Thank jhkim, I couldn't find this for shit.  Doesn't help that I didn't know Mearls' username on that website.

But this quote:

QuoteAnd now Mike Mearls, who had been one of the primary drivers of the rumor that D&D 2024 was not doing well, has posted at ENWorld that he underestimated things and it looks to be doing well and probably will do even better if the economy takes a turn for the worse

The only part of that quote here Mearls refers to changing his mind on something is "I also think I underestimated D&D Beyond's staying power", which doesn't seem to rise to the level of the type of takeback stated by Mistwell here.  Mearls isn't saying "hey, 5.5 not selling great was just a rumor guys" or whatever level of statement would be required to back that up.

It really looks like 5.5's launch is less than it should be.  It is certainly a lot worse at updating the lame parts of 5.0 than I was hoping for.  But lets be real; the PHB came out last year just so that they could say it launched in 2024.  The DMG followed a bit later and has a bunch of weird chains to try to shackle DMs with (there's a whole bit about how a player character cleric can't have his powers revoked no matter what he does, to combine with the weird new bit about how clerics draw power from the outer planes directly with no divine intercession in the PHB), and is missing important NPC build instructions, including having none for non-statblock NPCs- making many in the community argue that building an NPC with PC levels is now homebrew, or forbidden, or....
Anyway, the monster manual JUST came out.  Until that happened, the 5.5 rules were really incomplete and puzzling.  This version is brand new. 
It's actually reasonable to assume that sales will pick up now that the whole version is launched.  If you're running a 5.0 game, you might want to stick with 5.0, or use some 5.5, or you might want to switch.  Well, switching wasn't even really on the table until really recent.  Now it is, but you could still be midgame and switching versions in the middle of a campaign is stupid.

There's no way that 5.5 does as well as 5.0.  But its current lackluster performance doesn't mean it has bombed by any means yet.

But I find this thread's central premise- that it's doing good because WotC is- to be lacking.

This is no bullet point talking about D&D's financial success in sales.  They lumped D&D in with MTG.

So no, its unlikely at least from that link that D&D is doing well.

Quote from: jhkim on April 26, 2025, 01:15:10 PMFrom a quick search on ENWorld, this seems to be the post:

QuoteMeanwhile, we've seen four - maybe five as of this writing - TTRPG crowdfunding campaigns break $1 million.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/according-to-the-hasbro-q1-earning-call-d-d-sales-are-up-substantially.713075/page-3#post-9645491

I would be curious to get some data on what those recent KS games are.   While the new SD:WR KS campaign grossed $2.4M in pledges, I wonder how many of the top KS projects are 5e-based vs. demonstrating a trend to move away from 5e (which is certainly how I interpret SD).

Allan.

Magic the gathering is for fags.

Quote from: grodog on April 29, 2025, 11:20:50 PM

Quote from: jhkim on April 26, 2025, 01:15:10 PMFrom a quick search on ENWorld, this seems to be the post:

QuoteMeanwhile, we've seen four - maybe five as of this writing - TTRPG crowdfunding campaigns break $1 million.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/according-to-the-hasbro-q1-earning-call-d-d-sales-are-up-substantially.713075/page-3#post-9645491

I would be curious to get some data on what those recent KS games are.  While the new SD:WR KS campaign grossed $2.4M in pledges, I wonder how many of the top KS projects are 5e-based vs. demonstrating a trend to move away from 5e (which is certainly how I interpret SD).

RPGGeek has a series that tracks year by year, but not month by month. I think it's better to look at long-term anyway.



https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/280234/rpg-kickstarter-geeklist-tracking

So there was a downturn of 5E projects in 2024, where the percent went down - mostly taken up by the Cosmere RPG in blue. On the other hand, I think that's to be expected given a change of editions. People can't create projects for the new edition until it comes out, but they're less interested in creating for the original 5E because of the new edition.

Quote from: jhkim on Today at 01:48:46 AM

https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/280234/rpg-kickstarter-geeklist-tracking

So there was a downturn of 5E projects in 2024, where the percent went down - mostly taken up by the Cosmere RPG in blue. On the other hand, I think that's to be expected given a change of editions. People can't create projects for the new edition until it comes out, but they're less interested in creating for the original 5E because of the new edition.

How are we supposed to interpret that chart, though? The key seems like nonsense.

This is an "RPG-related" chart. So I'd expect 5E + non-5E + blockbuster to add up to 100% - what are these RPGs that are neither 5E nor non-5E?

Aha, reading way down the page we get to definitions; "non-5E" is either system-neutral *or* supplements for RPGs other than 5E *or* new reprints / incremental editions of old RPGs. "RPG" is only for brand new systems?! This feels a little harder to draw conclusions from...  I guess we can say non-5E RPGs (including Avatar) were about 50% of Kickstarter from 2020-2023.

Your explanation of late-edition pause seems logical but doesn't match my personal observations in 2024, but perhaps that plus Cosmere account for the 70% of non-5E last year. Cool data!

QuoteI break these data into three categories:
* RPG - these are projects that would generate a new RPG entry in the RPGGeek database. They are mostly new RPGs, but also include new versions of older games that are different enough to, in my opinion, count as new RPGs. Note that a new RPG based on the mechanics of 5E but playable without the 5E rulebooks would be listed in this category, not the next one.
* 5E - these are projects explicitly for D&D 5E. They have to provide gameable content explicitly for 5E (e.g. 5E stats). They may also provide content for other RPGs as well (e.g. a project that had both 5E and Pathfinder 2E content would be listed as 5E). This includes adventures, supplements, setting books, etc. As noted above, new games that use 5E mechanics but are fully playable without 5E are listed in the previous category.
* non-5E - these are projects that fall into three sub-categories: system neutral supplements; supplements (adventures, settings, etc.) for a game other than 5E; or new editions of RPGs that are mechanically identical (e.g. reprintings, translations, etc.) to previous editions.