Sold through already

[Nifft]

In case this didn't make it into the thread, Mearls confirmed that 3.0 was the smallest of the print runs:

http://mearls.livejournal.com/150306.html?thread=1647906#t1647906

Print run size:

3.0 < 3.5 < 4e

Ninja'd by Mouseferatu last page.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Shemeska]

Sales of the initial print run don't tell us much IMO. It has the D&D name and logo, so of course it will sell. The question is how steep any sales decline after the first few months might be, or do sales increase as people have more exposure to it and decide they like the new edition? Otherwise you might just see a spike in first print sales due to a population of hardcore fans or distributor expectations.

We'll know next year certainly if it's a success or not depending on if we see layoffs or more books added to the schedule (at the two extremes), or sales increases in other systems altogether, and the success or crash'n'burn of the DDI model.

Time will tell, but personally I don't expect 4e to have the same size sales as 3e did, nor the overall effect on the RPG industry.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Time will tell, but personally I don't expect 4e to have the same size sales as 3e did, nor the overall effect on the RPG industry.

On the other hand, running out of copies means they have underestimated the whole thing. Regardless of 4E's success, it definitively means that the consumers are out there, meaning RPGs are played.

And not dying, if there's a rise in initial interest for a new thing. This means that there's a lot of potential to be tapped right now, out there.

Will WotC tap that? Well, they've made a good start.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Mistwell]

I have access to engrams sales numbers and they have sold roughly 3K copies of the Gift set so far. They also list this as a "backordered" item.

engrams supplies bookstores and online retailers, but not gaming stores generally.

I managed to get some sales numbers from another publisher, one of the next biggest RPG publishers, and it works out that roughly 10-15% of RPG sales are supplied through engrams.

So I'd guess that the D&D 4E gift set has sold in the neighborhood of 25,000 to 30,000 copies with back orders of roughly 5,000 copies already in the works.

Given Amazon is selling 1000 a day right now, and was consistently for two months (lower than 1000/day, but still in the 200+ level), that number sounds low.

[Edit] It just rose to #2. Which puts it around 2000 copies a day on Amazon.

 

[hbarsquared]

Also, um...

#2

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Shoot. Am I insane to consider canceling my preorder in the hopes that the next print run will be errata'd?

 

[Nifft]

Shoot. Am I insane to consider canceling my preorder in the hopes that the next print run will be errata'd?

Nope. It's a sane course of action if you wouldn't be playing for a few months anyway.

I wonder if we'll see errata'd PDFs.

Cheers, -- N

 

[SSquirrel]

yes it is insane b/c it isn't usually till at least the 3rd or 4th run that we see errata. At least iof you want to play now

 

[fba827]

Shoot. Am I insane to consider canceling my preorder in the hopes that the next print run will be errata'd?

Well, chances are high that this second print will use the same printing drafts from before. Why do I say that?

Where I work, when we have printed manuals and such on a mass scale, if we need stuff immediately to supplement the initial print run, it uses the existing final template from the initial run. This is done because, even though we may already have collected some errata, we weren't expecting to have to proof it all and design the final print copy so soon, so the errata stuff is still sitting in draft form and needing to go through formatting, reindexing page numbers that might shift from the added/removed text, review from the hierarchy, etc.

So if you wanted to wait _a while_ then sure, cancel your prorder. But from my work experiences, I'd say that this supplemental printing will be the same as the initial run's copy.

 

[Knightfall]

That said, I think its a good thing that there will be those supporting the customers they are leaving behind.

That would be me.