D&D 5E (2024) Is WOTC done publishing campaigns?

[mamba]

And you have those numbers from?

the 50-80M was WotC, at the beginning and end of 2024 I believe (with the latter being ‘fans’, whatever that means)

Dungeons & Dragons at 50: How the fantasy world can be a home for everyone - BBC News

D&D has been popping up across popular culture, including Stranger Things and Baldur's Gate 3.

www.bbc.com

“After seeing a big surge in popularity online during the pandemic, an estimated 50 million people now take part.”

Huh-oh! The 2024 Player's Handbook is the fastest-selling D&D book in history

We couldn't be more pleased with the resounding critical and fan acclaim and record-breaking launch of the 2024 Player's Handbook, and we have our loyal fans to thank for it.

www.geeknative.com

“With over 85 million fans globally and 18 million registered D&D Beyond users, Dungeons & Dragons is still holding strong after experiencing a remarkable revival.”

2023 is last year and X4, X5 is upper limit what I posted. Its in the ballpark though

2023 is at least two years ago, and as I said does not account for digital sales

WotC manipulated the numbers. 50-80 was lifetime players since 1974.

at one point in time yes, but in 2024 they were talking current players, lifetime is three digits by now

 

[Zardnaar]

the 50-80M was WotC, at the beginning and end of 2024 I believe (with the latter being ‘fans’, whatever that means)

Dungeons & Dragons at 50: How the fantasy world can be a home for everyone - BBC News

D&D has been popping up across popular culture, including Stranger Things and Baldur's Gate 3.

www.bbc.com

“After seeing a big surge in popularity online during the pandemic, an estimated 50 million people now take part.”

Huh-oh! The 2024 Player's Handbook is the fastest-selling D&D book in history

We couldn't be more pleased with the resounding critical and fan acclaim and record-breaking launch of the 2024 Player's Handbook, and we have our loyal fans to thank for it.

www.geeknative.com

“With over 85 million fans globally and 18 million registered D&D Beyond users, Dungeons & Dragons is still holding strong after experiencing a remarkable revival.”


2023 is at least two years ago, and as I said does not account for digital sales


at one point in time yes, but in 2024 they were talking current players, lifetime is three digits by now

Well it seems theyre being a bit obscured with the numbers.

We do have some hard numbers. Expressions of interest is meaningless they may have watched youtube.

I"m not counting 5.5 numbers. Alot of them would be to existing customers.

They haven't sold X10 the amount of phb.

 

[GreyLord]

And you have those numbers from? 2023 is last year and X4, X5 is upper limit what I posted. Its in the ballpark though

WotC manipulated the numbers. 50-80 was lifetime players since 1974.

I pointed out the fallacy of numbers, but people ignored that and felt those numbers were current players...and people drank that idea like soup.

It's preposterous that the number could be anything other than how many have played D&D over it's lifetime (from it's start to now)..otherwise...

For example, for those of you alive during the Nintendo years...How popular was the nintendo? How about the Super Nintendo? WotC was literally claiming D&D was more popular than that!

They were claiming it was more popular than the Xbox at one point with their numbers if you took it as current players.

Let's put it this way. A little over 87 million Playstation 3s were sold over it's lifetime. If there are 80 million current D&D players, with the PS3 having sold that number over 6-8 years...D&D is at least 2x to 3x more popular than the Playstation if there are 80 million current players (vs. numbers of PS3 sold over 8 years meaning it never had anything close to 80 million PS3s out at any one point).

80 million is literally equal to almost 1/4 of all Americans (US). That includes, men, women, children...all of them. (or for those in the UK, they are literally saying that D&D has more players then the entire population of the UK).

More people play D&D currently than watched a game on average during Baseball's World Series in the US.

Do you see a trend here.

And there will be people on these forums that will type it out with a straight face...that yes...that D&D is bigger and more popular than any of those (Playstation, Nintendo, Baseball...etc).

I would say their lives may revolve around D&D (and that's fine), but for those who don't have their lives entirely engrossed in this hobby...I think those numbers stretch it quite a bit.

I could belive lifetime numbers of all those who have played D&D over 50 years, I could even believe that this is how many accounts are on Beyond (though, there are those with multiple accounts)....but when I look at the popularity of other popular items and then ask myself...is D&D really as popular as they are....

I come to very different conclusions on the popularity of D&D (no doubt, it is extremely popular and I'd even hazard that it's more popular than it was during the height of the TSR days...but more popular than some of the items I listed...I just can't suspend reality that far yet without better evidence than WotC is just feeding that number out there).

 

[Zardnaar]

I pointed out the fallacy of numbers, but people ignored that and felt those numbers were current players...and people drank that idea like soup.

It's preposterous that the number could be anything other than how many have played D&D over it's lifetime (from it's start to now)..otherwise...

For example, for those of you alive during the Nintendo years...How popular was the nintendo? How about the Super Nintendo? WotC was literally claiming D&D was more popular than that!

They were claiming it was more popular than the Xbox at one point with their numbers if you took it as current players.

Let's put it this way. A little over 87 million Playstation 3s were sold over it's lifetime. If there are 80 million current D&D players, with the PS3 having sold that number over 6-8 years...D&D is at least 2x to 3x more popular than the Playstation if there are 80 million current players (vs. numbers of PS3 sold over 8 years meaning it never had anything close to 80 million PS3s out at any one point).

80 million is literally equal to almost 1/4 of all Americans (US). That includes, men, women, children...all of them. (or for those in the UK, they are literally saying that D&D has more players then the entire population of the UK).

More people play D&D currently than watched a game on average during Baseball's World Series in the US.

Do you see a trend here.

And there will be people on these forums that will type it out with a straight face...that yes...that D&D is bigger and more popular than any of those (Playstation, Nintendo, Baseball...etc).

I would say their lives may revolve around D&D (and that's fine), but for those who don't have their lives entirely engrossed in this hobby...I think those numbers stretch it quite a bit.

I could belive lifetime numbers of all those who have played D&D over 50 years, I could even believe that this is how many accounts are on Beyond (though, there are those with multiple accounts)....but when I look at the popularity of other popular items and then ask myself...is D&D really as popular as they are....

I come to very different conclusions on the popularity of D&D (no doubt, it is extremely popular and I'd even hazard that it's more popular than it was during the height of the TSR days...but more popular than some of the items I listed...I just can't suspend reality that far yet without better evidence than WotC is just feeding that number out there).

Well they jumped from 50 to 80 million very quickly.

I remember a video at 15 million beyond accounts. Only 1.5-2 million were active.

Fairly typical of services.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And there will be people on these forums that will type it out with a straight face...that yes...that D&D is bigger and more popular than any of those (Playstation, Nintendo, Baseball...etc).

I don't think anyone has ever said that here.

no doubt, it is extremely popular and I'd even hazard that it's more popular than it was during the height of the TSR days...

I mean there's absolutely no question about that.

If that's something you're even considering might not be the case I think you must be making some truly bizarre assumptions. D&D books sell many, many times the numbers they did even at the absolute peak of the TSR era. Even 4E was probably thrashing the TSR era, sales-wise, let alone 3E, let alone 5E. D&D 2024's PHB has already probably significantly outsold the 1E AD&D PHB's lifetime sales, for example. I suspect you may be vastly overestimating how well D&D sold back in the day. It was actually shockingly low. There are some threads where people explored the figures.

And god knows how many digital copies have been sold - I know most of the D&D 5E books I "own", I only "own" on Beyond.

I remember a video at 15 million beyond accounts. Only 1.5-2 million were active.

Fairly typical of services.

Yeah that's a fairly typical ratio for a subscription service. I know Final Fantasy XIV was celebrating like 20 million accounts but only had like 1.5m actual subscribers at the time.

How popular was the nintendo? How about the Super Nintendo?

Interestingly the SNES was significantly less successful than the NES (it only sold about 15-20% fewer units over a similar lifetime but the console market was so much larger by 1990 that it represented a much smaller share of that market). It's also worth noting that outside of Japan and the US, the NES didn't even sell very well - it was outperformed in most other territories by the Sega Master System, Commodore 64, and so on - but in the US and Japan the NES was utterly dominant, market-share-wise. Interestingly every Nintendo console moved fewer units than the last until the Wii, which reversed that trend completely. (SNES to N64 was the biggest numerical drop - SNES moved 49m units, the N64 only 32m, but N64 to GameCube was an even bigger percentage drop, moving 21m units).

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't think anyone has ever said that here.


I mean there's absolutely no question about that.

If that's something you're even considering might not be the case I think you must be making some truly bizarre assumptions. D&D books sell many, many times the numbers they did even at the absolute peak of the TSR era. Even 4E was probably thrashing the TSR era, sales-wise, let alone 3E, let alone 5E. D&D 2024's PHB has already probably significantly outsold the 1E AD&D PHB's lifetime sales, for example. I suspect you may be vastly overestimating how well D&D sold back in the day. It was actually shockingly low. There are some threads where people explored the figures.

And god knows how many digital copies have been sold - I know most of the D&D 5E books I "own", I only "own" on Beyond.


Yeah that's a fairly typical ratio for a subscription service. I know Final Fantasy XIV was celebrating like 20 million accounts but only had like 1.5m actual subscribers at the time.


Interestingly the SNES was significantly less successful than the NES (it only sold about 15-20% fewer units over a similar lifetime but the console market was so much larger by 1990 that it represented a much smaller share of that market). It's also worth noting that outside of Japan and the US, the NES didn't even sell very well - it was outperformed in most other territories by the Sega Master System, Commodore 64, and so on - but in the US and Japan the NES was utterly dominant, market-share-wise. Interestingly every Nintendo console moved fewer units than the last until the Wii, which reversed that trend completely. (SNES to N64 was the biggest numerical drop - SNES moved 49m units, the N64 only 32m, but N64 to GameCube was an even bigger percentage drop, moving 21m units).

People underestimate old D&Ds sales numbers.

Core basic stuff outsold AD&D combined 4.5 million vs 3.5 million. Basic line sales are split over several boxed sets and decades. Old D&D ballpark sold 8 million.

Basic line had boxed sets sell more than your favorite edition unless its 5E or 1E.

The lime split sales between Basic and 1E. Adjusted for inflation TSRs peak revenue was bigger than the entire RPG market until 2017 or 2018bwhen 5E sailed past 60 odd million.

5E sold more core books but its not X10

We also know Xanathars, Tashas, Strahd, HotDQ sold really well. Means less phbs are required to hit those $$$$ numbers WotC shared.

TSR peak 1983 was 27 million adjust for inflation thats 87 million.

Still a massive number but people are conjuring up moonbeams.

 

[jayoungr]

Is Tyranny as bad as some folks say? That's a good price for a big fat module.

My group had an absolute blast with Tyranny. And the one-book version fixes a lot of the balance issues from the original two-book release. Just be sure you get buy-in from your players to go into a town that's being attacked by an adult blue dragon at level 1. Beyond that, it should be pretty smooth sailing.

 

[bedir than]

TSR peak 1983 was 27 million adjust for inflation thats 87 million.

Your inflation adjustment is off by over 10%. US based inflation calculators are showing low 70s.

But that's less significant than realizing your peak TSR number (provided without evidence) at your higher inflation number is a bad 2025 quarter for D&D in 2025 (Q3 with no product release) per Mastering Dungeons after the Q3 earnings call.

"Peak" TSR is a quarter or less than 2025 D&D.

The next earnings call is Feb. 10 and may have a direct mention of D&D as it will include Q4 with Realms, Eberron, Stranger Things (a massive bump) and the Boxed Set. It is notable that search interest in D&D didn't fall back to pre-season 5 Stranger Things' high point, but is above where it was at any point since the BG3 full release.