D&D General Master List of Benn Riggs' D&D Charts and Graphs

[Alphastream]

Looking at the Dragonlance sales...
What's the significance of negative sales (1990)? I don't see how that's possible.

The negative numbers are explained in Ben’s book. TSR had a very strange arrangement where they essentially received a loan on books they sent to be distributed and sold. Every new release was therefore a source of cash (but a loan!) and encouraged management to make more products. But, these were often unprofitable and were often not sold in the quantity created. They were returned to TSR, and then became a loss (negative sales numbers). Some beloved lines, such as Planescape, never made money for TSR and were fuel for this terrible borrowing scheme.

 

[ART!]

Thoughts:

So it's not just nostalgia: the early '80s really were a golden age of D&D!!!

I'd forgotten just how big Greyhawk was.

Comparing modern numbers to these would have to include considerations for general increases or decrease in book sales, tabletop game sales, pdfs, etc

 

[Alphastream]

It's a bit of everything. '80-'82 was the height of TSR sales. And of the popularity during the TSR era. It was also amazing post '82 in terms of the explosion of settings. This was made possible by the ruinous economic approach of TSR's executives. For example, Ben Riggs says that on the Planescape boxed set, the company lost $3 with every sale, but had no idea this was the case. They also lost money on a lot of other products, making products more expensive than the retail price.

3E and 4E at various times had bigger sales for specific items, but it's 5E that redefines what the height of an RPG looks like. 5E sales seem to beat every comparable 1E/2E/Basic measure. And D&D is likely far more popular than ever, thanks to Stranger Things and similar coverage.

 

[Parmandur]

It's a bit of everything. '80-'82 was the height of TSR sales. And of the popularity during the TSR era. It was also amazing post '82 in terms of the explosion of settings. This was made possible by the ruinous economic approach of TSR's executives. For example, Ben Riggs says that on the Planescape boxed set, the company lost $3 with every sale, but had no idea this was the case. They also lost money on a lot of other products, making products more expensive than the retail price.

3E and 4E at various times had bigger sales for specific items, but it's 5E that redefines what the height of an RPG looks like. 5E sales seem to beat every comparable 1E/2E/Basic measure. And D&D is likely far more popular than ever, thanks to Stranger Things and similar coverage.

Also, I doubt a single 5E book has been sold at a loss for WotC. Probsvly think margins on the Starter Set, but probavly still a margin.

 

[Alzrius]

In an effort to keep this thread comprehensive, I've edited the second post to add in the charts/graphs for the 2001 sales of the 3.0 Core Rulebooks, as posted over on this thread.

Thanks as always to @darjr for finding and posting those!

EDIT: On further review, it makes more sense (and helps keep individual posts from becoming too cluttered) to move those images over to a post of their own. As such, I've removed them from this thread's second post and instead put them below:

 

[Mannahnin]

In an effort to keep this thread comprehensive, I've edited the second post to add in the charts/graphs for the 2001 sales of the 3.0 Core Rulebooks, as posted over on this thread.

Thanks as always to @darjr for finding and posting those!

EDIT: On further review, it makes more sense (and helps keep individual posts from becoming too cluttered) to move those images over to a post of their own. As such, I've removed them from from this thread's second post and instead put them below:

Thanks for updating the thread!

 

[Alzrius]

And now we have the 2001 data for the first six adventures from WotC's 3.0 adventure path, courtesy of @darjr over in this thread:

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Why is the Standing Stone so high?

 

[Stormonu]

Why is the Standing Stone so high?

Not entirely sure, it is surprising - the first month sales is absolutely insane compared to the lifetime of the first two adventures. But it looks like it came two months from the release of the first adventures, and with it being the 7th-9th level adventure, it was probably seen as the capstone to the Citadel/Forge/Speaker adventures.

 

[Reynard]

Why is the Standing Stone so high?

Not entirely sure, it is surprising - the first month sales is absolutely insane compared to the lifetime of the first two adventures. But it looks like it came two months from the release of the first adventures, and with it being the 7th-9th level adventure, it was probably seen as the capstone to the Citadel/Forge/Speaker adventures.

As pointed out in the original thread, this is 2001 numbers only, so SC and FF look small by comparison (they came out in 2000). I bet total sales for SC and FF are MUCH higher than Standing Stones.