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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 7685181" data-attributes="member: 6716779"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSR_(company)" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSR_(company)</a>Wikipedia might not be 100% accurate but ex TSR staffers have revealed they actually sold a lot of stuff, just at a loss being the problem.  The size of the RPGmarket in 2015 came from the ICV2 thing that was here on ENworld a few months ago. Sharon Appelcines book also details the final days of TSR IIRC. Additionally interviews with ex TSR staff such as Stan! are floating around the net. TSR novel lines apparently were selling well along with some of the game worlds. Dragon Dice for example apparently sold 70k units, the problem being they ordered 1 million units (that is sets not individual dice). Boxed sets with lavish production values such as Planescape were being sold at a loss. There was also a survey IIRC from 1999 or so and they estimated there were 6 million D&D players in the world. That is why D&D rebounded back so strong in 2000 with 3.0. The players were there, WoTC ran a better ship than TSR did. Ryan Dancey also gave the figures for 2E opening year sales (270k units in 1989) and 3.0 (300k the 1st month), which is in one of his threads here at ENworld. In an equivalent amount of time 2E seemed to outsell 1E. 2E in its dying days would still be one of the largest RPGs ever only beaten by a few editions of D&D. Estimates of TSR print runs.<a href="https://www.acaeum.com/library/printrun.html" target="_blank">https://www.acaeum.com/library/printrun.html</a> So they may not be making up porikies that World of Darkness is the second biggest selling RPG of all time. I saw 5.5 million units shifted mentioned, last year Eric Mona revealed that Paizo had sold around 250k units (500k 3.0, 250-350k 3.5). IDK if that 5.5 million figure for white wolf is all books or all lines though the D&D/Pathinder figures are for PHB/core book.  Note I am not a fan of White Wolf but I remember at the time they were doing very well in the 90's. I have seen various estimates of how well they actually did(20-50% of the RPG market) and claims they briefly outsold AD&D (when TSR was in its death throes). THe novel lines were selling better (apparently) than AD&D but the novels were D&D based so IDK if thats fair counting them as RPG sales or not, but the idea is to give you an idea of how big TSR was. WotC also paid down TSRs debt after they bought them IIRC. If you adjust some of the figures floating around for TSR in the 80's and 90's, TSR alone was an order of magnitude larger than the entire RPG market circa 2015 and its not just the golden age of 82/83. BECMI/AD&D are still the holy grail of D&D sales. For an individual unit BECMI has the D&D record (red boxed set), 1E or 2E probably has the record for most overall units sold as some 1E adventures broke the 100k units in total sales, OD&D would be the least popular D&D in terms of sales as it predated the D&D golden age.   If you want more information I can go and dig up interviews with ex TSR alumni, Gygax, Dancey etc if you want to watch them. Using this if the figures are accurate.<a href="http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/" target="_blank">http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/</a>TSR 1982/83 64 millionTSR 1996 60 millionRPG market 2015 25 millionSo if WHite Wolf did have a decent sized % of the RPG market in the early to mid 90's then yes they would be outselling Paizo/Pathfinder and could claim to be the 2nd biggest selling RPG of all time. They couldn't claim to be the 2nd biggest selling RPG in 2015 though.</blockquote>

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