Pathfinder 2E Release Day Second Edition Amazon Sales Rank

[JFranklin3000]

I'm a little confused by this "divergence in Amazon data" for 5e and PF2 people are trying to explain. Their ranking trajectories mirror each other pretty closely, and the big picture changes in rankings all seem to have pretty straightforward explanations.

So, looking at the daily tracker here Amazon Sales Estimator - Estimate Monthly Sales Volume per Product and focusing on 2020, we see the following pictures:

Core PF2:

1. Up until March 13th: PF2 generally bounces around in the 2000-6000 range (averaging about 4000).
2. March 14th until April 10th: PF2 craters, generally bouncing around in the 5000-10000 range (averaging about 7500), hitting rock bottom on March 24th-25th, then recovering slightly.
3. Today: Currently at 3795 (as high as it's been in ages), but this is an unreliable figure (since it hasn't accumulated a full day of data yet).

5e PHB:

1. Up until March 13th: 5e generally bounces around in the 20-70 range (averaging about 45).
2. March 14th until April 28th: 5e craters, generally bouncing around in the 120-300 range (averaging about 210), hitting rock bottom on March 24th-25th, then recovering slightly.
3. April 29th and 30th: 5e has a massive sale, shoots up into the 20s.
4. May 1st-May 4th: Sale ends, 5e descends into the 70s.
5. Today: Currently at 118 (as low as it's been in ages), but this is an unreliable figure (since it hasn't accumulated a full day of data yet).

Big-picture-wise, the trends of track each other pretty closely. Sales were pretty constant until March 13th, then they cratered (presumably due to coronavirus and economic downturn worries).

The big difference, of course, is the spike 5e had with its massive sale the last couple days of April, but that's easy to explain. And Amazon's rankings appear to use some kind of time decay function (though the exact details are proprietary information), so you'd expect that spike to pull up the 5e ranking for a little while, which is again what we've seen.

So what else needs explaining?...

I mean, I guess there's the big difference in ranking at the moment of writing (with 5e falling and PF2 rising), but that's too noisy to take seriously (since it hasn't accumulated a full day of data yet).

So I was looking at a bunch of daily sales estimators. 3795 is 16 copies a day, 10000 is about 13 copies a day. 45 is 31 or 32 copies a day and 300 is 24 or 25 copies. So really the rankings mean sales aren't changing that much each day. So Amazon's sales rankings mean even less than I thought.

 

[darjr]

Prediction of what sales rank means is all over the map. And it depends on who you ask. Some put sales of a rank under 10 for books at a few hundred a day.

 

[darjr]

Only sellers really know.

 

[dave2008]

For this one ByronD is referring to the ICV2 rankings for the quarter that the playtest was announced.

Sure, it is a good guess, but we don't have enough information to know that is the reason.

 

[dave2008]

So I was looking at a bunch of daily sales estimators. 3795 is 16 copies a day, 10000 is about 13 copies a day. 45 is 31 or 32 copies a day and 300 is 24 or 25 copies. So really the rankings mean sales aren't changing that much each day. So Amazon's sales rankings mean even less than I thought.

I will reiterate what @darjr said, the sales estimators are all over the map. I have seen other estimators that suggest sales more than 10x the figures you have supplied.

 

[BryonD]

The tricky part with the monthly numbers is with release there are always a bunch of games that get created and never run, I was in a couple. So that month I always consider skewed. But I don't disagree with your numbers after that. So let's take your 15% as the converters group, then we have the day one adopters that make up the rest of what is on FG. But with all that the question is still the same does this actually tell us anything really. My answer is still to quote the Magic 8 ball Difficult to see ask again later".

Right, but one should expect the Magic 8 ball to say "Ask again later, but crushing PF any way you slice it".

The biggest question is of the remainder how big is the 3 remaining groups. The waiting for options, the finishing uppers, and the never gonna happens.

This is a point I strongly disagree on.
PF did not have an issue with waiting on people to adopt.
5E did not have an issue with waiting on people to adopt.
4E had people saying "we are waiting for people to finish up their current campaign or get more options." It didn't happen.
When a new game gets people excited, they start playing it right away. There are ALWAYS people pointing to this exception or that. But the needle doesn't move based on those exceptions.

For ICV2 the made up numbers were just to say these rankings are just vague as hell and could mean anything for sales numbers. 2 could be a million in sales all the way down to a few hundred. So without knowing where PF1 got down to (I think we agree it got down or there is no reason for a new edition). It is hard to say if 2 in Q4 2016 is different then 2 in Q4 2019.

I think that is what I said.

 

[BryonD]

Prediction of what sales rank means is all over the map. And it depends on who you ask. Some put sales of a rank under 10 for books at a few hundred a day.

Yeah.
I'll just repeat that I don't think trying to tea leaf out these kind of sales numbers is fruitful.
Is there a trend?
How does the behavior mesh with other lines of evidence?
What do we see in terms of who is really playing the game/ how widespread is play?

 

[JFranklin3000]

This is a point I strongly disagree on.
PF did not have an issue with waiting on people to adopt.
5E did not have an issue with waiting on people to adopt.

Actually 5e and PF in my experience are the exception more than the rule, PF because it came with a complete ruleset in 3.5. 5e because D&D was basically dead for years before it's release.

If I am recalling correctly 2nd and 3rd editions of D&D had much slower adoption rates, although 2nd was weird in that the rules changed so little. It took me quite awhile to get people interested in 3rd edition and that was not uncommon when it dropped. And having to play 2nd after playtesting 3rd was really hard.

 

[BryonD]

3E had massive immediate adoption.
2E, maybe not. But then again, people talked about the inverse Star Trek rule, so I don't think 2E is a comparison that PF2E is craving.

 

[darjr]

Who is craving? Unless you have some insider info that Paizo is unhappy with where they are or that they are hemorrhaging, I dint think you can call it either.

but like someone (you?) said, time will tell.