The market dying?

[BryonD]

Yep, and that sounds great until you realize the other "dirty secret" of D&D: only a fraction of those 4 million buy any D&D products.

That's very true. My wife is a regular player. Guess how many books she's bought in the past 20 years. My other players have her beat by about 5 books combined. I've got shelves and we use my stuff.


But, on the other hand, I don't think this was any less true in the 80s. So it doesn't play much into the relative health.


I know that this "grey" patch of the last four years has produced the highest quality stuff I've seen. So if that's unhealthy let's round up some RPG industry arsenic 'cause I want me some more.

I also predict that I'll be taking doom and gloom for the industry with a heaping of salt 10 years from now.

 

[GVDammerung]

Um...what?!

Does anyone not remember that D&D 3e has been doing the BEST of any edition? Not only that, but last year(2004) was the best year for D&D ever! And we're far from the glory days? Things have been declining since '82?!

I'm sorry but...what the hell?!

Those don't mesh at ALL.

But wait! I forgot! WotC was the one who told us how great last year was! We can't trust them, nooo! So, obviously, they're lying to us and we can't believe them at all. Yes, decline. Of course. Far from our glory days. Yep.

Not exactly.

"Doing the best of any edition" is a loaded phrase.

D&D 3E could generate more dollars than any prior edition in a given year due to price escalation that outstrips the rate of gamer decline. Selling to fewer books for more money. (I actually have some direct experience, not in the game field, with this phenomenon sufficient to say that it occurs and has been used to declare "great years.")

It is not clear what is meant by "doing best of any edition" absent hard numbers Wotc will not divulge.

Yep, and that sounds great until you realize the other "dirty secret" of D&D: only a fraction of those 4 million buy any D&D products. If even 5% of those people bought every D&D release, the D&D business would be frickin' great. If 10% did, it'd be utterly fantastic. They don't though and that's the rub. Many players don't even buy a current PHB and a fair number are still playing with the same old edition books they've had for 10 or 20 years.

For the sake of comparison, let's look at World of Warcraft, which has over 4 million world wide subscribers, each one of whom pays monthly to play. Quite a difference to the bottom line.

This is also in line with a "sell for more/or more to fewer people" hypothesis.

It is also relevant, I think, to Wotc' relationship to the rest of the hobby. As Wotc may be more insulated from some market fluctuations, they may feel any decline later than other d20 publishers. These other d20 publishers, I would advance, helped fuel the 3E boom that also feathered Wotc's nest, and, if these same d20 publishers are now feeling a squeeze, it more than suggests to me that the boom is fading into a decline that eventually will be felt my Wotc, even if not yet.

These d20 D&D publishers, I suggest, are then like the proverbial canary in the coal mine. They are sensing trouble before Wotc, which for the moment may not be sensing trouble because they are not as sensitive to the market, having the biggest brand name and Hasbro's resources.

 

[francisca]

Yep, and that sounds great until you realize the other "dirty secret" of D&D: only a fraction of those 4 million buy any D&D products. If even 5% of those people bought every D&D release, the D&D business would be frickin' great. If 10% did, it'd be utterly fantastic. They don't though and that's the rub. Many players don't even buy a current PHB and a fair number are still playing with the same old edition books they've had for 10 or 20 years.

Really? Do you know if the much bandied "4 Million players" figure represents players of *all* editions of D&D/AD&D, or 3e alone?

Also, it seems to me that many of us buy enough books for about 10 people. I'm sure that helps the bottom line a bit.

--plays old and new editions spikey

 

[Vocenoctum]

Ah, thanks . So it's 4 million regular players in the US alone what he said. Here's a direct link to the post.

I also noticed that i's always nearly the same people in these threads .

"4 million American males, ages 8 to 45, play Dungeons & Dragons,"
I wonder how many females play.

 

[GMSkarka]

Just to give non-industry folks a glimpse at the reports that we see:

The September 2005 issue of COMICS & GAMES RETAILER contains sales reports as of June 2005. Now, admittedly, these numbers are flawed, since they are a self-selecting survey. However, they are the only numbers we have, and are useful for extrapolating larger trends.

C&GR averages reported figures across all stores in the sample to show a raw per-store average number of units sold of each RPG product line.

In June of 2005, the average store reporting sold at least 32 units for the month (i.e. 32 individual RPG products, for the entire month), for an average gross revenue of $850.

For the month.

Average unit sales for the entirety of 2004 hovered around the mid-70 mark. In October of 2004, they rose to a nearly-respectable 119 units. Since then however:

October 2004: 119 units
November 2004: 90 units
December 2004: 102 units
January 2005: 82 units
February 2005: 70 units
March 2005: 69 units
April 2005: 40 units
May 2005: 35 units
June 2005: 32 units

That's a massive drop. Yes, it's coming from stores that are volunteering the info...but then again, the participating stores represent some of those that are most serious about the business, and so can reasonably be assumed to represent AT LEAST the average, if not an example of a superior store.

Things are hurtin', kids. No lie.

 

[Turjan]

In June of 2005, the average store reporting sold at least 32 units for the month (i.e. 32 individual RPG products, for the entire month), for an average gross revenue of $850.

For the month.

That's of course far from being able to live on. Do you have the numbers for the months before October 2004, at least till June 2004, in order to be able to filter for the Christmas season?

Edit: 32 units may be in the region what I alone buy per year. Although I only bought one of those books in a game shop.

 

[TwistedBishop]

Eh, I do 100% of my RPG shopping online. I know most other people do too. If the FLGS is going the way of the dinosaur, maybe it's fitting it does. I haven't been in a good one for 7 years.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Just to give non-industry folks a glimpse at the reports that we see:

The September 2005 issue of COMICS & GAMES RETAILER contains sales reports as of June 2005. Now, admittedly, these numbers are flawed, since they are a self-selecting survey. However, they are the only numbers we have, and are useful for extrapolating larger trends.

Question: Do they tell how many survey's were returned for these numbers? Also, is it correct that the Average Store sold at least 32, as opposed to say, store's Averaged 32 books?

 

[Turjan]

Eh, I do 100% of my RPG shopping online. I know most other people do too. If the FLGS is going the way of the dinosaur, maybe it's fitting it does. I haven't been in a good one for 7 years.

It's about the same here. The one book I bought in a shop this year was when I wanted some special item, and the game shop is next to a food store I frequent. They didn't have what I wanted, but I picked one book from the bargain bin. The two years before that, I didn't enter a game shop. The only other time I ever was in one, I bought dice and a battlemat. That's about it. That means I'm not really part of that statistic.

One of my colleagues, who asked me to run an RPG for him and some friends, also surprised me by just ordering the PHB online as soon as he heard some vague 'yes' from me. It never came to his mind to go for a shop (it never came to his mind, either, that I might want to run something other than D&D ).

 

[Crothian]

Many players don't even buy a current PHB and a fair number are still playing with the same old edition books they've had for 10 or 20 years.

I wopnder how many though use the SRDs or illegal copies to play?