D&D 5E (2024) One Store's Sales (D&D 2014 & 2024)

[FrogReaver]

How do we read what things are?

You can't there. It's just to get a view of the trends. Trying to list 100+ items out in a chart wouldn't be readable Obviously the big spikes at the start are the Core 2014 books and the ones about 19 months ago are the 2024.

Though, I may split them 5-6 categories and color code those categories on there at some point.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wow, I would not have expected character sheets to be that big of a seller. Interesting.

And yeah, those FLGS edition covers clearly have an appeal with a significant number of customers.

 

[FrogReaver]

I asked Chat GPT to categorize the books. I did a spot check and it appeared to be correct. Starter sets were listed as other (not shown). Age is in Months.

A few interesting points:
He's sold more non-core books than core books. That's surprising. I wasn't expecting that result.
Non-core books have fairly consistent total sales up until the last 40 months, regardless of the time horizon difference.

 

[Ramhorn]

I think it's hard to get a bead on how well the 2024 books are doing considering that there's a huge wealth of 2014 supported content that the 2024 books have to contend with. Even while being backwards compatible, it's an odd case of a product "competing" with it's own prior success.

I'll eventually grab some 2024 books but I am not finding myself really needing or rushing to pick any up as there's nothing released yet that's so setting or genre specific that I feel the FOMO of not using the latest books.

 

[mearls]

I want to get the whole thing done in under two hours! (I wonder where I can find a D&D game that can do that...)

I'm getting there!

That's really interesting to read about how folks react to the various starter sets. Maybe a better way to think of it is, "As many people are coming in, but not as many are buying."

I've always suspect that the number of people actively playing D&D looks like a line that goes up and to the right, while the number of people buying looks like a wave with various peaks and valleys.

 

[Reynard]

I think it's hard to get a bead on how well the 2024 books are doing considering that there's a huge wealth of 2014 supported content that the 2024 books have to contend with. Even while being backwards compatible, it's an odd case of a product "competing" with it's own prior success.

I'll eventually grab some 2024 books but I am not finding myself really needing or rushing to pick any up as there's nothing released yet that's so setting or genre specific that I feel the FOMO of not using the latest books.

I'm definitely not a 2024 booster, but at least thus far I don't see anything internally competing. Whenever they release the 2024 revision of, say, Xanathar's -- sure. But as it stands there doesn't seem to be any inherent competition between 2014 and 2024 products beyond core rules, and new core rules are almost always going to win that.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm getting there!

That's really interesting to read about how folks react to the various starter sets. Maybe a better way to think of it is, "As many people are coming in, but not as many are buying."

I've always suspect that the number of people actively playing D&D looks like a line that goes up and to the right, while the number of people buying looks like a wave with various peaks and valleys.

I thought lost mines is the best adventure. BUT Stormwrack Isle was really good for newbies.

Ice Peak Dragon one most lavish but not the best newbie adventure.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm getting there!

That's really interesting to read about how folks react to the various starter sets. Maybe a better way to think of it is, "As many people are coming in, but not as many are buying."

I've always suspect that the number of people actively playing D&D looks like a line that goes up and to the right, while the number of people buying looks like a wave with various peaks and valleys.

That's always been thw trouble for anu company producing TRPG material: we don't need much to play for years, and we can share books and ideas easily.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I tried out Heroes of the Borderlands for new players, and I think that it's great for them to take home and use to learn (in particular to learn to DM), but I think that I have a better system that works for me when running Learn-to-Play Sessions. It just takes too long to set up HotB - selecting cards and what-not.

It definitely feels like it'd work best if someone had a big fancy gaming table and the DM could get there early and set it up ahead of time. (And it'd better be a big table -- every player takes up a lot of space, even before the DM starts putting down maps.)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I'm definitely not a 2024 booster, but at least thus far I don't see anything internally competing. Whenever they release the 2024 revision of, say, Xanathar's -- sure. But as it stands there doesn't seem to be any inherent competition between 2014 and 2024 products beyond core rules, and new core rules are almost always going to win that.

I would very much agree with this, of the old material some is effectively depreciated. Xanathar's or Tasha' are not worth buying now but all the other books are viable. No reason not to run Tyranny of Dragons or Storm King's Thunder with the new monster manuals, or what ever adventure takes ones fancy. This was not as true in the 3.x era where splat books got power creeped out fairly quicky.
Same for the third-party market, stuff like Wildemount or Acquisitions Inc are as useful as they ever were.