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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 6927930" data-attributes="member: 6716779">I'm not sure how reliable these numbers are for 3.0/3.5 as it was at a presentation at Pax East IIRC or one of those other shows in March/April 2014 right before 3E landed. Monas figures less than Danceys and some other numbers floating around. Sharon Appelcines book IIRC also deals with some of the TSR era details.What we do know though is the revenue for Paizo, the size of the D&D market pre and post 4E and even if some of those figures are ball park figures they actually kind of support the numbers as well which is why I am inclined to think the numbers are somewhat accurate. For example if 5E has outsold 3.0 bit not 3.0 and 3.5 which Mearls clarified Dancey did say D&D was a 25-30 million a year business.  Recent figures from ICV2 indicates the RPG market went from 13 million in 2013 to 30+ million in 2015.  We also know what Paizos revenue was on in 2009-2012 and when Pathfinder outsold 4th ed. Paizo at their peak (2012) was around half of what D&D is likely on in 2016 and PF sold around half of what 3.0 sold (by 2014). If Mearls is telling the truth (and it seems he is with the size of the RPG market growing like that and the reasonable explanation is its D&D 5E) and if the primary 5E seller is the PHB which Amazon indicates (PHB vs everything else 5E) it is half a million PHB being sold over 2 years with very little 5E product being available Mearls statement is believable IMHO.  If D&D is very close to its historical average Dancey provided and the RPG market size bears out + other evidence available (6 print runs, ICV2 rankings, amazon rankings, gamer rankings, a lack of edition wars, gamestores anecdotes, player anecdotes etc, OP). If it had beaten 2E or 1E I am sure Mearls would have mentioned that and he clarified it had beaten 3.0 and 3.5 individually not collectively (5 editions beat 3.5 though its not hard). So yeah I think Mistwell is essentially correct, no one can really say exactly how much 5E has sold but 300k minimum would be one answer and if Mona's number is correct+ RPG market growth 500k+ is more than believable since 5E has done something like $40+ million in sales.</blockquote>

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