Dragonlance and Manual of the planes sales, from Ben Riggs

[Jer]

An interesting point of comparison would be a chart on RPG sales in general. it might give some insight into whether it was Vampire biting into D&D sales, or if all RPGs were down effectively equally because of CCGs or other factors.

Yes. I think if we had those kinds of numbers we'd have a better idea of the whole story. The only way I could imagine getting anything like that though is if someone had an in with the Diamond/Alliance numbers (and even then only if Alliance still had the numbers post-merger since IIRC they were formed after Wizards acquired TSR).

Anecdotally when TSR went under in '97 the two local game store owners I would chat with were sure that was the end of RPGs in general because D&D was back to being their biggest RPG seller after Vampire had taken off for a while and then settled back down. They were making their money mostly off of CCGs (mostly Magic), with one of the stores also apparently making more off of Warhammer than RPGs (though Magic was his big cash cow). Local anecdote is never a good substitute for data, so I'd really like to see the numbers.

 

[Reynard]

Yes. I think if we had those kinds of numbers we'd have a better idea of the whole story. The only way I could imagine getting anything like that though is if someone had an in with the Diamond/Alliance numbers (and even then only if Alliance still had the numbers post-merger since IIRC they were formed after Wizards acquired TSR).

Anecdotally when TSR went under in '97 the two local game store owners I would chat with were sure that was the end of RPGs in general because D&D was back to being their biggest RPG seller after Vampire had taken off for a while and then settled back down. They were making their money mostly off of CCGs (mostly Magic), with one of the stores also apparently making more off of Warhammer than RPGs (though Magic was his big cash cow). Local anecdote is never a good substitute for data, so I'd really like to see the numbers.

What's weird is I remember Vampire being HUGE for a lot longer than it actually was. White Wolf only overtook TSR for a very short time, and Vampire was only culturally relevant for an eyeblink in the 90s. In my head it was a solid decade of WoD dominance.

 

[Jer]

What's weird is I remember Vampire being HUGE for a lot longer than it actually was. White Wolf only overtook TSR for a very short time, and Vampire was only culturally relevant for an eyeblink in the 90s. In my head it was a solid decade of WoD dominance.

It felt like Vampire was just a major game for a long time, but yeah - it really had a burst of 5 or so years and then things settled down again.

I chalk it up to being younger then and every year was a larger percentage of my life to date. In my 20s 5 years was forever - in my late 40s 5 years is "just a little while ago". Time is relative and all that.

It really hit me when I realized that Wizards has now owned D&D for more years than TSR owned D&D. When they do they hit 2024 Wizards editions of D&D will have been on the shelves longer than TSR editions of D&D were. And yet to me it feels like Wizards just bought them "a few years ago".

 

[Reynard]

It felt like Vampire was just a major game for a long time, but yeah - it really had a burst of 5 or so years and then things settled down again.

I chalk it up to being younger then and every year was a larger percentage of my life to date. In my 20s 5 years was forever - in my late 40s 5 years is "just a little while ago". Time is relative and all that.

It really hit me when I realized that Wizards has now owned D&D for more years than TSR owned D&D. When they do they hit 2024 Wizards editions of D&D will have been on the shelves longer than TSR editions of D&D were. And yet to me it feels like Wizards just bought them "a few years ago".

My gawd we're old.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I agree, the current release schedule is better. I can't blame them for taking it easy in the beginning, though. 2014 was a very different world.

I mean, I think WotC miscalculated with 5E, but in the safer direction, which is to say they put out too little material rather than too much, for the first several years (indeed until quite recently). That was a very conscious decision on their part, of course - one I seem to recall came from on-high of WotC, rather than from the D&D team themselves.

For as short as the timeframe seems in hindsight, it's impact was vast. The way it conceptualized role-playing games was a seismic shift. And if I recall correctly, it was the first RPG to dethrone D&D as the best-selling game, though that certainly didn't last.

It felt like Vampire was just a major game for a long time, but yeah - it really had a burst of 5 or so years and then things settled down again.

I chalk it up to being younger then and every year was a larger percentage of my life to date. In my 20s 5 years was forever - in my late 40s 5 years is "just a little while ago". Time is relative and all that.

It really hit me when I realized that Wizards has now owned D&D for more years than TSR owned D&D. When they do they hit 2024 Wizards editions of D&D will have been on the shelves longer than TSR editions of D&D were. And yet to me it feels like Wizards just bought them "a few years ago".

 

[Riley]

It felt like Vampire was just a major game for a long time, but yeah - it really had a burst of 5 or so years and then things settled down again.

I chalk it up to being younger then and every year was a larger percentage of my life to date. In my 20s 5 years was forever - in my late 40s 5 years is "just a little while ago".

I spent a lot of those 5 years in and around game and book stores- probably more time than I have in the subsequent 25 years.

So it felt like Vampire was around forever, esp. because I wasn't there to notice when it went away.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In each chart listing sales for a setting, he's labeled the columns with the names of the exact books and boxed sets being counted. The last comparison, Greyhawk vs. Dragonlance, is just summarizing the prior charts, right?

Here's the Greyhawk chart from the other thread.
View attachment 253879

As a note, the blue line is 1975's Supplement I, which, TBF, isn't REALLY a campaign setting book. But the 1980 original Greyhawk folio campaign book is completely missing from the numbers (Jon Peterson confirmed this in the comments on Ben's FB post), and that from all accounts did quite well and is well regarded to this day. So I'd suspect that if we were to have those numbers and drop Supplement I from the chart, Greyhawk would have a better showing in total.

Fascinating, though the drop to negative sales with Greyhawk adventures means what, they were getting books pulped or sent back? The post-2E sales match my expectations, but yeah missing the 1980 box set seems like a big deal. I'm particularly interested in a breakdown for the Dragonlance ones too, if it's around.

 

[Parmandur]

Fascinating, though the drop to negative sales with Greyhawk adventures means what, they were getting books pulped or sent back? The post-2E sales match my expectations, but yeah missing the 1980 box set seems like a big deal. I'm particularly interested in a breakdown for the Dragonlance ones too, if it's around.

Yup, the evasive sales years are when the number of books returned exceeded those shipped in a calendar year. Which is the exact thing that put TSR under eventually

 

[Riley]

The drop to negative sales with Greyhawk adventures means what, they were getting books pulped or sent back?

Sent back, I think? Then warehoused, or sitting at distributors.

Around the time of the bankruptcy, a luducrous number of copies of new, sealed 2e books and box sets appeared all at once at several Half Price Books in the Milwaukee area.

I bought almost complete runs of Planescape and Dark Sun books there. I would have also bought the complete Birthright, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Al-Qadim, and all the various adventures, etc., if I’d had the money to spare.

It was like the entire run of 2e products, all new, at clearance prices.