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

[Micah Sweet]

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

Awesome for consumers, yes, depending on how far you get before the fall. TSR got pretty far and put out a lot of product, much of which would quite honestly never have existed if they were a better run company. It's not like I'm happy about what happened with the employees, but I am happy about the products that resulted from it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I've never let the existence of a lot of supplements stop me from getting a corebook, and honestly have a hard time even understanding that point of view.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've never let the existence of a lot of supplements stop me from getting a corebook, and honestly have a hard time even understanding that point of view.

For many people it can end up implying that there's a lot more buy-in before you have a complete game. In some cases its dead right, and a lot of people don't want to find out the hard way.

 

[LordEntrails]

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.

I hope you rated them and even put a few sentences into a review to help out the next potential buyer.

 

[Oofta]

Awesome for consumers, yes, depending on how far you get before the fall. TSR got pretty far and put out a lot of product, much of which would quite honestly never have existed if they were a better run company. It's not like I'm happy about what happened with the employees, but I am happy about the products that resulted from it.

Awesome until they go bankrupt and this time there's no white knight to save them and the game slowly dies.

 

[ECMO3]

Here's Bookscan, which captures only about 75% of sales, from July 2023. Core 3 and Starter Set are already well over 4M in sales, and this is incomplete and a year out of date.

View attachment 366537

Core 3, starter and essentials set combined are over 4.5M in sales as of 2023.

Core 3 and the basic sets combined were 7M in 1E sales.

 

[bmfrosty]

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.

That describes many of my attempts to check out D&D stuff. When 5e came around, I thought, finally, there are only a few books, I can find a way to try this D&D thing that I somehow missed as a kid.

 

[Parmandur]

Core 3, starter and essentials set combined are over 4.5M in sales as of 2023.

Again, the bookscan numbers represent a fraction of 5E book sales

 

[ECMO3]

yes, even in print, The 5e PHB alone might have sold as many copies in print as all of 1e or 2e (not both)... you are either vastly overestimating the old sales or vastly underestimating the 5e ones

I am not estimating, we have the bookscan data and the other TSE data through 1999

According to the bookscan data (as of 2023) and TSR sales through 1999 poster earlier:

5EPHB: 1.6M - 1EPHB: 1.6M
5EDMG: 800k - 1EDMG: 1.3M
5EMM: 800k - 1EMM: 1.1M
5E Starter+Essentials: 1.6M - 1E Basic (all versions): 3M

5E total top 15 on Bookscan: 6M (includes DM screen and cookbook)
5E total top 15 on Bookscan plus all adventure sales: <8M
Total reported for 1E: 10M we know of and is missing many major hardcover publications and all adventures

The 1E DMG outsold the 5E DMG

By about 500,000 copies according to the data posted on this thread.

so? 70 * 20k < 20 * 100k

Except most of those 20 did not sell 100,000 for 5E. Only 4 of the 20 adventures for 5E sold over 100k copies (COS, WDH, TYP and HODQ). The average is more like 60k and 70*20k is in fact more than 20*60k

And I also think it is more than 20k on average for the 1E modules. I don't know what the number is for 1E modules, but I haven't seen you post numbers either. But I do know that the 5E adventures average around 60k each (as of 2023)

confidence is irrelevant, show me your math

It is above.

Now how about you provide some math and numbers!

 

[jasper]

And how many people are a few months away from replacing that game book they don't need to replace? About 80-95% of the D&D fanbase. How many people replaced 4E with 5E? 3.5 with 4E? 3 with 3.5? 2E with 3? AD&D with 2E? Etc.

85% here in enworld. The casuals will not vote until the releases are done.