PHB2 sold out!

[D'karr]

I believe that someone in an "official" capacity mentioned that they are looking at other ways of implementing DRM.

If you are hemorrhaging, usually the first line of treatment is to stop the bleeding. Often by any means necessary. Sometimes a tourniquet is the only way to do that, and sometimes using a tourniquet means that you lose a limb.

What if WotC figured that PDF's that they provide are part of that hemorrhage? What if those products that are out of print are also being pirated from the copies that WotC provides. Then maybe their actions are not pure BS after all.

Prior Edition pdfs- ??. The revenue stream for printed copies is dry. The only source of income from this IP is electronic sales. In this case we are not bleeding revenue, we are in effect denying ourselves the only source of income this material provides. This just means that customers who would like to provide revenue for these products cannot do so.
This doesn't stop the piracy of these products it simply turns it into the only option.

You quoted my post and at the end of what you posted is my reply to your point. I've highlighted it above.

If WotC figures that those OUT OF PRINT pdfs are also being pirated from the copies that WotC provides, and WotC decides that they want to provide better security for those pdfs, then it makes sense for them to take ALL of the pdfs off the market, apply this new level of security, and then release them again.

Is that what is going to happen? I don't know, and I pretty much don't care. That was not my point in my original post. My point was that, always painting WotC's actions in the worst light possible is just overreaching speculation.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I really am skeptical of all of these claims that hundreds of thousands of sales is somehow bad. I mean, ignoring the point that hundreds of thousands of sales in of itself means millions of dollars in revenue, and that three print runs pretty much has to mean that they have covered all of their costs and are making profit, it seems to be a quite good ratio of sales...

To make the comparison, let me pull out videogame sale numbers.

There have been about 100 million Nintendo DS portable consoles sold so far worldwide. Even assuming that some of these are people upgrading from the original DS to the DS Lite, or replacing a damaged unit, you probably still get more than 70 million different people who own a DS.

The Diamond and Pearl versions of Pokemon sold a combined total of 16.79 million copies, about 23% of my guess of the total market of Nintendo DS owners. It also happens to be the ninth highest selling game of the entire decade, and an absolutely smashing financial success by any conceivable metric. The best selling Grand Theft Auto game of the decade, GTA: San Andreas, hit about 13% of the overall PS2 market. Again, it is a mind-blowing commercial success. Anything short of these games and the percentage falls off dramatically.

Generally, even for the videogame market, which is much larger than the D&D market, having more that a million units sold on a videogame over the course of several years is a major milestone only really achieved by the best games. Claiming that 4E needs to have millions of sales in both a much smaller market and a much smaller timeframe (when D&D is better suited to long-term sales than any videogame) in order to be "successful" is absurd.

Really, it seems quite clear to me that WotC is achieving its basic goals of selling books and being profitable. This vague idea that they need to force out older editions and make 4E the one true game in order to be a "success" is the ridiculous idea. Why should that be their goal? Why do people even think they are attempting to do so, or even care if they do so? I mean, people are happy to blame "Hasbro corporate suits", but wouldn't such people be more interested in present sales and profitability rather than changing what edition of the game people are playing?

 

[DimitriX]

Well, personally, I have trouble believing the story that the PHB2 is selling out. My FLGS bought a couple of dozen copies and about half of them are still sitting on the shelf. There's also a couple of dozen copies of the DMG, the MM, and a bunch of copies of just about every other title (the PHB1 is sold out however).

Overall, using just my FLGS as an example, I think a lot of existing gaming groups switched to 4e and that's all. I don't think there has been the big increase of DMs out there that WotC has been trying to get and do need if their company is going to grow.

 

[Derren]

Really, it seems quite clear to me that WotC is achieving its basic goals of selling books and being profitable.

Considering some of the recent news, the firing of staff, the revaluation of high profile, high cost projects (DDI), the inability to supply the customer with enough books and the strange PDF behaviour I don't think that all is well within WotC.

 

[darjr]

Purple pawn has this post.

I think its relevant. I can't seem to find Feb's numbers on their site.

  Movers & Shakers for March 2009 by Purple Pawn

 

[DaveMage]

I have yet to see any reliable information from any source that indicates the PHBII was anything less than a success. If you've got better information than I do, please share.

Admittedly, not much, no. It was at #12 on amazon 3 weeks ago. Now it's #229. It was #28 on the USA Today's Top 150 the week of its relaese. The next week, it was gone from the Top 150.

It's "sold out", but have you heard of a 2nd print run? If it's sold out and demand is great, shouldn't there be another print run? (And there might be, but there hasn't been a report of one - unlike when the first run of the 4E core books sold out. We heard about the 2nd print run very quickly - and under the circumstances, isn't that something WotC would want publicised?)

I don't really pay attention to what WotC is saying. I'm talking about facts from unbiased sources (like retailers selling out of a title while that same title is on best seller lists) and the oddball reasoning that it takes to interpret that good news as evidence that the book in question is doing poorly.

Only the fast disappearance from the "bestseller lists" is the clue that it may be doing (relatively) poorly. If it continued to be on the lists, rather than be a one-week wonder, things might be different. It's my understanding that The USA Today list is the most telling because it is based on actual reports of sales of the product to *consumers* for that particular week. (Unlike other lists which may be considering a greater time period or focusing on orders rather than purchases by end users.)

Now, granted "relatively poorly" sales figures in this context would likely be the BEST EVER sales figures for most of the 3pps around here, so it's all relative. However, remember that WotC is expecting this model to sustain them throughout the life of the edition. Are the sales numbers sufficient to do that? (That's the real question.)

 

[darjr]

The 'Movers & Shakers' link above was for the month of March. It also looks like it may have helped pull the original PHB up in ranking as well.

 

[Mark]

As said elsewhere, they should be able to sell up to as many PHB2s as PHB1s. So, too, for the PHB3, etc. That is the business model now in use for D&D.

 

[Ourph]

Admittedly, not much, no. It was at #12 on amazon 3 weeks ago. Now it's #229. It was #28 on the USA Today's Top 150 the week of its relaese. The next week, it was gone from the Top 150.
>snip<
Only the fast disappearance from the "bestseller lists" is the clue that it may be doing (relatively) poorly. If it continued to be on the lists, rather than be a one-week wonder, things might be different.

I'm still not getting how being on the best seller list and then dropping off means that it's doing poorly. I'm not arguing that PHB2 is some runaway multi-million dollar smash-hit. I just don't see how anyone can describe a book that was on a bestseller list (for any length of time) as being a "failure". To me, the terms "failure" and "bestseller" are pretty much mutually exclusive.

 

[Kask]

I just don't see how anyone can describe a book that was on a bestseller list (for any length of time) as being a "failure".

Again, not relevant. Did the sales reach the goals set by corp management? When you know the answer to that, you will know whether it was a success or failure...