Quote from: Justin Alexander;595176This is the other interesting part of Dragon Age being on that list: It only has 4 products available in print. The fact that it's managed to hang around on the bestseller list quarter after quarter like this is either a testament to its hidden strength or a testament to ICv2 having a completely broken methodology.

I don't think Dragon Age's appeal is the game mechanics.

I can only speak for myself, but the reason I bought the dragon Age pen and paper boxed set one and two....

Was because I played the computer rpg, and the setting and background lore impressed me.


I was hooked when I read this from in game lore:

No matter their power, their triumphs,
The mage-lords of Tevinter were men
And doomed to die.
Then a voice whispered within their hearts,
Shall you surrender your power
To time like the beasts of the fields?
You are the Lords of the earth!
Go forth to claim the empty throne
Of Heaven and be gods.

In secret they worked
Magic upon magic
All their power and all their vanity
They turned against the Veil
Until at last, it gave way.

Above them, a river of Light,
Before them the throne of Heaven, waiting,
Beneath their feet
The footprints of the Maker,
And all around them echoed a vast
Silence.

But when they took a single step
Toward the empty throne
A great voice cried out
Shaking the very foundations
Of Heaven and earth:

And So is the Golden City blackened
With each step you take in my Hall.
Marvel at perfection, for it is fleeting.
You have brought Sin to Heaven
And doom upon all the world.

Violently were they cast down,
For no mortal may walk bodily
In the realm of dreams,
Bearing the mark of their Crime:
Bodies so maimed
And distorted that none should see them
And know them for men.

Deep into the earth they fled,
Away from the Light.
In Darkness eternal they searched
For those who had goaded them on,
Until at last they found their prize,
Their god, their betrayer:
The sleeping dragon Dumat. Their taint
Twisted even the false-god, and the whisperer
Awoke at last, in pain and horror, and led
Them to wreak havoc upon all the nations of the world:
The first Blight.


--From Threnodies 8.



Here is the entire backround lore:
http://da-codex.appspot.com/

Quote from: Sommerjon;595122Still amazed that people put any stock into ICv2.

It's not a good source of data.  But, it's one of the only sources of data we have.

Quote from: Bill;595188I can only speak for myself, but the reason I bought the dragon Age pen and paper boxed set one and two....

Absolutely. I can definitely see the appeal. My point, though, is that you only bought those boxed sets once, right?  Unlike Pathfinder, there isn't new product every month for the existing fanbase to be purchasing. So if DA is hanging onto the bestseller list quarter after quarter, it means that there are a bunch of new people buying it each month.

By contrast, Dresden Files hit the ICv2 list when its core rulebooks came out. It wasn't followed up with supplements and it promptly dropped right back off the list again.

Dragon Age did the same thing initially: It hit the list in Q1 2010 when the first box set came out and then promptly dropped off again. But then it came back in Q4 2010 and has made the list ever single quarter since then.

I have no functioning explanation for this: Neither DA2 nor the second box set dropped until 2011.

The other question is: Where are all these DA players? They aren't on RPGNet or ENWorld or here. They aren't even on Green Ronin's forums. (The DA forums there are busy, but are dwarfed by Mutants & Masterminds.)

The only likely explanation I have is that there are a lot of people who are buying DA because they played the video games and are not existing RPG players. A slightly less likely explanation is that DA is really popular among existing RPG players who are severely under-represented in online fandom.

Whichever is true, Green Ronin is scoring a really impressive success here.

Quote from: Mistwell;595201It's not a good source of data.  But, it's one of the only sources of data we have.

It's not really a source of data at all. There is no real methodology behind it beyond ringing up a bunch of people 'in the know' and compiling what they think.

Dresden Files has a Huge audience, many of whom are never stepping into a FLGS, and don't play RPGs of any kind.  Also, no matter what anyone says, Fate has fruity story stuff in it.  

Dragon Age has a huge audience, all of whom by definition play RPGs, at least the computer version.

Is the Dresden Files RPG in bookstores?  Dragon Age is in every one I go into.

It is odd, however, to have an entire industry where the sales data are hidden.  Can't you buy one share of Hasbro and ask for some of that stuff?

Dragon Age being on the top list is puzzling with few to no supplements; I'm wondering if these figures are definitely supposed to include supplements, or just be for sales of core rulebooks?
 
Also, has anyone actually seen "Icv2 Internal Correspondence #80?" that the figures come from, or know if that has any more info?

Quote from: CRKrueger;595527Dresden Files has a Huge audience, many of whom are never stepping into a FLGS, and don't play RPGs of any kind.

Dresden Files, as an RPG, is an interesting data point because it's one of the only instances in which hard sales numbers are available. Here's what we know:

Q2 2010: Sold roughly 4500 print + 500 PDF of each core rulebook. This includes 2500 copies of each rulebook sent to distributors, retailers, or sold at conventions.

Q3 2010: Sold 2000/2500 print + 250/300 PDF of the core rulebooks. This includes 1200 and 1700 copies sold through distributors, retailers, and conventions. This is the quarter where they hit 5th on the ICv2 list. (I would interpret this to mean that copies which shipped to distributors in Q2 2010 were now flowing out at the retail level.)

Q4 2010: Sold 1000/1400 total copies (they're not longer conveniently breaking out PDF vs. print). These include 700 and 1000 copies through distribution.

Q1 2011: Sold 1000/1400 total copies. These include 750 and 1000 copies through distribution.

After having sales halve ever previous quarter, this quarter their sales hold steady. This continues for Q2 and Q3, then sales drop to 430/650 for Q4 2011. Distribution numbers in that quarter drop to 280/460, which suggests the retailers have saturated their markets and are no longer moving the copies on their shelves. And these numbers hold stead through Q1 and Q2 in 2012.

It's impossible to know how representative these numbers are of the sales of other titles on the ICv2 list. But if it takes at least 4,500 sales to secure a place on the list, then Dragon Age has sold at least 36,000 books in the past two years.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;595574It's impossible to know how representative these numbers are of the sales of other titles on the ICv2 list. But if it takes at least 4,500 sales to secure a place on the list, then Dragon Age has sold at least 36,000 books in the past two years.

On the other hand, 36K books is a pretty niche business.  Dragon Age 2 sold greater than 1 million copies (in an industry with non-trivial amounts of both piracy and copy resale).  So you could likely get 50,000 copies with about a 3% conversion of console players who check out the pen and paper version.  

I wonder what could have been done with a larger push and a more widely supported game?

Quote from: Votan;595628On the other hand, 36K books is a pretty niche business.  Dragon Age 2 sold greater than 1 million copies (in an industry with non-trivial amounts of both piracy and copy resale).  So you could likely get 50,000 copies with about a 3% conversion of console players who check out the pen and paper version.  

I wonder what could have been done with a larger push and a more widely supported game?

I wonder what could have happened had the pc game actually been worth a shit.

Quote from: JRR;595640I wonder what could have happened had the pc game actually been worth a shit.

However, considering one of the reasons that DA2 "sucked" was that it abandoned RPG elements for action ones, an action DA2 may have ironically pushed DARPG sales more then a rpg DA2.  If I can't get my Thedas RPG on with DA2 like I did in DA1 where do I go?  The tabletop maybe.

Quote from: Votan;595628On the other hand, 36K books is a pretty niche business.  Dragon Age 2 sold greater than 1 million copies (in an industry with non-trivial amounts of both piracy and copy resale).  So you could likely get 50,000 copies with about a 3% conversion of console players who check out the pen and paper version.  

Breaking news, folks: Tabletop RPGs are getting outsold by video games! Film at 11!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;595680Breaking news, folks: Tabletop RPGs are getting outsold by video games! Film at 11!

That would be the facile interpretation of my post. The point was that a game that sells a million copies will have a certain percentage of hard core fans.  These fans may purchase Dragon Age related material, on the strength of the online game.  Heck, the atmosphere of the first game was absolutely amazing and very unique (somehow, the second one did not capture the same cool intensity).

So Green Ronin doing the game had a pretty large captive audience.  I bought the first boxed set and gave up given the long gap between the first and second boxed sets (as I wish there were rules for Grey Wardens).  

Thus I see some of this remarkable performance as being a wasted opportunity to lure more people into Tabletop gaming.  Imagine if WotC or Paizo (who have the resources to release products rapidly) had obtained the license.  But, I do agree that it is good somebody is doing something that is a good entry level game.

Quote from: Votan;595706So Green Ronin doing the game had a pretty large captive audience.

That's not what "captive audience" means.

QuoteThus I see some of this remarkable performance as being a wasted opportunity to lure more people into Tabletop gaming.  Imagine if WotC or Paizo (who have the resources to release products rapidly) had obtained the license.

The reality is that Dragon Age appears to be the most successful licensed RPGs in at least the past decade, so I find it impossible to describe it as a wasted opportunity.

And there is no reality in which WotC or Paizo would have picked up this license. Even if they had, there's no guarantee they would have enjoyed the success that Green Ronin has apparently enjoyed. For example, IIRC, WotC never got their Star Wars RPG or their Wheel of Time RPG onto the ICv2 bestseller lists. The former has a much larger extant audience than DA; the latter has a fairly comparable audience.

Here's a article from ICv2 titled 'Fantastic Summer' for Hobby Games
"The explosive growth in the hobby games business in the spring of this year (see "Hobby Games Explosive") continued through the summer, according to a recently released report in ICv2's Internal Correspondence #80."

When I lived in the midwest, ICv2 did an interview with a local shop manager.  What came out in the 'Correspondence' wasn't accurate, quotes taken all out of context, 2-part questions where only half was quoted, etc.

Quote from: Sommerjon;595778Here's a article from ICv2 titled 'Fantastic Summer' for Hobby Games
"The explosive growth in the hobby games business in the spring of this year (see "Hobby Games Explosive") continued through the summer, according to a recently released report in ICv2's Internal Correspondence #80."

When I lived in the midwest, ICv2 did an interview with a local shop manager.  What came out in the 'Correspondence' wasn't accurate, quotes taken all out of context, 2-part questions where only half was quoted, etc.

I am pretty happy with the position that ICv2 has some real limitations as a data source.  That being said, I am unaware of a better option.