The market dying?

[Turjan]

Actually, yes. New releases from the top 5 regularly approach or exceed D&D in online sales rankings. As of this post, for instance, I queue up Amazon and:

Mage: The Awakening: #683
Players Handbook: #1041

Another logical flaw in your argumentation. New releases often top titles that have a shelf life of 3 years. To put it in perspective, here two other numbers:

Werewolf: The Forsaken: #31,502
Vampire: The Requiem: #50,773

Those are short term sales rankings. Updated hourly.

Edit: To be fair and use the same category of booK:

The World of Darkness: #8,916

 

[Rasyr]

However, the mainstream bookstore market is killer for small press companies, since effectively everything sold through major bookstores is on consignment. If it doesn't sell, it's sent back and the company that produced it has to eat the cost. Compare that to the FLGS, where local stores end up with shelves of unsellable low-grade materials that periodically are cleaned out with a huge sale.

Not quite. Main stream book stores rarely purchase directly from the publisher. They use a distributor like Ingrams. Ingrams purchases (and pays for) books from the publishers. However, their contracts, unlike the contracts with the hobby distributors, allow for returns. A nasty little habit that these main stream distributors have is to return almost everything that they have not sold shortly before christmas, to make their year end inventories look better. However, when they do this, they expect to have their money returned (much more promptly than they normally pay publishers, at that). This can cause major cash flow problems, and even kill some businesses. These distributors will then turn right back around and re-order everything they returned a few months later.

At this point, the only two companies that can really afford to use these main stream distributors are WotC (aka Hasbro) and perhaps White Wolf. Osseum used to also deal with them (which is why you got to see Green Ronin products at Barnes & Noble for a while).

The foundation of the industry, the fans and gamers themselves, appears healthy. As long as that is healthy, the industry will survive, because as any company collapses, a new one will arise.

Again, not quite. Is the hobby getting new gamers? Yes. Is the hobby losing gamers? Again, yes. Is the hobby gaining new gamers at a rate greater than it is losing gamers? Unfortunately, not.

Personally, I would not say that the hobby is dying, but I would say that it is shrinking.

The other thing to consider is that these large chain bookstores and retail outlets only deal with the TOP of the industry, WOTC and a few others.

Not true. As I said above, the book stores deal with THEIR distributors. Their distributors will deal with just about anybody, anybody who is willing to take THEIR terms, including on the issue of returns. Also as I said above, there are only a few companies who can AFFORD to deal on those terms. Osseum tried to do it for smaller companies and look at how well that turned out....

So, is it your arguement that Wizards doesn't have a majority of the market share?

Don't be silly. Of course WotC has the largest market share. They have the most famous brand to build on, and they have the capital and resources to do things other companies cannot. However, having said that, I would not fully trust anything that they say about the size of their market share. For example, if they quote how many PHBs sold last year, you can bet that the number quoted most likely does not take into account returns from the main stream distributors, but does take into account sales to them.

Evidence has been cited that indicates D&D's market is growing, and is now larger than it has ever been before.

Umm? What evidence? Sorry, but Charles Ryan saying that sales are better than ever does not qualify as evidence. Besides, citing "evidence" is worthless unless one is willing to share that evidence with others.

Now one thing that I would like to point out. The source from which Mr. Hite gets his numbers is not very accurate (which he does state in his reports) becuase it is volunteer information only. One thing that does not get mentioned is that the source of his numbers is affiliated with the largest distributor in the hobby, and that the information comes from their customers. This means that it totally ignores anything not carried by that distributor (unless the volunteer store deals with more than one distributor, and relatively few do). This means that anything not carried by that distributor will be highly unlikely to make it onto that list.

Finally, I want to reiterate what I said above:

Personally, I would not say that the hobby is dying, but I would say that it is shrinking.

 

[Maggan]

Umm? What evidence? Sorry, but Charles Ryan saying that sales are better than ever does not qualify as evidence. Besides, citing "evidence" is worthless unless one is willing to share that evidence with others.

I agree with you about it not being "evidence", but I disagree with the implication that I read into several posts here and on other forums, that just because Ryan or Mearls is saying it, it is not to be trusted at all.

They are saying it. What they say, who they work for and why they are saying it should be taken into consideration, sure. But should it be summarily dismissed?

Are they lying?

For their own sake, I hope not, and I don't believe that to be the case. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but to me it reads as if we're stopping just short of calling them liars just because they work for WotC, which evidently makes everything they say mightily suspect.

To me their info is one clue, Hite's number another, the numbers I get from my publisher another, the numbers I get from my FLGS another, the number of people attending conventions another, and so on.

Here in Sweden the hobby seems to be stable, looking over the last 5 years. Before that it was in serious decline, and it will never ever reach the levels it was at 1985 to 1990. So today we have a smaller group of roleplaying gamers (maybe around 40 000, ie "gamers", not "consumers"). A popular game (there are two big native, and about three smaller native, as well as strong sales for D&D and WoD), will sell around five thousand to ten thousand copies of a new edition, which has been stable for the last five years (and yes, we cycle through editions like they were underwear here in Sweden, which is not really a good thing, but it keeps the wheels turning).

The gaming magazine I'm involved with (www.speltidningen.se) is a colour printed magazine, distributed in magazine stores and FLGS, and has print run of 4000 copies every second month, and a readership of around 2 000 gamers, most of them roleplayers. The support we're finding among gamers is the highest level we've had here in Sweden in years.

These are not anecdotal observations. They are hard numbers.

Still, we get fewer FLGS, and game store chains are pulling RPGs from their shelves, to make room for stuff that generates more money.

That being the situation here does not mean anything when looking at the state of the hobby anywhere else, but there are places in the world where real world observations support the notion that the hobby is not shrinking at a dramatic pace.

Take that as you will.

Cheers!

/Maggan

 

[Rasyr]

I agree with you about it not being "evidence", but I disagree with the implication that I read into several posts here and on other forums, that just because Ryan or Mearls is saying it, it is not to be trusted at all.

Implication? I don't think I was making an implication. I was just saying that you cannot really trust anything that anybody quotes as "evidence", unless it is backed up with the verifiable evidence itself.

They are saying it. What they say, who they work for and why they are saying it should be taken into consideration, sure. But should it be summarily dismissed?

No, it should not be summarily dismissed, but folks should also realize that what they say may not be wholly accurate either. It is quite likely that it is colored by their experiences. And unless what they say is backed up by the verifiable evidence, it should not be given any more weight than what I say, or Crothian, or DaveMage, or anybody else says, period, end of story.

Are they lying?

For their own sake, I hope not, and I don't believe that to be the case.

I hope not as well. But then again what they say is very likely colored by their own spin on things. For example, in a recent post Mearls divided rpgs into D&D, d20, & everybody else and then dismissed the latter two as inconsequential or nearly so. That right there goes to show where his priorities are, and that also colors his perceptions of the whole market, and thus what he goes on to say does not really reflect the market as a whole, but only the portion that HE considers important.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but to me it reads as if we're stopping just short of calling them liars just because they work for WotC, which evidently makes everything they say mightily suspect.

Liars? No. Spinning data to their betterment, more than likely. And yes, it is quite possible to spin data without lying. This is done by ignoring other data.

For example, back up where I was talking about main stream distributors. It is quite possible that, yes, WotC did sell a record number. It is also possible that 3/4 of them were returned from the distributor as well, but we are not told if this is the case or not, we are not even told if this had been factored into the number reported. Would this be a lie? Nope. Would it be a case of spin-doctoring? Yup. But please note that I am NOT saying that it was either!!

Each person has to make that judgement for themselves.

To me their info is one clue, Hite's number another, the numbers I get from my publisher another, the numbers I get from my FLGS another, the number of people attending conventions another, and so on.

Everything is a clue. However, one must not take anything at face value either. Always be skeptical, and question what you are told. You tend to end up getting even more information that way, and can make better informed judgements.

The rest of your post is another piece of data that goes along with my statement that I blieve the market/hobby is shrinking (but not dying).

 

[eyebeams]

Another logical flaw in your argumentation. New releases often top titles that have a shelf life of 3 years. To put it in perspective, here two other numbers:

Werewolf: The Forsaken: #31,502
Vampire: The Requiem: #50,773

Those are short term sales rankings. Updated hourly.

Edit: To be fair and use the same category of booK:

The World of Darkness: #8,916

No, that's a strawman. Obviously, I was not arguing that other games consistently outsell D&D. The fact is, though that if there was *as* massive a difference as some claim, this situation would be impossible. It would never happen. As a matter of fact, though, these spikes are regular things. In other words: It's what you get when one company has about 45% of the market.

 

[Crothian]

No, that's a strawman. Obviously, I was not arguing that other games consistently outsell D&D. The fact is, though that if there was *as* massive a difference as some claim, this situation would be impossible. It would never happen. As a matter of fact, though, these spikes are regular things. In other words: It's what you get when one company has about 45% of the market.

What's that based off of? Now where in my business classes did anything like that get covered. It would also matter how much % the other companies have. If one has 45% and the others only have 5% then again, this would never happen I image according to you. But I digress, because even if D&D is 80% of the market, it can still get out selled compairing a single hot book to a book printed three years ago.

But that does bring up a good question, you say Wizards has 45%, who makes up the other 55% and what market share do they have?

 

[Psion]

No, that's a strawman. Obviously, I was not arguing that other games consistently outsell D&D. The fact is, though that if there was *as* massive a difference as some claim, this situation would be impossible. It would never happen. As a matter of fact, though, these spikes are regular things. In other words: It's what you get when one company has about 45% of the market.

I'm not sure what this meaningfully demonstrates either way.

Yeah, it shows that White Wolf is the number two player on the block that gets in its licks. but I thought that was common knowledge.

 

[Turjan]

No, that's a strawman. Obviously, I was not arguing that other games consistently outsell D&D. The fact is, though that if there was *as* massive a difference as some claim, this situation would be impossible. It would never happen. As a matter of fact, though, these spikes are regular things. In other words: It's what you get when one company has about 45% of the market.

Your statement is inconclusive, as are most of the others before. Your conclusions can be only as good as the samples those conclusions are taken from are. The sources for your 45% are completely inadequate for drawing the conclusions you draw, and the amazon sales ranks are also inadequate for deciding that a 70% number is out of the question. Without any further information (frex: what is the time basis for sales ranks; what is the actual number of sales behind the ranks) you cannot even say that the numbers are inconsistent with a 99% market share.

Edit: Those numbers are even less meaningful than I personally thought. It's only a few hours later, and now it reads:

Mage: The Awakening #1,120
Player's Handbook 3.5: #814

 

[GMSkarka]

Lest I be accused of "trolling" (which, evidently, means "saying things that the hardcore gamer doesn't want to accept"), I will only sum up as follows:


eyebeams is right.



It's not pretty, but it's true.

 

[Turjan]

Lest I be accused of "trolling" (which, evidently, means "saying things that the hardcore gamer doesn't want to accept"), I will only sum up as follows:


eyebeams is right.



It's not pretty, but it's true.

Says your crystal ball ?