo a failing business, to judge by the rate of decline in these numbers, rescued from failure in a few years by Wotc's decision to take back the magazines now and put them online?

Doubt if it was rescued from failure. More like Paizo made it a worthwhile investment again and WotC found a way to reduce their own costs to maximize profit. I also think alot of it, along with other licenses being pulled has more than a little bit to do with announcing 4e. The month 3.5 came out saw a jump of almost 12,000 more magazine's being sold per month than the previous year.

Moving on, can Wotc expect Dragon and Dungeon content, imagining it will remain similar to the print products, to really be an attraction for D&D Insider? And if they say it will can that statement be given anymore credence than Paizo's statements that they were doing "great" and trending "up" with the magazines, even while the numbers Merric has posted show a declining trend?

Again doing great for Paizo is probably magnitudes lower than for Hasbro/WotC. I personally don't think WotC cares enough about either Dragon or Dungeon (insofar as standalone products) to reach the quality or care that paizo did. They don't have to. If you want the VTT, or the Character Generator, or anything else in the DI you will have to subscribe to Dragon & Dungeon regardless. I think it is more so serving as another minor perk for people on the DI subscription, and the articles they've posted so far just reaffirm that opinion in my mind.

 

[Glyfair]

This leads me to believe that it wasn't just 3.5 that helped the magazine but also the actual company publishing it.

Interesting since the people behind Paizo were working on the magazines before the split.

One of the things that I think helped Paizo's run with the magazines (especially Dungeon) was Erik Mona's level of Greyhawk "Grognardism." The Greyhawk fans recognized his love of the setting and flocked to the magazines to see what he'd manage to slip in. It wasn't the only thing, or even the biggest thing, but I think it helped.

 

[Rauol_Duke]

One of the things that I think helped Paizo's run with the magazines (especially Dungeon) was Erik Mona's level of Greyhawk "Grognardism."

Agreed. Erik has said a few times before that the issues with a "nod to the old school" (i.e. Maure Castle) were always the best sellers in their tenure.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Agreed. Erik has said a few times before that the issues with a "nod to the old school" (i.e. Maure Castle) were always the best sellers in their tenure.

You know...

This is pure speculation on my part. But I wonder if that fact at all suggests that the regular consumers of the magazines were older than

A) The average gamer age, and/or

B) The target gamer age.

If either of the above is true, it's possible that WotC market data suggests that such products, even if currently profitable, aren't conducive to a long-term goal of brand-building.

Again, just spitballing, but I think it's an interesting idea to consider. Even when looking purely at financially-driven decisions, there are factors other than pure profitability to consider.

(BTW, none of this is meant to be disparaging. I myself loved the magazine under Erik's tenure, including the frequent Greyhawk nods.)

 

[Mouseferatu]

Moving on, can Wotc expect Dragon and Dungeon content, imagining it will remain similar to the print products, to really be an attraction for D&D Insider? And if they say it will can that statement be given anymore credence than Paizo's statements that they were doing "great" and trending "up" with the magazines, even while the numbers Merric has posted show a declining trend?

WotC's expectations of how the magazines perform as part of the DI are, and should be, quite different than their own, or Paizo's, expectations of how they performed as print periodicals.

As part of the DI, they're just that: part of something. They're only one of several draws for subscribers, and don't need to shoulder the burden alone. Heck, the magazines might even work as a "loss leader," if they attract enough people who then decide to stick with the DI for other reasons.

Secondly, they've a lower overhead. While the costs of writing, art, and editing are the same, they don't cost anything for print or distribution*. This means that the level of sales required to be considered profitable is entirely different.

*(Of course, they also don't draw in advertising dollars. I don't know how those factors equal out. For all I know, it's a wash, which totally invalidates my second point. But I'm guessing it's not.)