Pathfinder 2E Release Day Second Edition Amazon Sales Rank

[JFranklin3000]

link?
nevermind, I found it. They are saying "doubling" so I think they mean 99% "growth" or 199% of the prior quarter.
But growth is growth.

Roll20 Blog

The latest updates, features, and news for the Roll20 virtual tabletop.

blog.roll20.net

 

[JFranklin3000]

link?
nevermind, I found it. They are saying "doubling" so I think they mean 99% "growth" or 199% of the prior quarter.
But growth is growth.

Correct basically doubled now of course Pandemic so that skews the numbers a bit obviously.

 

[JFranklin3000]

Increasing in percentage in Roll20 is impressive, as it’s not just growing, but growing faster than 5e, which tends to veil relative growth with its massively expanding numbers.
And having 1% on Roll20 is still a feat. There are a lot of big and popular games that can’t match that. Like Numenera and Shadowrun.

Unlike PF1, which does seem to be shrinking. So people could be wrapping up PF1 games and moving to PF2. We might see another surge of play in PF2 this year as more people convert.

The worrying thing is PF1 dropped by more than PF2 raised.

It is hard to tell with what we have. The actuality was PF1 grew over the quarter, but just not as much as other things did. Percentages are misleading that way.

 

[vpuigdoller]

I can only assume so. Roll20 (where I game) is a pretty popular VTT, and the PF2 offerings on there are slim. It has a barely functional Core Rulebook and Bestiary (can't drop in basic equipment, race descriptions, class abilities, etc), a character sheet that is in Alpha at best, and no Adventure Paths. I think there is one adventure to download. I am creating all of my group's adventures from the ground up, and the play is "almost" terrible.

The Roll20 version would benefit greatly of a fully functional charactermancer as well. The D&D 5e one is super helpful.

 

[prosfilaes]

What are you disagreeing with?
You seem to be providing a list of reasons WHY the things I'm saying are happening are in fact happening.

I'm disagreeing with what I was replying to, which was that we can conclude how much Diamond Distributors sold of Paizo by Amazon numbers.

 

[BryonD]

OK. I think I agree with the points along the way. At this point I can't even really tell if I agree with you or not on the bottom line conclusion. But it seems another case of overcomplicating the analysis. And I don't see anything here that changes the big picture.
So I'm good with whatever.

 

[Porridge]

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, 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).

A brief update for those who find tracking these kinds of numbers interesting. Both 5e and PF2 have seen big shifts in Amazon rankings over the past three days:

• Over the last couple days (May 5th-7th) 5e's rank has slipped back into the 120ish range (5th: 118, 6th: 126, 7th: 127).
• Over the last couple days (May 5th-7th) PF2's rank has improved substantially, climbing back into the 3000ish range (5th: 3795, 5th: 2974, 7th: 3108).

The first point isn't surprising -- you'd expect the time-decay effects of the 5e's massive sale to result in its ranking dropping over time, moving back into the depressed "coronavirus" regime it's been in since early March.

The second point is more surprising -- PF2 hasn't had a rank this high since before the coronavirus stuff hit (and even then, it would have counted as a good day). So why has there been a big jump in PF2 sales over the last couple days?

 

[darjr]

Don’t they have a new book soon? I wonder.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

• Over the last couple days (May 5th-7th) PF2's rank has improved substantially, climbing back into the 3000ish range (5th: 3795, 5th: 2974, 7th: 3108).

I just looked and it says #3761.

Amazon.com

I would guess that once you get past the first 2000 or so books, very small increases or decreases in sales on a daily basis have a massive impact in the relative ranking; put more simply, it only take a small difference to go from 3000 to 4000, and vice versa.

 

[BryonD]

I just looked and it says #3761.

Amazon.com

I would guess that once you get past the first 2000 or so books, very small increases or decreases in sales on a daily basis have a massive impact in the relative ranking; put more simply, it only take a small difference to go from 3000 to 4000, and vice versa.

I think that is part of it. But this has happened at least three times now. So there does seem to be some underlying pattern. I wonder if there are large(ish) groups of related purchases.
Or maybe it is just what you are saying.
I dunno.

Up is good. How's that for a conclusion?