Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Zardnaar Aug 03, 2015 3:16:33	A linky link link.   http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2760-D-D-Still-Leads-ICv2-s-Quarterly-Hobby-Game-Rankings#.Vb81HvmqpBc   Last year the RPGmarket was worth around $15 million dollars and IIRC 2013 was a bad year of around 13 million IIRC. By early 2014 D&D fell off the ICV2 charts altogather.     Going by these figures one can make some deductions. By 2012 Pathfinder had reached 12.7 million dollars or so with an annual growth rate in excess of 30% from 2009. Apparently they outsold 4E in 2010 on revenue of around 8 million dollars, as of August in 2014 Monte Cook claimed D&D was down to around a 1/3rd of its size in the 3E era and this matches up with Danceys claims of D&D worth around 25 million dollars a year circa 2006. Before 4E launched it was estimated D&D had generated about a billion dollars in sales over 30 years is where they got that figure from I assume (1 billion/30).    Paizo has claimed 2013 was a better year than 2012, not sure about 2014 though. Most likely Paizo+ WoTC between them account for over 20 million of the RPG market and personally I suspect that figure is more like 22-23 million. Some % of the 2015 figure likely came at the expense of Paizo and we do not know what happend to Paizos revenue between 2014-15 it seems. Paizos 2012 figure + the 10 million jump in the size of the RPG market would account for close to 23 million dollars of the 25 million figure. Even if Paizos figures were down and WoTC are up thats just shifting some numbers around between the two companies.   Anyway 5E sales are around 50% of TSRs sales during the golden age of D&D. Adjusted for inflation its more like 1/5th but all D&D looks bad in comparison to 1982/83.   Some Assumptions    It is likely 5E has already done better than 4E.   5E is likely beating Pathfinder in current sales (and actually is according to Morrus at ENworld), Pathfinder still has a larger player base unless there has been a drastic drop off in numbers.    5E probably has not sold as much as 3.0 in terms of numbers, might have actually made WoTC more money though. $20 3.0 PHB X 500k units = $10million total and apparently margins were slim on the 3.0 PHB since it sold on release at 1989 prices. There were other 3.0 splats though in its 1st year though and 2000/2001 was the silver age of D&D.    Overall revenue is likely similar to the 3E era although that is split between Paizo and WoTC. Adjusted for inflation maybe a slight decline in revenue overall relative to say ten years ago. .   Figures from ENworld indicate that 5E has likely sold around 80-100k PHB. At $50 a pop (cheaper on Amazon)+ sales of the other core boks likely being lower than the PHB ballpark figures of PHB sales would be somewhere in the 50-100k range. This would mean 5E has sold more than 4E in its complete run and somewhere beween 25-50% of 3.5/Pathfinder in one year vs 5 years. The ENworld figures that came out earlier in the year are probably somewhat accurate when compared with the sales chart estimating the size of the RPG market. Some software tracked Ebays sales and claimed Ebay had sold over 30k PHBs and Ebay accounts for around 30% of all book sales.   5E is also selling faster on release than 1E. Beaten by 2Es and 3.0s first year along with the Basic red box in 1983. Middle of the pack in terms of D&D sales overall beating OD&D in its entire run, 1E, 4E maybe 3.5 as I am not sure how front loaded 3.5 sales were as it sold 250k-350k over 5 years according to Erik Mona. To be fair to 1E though D&D was not that big in the 1970's as it picked up traction in 1981-1983 and AD&D was outsold by Basic D&D in the early 80's. 1E was also a slow burn with several printings in the 40k range and was printed well into the 2E era.   Basic D&D red box is still the biggest selling D&D item of all time (no surprise). Small estimates would put it in the range of 3.0, 3.5 and 5E PHB added togather. Larger estimates of Basic D&D compared with PHB's (PFRPG) - 3.0 (500k), 3.5 (250-350k), 4E (50-100k), Pathfinder (250k) and 5E (100k ?) added togather along with 1st year 2E sales.     So overall 5E has been a smash hit. Right now we are looking at a D&D bronze age but if 5E can sustain its sales we might have a new silver age in 2017/18 but core book sales usually drop in following years. If WoTC breaks tradition and manages to support an edition of D&D for longer than 5 years we would likely be looking at another 1E scenario.
#2 Ralif_Redhammer Aug 03, 2015 8:29:50	Not surprised at all about the classic red basic box. Maybe it’s nostalgia talking in part, but if I had to pick the single best thing of the D&D brand, it would probably be the red box. From art, to ease of play, to quality of writing, it was exactly what it needed to be.
#3 Hebitsuikaza Aug 03, 2015 9:12:28	To be fair, it would be a lot more difficult to pirate the Red Box than it is to pirate the current books. The books are just.... books. There are no packed in physical objects like miniatures or maps or dice or whatever.   Plus, the quality in terms of video games at the time were very poor. 1983 was in the middle of the video game crash and even then you are talking about Atari 2600-level games. By 1984 is when you get the NES with Mario and a real rivaval... but you are still talking about side-scrollers and such. In terms of RPG, you got the original Final Fantasy, text-based adventure games and maybe the original Ultima and Might and Magic.   Honestly, even if you were playing the most dry, generic, by-the-numbers version of D&D in the 1980s, it was vastly better than what you were getting on the electronic game side.   Now... not so much. Technology has massively advanced and that has changed everything.   Now this game is catering to an audience that has either moved on or refuses to move forward.
#4 DemoMonkey Aug 04, 2015 5:10:15	"Now this game is catering to an audience that has either moved on or refuses to move forward."   Which one are you?
#5 Coredump00 Aug 04, 2015 10:21:37	Well, if you figure 100,000 PHBs, at $50 a pop..... that is $5,000,000 right there.  Then add in teh MM, DMG, HotDQ, RoT, OotA......   10 million sure doesn't seem far fetched at all.