How successful were the various editions of D&D?

[gamerGoyf]

Do we have any hard data about how successful the various editions of D&D were, because I see a lot of people here on record saying 3e was the most successful edition, while on the other hand "Red Box was the most successful D&D" seems to predominate else where :?

Is there any hard data one way or the other :?

[shadzar]

Is there any hard data one way or the other

no, Lorraine Williams had a disdain for gamers and saw them lesser than human so didn't even take notice when the Blumes were wasting corporate funds while she was CEO of TSR. so there is likely no real records from any times after Gygax was ousted in 1985.

the only data available would be convention data, which means jack and shit, because not everyone goes to convetions so it would be fallacious to make a claim on other than its presence at conventions, and therein WotC ruined any chance of data when it removed the possibility of using TSR editions at conventions with "newest edition only" policy.

[Voss]

Do we have any hard data about how successful the various editions of D&D were, because I see a lot of people here on record saying 3e was the most successful edition, while on the other hand "Red Box was the most successful D&D" seems to predominate else where

Is there any hard data one way or the other

Hard data? Probably somewhere. Good luck getting someone to share.

But it isn't hard to theorize that the customer base grew over time, reaching more people in more markets, as this grew naturally with better distribution chains (and chain stores) as well. Then we can, of course, watch the sharp drop off from 3e to 4e, because we have a large chunk of the numbers for that, and it isn't unreasonable to suppose that the rest of the sales for those two editions followed a similar pattern.

[name_here]

I think you could scrounge through old shareholder reports to find hard data, assuming the owners were publicly traded and you can find copies. However, apparently Hasbro doesn't report DnD income separately, so for the more recent editions you'll need to seek out press releases. And press releases tend to get vague as hell when it comes to bad news.

All that being said, 3.x was able to support an outlandish number of splatbooks. It's possible earlier editions had more players, but I am supremely confident 3.x sold more books.

[Username17]

The original AD&D books were produced in printings of known quantities. The printings can be summed and give an upper bound as to what the edition sold. Also, there were court cases involving Gygax and stock sales and shit, and we can know what the company's sales figures were at several points (for example: $20million in 1982)

Dragon Magazine once had an article where they said how many copies of each book had been sold. That was in the nineties if I recall correctly. Extremely hard and specific data is therefore had about various Forgotten Realms stuff. It doesn't go all the way through second edition, but you can get a pretty clear picture of how things were going. Further, court cases come to the rescue again, telling us that TSR had total sales of $40million dollars in 1995 (and went bankrupt anyway, because of bad management).

A short period after 3rd edition hit, WotC crowed about hitting various seven digit milestones of sold books. This information is only for a tiny portion of the 3.X edition, covering only the initial chunk of 3e's existence. It would be unreasonable to extrapolate linearly, but it was demonstrably in excess of anything they'd ever sold before in terms of dollar value.

For 4th edition, WotC never released any numbers voluntarily, but there was a court case in 2009 where they made claim to how many books they had sold at "hundreds of thousands" of 4th edition books. Not millions, hundreds of thousands. And the wording in the court case wasn't just Player's Handbooks, or even PHBs+DMGs+MMs, but all 4th edition books together. At somewhere between 200,000 and 900,000 total. By the way: the head of D&D got fired that year, and the guy who took over from him also got fired within a year and the guy who took over from him got fired within a year as well, and then the edition got canceled.

So it's actually quite clear what the trajectory was. AD&D sold more than OD&D. 2nd Edition sold more than AD&D. 3rd edition sold more than 2nd edition, and 4th edition bombed like a fanatic with nothing to live for.

There is, however, a fair amount of mud in that water. 2nd Edition AD&D had really a lot more products than AD&D ever did. So it's actually quite possible that more people were actually playing and buying AD&D than played and bought 2nd edition. But the total sales were higher for 2nd edition even if you include inflation.

No matter what assumptions you make, it is absolutely true that 4th edition is the worst selling edition since the 80s. The ceilings on 4th edition sales are lower than the floors we have on any previous edition since Reagan.

We also have what I think are reasonable overall ceilings based on how many people WotC claims to think have played their games , which is a bit north of 20 million.

-Username17

[tussock]

I've read from Ryan Dancy (IIRC) that the numbers of books shifted peaked in '81-82 with B/X and AD&D (after which they struggled to supply the market and 2nd edition didn't help much), then again in '00-'01 with 3e (after which there was a natural decline).

I think individual book prices are higher for 2nd edition too, even after inflation (60.0% from '82 to '95). Not the core ones, the Monstrous Manual is twice the size for the same real price, but a lot of stuff got bigger and more expensive with more colour and art, including the numerous box sets.

Hmm, 3e core books are $35, or about 25% more in real terms over 2nd edition. Good foresight, considering the sales volumes that followed, though I recall a discount on that for the first printing. 4e's still $35.


Anyway, at that AD&D works out to about 1.3 million core-book-equivalents a year in '82, and 2nd edition a bit higher near 1.6 million in '95 (but the core being more a loss-leader exaggerates that).
3e shifting some millions of units when all there was is core books and a couple modules is really good. 4e got over half of what was left of the 3e market in '08, which was only a fraction of the original 3e market, and then went downhill from there.

So, guesstimates
150k+ new B/X and AD&D groups in '82, perhaps 300k active around the peak.
200k active 2nd edition groups in '95, buying those box sets for ever bigger losses.
500k+ new 3e groups in '00, but dropping off quickly, substantially less 3.5 sales.
100k+ new 4e groups in '08, probably not a lot more, maybe less.
100k active Pathfinder groups now? They're still steadily selling their books.

As groups are maybe 6 people, you get about 1-3 million players. Depending on turnover, maybe only 5 million steady players ever? Wild-ass guesses.

[Username17]

Another interesting data point is that in 2006, WotC announced that D&D had had over a billion dollars in total sales. That is a claim that, while large, is entirely consistent with the sales claims they had made early in 3e's life.

Of course, since all previous editions of D&D combined add up to something like half a billion dollars, that does mean that in nominal terms, 3rd edition sold about as much product in 6 years as all previous editions had sold in 26. Of course, $20million in 1982 is worth $42million in 2006. But you get the idea.

When people say that 3rd edition was the best selling edition, they aren't talking out of their ass. There aren't a lot of released numbers, but those that exist pretty clearly demonstrate that as being fact.

-Username17

[gamerGoyf]

So how did it become this unquestionable fact in certain circles that "Red Box outdid every other edition in sales" and "3e never even touched the popularity of D&D in the golden age of the 1980s"?

[shadzar]

because you are dealing with circles, and they are doing just that, running you around in circles. you have to ask each circle their reason for the claim.

Another interesting data point is that in 2006, WotC announced that D&D had had over a billion dollars in total sales.

in no way will i believe this is for WotC D&D books only. i am pretty sure they include TSR products and everything in the D&D brand. this does not help to prove 3rd edition D&D sold better than any edition.

also you cant really truely compare the worldwide market 3e had access to to the smaller market before internet and gaming boom that TSR didnt have. you need to compare like things. where did TSR have access to sale? what were the WotC sales figures in those areas? have you accounted for inflation?

in 2006 3.x was already faltering because the OGL was hurting WotCs own bottom line, so they were trying to strengthen the D&D brand at that point from the damage the OGL did to WotC. i mean 4th was started on in 2006 wasnt it, then released in 2008.

i can see them boasting about sales numbers as nothng but an advertisement and not any sort of proof that 3.x books solely made that much money.

it is easier for WotC to sale $1 million in books when they sell books for $39.99 and TSR only sold them for $15 (US, $19.99 Canada). so are they talking as you point out net sales or profits, and does it account for inflation?

any moron can easily say and see that a great distribution network allows for more sales, so the numbers will always be skewed because of such things. 3.x didnt have to fight Jack Chick, had the internet, had actual gaming stores rather than relying on Toy-R-Us and specialty stores only found in certain location, and it had gaming in general, oh and the OGL. these must all be taken into account that had 3.x not had would it have been as successful?

blindly looking at numbers is jsut a fools errand. we have no way of knowing which is more successfull unless a dry spell comes with no D&D, which we have now, and then ALL editions books are put on the shelves at the same time with the same technology and distribution channels available.

in terms of most successful i could easily say OD&D was since it sold out of its entire print run well ahead of expectations, and this was when there was no internet, no gaming channels, not much of anything there was today.

so again there can never be any hard data.

[Username17]

So how did it become this unquestionable fact in certain circles that "Red Box outdid every other edition in sales" and "3e never even touched the popularity of D&D in the golden age of the 1980s"?

I think the number put on sales of the Red box in Dragon Magazine in the mid-nineties exceeded the number of millions of players handbooks that 3rd edition was crowing about in 2001. And because you have quotes like this:

In 1989, TSR sold something like 1,000,000 copies of the D&D boxed set in one year. It was amazing.

It's important to note however, that the Red Box was in print for eight years, and that the comparison was being made not even to the whole 3.X edition, but just one third of the lifespan of one of the versions of one of the books of 3.X.

However, people love their favorite editions, and Grognards gotta grognard. So you gotta expect them to cling to any data no matter how flimsy to support the idea that the edition they didn't like was somehow not a success and the edition they did like was. For an example of this in action, here is noted 4th edition D&D enthusiast Titanium Dragon arguing that 4th edition had totally sold more copies than 3rd edition despite WotC having submitted court documents stating that it had not:

Or... you know, they said that because it did sound bigger. I'm not sure that "hundreds of thousands" doesn't sound like more than "over a million". While if you put them side by side, people will say "over a million" is larger, people don't actually do very well with large numbers. People have some vague concept of what a hundred thousand dollars is; a house costs that. A million dollars, however, is a far more vague notion. So when people say "hundreds of thousands", it sounds bigger to them because they have some sense of scale; "That's lots of houses", they think, whereas a million is more difficult to grasp.

-Username17

[Voss]

in 2006 3.x was already faltering because the OGL was hurting WotCs own bottom line, so they were trying to strengthen the D&D brand at that point from the damage the OGL did to WotC. i mean 4th was started on in 2006 wasnt it, then released in 2008.

any moron can easily say and see that a great distribution network allows for more sales, so the numbers will always be skewed because of such things. 3.x didnt have to fight Jack Chick, had the internet, had actual gaming stores rather than relying on Toy-R-Us and specialty stores only found in certain location, and it had gaming in general, oh and the OGL. these must all be taken into account that had 3.x not had would it have been as successful?.

Yeah, national chains like Toys-R-Us and Waldenbooks made it really hard to sell copies. Speciality stores? Gaming (and comic) stores are always a crapshoot, and aren't much different now in their weird dispersal patterns and ability to fail at the drop of a hat than they were in the 80s. And in the 80s, if they could get any gaming material at all, they could get D&D. And they really did exist.

You're going to have to make up your mind on the OGL. If it was an 'unfair' advantage that helped sell 3e (even if the larger numbers don't count, somehow); you can't simultaneously claim it was hurting a faltering line.

[K]

So how did it become this unquestionable fact in certain circles that "Red Box outdid every other edition in sales" and "3e never even touched the popularity of D&D in the golden age of the 1980s"?

Groupthink?

[K]

Another data point that may be skewing people's perceptions is the friendly local gaming store.

At least in California, longtime owners will tell you that 3e made a lot more money for them in core books alone than any other edition, and that Pathfinder crushed 4e.

That being said, I could see someone in some other state where the Red Box was a big fad think that it must have been the most popular edition.

[Cyberzombie]

The OGL/SRD makes a huge difference with sales, especially for modern RPGs. The fact is that the old system of going to the DM's house and looking through books he owns doesn't work anymore, there's just too many rules and too much information to look through. It worked back in AD&D because you didn't have loads of feats, magic items and classes to look at. People really need some way to access that material, and requiring them to buy a personal copy of the books just doesn't work if you want your game to be popular.

It's the reason Pathfinder is doing so well. It's not a great game by any means, but it is highly accessible. Even without buying a single book, I can still access the Summoner or the Vanguard online on the PF SRD and create one. Whether you're a group coming to a consensus on what game to play or you're a GM actively trying to recruit new players, having a game that is accessible is going to make it a lot more popular.

And as Pathfinder has shown, the consumer will buy a lot of books even if they can get all the stuff online.

[kzt]

So how did it become this unquestionable fact in certain circles that "Red Box outdid every other edition in sales" and "3e never even touched the popularity of D&D in the golden age of the 1980s"?

The 80s were a golden age for D&D, but in the 80s D&D meant AD&D. Nobody every talked about AD&D, they talked about D&D, but they means the 3 hardcovers, not the little brown books or the red box. IIRC, the red box was more of an entry path than a game that people really played for long.

In the 80s AD&D was the main RPG everyone played, and when you talked about D&D they were talking about AD&D. I was weird, I fell in with a group of friends at college who played champions, CoC, Bushido, and RQ (and not D&D), but that was certainly uncommon.

There were hordes of other games out there, but most students who played any RPG played D&D, and by that I mean AD&D.

There was no real computer games that were widely popular (partially because few students had their own computers), the "gaming competition" at school to RPGs was really arcades or cards. Cards had the advantage in that it's easier to play eucre when getting drunk or high than it is to play an RPG. I'm sure some people played boardgames, but I can't really remember playing any.

[Krusk]

Go to amazon or any shop that sells used books. The red box, add, and 4e stuff sells for 2-5$ with a few gems going for a little more. 3.x has books selling for 65+$. Look at the cost of main books and the cost of splats and compare.

The one that people actually have an interest in will have high prices.

[wotmaniac]

Go to amazon or any shop that sells used books. The red box, add, and 4e stuff sells for 2-5$ with a few gems going for a little more. 3.x has books selling for 65+$. Look at the cost of main books and the cost of splats and compare.

The one that people actually have an interest in will have high prices.

To be fair, that only demonstrates what's popular right now.

[Antariuk]

Go to amazon or any shop that sells used books. The red box, add, and 4e stuff sells for 2-5$ with a few gems going for a little more. 3.x has books selling for 65+$. Look at the cost of main books and the cost of splats and compare.

The one that people actually have an interest in will have high prices.

To be fair, that only demonstrates what's popular right now.

Not entirely, at least not in Europe. Until the reprint came along, the original 3.5 Spell Compendium was ridiculously expensive, ever since 3rd edition went off the shelves. Same with Fiendish Codex II and a couple of other supplements (Its Hot/Cold/Wet Outside).

[shadzar]

in 2006 3.x was already faltering because the OGL was hurting WotCs own bottom line, so they were trying to strengthen the D&D brand at that point from the damage the OGL did to WotC. i mean 4th was started on in 2006 wasnt it, then released in 2008.

any moron can easily say and see that a great distribution network allows for more sales, so the numbers will always be skewed because of such things. 3.x didnt have to fight Jack Chick, had the internet, had actual gaming stores rather than relying on Toy-R-Us and specialty stores only found in certain location, and it had gaming in general, oh and the OGL. these must all be taken into account that had 3.x not had would it have been as successful?.

Yeah, national chains like Toys-R-Us and Waldenbooks made it really hard to sell copies. Speciality stores? Gaming (and comic) stores are always a crapshoot, and aren't much different now in their weird dispersal patterns and ability to fail at the drop of a hat than they were in the 80s. And in the 80s, if they could get any gaming material at all, they could get D&D. And they really did exist.

You're going to have to make up your mind on the OGL. If it was an 'unfair' advantage that helped sell 3e (even if the larger numbers don't count, somehow); you can't simultaneously claim it was hurting a faltering line.

had what became 4th edition come out in 2000 with the OGL counter to LW and TSR copyright nazi policy that was in palce to end any and ALL discussion of D&D on the internet, then 4th would ahve took off the same way 3rd did. since MANY players were new to the game that had only heard of it and had MANY new outlets to get it from, they would have just adopted it like they did 3rd. i think the OGL did a lot since it was opposing prior T$R policy, which HASBRO has now gone back to near T$R policy.

the OGL was a masterstroke of marketing, but it also means comparing the edition based on the edition is impossible. the environs in which they existed are vastly different.

imagine comparing sales of wooden body/tires early Fords that drove on dirt roads to modern $30k modest cars that require paved roads. well $200 for a Model T vs $30k for a Prius.... which would win?

everything has to be adjusted in those environs to make it a fair shake, else you are jsut skewing and falsifying data for personal gain, for anyone who tries to compare.

these are the factors that 3rd had that previous editions didnt have:

[*]WWW (AOL/Prodigy/CompuServe were still rich persons toya)
[*]mass gaming (home computer prices dropping from $2000 to about $500, Playstation and Nintendo driving a price war and gaming acceptance beyond what Sierra could ever hope for)
[*]online sale > mail-order
[*]bank cards work like credit cards so you no longer need cash in pocket
[*]OGL
[*]gaming stores (MtG reformated comic stores everywhere)
[*]population growth
[*]non-landline home internet
[*]cell phones (allow communication anytime anywhere about any subject)
[*]WotC had customer sevice to answer questions and the MtG people could field D&D questions, unlike T$R

there is a lot to consider that cannot allow one to just say one edition did better than another by straight sales numbers.

[Voss]

in 2006 3.x was already faltering because the OGL was hurting WotCs own bottom line, so they were trying to strengthen the D&D brand at that point from the damage the OGL did to WotC.

Haha, no. If WotC had relaunched D&D with 4e, they would have killed the brand right then and there. 4e, as shitty as it was, and as poor sales wise as it was, only got as far as it did out of brand loyalty to WotC. The 'can't do no wrong' crowd stuck, and much of rest was new players, either from magic or from the video game side of things. 2e-> 3e was recognizable for the old players, 2e straight to 4e would have lead to lynchings.


But, fine, if you want to claim that any sort of comparison is impossible, because of fairness, feel free. But your list is frankly bullshit. 3rd edition sold because of cellphones? And your belief about how bank card works shows a level of ignorance that is extremely frightening. By all means, buy shit with your bank card thinking it works like a credit card. Good luck with that.

[deaddmwalking]

imagine comparing sales of wooden body/tires early Fords that drove on dirt roads to modern $30k modest cars that require paved roads. well $200 for a Model T vs $30k for a Prius.... which would win?

When you do these kinds of comparisons, you adjust for inflation. The Model T was released in 1908. It cost $950; in today's dollars that's roughly $20,000. The Model T was considered a quite affordable car at the time, and would be considered fairly affordable today. But today's average car price is $23,500 roughly. So, not a huge difference.

That said, over the course of the Model T lifespan, they continually improved the assembly process and were able to get the price down to less than $300 in 1920; equivalent to less than $4,000 today.

Cars aside, when you adjust for inflation, 3.x was still the best selling edition by a wide margin.

And I'm squarely in the camp that 4th edition would not have done well if released ~2000. I wouldn't have played it then, and I wouldn't have sunk any money into it. I might have tried it, but I probably would have given up on it in favor of something fun - like Deadlands.

[shadzar]

you cannot jsut adjust for inflation though. movies can because nothing has really changed except the price. movies are still the same half a dozen stories told in various ways over the course of @90 minutes.

milk still comes from cows, gasoline still dead dinos... these things have little else to affect them. just think when kerosene rained supreme and the byproduct was thrown away because there was no use for gasoline.

did kerosene sell to lit and heat homes well in its time, yes it did, does electricity and natural gas now, yes they do.

too many other factors come into play that jsut inflation to base "success" of D&D since Moore's Law is in effect.

[Voss]

milk still comes from cows, gasoline still dead dinos... these things have little else to affect them.

Because... damn. You're going to have to really work to top that. The movies thing is bad enough, but... just... no. This is funny.

Go on...

[deaddmwalking]

you cannot jsut adjust for inflation though.

It sounds to me like you're saying 'if 3.x made less money than other editions after adjusting for inflation, it wouldn't necessarily indicate it was less successful. During 3.x there were competitive products (other games, movies, video games, etc) so even if it did 'better' than other editions, it wouldn't necessarily show that'.

But if 3.x made more money after adjusting for inflation, then any accounting for the more difficult environment increases the success of the product.

But you absolutely can compare two items after adjusting for inflation as a baseline. And my understanding is that 3.x was the most successful edition after accounting for inflation. If you don't account for inflation, it is even more one sided.

[Cyberzombie]

But you absolutely can compare two items after adjusting for inflation as a baseline. And my understanding is that 3.x was the most successful edition after accounting for inflation. If you don't account for inflation, it is even more one sided.

If you're solely looking at which edition was more profitable, then absolutely you can compare them by inflation, as this is a strictly numerical fact measured in dollars.

If you're making a statement about which edition was "better", then you have to account for a lot more things than just inflation. There are plenty of examples of inferior products succeeding over superior ones and mostly it comes down to marketing as opposed to actual product quality.