What are the best selling d20 products so far?

[Monte At Home]

I don't think I've yet seen a really well capitalized new company in this business. Meaning enough captial to operate and publish for three to five years before you see a profit.

In the absence of such a company, sales data seems pretty useless to me.

I can think of three without trying hard, but company financing isn't the kind of thing that's generally made public (and so I've no right to name the companies here). I suspect two have been operating without a profit for a while. Maybe from the get-go.

In fact, good capitalization is the only thing that can explain some of the things we see in our industry.

That aside, I'm not sure how that invalidates sales data. Are you suggesting that profitability data is better? Even if that's the case, that's not what the original poster asked for and generally isn't as interesting to people not directly involved (that is to say, consumers) as numbers sold. That's why, for example, bestseller lists are based on sales data.

 

[jmucchiello]

Also another consideration of volume can be price. It is really easy to buy a couple Heroes of High Favors because they are cheap, but good. I wouldn't be surprised if Joe's Book of Enchantments sells more than The book of the Righteous, just because it is 1/5th the cost.

I have no idea how many sales Book of the Righteous has done but more important that cost is market penetration. 1000+ times as many people have probably seen BoR in a store than have surfed to the JBoE webpages on my website or at RPGNow. And while JBoE is in top 100 all time PDF sellers at RPGNow, its number of sales is between 1/5 and 1/10 of the top seller's number.

People don't buy PDFs. Even ones as highly rated by fan reviews as JBoE. But thanks for putting it in the company of those other books.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Maybe the Scarred Lands Creature Collection since it hit the shelves before the 3.0 Monster Manual and was the only source of 3.0 monsters for a few months. Then again, I have no hard evidence to back that up.

Edit: Damn... Monte beat me to it. I'm batting 100 this morning.

 

[Psion]

So I would assume (my list of Must buys)

What one might assume are "must buys" often has weak correlation good sellers. Often hype, timing, shelf presence, and the publisher's relationship with distributors play a huge part in the final sales of the product.

 

[tensen]

What one might assume are "must buys" often has weak correlation good sellers. Often hype, timing, shelf presence, and the publisher's relationship with distributors play a huge part in the final sales of the product.

Definitely true. I have on my "must buy" list a product from almost a year ago. Still a must by.. an ENnie award winning product... written by the DM and one of the other players in the current campaign I'm in. And yet I still have to say that I haven't actually bought it yet. In this case.. too many must buys that it got shuffled around and hasn't yet gotten purchased.

For me.. I've noticed that my "Must Buy" list has gotten larger over time. Usually because there is only so many things I can buy and read in a month. And the number of those really good products coming out in a time period affect the end result. And if it doesn't move quickly on the retailer's shelf they don't reoroder.. And unless there are a lot of reorders.. the distributor doesn't reorder. So then I'll find it is a must buy.. but I can't find it on the shelf anywhere I look.

 

[MonsterMash]

I know that sales are often fairly low now as some of the recent Necromancer Games products were on print runs of 2000 - 5000, and thats for a well established company with a strong reputation and pretty solid fanbase.

I would guess that the 3 core books sold a lot less in the 3.5 versions than in the 2000ed as it created quite a lot of consumer resistance.

But looking at the market for 'normal' publishing products many novels sell maybe 20,000 copies at max, its only the well know and big selling authors you tend to hear about.

I would guess that the state of the economy in the US and most of Europe over the last three years has had an effect as well, as people in employment where remuneration is falling or which they don't feel to be secure will not spend as much on discretionary purchases like books, CDs, RPGs, or comic books. I'd be interested to see how sales in those areas have faired over the same period?

Actually the miniatures make a lot of sense given the success of CCGs over the last few years as it stimulates interest, brings in people that would not necessarily have bought minis elsewhere, etc.

 

[Dark Mistress]

I have to agree with monty. I think a big part of sales is the fact that stores are focusing more on just a few companies and don't stock the others at all(you can special order them but that really cuts down on sales i am sure) For example where I live one chain of stores almost has the market cornered. When D20 first game out they stocked just about everything. Now they get all the WoTC, most Sword and Sorcery(including the other companies like fiery dragon, necro, ect) those they tend to keep stocked. Now other companies, FFG, AEG, Mongoose, Green Ronin and a few others they will order there books but when they sell out they no longer stock them(they don't reorder more unless the book really really sold well) As for the rest they don't even order any at all. Take Broadaxe games, I have never ever seen one of their products in the stores same can be said about a lot of smaller presses. I can look at the ENworld company list in the reviews section and have never seen the majority of them in my local stores.

I would also have to say the economy has something to do it, i know I am far less likely to impulse by and now mostly only buy books that I think will really add something to my games AND that have good reviews about it.

 

[Psion]

Just to throw this out there: Plague of Dreams was an introductory adventure that came out at the same time as Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed -- and was co-written by Monte himself. We haven't sold 2,000 units of that.

Bummer.

Sometimes people ask us why we stopped publishing adventures (for the time being) and focused on counter products -- simple answer: the Counters sold WAY MORE than the adventures.

So I can only shake my fist in indignation, eh? Why don't you fools out there realize how great FTP adventure are? Why?

Ahem... sorry.

I saw Gates of Oblivion and OSM II on your webisite as upcoming still. Does this mean I was hallucinating?

 

[WingOver]

I would also have to say the economy has something to do it, i know I am far less likely to impulse by and now mostly only buy books that I think will really add something to my games AND that have good reviews about it.

The main reason I don't go out and buy 3rd party books is because it's hard to implement the new stuff in my gaming group. We have co-DMs and other players, and I'm the only one with the new book. Having everyone buy off on the new stuff when they don't have the book is very difficult.

When 3ed first came out, I was buying stuff left and right. But after a year or so I realized that almost none of them were implemented in the game, so I gave up. (Though I still enjoy reading them for the new ideas.)

I wonder if publishers are seeing generally lower sales numbers because of this fact?

I think Monte's approach is interesting because it breaks that problem. He's created his own PHB, and a group who adopts it has a vested interest in using it and buying the supplments for it. It's new and fresh. This works for him because he's a big enough name in the industry to pull it off.

 

[Psion]

Things that go BUMP... at 9:30 in the morning.

(Interested to see if Fiery James will reply to my post...)