Is Pathfinder outselling D&D?

[Morrus]

Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo, has made a couple of interesting posts recently on the Paizo messageboards.

Pathfinder has surpassed D&D in most of the markets that I check.

At this time in history, that [Pathfinder brand has a higher sales volume than the D&D brand] is what I have been told by people in the hobby distribution trade, the book trade, and other avenues that both games sell their products into. If you talk to the various retailers, it is a mixed bag, with one telling you one thing and another a different story. But when you talk to the folks who sell those retailers the product that they sell, then you get a clearer picture.


And I am just talking table-top RPG business. I am not talking about board games or card games or video games or whatnot. Just books and digital copies of those books for use in playing a table-top RPG.

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This picture is somewhat reinforced by a quick glance at Amazon's bestseller list in fantasy gaming. Of course, it in no way includes WotC's D&D Insider subscriptions, which seems to be their preferred distribution model for content at present, and guesses at the number of subscribers seem to vary wildly.

This Free RPG Day report from ICv2 also seems to corroborate this:

In past years, the D&D offering has proved the strongest of the books offered, with customers snapping them all up. Last year, Pathfinder gained strength with the Pathfinder and D&D modules vanishing in about equal numbers. This year Pathfinder surpassed D&D. We ran out of the Pathfinder module three quarters of the way through the day but still had a few of the D&D sourcebook at the end. While still strong, D&D is not selling nearly as well as Pathfinder and this reflected in our customers' choices in the free offering. Of those customers not taking both, D&D was the book they chose to forgo. Unlike what happened with the two previous edition changes of D&D, this time, customers are voting with their dollars (and Free RPG Day choices) for Pathfinder.

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In other Paizo news, they've also just released a couple of iPhone apps:

• iFumble
• iCrit

 

[CharlesRyan]

A veeery interesting bit of info. Of course, there may be quite a few mitigating factors, including the fact that D&D's RPG release schedule has been quite anemic lately, and that WotC's business model has moved substantially away from the standard book-format product about which Lisa seems to be talking. Still, definitely an interesting trend. . . .

 

[Ron]

This is no small feat. Although most of the success should rest in the excellency of Paizo's creators and editors, I wonder how much was not WotC fault in managing a smooth transition.

 

[DragonBelow]

I am a great fan of Paizo and their products and I am very happy for their success. In fact, I switched from 3.5 to PFRPG when it was released, snd I play it regularly.

However, you have to put things into perspective, WotC is barely releasing any D&D products at this time, that has to be a big factor in this equation.

 

[Remathilis]

I think its a serious statement on how in chaos WotC is right now involving D&D.

Their best bet is to get a 5e to print soon, and hope they can reverse the failure 4e has been.

 

[vegaserik01]

I like Paizo's stuff alot, Carrion Crown has been awesome so far, but it's hardly fair to compare the two directly right now. Wizard's has had only a few books this year where as Pathfinder has Ultimate Magic, Revised Campaign Book, monthly Pathfinder adventure paths, a few of the Chronicles and Companion books and map sets out this year.

I'm one of the few that like both games it seems. I think Pathfinder was a great update to the 3.5 system, but I also like to play 4e (and essentials).

And if we're comparing Free rpg day books, White Wolf blew them both out of the water with their 64 page quick start and adventure!

 

[SSquirrel]

I'm one who was definitely tired of 3.5 and didn't feel Pathfinder fixed much that needed fixing. Good on them, but when WotC is barely producing any physical books (esp when compared to early 4E or the 3.x era), that certainly makes them less of a challenger. Paizo is judging their success on a) hearsay, b) physical and e-books, one category of which WotC does not compete at ALL, c) no accounting for the subscription revenue for DDI or their own adventure subscribers.

This all seems like much ado about nothing really. In the end, this is still WotC and the next closest in the industry is still well behind. There are still plenty of people out there who will probably never even look at Pathfinder b/c when they think of RPGs they think of D&D and don't have an interest in anything else. I think 5E would be too much right now and given the production cycle, a new edition takes at least 3 years. They basically would have been having to work on a new edition from launch day.

I won't be surprised at all to see some sort of merging of original 4E and Essentials. Every class will have 2 or 3 Essentials style builds, but there will also be the builds from the original version. The math will be fixed, allowing for the removal of the Expertise and Imp Defenses feat taxes. Maybe they'll come up w/valid reasons to keep things like classes like Vampire and Seeker around, but I could see them culling a few classes along the way.

 

[HorusZA]

I'm not sure the Amazon list supports the statement that PF is outselling 4e. In fact it could be interpreted to indicate the exact opposite.

Just had a look at the Top 20 products and found the following:

D&D 4e : 9 Products
Pathfinder : 4 Products
D&D 3.5 : 1 Product (!)
D&D Boardgame : 1 Product
Shadowrun : 1 Product
Non-RPG Stuff: 4 Products

Surprised not to see any Warhammer 40K books on that list...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is the same argument made to predict that White Wolf is doomed, when people are only looking at one metric at a time when the company has shifted to a digital distribution model, in large part.

If Lisa has access to info on DDI, then the comparison can be more accurate. As it is, it's interesting, but hardly conclusive.

 

[Erdrick Dragin]

I have called this when 4E was announced and once again when Paizo made their announcement with what they were planning for Pathfinder RPG. I knew D&D would slowly tank and Pathfinder would rise.

This is because WotC has alienated the original D&D fanbase and has been on this fruitless quest to appease a younger crowd, particularly the MMO crowd. This has rubbed both of their demographics the wrong way, and the butchering of beloved campaign settings such as Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft only did 4E worse. The introduction of a system of 4E that dumbed down 4E even further than how 4E dumbed down D&D entirely, called "Essentials", was just icing on the cake. I won't even bother going into how further down the "juvenile hole" D&D has become with the release of board and card games for it.

The old guard that knew how to design a great D&D game have all quit or were laid off and have been replaced by "noobs" in suits that know not what they're doing at all. Ironically, a number of the "old guard" are writing for Pathfinder. Just goes to show you the sham 4E has become. I sense a 5E being announced at next GenCon.

Now to wait for WotC to sell off D&D to Paizo so we can get the original game many of us have come to love and enjoy