Tabletopocalypse Now - GMS' thoughts about the decline in the hobby

[Maggan]

Right now, Amazon.com Bestsellers: The most popular items in Fantasy Gaming has the Gamma World RPG at #1* and the Pathfinder RPG Core book at #2. Followed by 5 D&D Essentials books, the Pathfinder APG and Warhammer 40K Deathwatch. So, no, we aren't justified in dismissing out of hand the concept that Pathfinder is selling as well as D&D.

And both Pathfinder and D&D are being outsold by Gamma World! It's gonna be interesting to see ICv2's next set of top seller lists.

/M

 

[Chaos Disciple]

I said absolutely nothing about 1000+ year old books about Chess.

Ok, thats all i wanted to know.

 

[billd91]

And both Pathfinder and D&D are being outsold by Gamma World! It's gonna be interesting to see ICv2's next set of top seller lists.

/M

I doubt it. Amazon's top seller list is always a brief snapshot over a limited time. You'd expect a new release to temporarily spike over an evergreen product quite often without necessarily having a significant impact on the longer term sales surveys like ICv2's.

 

[Argyle King]

I do not believe the hobby is in decline. If it is, nobody around where I live must be aware of that because it seems to be rapidly growing here (not necessarily D&D, but tabletop rpgs.) As evidence of this, I point to the fact that back when I started playing these games, I struggled to even find one other person to play around here. Currently, I am involved in three seperate face-to-face groups; I am also currently teaching some of my family members how to play one of the rpg systems I play... (they asked about how to play.)

This might just be an anomaly unique to this area. It would not be the first time that my experiences in this area conflicted to what I had read on the internet. Other oddities which I've experienced around here have been 3.5 Bards and Monks being useful in a game; gaming with people who feel that -to some extent- reality and fantasy can mix, and girls who game. Maybe I live in some sort of RPG Twilight Zone?

 

[Diamond Cross]

I miss the computer game Battle Chess.

 

[Odhanan]

Battle Chess? Here you go!

 

[prosfilaes]

I doubt it. Amazon's top seller list is always a brief snapshot over a limited time. You'd expect a new release to temporarily spike over an evergreen product quite often without necessarily having a significant impact on the longer term sales surveys like ICv2's.

It's been up there a while. If they count it separately from D&D, I doubt that it will push D&D or Pathfinder off the lists, but there's not that many games that have multiple books on Amazon lists, so I could see it making 3rd, 4th or 5th. Dresden Files RPG, book one, would be #40ish based on overall rank if it were listed as a gaming book; I wonder if the fact that Amazon isn't selling Dresden Files new pushed it up the gaming stores stats.

 

[GreyLord]

If we are talking about the demise of RPG's however, wouldn't it be MORE telling that the top selling Amazon RPG is #4? What's even more important on that is that 3 relatively unknown fantasy books are outselling EVERY ONE of the RPG's according to that posting just previous to this?

 

[Elric]

Right now, Amazon.com Bestsellers: The most popular items in Fantasy Gaming has the Gamma World RPG at #1* and the Pathfinder RPG Core book at #2. Followed by 5 D&D Essentials books, the Pathfinder APG and Warhammer 40K Deathwatch. So, no, we aren't justified in dismissing out of hand the concept that Pathfinder is selling as well as D&D.

* All numbers adjusted for the fact that three poorly categorized generic fantasy books are on top.

As mentioned, it's not clear what timespan this bestseller list is over.

As of this writing, D&D's rules compendium is ahead of Pathfinder core book by one spot. Ignoring other product lines, then there are 3 more D&D books, 1 Pathfinder and 6 more D&D products. Hard to see Pathfinder as having similar Amazon numbers from that.

Were there any posts that I missed from the middle of the thread with further evidence?

 

[dmccoy1693]

I wrote a reaction to the "Tabletopapocalypse" on my ENWorld blog.