D&D General TSR D&D sales numbers compiled by Benjamin Riggs

D&D historian Ben Riggs--author of the upcoming Slaying the Dragon, which is a history of TSR-era (not that TSR, the real one) D&D--compiled some sales figures of AD&D 1st Edition's Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide from 1979-1990.

Behold! Some actual D&D sales numbers!

While working on my book #SlayingtheDragon I got a ton of primary source documents containing sales data for D&D. With the book coming out, I've been looking for a way to get that data out into the wide world. I'm going to start making charts, and simply posting them. If people want the raw data, I can post that too, but obviously, charts are prettier.

I'm starting with AD&D 1st ed Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide. You'll notice a crash in the mid-80s, and then the sales peter out with the release of 2nd edition.

The sales point to a fact that I believe hasn't been given enough play in our hobby. Namely, TSR was in a tight spot when Lorraine Williams took over the company from Gary Gygax. If it weren't for Lorraine, D&D may have died in the mid-80s.

Just an idea for your consideration...

Oh, and if you haven't preordered my book on D&D history yet, I'll put a link in the comments.

Go get his book! It’s going to be interesting!

Slaying the Dragon - Macmillan

The secret and untold story of how TSR, the company that created Dungeons & Dragons, was driven into ruin by disastrous management decisions, then ...

read.macmillan.com

 

[Nikosandros]

Well, it made some games that people really loved: but it also probably is one of the key mistakes that made TSR non-viable in the longrun. And it may have been better for players if one game was supported coherently over the longterm.

Yes, that's very likely. The numbers don't lie. After a spike, AD&D 1e quickly declined. But from a selfish point of view, I'm still glad that it got made, because I love it. Yes, it's wonky, bloated and quite likely - if I hadn't been introduced to D&D via Basic to which I could always fall back upon when something wasn't clear - I might have bounced against it. But I still love it.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes, that's very likely. The numbers don't lie. After a spike, AD&D 1e quickly declined. But from a selfish point of view, I'm still glad that it got made, because I love it. Yes, it's wonky, bloated and quite likely - if I hadn't been introduced to D&D via Basic to which I could always fall back upon when something wasn't clear - I might have bounced against it. But I still love it.

That's fair.

 

[Jer]

Yes, that's very likely. The numbers don't lie. After a spike, AD&D 1e quickly declined. But from a selfish point of view, I'm still glad that it got made, because I love it. Yes, it's wonky, bloated and quite likely - if I hadn't been introduced to D&D via Basic to which I could always fall back upon when something wasn't clear - I might have bounced against it. But I still love it.

If it weren't for the outside circumstances that led to the D&D/AD&D split I could see an alternate history where Advanced D&D was the follow-on from Basic D&D rather than its own game and Basic leading into the Expert set. But those outside circumstances involved lawsuits and a lot of money so that's not what happened.

I'm really happy that Basic D&D survived as long as it did though - I likely also would have bounced hard off of D&D if 1e AD&D was the only game in town when I started getting into it.

 

[darjr]

I have to say, sometimes it’s these accidents of creation that make beautiful things that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. The original Star Wars movie being my go to example.

 

[Nikosandros]

I must say that I'm really looking forwards to the book. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from it. For example, while I was aware that TSR was treading water by 1985, I had never realized that the sales for the PHB had fallen that much...

 

[Eryndur]

Interesting to see the dip then recovery between 82 and 83. Most likely a result of the orange spine re-releases, I would assume.

 

[Lanefan]

Part of the dropoff by 1984 is probably because by then most of the people who wanted a PHB and-or DMG had them, either by direct purchase or secondhand somehow.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that sales dropped again after 1985, as that's the year that UA came out; and with UA the game kinda jumped the shark somewhat.

I will say I'm truly surprised that the DMG sold about as many copies as the PH, though; in that in theory there's several players per DM and in theory (as per the marketing) each player was to have their own PH. Seems most groups might have had one or two copies of each book that were shared around the table as needed.

 

[Von Ether]

So in context, is this a smoking gun that TSR was making more money by abusing their contracts with the big book sellers vs actual sales?

 

[darjr]

From the first post in that thread.

Interesting numbers here:

D&D 4E Back to Press

Basically, it looks like the print run for 4e was half again as much as 3.5E and it's already sold out. Back to the printers you go! Not sure how it would compare to 3E's first print run, to be honest.

Edit: The sales and print run of 4E are greater than 3E, too.

Couple this with the numbers thrown around in that Forbes magazine interview, and we finally start to see some stats behind all the hyperbole on the boards.

I know...most probably aren't interested, but I thought it's kinda neat.

Wis
(Mods: Sorry if I'm in the wrong forum with this, or if it's already been posted somewhere else. Feel free, of course, to delete or move this post.)

D&D 3E/3.5 - 4E vs 3E Sales Figures: The Facts

Interesting numbers here: http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12654.html Basically, it looks like the print run for 4e was half again as much as 3.5E and it's already sold out. Back to the printers you go! Not sure how it would compare to 3E's first print run, to be honest. Edit: The sales...

www.enworld.org

 

[Morrus]

I will say I'm truly surprised that the DMG sold about as many copies as the PH, though; in that in theory there's several players per DM and in theory (as per the marketing) each player was to have their own PH. Seems most groups might have had one or two copies of each book that were shared around the table as needed.

I don't recall ever being in a (non-online) group where everybody had a copy of the rules. It's always generally been 1-2 PHBs between us.