The Myth of the Bo9S's Popularity

[Azgulor]

One of the things that has puzzled me about the 4e PR (and there are many) is the reference to Bo9S being one of the "preview books" of 4e and that WotC felt it "worked" due to its popularity.

The popularity claim rang hollow with me when I first read it. Going only by my personal experience, I've seen the book only once in a bookstore while I've seen most of the other WotC books multiple times (presumably because they were purchased and restocked). I don't know any D&D gamers who actually own it.

Obviously, I don't have access to sales figures, so the only "empirical data" I could find were Amazon.com sales figures. In terms of book sales rankings, I found the following:

PHB 3.5 - #7,208
Complete Mage - #21,919
Complete Arcane - #22,369
Complete Adventurer - #22,369
Libris Mortis - #36,563
PHB II - 39,910
Complete Warrior - #43,101
ToB: Bo9S - #90,074!!!
Heroes of Horror - #99,074

While I can certainly see how one could argue the sales #s for Complete Mage as validation of the warlock (debatable but a case could be made), can they really make the case that Bo9S was truly popular?

Granted this is only one measurement and only WotC has the true numbers but it hardly seems like it was such a runaway success that it warranted being a prime source of 4e inspiration.

Anyway, I found it odd. I was just curious if others had similar experiences/opinions or if Bo9S was some cult classic that just didn't appeal to me.

 

[Voss]

Don't forget, those are Amazon's current sales rankings. They don't cover the history of the book, so aren't very useful for this purpose, one way or the other.

Also, its 'preview' nature isn't entirely tied to the popularity. They were testing some mechanics, but whether they were 'successful' or not isn't mapped exactly to the sales of the book. How the per encounter based manuevers compared to the core classes was probably just as, if not more, important.

 

[FadedC]

I'd never really heard of it before I came here, though it does seem that people on these boards tend to like it. I will say though that early books tend to be more popular, and I would never expect a book like that to outsell some of the more important and earlier class books. By the time Bo9S came out I already had enough supplements and was no longer keeping up with new ones.

 

[A'koss]

Keep in mind the following when looking at Amazon's sales rankings...

Sales Rank: 10,000+ Estimate between 1 - 10 copies being sold per week.
Sales Rank: 1,000+ Estimate between 10 - 100 copies being sold per week.

So the difference between a book with a 21,000 rank and 90,000 rank could mean a couple of books per week, making comparisons so far after it's release pretty much meaningless.

The sales ranks for books with a sales rank of over 10,000 is calculated daily, under 10,000 hourly. Check back a week later and see where the rankings are then - they'll probably shift all over the place.

 

[Azgulor]

While I agree that while Amazon's numbers aren't the best source of data, it was the only public domain "empirical data" I know of. If, in fact, the numbers are current sales rankings , which I believe to be the case, it does reinforce the conclusion that the Bo9S doesn't sell nearly as well as supplements that preceded it by years.

I know there's no right or wrong answer - at least none that anyone outside of WotC will have. As I said, I just felt that the claim that the 4e-test material warranted inclusion in 4e b/c of how popular the book was didn't ring true. I was just trying to gauge if the book sees wider use and has greater popularity than I think it does.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Also, it's just a website.... big, but real life sales and global sales may be different.

 

[Azgulor]

Keep in mind the following when looking at Amazon's sales rankings...

Sales Rank: 10,000+ Estimate between 1 - 10 copies being sold per week.
Sales Rank: 1,000+ Estimate between 10 - 100 copies being sold per week.

So the difference between a book with a 21,000 rank and 90,000 rank could mean a couple of books per week, making comparisons so far after it's release pretty much meaningless.

The sales ranks for books with a sales rank of over 10,000 is calculated daily, under 10,000 hourly. Check back a week later and see where the rankings are then - they'll probably shift all over the place.

Good points and thanks for the info - I didn't know that. As I said, Amazon's numbers were hardly an ideal metric. Numbers aside, I'm still having trouble buying the purported popularity of the book, which is why I asked the question. It was less a case of "Aha! I'm right" and more of a "maybe I'm not in left field on this one".

 

[A'koss]

The bottom line is - I don't see how it is helpful at all in looking at Amazon's numbers now for a book released in August 2006. If WotC is saying the book sold great, this is certainly not the way one would go about disproving it.

 

[TwinBahamut]

All I know is the anecdotal evidence from my old college gaming club. Everyone there either loved it or hated it, but everyone knew about it, at least. I am pretty sure more people liked it than hated it, and my main gaming group pretty much built half of our characters around the book, including letting characters who were several years old respec into Bo9S characters.

At the very least, there is a significant fraction of the D&D population who absolutely love the book and what it has done for D&D, and most people feel more strongly about that book than Incarnum, Tome of Magic stuff, or the other late 3.5 class supplements.

But, WotC would know better than anyone whether the Bo9S was popular or not, and they claim that it was, so I will believe them.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Maybe it sold well... for the quite shorter time it was out.


The other books on the list are older...