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<blockquote data-quote="chriton227" data-source="post: 6505821" data-attributes="member: 33263">It is sad, but the reality is tabletop RPGs are a very niche market that is also highly fragmented, and while D&amp;D might be the best known brand, it hasn't necessarily been the most popular brand recently.&nbsp; So out of the small percentage of the population that plays TTRPGs, only a fraction of them play D&amp;D, and of that fraction only a small fraction (I'd estimate about 20%) are DMs, and of the DMs only a fraction of them use published adventures, and of the ones that use published adventures, only some of them will be interested in any particular adventure.&nbsp; Just absolute back of the napkin numbers combined with some wild guesses for percentages, I'd say at best 1 person in 500 currently plays TTRPGs.&nbsp; With a domestic population of 300 million, that would be 600 thousand RPG players.&nbsp; It's a highly fragmented market, I'd be generous saying that 25% of those are currently playing D&amp;D, meaning 150,000 RPG players.&nbsp; 20% DMing would be 30,000.&nbsp; Judging by surveys I've seen here and on other sites, it looks like a pretty even split between people using published modules and going completely homebrew.&nbsp; So that would be 15,000 potential customers. Tastes vary, and the adventure might not fit everyone's style or the level range that the DM is looking for (or even the DM's budget).&nbsp; Getting 50% of those potential customers to buy the module would be a smashing success (especially for a PDF), so that would be 7500 sales.&nbsp; Say after the cost of distribution and printing, they are making $7.50 per copy and you are looking at $56,250 in revenue as an example of a smashing success.&nbsp; That really isn't that much money once you start adding up the costs of production and advertising.&nbsp; Realistically PDF products usually have much lower sales numbers than print products, so if they went PDF only they would probably only sell 25% of that number of copies for about the same revenue per copy, or about $14,000.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="chriton227, post: 6505821, member: 33263"] It is sad, but the reality is tabletop RPGs are a very niche market that is also highly fragmented, and while D&D might be the best known brand, it hasn't necessarily been the most popular brand recently. So out of the small percentage of the population that plays TTRPGs, only a fraction of them play D&D, and of that fraction only a small fraction (I'd estimate about 20%) are DMs, and of the DMs only a fraction of them use published adventures, and of the ones that use published adventures, only some of them will be interested in any particular adventure. Just absolute back of the napkin numbers combined with some wild guesses for percentages, I'd say at best 1 person in 500 currently plays TTRPGs. With a domestic population of 300 million, that would be 600 thousand RPG players. It's a highly fragmented market, I'd be generous saying that 25% of those are currently playing D&D, meaning 150,000 RPG players. 20% DMing would be 30,000. Judging by surveys I've seen here and on other sites, it looks like a pretty even split between people using published modules and going completely homebrew. So that would be 15,000 potential customers. Tastes vary, and the adventure might not fit everyone's style or the level range that the DM is looking for (or even the DM's budget). Getting 50% of those potential customers to buy the module would be a smashing success (especially for a PDF), so that would be 7500 sales. Say after the cost of distribution and printing, they are making $7.50 per copy and you are looking at $56,250 in revenue as an example of a smashing success. That really isn't that much money once you start adding up the costs of production and advertising. Realistically PDF products usually have much lower sales numbers than print products, so if they went PDF only they would probably only sell 25% of that number of copies for about the same revenue per copy, or about $14,000. [/QUOTE]

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