Popular RPG books of 2011 (as per LibraryThing)

[Bedrockgames]

I don't recall if you've been in the discussions of who has the best sales before, but there's really not. Amazon numbers are pretty good, though they get quite a bit of abuse, and are from just one retailer. Paizo doesn't release any details about sales from their websites, none of the surveys from FLGS seem real solid, etc.

This is not necessarily numbers on actual sales, but has a huge advantage that it includes sales from all sources and nobody really has any motivation to skew the numbers.

I have been and dont care to enter that discussion again. Suffice to say I disagree with your conclusion here and believe there is ample reaosn to conclude that pathfinder is outselling 4E or at the very least taking a huge chunk of the market from Wotc. This library thing strikes me as not very reliable.

 

[prosfilaes]

This library thing strikes me as not very reliable.

Why, besides the fact it doesn't fit your preconceptions?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why, besides the fact it doesn't fit your preconceptions?

I feel like you opened this thread looking for an argument rather than honest feedback.

 

[prosfilaes]

I feel like you opened this thread looking for an argument rather than honest feedback.

I opened this thread because I had a bunch of data and I thought I'd share it. There's a lot of questions about this data, and I'm not saying it's the end-all and be-all of anything.

But "This library thing strikes me as not very reliable" isn't useful feedback. What about it is unreliable? After you tell me "you're wrong, I'm right, and I'm not going to discuss it", I don't see why you should expect a warm response to dismissal of the data.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I opened this thread because I had a bunch of data and I thought I'd share it. There's a lot of questions about this data, and I'm not saying it's the end-all and be-all of anything.

But "This library thing strikes me as not very reliable" isn't useful feedback. What about it is unreliable? After you tell me "you're wrong, I'm right, and I'm not going to discuss it", I don't see why you should expect a warm response to dismissal of the data.

I am not saying you are wrong. I said I disagree with your conclusion. And I dont think there is much use rehashing the flamewars of pathfinder vs 4e sales. That is why I didn't want to discuss it. If I came off as dismissive that wasn't my intention. It is just that I am have no interest in that debate. My interest in this thread arose from the 2e mention. And on that front my reason for being skeptical is I know a lot of 2e fans and most have plenty of th setting material (but the complete books have always been popular as well). I myself have all the ravenloft books.

 

[prosfilaes]

I know a lot of 2e fans and most have plenty of th setting material (but the complete books have always been popular as well). I myself have all the ravenloft books.

I have most of the Spelljammer stuff. But I have very little of the Ravenloft stuff. Wasn't that the problem 2E had, that they had so many settings and everyone bought only their own setting?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have most of the Spelljammer stuff. But I have very little of the Ravenloft stuff. Wasn't that the problem 2E had, that they had so many settings and everyone bought only their own setting?

Some people say that was the issue, but i dont think so. I still gamed in all my friends campaigns, be they dragonlance, fg, spelljammer, etc. I think this was based on a faulty assumption on how people were using campaign settings. They drove sales of core material in my opinion, and created more gms as well (everyone in my group ran game sessions). But this is just my opinion. They failed because they overprinted books, stopped listening to customers, and aggressively sued people for IP violations(remember T$R?). I really eer sensed the split people talk about with 2E.

Ravenloft is still very popular. That it survived into d20 helped, but i see people all the time who like the 2e ravenloft. Last year I ran a 2E ravenloft campaign and plan to do so again this year. People are very responsive.

 

[Crothian]

This is not necessarily numbers on actual sales, but has a huge advantage that it includes sales from all sources and nobody really has any motivation to skew the numbers.

We have no idea what this list means. You have some books at 20 copies which would kill a company if that was their yearly sales numbers. But this list is about ownership so we don't know if the book was bought, or had been owned for 20 years and was just put on that person's list in 2011.

 

[prosfilaes]

We have no idea what this list means.

Ach so.

You have some books at 20 copies which would kill a company if that was their yearly sales numbers.

20 copies is the number of copies added to LibraryThing in 2011. Basically the point was to make it clear (a) that, e.g., Deities and Demigods (3.0) was tied with Adventurer's Vault (4E), and (b) that the difference between Deities and Demigods (3.0) and something at the bottom of the list is a matter of four copies, and thus is probably not statistically significant.

But this list is about ownership so we don't know if the book was bought, or had been owned for 20 years and was just put on that person's list in 2011.

True. This is not sales data. But neither the 4E PHB nor the Pathfinder Core Book have been out that long, so those aren't about 20 years. And if there is an uptick versus the long-term average, like for the first list I gave, it's logical to think this is from new purchases, not long-term ownership. (I think everything on the first list was in print; the Complete Masks had a big reprint in Sept. 2010.)

Even for the old stuff on the second list, it means that enough people have kept it around and continued cataloging it.

I'll be happy to explain it, but yeah, it was data I spent some time accumulating, poked at a couple times, waited a few days, then figured I might as well post it if I spent the time accumulating it.

 

[Jhaelen]

There are alot more reliable numbers on actual sales out there.

If there are, I've never seen them. The irrelevance and interpretability of Amazon's data has already been mentioned.

I've never heard of LibraryThing, either, though, so I have no idea if the data's indicative of anything at all. It's still interesting to look at the kinds of books people entered.