Fantasy D20 -- PDF Sales Continue to Slow . . .

[D_Sinclair]

Overall sales continue to grow. As near as I can determine it is primarily D20 fantasy PDFs that have seen a drastic slowdown in sales. Which could mean almost anything, ranging from people are moving on to people have enough for now to there are so many PDFs that few stand out anymore.

Check out the top categories, though. It's interesting.

This is because the industry has a cyclic wave. Every 3-5 years the general sales trends flop from fantasy to scifi and back. Often, this cycle is influenced by the movie industry. The last high cycle for scifi gaming was back in 1998-2001, driven by The Matrix and other movies, as well as Firefly and Stargate SG-1. 2001 brought about Lord of the Rings and the industry flopped back to fantasy. Since 2003, there have been a number of scifi films helping flop things back, like Minority Report, I, Robot, and a lot of foreign scifi flicks on DVD, like The Returner and the anime version of Metropolis. No huge breakouts in and of themselves, but enough to slowly erode interest in fantasy gaming for a few years.

 

[philreed]

214,003, according to my calculations.

So it's up just a little?

 

[Eosin the Red]

So it's up just a little?

I thought that was a decline?

 

[jmucchiello]

I'd rather see something like "Joe's Book of Enchantment" for diviners, illusionists, or conjurers.

Not to raise your hopes more than is healthy but divination is under sporatic development. I hope to have it out before the end of the decade.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Annecdotal Evidence

At the Comic Book Warehouse in Brampton (a suburb of Toronto) they have a five dollar table with product changing all the time.

There are multiple copies of about 100 individual titles on the five dollar tables. I picked up 12 on my last visit.

Nearly all are 3E. All are new. Mostly, a raft of 3E stuff that after 3.5 was released just didn't sell at cover price - or even 30% off.

So now it's a $5 CDN table. Titles like Mystic Eye Games' Foul Locales for $5 or a .pdf? No brainer. Print wins every time.

You can drop $60CDN and walk out of there with new gaming stuff which is a FOOT THICK of new paper under your arm.

There is a huge glut of 3E material that has been shipped by distributors at liquidation prices which has started to appear in FLGS bargain bins this year. It is no surprise to me that with so much cheap fantasy D20 in print that the .pdf action would be in material that has no equivalent in print in the first place.

 

[Mark CMG]

There is a huge glut of 3E material that has been shipped by distributors at liquidation prices which has started to appear in FLGS bargain bins this year.

Been like that for more like three years, even a year before 3.5E was released. If you're just looking to fill up a book shelf with any old material, in print, that you cannot copy and paste, there's never been a shortage of cheap stuff from 3E days that no one would pay full cover price for then or now. Some of those companies are still in business, too.

Personally, I pick up some of it for Chicago Gameday and D&D meetup prizes, but I'm selective about it. There are really only a handful of print companies that were around in the 3E days whose products I feel still meet the current standards in balanced-design, content, editing, etc. There's a few more on the fringe that I don't mind having on my own shelf because I have enough of a grasp of the rules to be able to clean up the mistakes and balance issues that slipped past those early 3E designers and editors.

But, as you said, there's certainly no shortage if you aren't being selective. Scoop up as many as you want and I'm sure you can get them very cheap. Do me a favor, though, and when you're done scooping, be sure to jiggle the handle, `kay?

 

[danbuter]

It's probably already been said, but why would I buy d20 fantasy pdf's when there are so many dead tree books out for it?
I could see myself buying d20 future pdfs, because there's next to nothing in print for that game.

 

[Crothian]

Annecdotal Evidence

At the Comic Book Warehouse in Brampton (a suburb of Toronto) they have a five dollar table with product changing all the time.

There are multiple copies of about 100 individual titles on the five dollar tables. I picked up 12 on my last visit.

That's amazing. I can't even find deals and selections like that at the big gaming cons or any stores around here.

 

[Bobitron]

It's probably already been said, but why would I buy d20 fantasy pdf's when there are so many dead tree books out for it?
I could see myself buying d20 future pdfs, because there's next to nothing in print for that game.

My primary reason is that most of my gaming is play-by-post, and I appreciate the cut-and-paste function.

 

[Insight]

I thought the thread title was going to end with "...Film at 11."

But seriously, maybe the fantasy pdfs that are selling have that "what the heck is in that?" factor going for it. I noticed that AA: Options for the Dead was a hot seller last month as opposed to Prestige Secrets: Assassins. The first offers something you might not have thought of on your own and the second is, meh, more info on a class. Please note that I've not seen either pdf but this is only a guess.

OK I have to chime in on this because something I wrote was mentioned. I understand that a lot of people are familiar with the Assassin class. The point of the product is not to rehash, but to add more to the existing class, more options, feats, etc. And it's also the first product in a new line intended to do the same for other PRCs. Assassins was a natural place to start since a lot of DMs use NPC Assassins in their games.

Prestige Secrets: Assassins was at #17 on the overall list when it first came out, and was #3 on the d20 fantasy list for a time. And this is with zero advertising of any kind. It's not like it went totally under the radar.