How many households owned a RPG in 1981-1983?

[Tav_Behemoth]

I'm writing an article for the Escapist's Issue 271: The Red Box Diaries, "How a decades-long love affair with Dungeons & Dragons is reshaping the industry." (Here's a link to my previous piece for them, "D&D is the Apocalypse".)

As part of that, I'd like to try to sketch a sense of how popular D&D was when the Moldvay Red Box was released in '81, or the Mentzer set in '83. The other cultural references I've found as benchmarks are that 41 million households watched the 'who shot J.R.' episode of Dallas in '80, and that 14 million households had a home video game unit in '82, so it'd be nice if I can get numbers that can be translated into that scale. However, any kind of figures would be great; guesses are fine, esp. if you can give the basis for your guess.

 

[jonesy]

Play D&D: Press

"...1982—Sales break the $20 million mark..."

What that translates into, I don't know.

 

[TerraDave]

Ya, I have seen revenue numbers, not a household one.

But it would be cool if you could find it.

 

[Ariosto]

Probably not a lot of help, but here's an Acaeum page:
Print Run

 

[jodyjohnson]

I'd take the number for B2 Keep on the Borderlands as the most accurate measure given it was only in the original basic set and would have been most likely only one per household. 1,000,000+

Wow, to think I owned one of the original Ghost Tower of Inverness out of 377? This really is a niche hobby.

 

[Hand of Evil]

With the freedom of information act, you should be able to see what TSR reporting in taxes and sales. How not sure but the information should be somewhere.

 

[Ariosto]

I'd take the number for B2 Keep on the Borderlands as the most accurate measure given it was only in the original basic set and would have been most likely only one per household. 1,000,000+

The figure for B2 is from 1979 to 1999 -- two decades! Most of that time is after the period in question.

It is unlikely that sales were constant over those 20 years, but it is interesting that a general estimate on per-title module sales has them falling to about 1/10 in the 1990s. (That is presumably at least in part because there were too many offerings for a single DM to be likely to purchase them all).

The module was indeed in the 6th-7th printings of Holmes basic, as well as in the Moldvay (1981) boxed set. It was, however, not included in the Mentzer (1983) box.

I think that it was probably available separately even prior to 1983, but I am not sure.

Wow, to think I owned one of the original Ghost Tower of Inverness out of 377? This really is a niche hobby.

Did you get you get yours at Wintercon VIII in 1979? The collector's item has a green cover with "Collector's Edition II" in the upper left hand corner and a black line-art illustration by Erol Otus.

The standard retail module has a red cover with "C2" and "For Advanced D&D Game" in the upper left corner, and color art by Roslof. It went through four printings, 1980-1983, and is not especially rare.

 

[haakon1]

IIRC, the 1984 article on D&D in Newsweek claimed there were 4 million players.

You might be able to find the article online.