Is D&D 5e selling well?

[EggKookoo]

Or is it too early to tell?

A lot of people (or some, anyway) predicted that Pathfinder would be the end of D&D. Just curious if anyone knows of any sales numbers to show if WotC is seeing a healthy recovery with 5e.

And please, I'm not interested in starting a discussion over which game is better. There are so many places on the Internet where such debates are ongoing.

[Lurkmoar]

I have no idea. Casual Google Fu is giving me squat, and not the cool 40k Space Dwarves kind.

[JAL_1138]

The PHB and MM are still on the NYT bestseller list. And *most* of the Amazon bestseller list for gaming-related books consists of 5e products.

That doesn't really give solid numbers, but it's probably a good sign.

[EggKookoo]

I did try the almighty google first. I did get an interview with someone from WotC gushing about how well it's going and an armchair analysis saying that it appears to be doing better than 4e but not enough to say D&D is entering any kind of new golden age.

My gut says there's a lot of enthusiasm about this version. I just started a 5e campaign and one of my players is a diehard 2e DM, and he kept asking to look at the DMG. I take that to be a good sign.

[obryn]

By all appearances, it's selling very well. WotC doesn't release sales numbers, but it seems healthy and they're doing reprints, so that's a good sign.

I'm rather doubtful of everything else around the game, mind you - the skeleton crew on the RPG side, the tepid release schedule, the lack of a third-party license of any sort, the lack of any public roadmap for future supplements, the cancellation of print products, the lazy approach to web articles, the lack of any involvement in stuff they'd previously supported like Free RPG Day... those don't speak to me of a lot of confidence in the future. But time will tell, of course.

[Segev]

By all appearances, it's selling very well. WotC doesn't release sales numbers, but it seems healthy and they're doing reprints, so that's a good sign.

I'm rather doubtful of everything else around the game, mind you - the skeleton crew on the RPG side, the tepid release schedule, the lack of a third-party license of any sort, the lack of any public roadmap for future supplements, the cancellation of print products, the lazy approach to web articles, the lack of any involvement in stuff they'd previously supported like Free RPG Day... those don't speak to me of a lot of confidence in the future. But time will tell, of course.

My impression - for what little it's worth - is that the game is mechanically and flavorfully being better, more broadly received than was 4e. If 5e flops, it will likely be due to marketing or management failures rather than design failures.

Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D." Certainly, if PF wasn't already an established powerhouse thanks to 4e, it wouldn't be able to get started competing with 5e. (It will, as it stands, at the LEAST be competing.)

[Maglubiyet]

I don't know about sales, but if you look at number of games running at conventions, Pathfinder still dominates.

As of two minutes ago there were 309 D&D (all editions) games scheduled for GenCon next month and 439 Pathfinder. The D&D editions seem split by 3.5 and 5th with a respectable showing of 1st and 2nd. 4th edition barely registers.

The breakdown was similar at the Origins convention last month.

[Anonymouswizard]

I have no idea, but speculate that it's doing about as well as 4e. Despite this, I know NOBODY who owns as much as a starter set, for me and someone else in particular we were actually on the 'not buying' list since 4e, due to not liking the combat focus.

However, I don't think 5e is selling well by Hasbro standards, and that it's not going to grow in sales, but most likely shrink as few sourcebooks come out and everybody interested already owns core. I will not be surprised if D&D is either rebooted for 6e or dropped in four years.

[Segev]

I don't think 5e is selling well by Hasbro standards, and that it's not going to grow in sales, but most likely shrink as few sourcebooks come out and everybody interested already owns core. I will not be surprised if D&D is either rebooted for 6e or dropped in four years.

It will be interesting to see what happens if that occurs. I would expect that somebody will want the D&D name, and will offer Hasbro more than the $0 they'd get if they just shut it down forever. Heck, I could see WotC trying to spin that part off into its own company, if the VP in charge of it felt it was profitable enough to sustain itself (even if not at Hasbro's standards).

[EggKookoo]

Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D."

That's what I mean when I say I see a lot of enthusiasm. Maybe it's mainly a reaction to 4e, though, rather than any particular reaction to 5e.

[Reverent-One]

Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D."

That may not be a good thing though, as it could represent that people don't care about 5e at all. At least people loudly complaining about <whatever edition> prompts discussion about the edition, while an edition people don't care about could die off quietly. Not saying that's the case, but it's a possibility.

[Flickerdart]

However, I don't think 5e is selling well by Hasbro standards

No edition of D&D has sold well by Hasbro standards. Hasbro is big - it has ~$4 billion in revenue per year. Hasbro's games group (Parker Brothers, Waddingtons, Milton Bradley, WotC, Avalon Hill, etc) makes up about a quarter of that, with MtG bringing in $250 million and the rest being divided among all of the other products.

D&D in total - over 38 years of publication - has been estimated to bring in just $1 billion in revenue to its owners.

[Anonymouswizard]

It will be interesting to see what happens if that occurs. I would expect that somebody will want the D&D name, and will offer Hasbro more than the $0 they'd get if they just shut it down forever. Heck, I could see WotC trying to spin that part off into its own company, if the VP in charge of it felt it was profitable enough to sustain itself (even if not at Hasbro's standards).

The D&D name might be quite profitable, I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro only sell the licence for the RPG while keeping the brand. Want to make the film D&D4: Return of the Awful Plot? Pay Hasbro.

[EggKookoo]

That may not be a good thing though, as it could represent that people don't care about 5e at all. At least people loudly complaining about <whatever edition> prompts discussion about the edition, while an edition people don't care about could die off quietly. Not saying that's the case, but it's a possibility.

Well, it's not really been like that in my experience. There have been a lot of positive "this game really feels like classic D&D" reviews.

[Kurald Galain]

A thread on the WOTC forums gives the following estimates for total units sold:

• BECMI: 1.250.000 (over a very long print run)
• 1E: ~350.000
• 2E: 270.000 in the first year
• 3E: 500.000 (most of which in the first month)
• 3.5: 350.000
• 4E: 75.000
• PF: 250.000
• 5E: 100.000 as of last February

This is based on several independent sources that turn out to be mostly consistent with each other, including industry insiders and Amazon sales figures. Make of that what you will.

(edit) Here's a graph of the above, adding 20% more sales for 2E in its other years and 50% more sales for 5E in the months since February. And yes, those two long bars are both BECMI.

[Nightcanon]

For what it's worth (and I appreciate it doesn't directly address the question), the breakdown on of activity on GITP shows 5e with nearly a third more threads than 4e, and nearly 3 times as many posts. 3e/d20 (which I think includes PF) now has less than ten times the posts of 5e- given that the Playground has traditionally been pretty rooted in 3e and variants I think that shows that there are an awful lot of Playgrounders playing 5e after a relatively short space of time.

[AdmiralCheez]

Well, I know that in my gaming group, at least four of us own the 5e books (phb, mm, and dmg), while only one owns the 4e phb and nothing else.

I know that's not indicative of the entire market, but that's what I've seen.

[obryn]

Well, I know that in my gaming group, at least four of us own the 5e books (phb, mm, and dmg), while only one owns the 4e phb and nothing else.

I know that's not indicative of the entire market, but that's what I've seen.

You see, in my group, most of us own at least some of the 4e books but I'm the only one with any 5e books.

[NomGarret]

My impression - for what little it's worth - is that the game is mechanically and flavorfully being better, more broadly received than was 4e. If 5e flops, it will likely be due to marketing or management failures rather than design failures.

Again, this is an armchair coaching impression; I don't have a sound basis for it beyond the fact that I have not heard nearly so much rage over how 5e "isn't D&D." Certainly, if PF wasn't already an established powerhouse thanks to 4e, it wouldn't be able to get started competing with 5e. (It will, as it stands, at the LEAST be competing.)

Given that marketing and management failures played a not insignificant role in 4e's downfall, it's certainly something to watch out for.

[goto124]

You see, in my group, most of us own at least some of the 4e books but I'm the only one with any 5e books.

Don't the PDFs for 5e come for free on the official website?

[Yora]

Given that marketing and management failures played a not insignificant role in 4e's downfall, it's certainly something to watch out for.

I believe they actually decided not to support the game after release at all. Looks like they just finished the books that were mostly done already and then closed down shop.

Here's a graph of the above, adding 20% more sales for 2E in its other years and 50% more sales for 5E in the months since February. And yes, those two long bars are both BECMI.

Do you have a source link for this?

[Kurald Galain]

Do you have a source link for this?

They're extrapolations. The 2E figure in that table is for one year only (whereas all other figures are for their entire run), and since 2E was sold for about a decade, 20% strikes me as a very conservative estimate. 5E is, of course, still being promoted and sold; perhaps the +50% estimate for four more months is a bit too generous though.

Bottom line is that 1E, 2E and 3.5 appear to be more-or-less tied, and both 5E and PF are racing to match that, and it'll be interesting to see if they succeed and how quickly.

If we take this as the baseline, then 3E outsold it almost by half, 4E sold less than one-quarter of baseline, and BECMI vastly outsold any of these by an order of magnitude. I must say being surprised by these figures, but then the Red Box was a hugely popular forerunner and translated into multiple languages.

[JAL_1138]

I wonder if they're counting Holmes, Moldvay/Cook&Marsh, Mentzer BECMI, Black Box, and RC as all "BECMI." And how they're figuring the multiple boxes of the set into sales.

I know Gold Box (Immortals) was incredibly hard to find for sale online when I tried to complete my BECMI set (finally found it, but took a while) and Black Box (Masters, not the Black Box Basic that was the intro set for RC) wasn't easy either.

[obryn]

They're extrapolations.

I wouldn't personally put much stock in them, because they are at odds with WotC's public announcements regarding sales. Namely, that at release, 3.5 sold more than 3e, 4e sold more than 3.5, and 5e sold more than 4e.

[Brova]

I wouldn't personally put much stock in them, because they are at odds with WotC's public announcements regarding sales. Namely, that at release, 3.5 sold more than 3e, 4e sold more than 3.5, and 5e sold more than 4e.

The 4e > 3e bit is misleading. 4e had the highest pre-order sales, but had over all worse sales than 3e. By a literal order of magnitude.

[Reverent-One]

The 4e > 3e bit is misleading. 4e had the highest pre-order sales, but had over all worse sales than 3e. By a literal order of magnitude.

I assume you have a citation for that? Because that's a rather specific claim.

[Kurald Galain]

I wonder if they're counting Holmes, Moldvay/Cook&Marsh, Mentzer BECMI, Black Box, and RC as all "BECMI." And how they're figuring the multiple boxes of the set into sales.

It's the Red Box, not the complete set. Likewise, for the other editions, it's the PHB, not the complete set of books. WOTC has repeatedly stated that the best selling product for any RPG is its main player's handbook, and anything else is (from a business perspective) a tool to sell more player's handbooks.

I wouldn't personally put much stock in them, because they are at odds with WotC's public announcements regarding sales. Namely, that at release, 3.5 sold more than 3e, 4e sold more than 3.5, and 5e sold more than 4e.

Wait, the 20% and 50% are extrapolations. The other figures are given by multiple independent sources that confirm one another.

Note that these public announcements also line up with these sources, once you realize that how much a book sells at release is not indicative to how much it sells over its first year, or over its entire print run.

[Reverent-One]

Wait, the 20% and 50% are extrapolations. The other figures are given by multiple independent sources that confirm one another.

Note that these public announcements also line up with these sources, once you realize that how much a book sells at release is not indicative to how much it sells over its first year, or over its entire print run.

Actually, they don't line up. According to documents from a court case by WOTC, as of April 2009, they had sold "hundreds of thousands of core books". Since all non-setting-specific books are listed as core books, that's less impressive than when core books just meant the PHB/DMG/MM, but still shows that those extrapolations for total unit sales are entirely wrong.

[Brova]

I assume you have a citation for that? Because that's a rather specific claim.

There's not a perfect source, as WotC doesn't release sales data. But they sold over a million core books for 3e. That's only an order of magnitude more than a hundred thousand (not than hundreds of thousands), but it also assumes that they sold literally no other books, including copies of the core rules (despite that exact article stating sales were increasing). It's possible that 3e only outsold 4e by double rather than an order of magnitude (if "hundreds of thousands" means 900,000 and all future book sales, including 3.5, were less than initial sales) but it is also possible that 3e outsold 4e not by one order of magnitude, but by two (if "hundreds of thousands" means 200,000 and 3e managed to sell 20 million books). WotC just doesn't release data, and googling it basically gets you other people asking the same question.

[Reverent-One]

There's not a perfect source, as WotC doesn't release sales data. But they sold over a million core books for 3e.

Huh, so either Kurald Galain's "multiple independent sources that confirm one another" are also wrong about 3e, or there's some funny numbering going on in that release.

That's only an order of magnitude more than a hundred thousand (not than hundreds of thousands), but it also assumes that they sold literally no other books, including copies of the core rules (despite that exact article stating sales were increasing). It's possible that 3e only outsold 4e by double rather than an order of magnitude (if "hundreds of thousands" means 900,000 and all future book sales, including 3.5, were less than initial sales) but it is also possible that 3e outsold 4e not by one order of magnitude, but by two (if "hundreds of thousands" means 200,000 and 3e managed to sell 20 million books). WotC just doesn't release data, and googling it basically gets you other people asking the same question.

As you said, even knowing that 3e sold 1 million copies of the big three doesn't tell us a whole lot of total sales for 3e or 3.5 when it releases a year later. If the claim that most 3e books sold in the first month, at least, is accurate, then the remainder of the sales being less than one for the first two years is very possible. But we don't really know that, so relative measurements are hard to make.