Critical Role Here's The Cover Of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; Plus It's #15 In Amazon Bestsellers!

While Amazon may have revealed the title and description of The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount earlier, it had no cover art. Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, has the cover but at the time of writing no title or description. Here it is!

The official announcement should be coming later today. In the meantime, the book - which has not yet been announced! - is already #15 in the bestsellers chart for all books on Amazon, based only on pre-orders. That's pretty astonishing for a book which 'officially' doesn't even exist yet (although the announcement is expected later today).

 

[ArwensDaughter]

Just so you are aware, their audience donated 11.4 million dollars to their kickstarter to produce 2 seasons of a cartoon for this setting. Their followers can and will spend money.

Not to mention the book is currently #1 in D&D and #3 in all books!

Not only that, but they funded a batch of other RPG kickstarters at the same time. When they kept blowing the top out of the goals for the cartoon, critters started suggesting other kickstarter projects that needed attention/support in the comments of CR's kickstarter, and CR's cast encouraged them in doing do. I don't know that we will ever know how much money critters poured into kickstarter projects during that time period because of the "overflow" affect.
And, of course, some critters DO pay to watch the show. If you want VOD access you either have to wait several days for Youtube access, or subscribe on Twitch. And I believe it is the case that only subscribers can actually comment during the stream: and the running comments/conversations is a significant part of the community.

 

[Azzy]

Their stream is free. That doesn't translate into book sales 1:1.


Mark my words.

Free views on twitch and YouTube don't translate into book sales. This will come out, sell for a few weeks, and then disappear.

20-somethings may be the target audience. They also have no attention span to speak of. 50 and 60 year olds have been the glue holding the hobby together and have continued to buy product for decades. If they aren't interested in this book, it'll be long forgotten while fatbeards continue buying PDF versions of the original Greyhawk Folio for the next 10 years.

LOL. OK, boomer.

 

[dave2008]

Quite true.

I mean that I'm not interested in what WotC is publishing. During the middle of 2e's run, I was also rather uninterested in D&D.

But then I was probably more interested in what TSR was publishing during that time than I am now in what WotC is publishing with respect to D&D. Planescape was interesting, even if I had no interest in playing it, and at the time had a very low opinion of D&D as a system.

Thank you for the clarification!

 

[darjr]

It’s tops out of all books on Amazon

 

[dave2008]

I'm betting not. We already know that not every player buys more than the core. We know that viewers are a percentage of players (and sooner of them don't play at all). Other than as a money grab, this book isn't serving the entire potential player base and potentially alienating grognards from all editions...

To clarify what I mean is that I bet there is as probably a larger percentage of overlap than just about any other pairing. I bet more critters will buy this product than if it was PF cross over for example. IDK, but so far the actual evidence we have suggest it is doing well. Anything you are providing is just speculation.

 

[dave2008]

My favorite part of this post is how it misses the fact that 50-60 year olds that have been playing for decades were once 20 something gamers

True, but he is implying that it won't have the staying power of products when he/she was a 20-30 something. Of course there is no evidence for that.

 

[Beleriphon]

True, but he is implying that it won't have the staying power of products when he/she was a 20-30 something. Of course there is no evidence for that.

Because young people are stupid now.

I knew that Socrates guy and his writing would be the downfall of western civilization. Now nobody has to remember anything, they go find one of those new fangled whatcha-call-its.... scrolls.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not that interested myself but no surprise. CR is popular.

I don't think to many people will care long-term.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think to many people will care long-term.

If people cared about Dark Sun for this long, they can care about this.

I said that I am not the target market for this book. But, my goddaughter, who I taught how to play and run her own game, and who loves CR, is in the target market. She gets to have her favorites when she's young, just like we did.

 

[Demetrios1453]

It’s tops out of all books on Amazon

But... but... people told us it would never sell! How could the wisdom of the internet ever be wrong?

(Glad to see it! I'm not particularly interested in this setting, although I'm reserving judgement either way until I can take a good look at it, I'm glad to see that others are and are putting their money where their mouth is. More money and more interest can only mean good things for WotC and the hobby as a whole!)