So, around me, flipping burgers at In-N-Out or stocking shelves at Target starts at $18.50 per hour. So the Spelljammer Set in Amazon is about two and a half hours of work for a high schooler with a part time job. Whereas the Beadle & Grimm version costs $500, or about 30 hours of work for the same Teen, which also translates to about 15-20 WotC hardcovers on Amazon depending on how deep the discount is at the time.
Thats a fair take. Here minimum wage is $14.20/hr. I know WotC target demographic is 12-24 year olds, and they are probably the age group that playing the most, but is there any data that says they make up the majority of those buying official D&D products, whether physical or digital?
Not that WotC has shared: they have shared that Teens and Twenty-Somethings are the majority of players. Given the pricing and positioning of the books, I would wager they do most of the buying or at least requesting (even if parents/godparents/aunts/uncles do the actual buying, they are good gifts).
This was my thought exactly. I'm going to guess that the young adults, 20-24 demo isnt a major consumer of D&D products even though they are probably the ones playing the most. At that age they start having other expenses such as college, cost of driving, rent and groceries, etc. But I'd be curious to see actual numbers. Through all my years of playing D&D there is always one or two players in a group who spend the most on books, and other materials like battle mats, minis, pencils, graph paper, etc.
In my experience, we call that group member the "Dungeon Master."
Merchandise such as action figures, coffee mugs, apparel, and the like?
Yup, there is currently a whole discourse on Twitter about the official D&D waffle Iron and toaster, which are amazing.
I thought you were screwing with me, but nope and I'm quite astonished that these are actually real. I wouldn't imagine that stuff like this would actually supersede the profit from actual game products, but you may be right. Never thought I'd live to see the day when a D&D anything, let alone a waffle iron is available at Home Depot. What will they think of next a D&D d12 shaped Mordenkainens Chainsaw? I can see it now come this Halloween there's going to be duels all over the world when 2 or 3 people all show up to the same party dressed in the same Owlbear costume.
