WotC WotC can, and probably should support multiple editions of D&D.

[Micah Sweet]

"Let's do what TSR did by the end of 2e, only more" is probably not the best business strategy.

But it's an awesome consumer strategy!

 

[Oofta]

But it's an awesome consumer strategy!

Going bankrupt because you're losing money is an awesome consumer strategy?

 

[ECMO3]

without them 5e will have sold more, easily

Not in print they haven't. 1E&BEMCI sold more of every single common book except the PHB (more Basic, more DMG, more MM).

The Basic set sold nearly twice as many copies as the 5E Starter set and Essentials kit combined and then they had Expert, Companion, Master and Immortals boxed sets on top of that.

AD&D 1E and BEMCI had over 70 different adventures they published in print, compared to I think 20 from 5E.

I am confident 1E and BEMCI sold more in print than 5E without even counting novels or Dragon magazine (and while I understand excluding the novels, I don't understand why you wouldn't include Dragon magazine).

and by ‘includes the novels’ you mean 29.5M of that are novels…

Ok and if this is true, I will point out that 500,000 adventure sales is over 3 times as many any 5E adventure .... and the Dragonlance modules were 15 out of I think 73 adventures they sold.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

But it's an awesome consumer strategy!

For you may be but not for me. Back in the eighties I went into a store in Dublin with the intention of buying the D&D manuals and along side the players handbook there were a half a dozen other class books. That stopped me cold. I went and bought Palladium and Warhammer 1e.
Last week, in an effort to look for some ideas to modify the Vecna: Eve of Ruin book I bought Vecna Live, Reborn and Die, Venca, Die, on DMsGuild. I think they are the worst modules I have ever laid eyes on.

 

[MichaelSomething]

But it's an awesome consumer strategy!

And today the consumer can access all that and more without paying a megacorp for the privilege.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

But it's an awesome consumer strategy!

Only while it lasts.

 

[ECMO3]

yes, 5e will have sold more than 1e when you count core, supplements, and adventures (but not magazines and novels). I meant that we do not have good numbers for that however, unlike the PHB numbers

You have no evidence at all to support this. The numbers about print sales show the opposite and they don't even include the 1E adventures.

The 1E DMG outsold the 5E DMG, the 1E MM sold almost twice as many copies as the 5E MM and there were two more Monster Manuals published after that (the final one selling more than any 5E book except the core 3 or starter kit).

The bookscan data for 5E show 8M copies of 5E material.

The numbers for 1E AD&D+BEMCI are over 10M and it is woefully incomplete and does not include any adventures and many major hardcover products like Deities and Demigods, Legend and Lore, Unearthed Arcana and Fiend Folio are either not included or the numbers of sales are not listed.

 

[Clint_L]

I am confident 1E and BEMCI sold more in print than 5E without even counting novels or Dragon magazine (and while I understand exceluding the novels, I don't understand why you wouldn't count Dragon magazine).

Your confidence aside, the numbers we have seen suggest otherwise, and you aren't really citing any facts. Just your general impressions. Give me some hard data if you want to sway me.

There's also a lot of comparing apples and oranges. Dragon magazine? How does that compare to DM's Guild and DDB? How do cheap modules compare to large, hardbound adventure books?

Comparing apples to apples, the core three for 5e have higher print sales, and then digital sales on top of that.

 

[ECMO3]

Your confidence aside, the numbers we have seen suggest otherwise, and you aren't really citing any facts. Just your general impressions. Give me some hard data if you want to sway me.

I am using the numbers provided. They show 10M 1E and BEMCI sales for the books they show while not even including most of the 1E publications.

The bookscan data shows far less than that on what is a more comprehensive list of 5E products printed

There's also a lot of comparing apples and oranges. Dragon magazine? How does that compare to DM's Guild and DDB? How do cheap modules compare to large, hardbound adventure books?

Dragon magazine was printed and mailed to subscribers and at over 1M copies per year during the heyday that dwarfs anything that WOTC printed for 5E (perhaps more than everything WOTC printed for 5E combined).

70 cheap 20 page modules means they can sell for far less per copy and sell far more product total. That is the point! If I sell 5 comic books and you sell one copy of War and Peace, I sold more books than you did.

I don't have data to compare DM's Guild and DNDB electronic sales, but no one else does either. I will point out though that DMs guild is still selling 1E material today.

As far as DNDB goes we know there are supposedly 10M users. How much the average user purchases is the real question here. I would guess the majority of users purchases no books at all. The majority of people I know with a DNDBeyond account have not purchased any books. I am currently playing with 22 people with an account on DNDB in the 4 online or partially online campaigns I am active in. Of those 22; three of the people (2 DMs and one player) have an e-copy of every single WOTC book on DNDB. I have three WOTC e-books. The rest I don't think have any e-books (and I know for a fact some of them don't have any).

 

[Parmandur]

The bookscan data

It is worth noting that Teos Abadia estimated, and Ray Winninger confirmed, that those numbers reflect a fraction of 5E sales.