Quote from: Mistwell on May 26, 2023, 06:36:21 PM
The initial sales of 4e well outsold Pathfinder at the time. Pathfinder only overtook it a year later.

That might possibly be because 4e released in 2008 & PF in 2009. 

(You probably meant that 4e in 2008 outsold PF in 2009, which seems plausible. According to Paizo, the shelves in Orc's Nest, and some sales chart by a distributor (Diamond?) I recall, it was in mid 2010 that PF overtook 4e, then PF remained ahead until the release of 5e. AFAICT in 2009 4e a year into its life was still outselling initially released PF).

Quote from: Mistwell on May 26, 2023, 06:36:21 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on May 25, 2023, 05:21:42 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on May 25, 2023, 04:57:16 PM
"Tasha's initial print run for ONE of WotC's distributors was larger than the full print numbers for all of 4e combined."

Which sounds impressive at first, until you take into consideration the hatred for 4E. How do the sales of Tasha compare to the combined print run of Pathfinder? Because that's where the potential 4E customers went.

The initial sales of 4e well outsold Pathfinder at the time. Pathfinder only overtook it a year later.

How did the entire print run of 4E compare to the entire print run of Pathfinder?

These are 5e players, so I believe the numbers are probably accurate in a general sense.  Most of the older players jumped ship for Pathfinder or just stayed with their version of choice instead of going to 5th, and so are off in their houses playing their non-5e game rather than answering D&D polls.  If we had a crystal ball and could get an actual accurate headcount on all D&D/OSR/Pathfinder gamers, the population would abruptly skew much older, I expect.  I'm not the only person in my circle of friends who cracked a 5e PHB in the store, looked in it, said, "These class options are dumbed down and bland as fuck," and proceeded to never play it.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 25, 2023, 06:04:57 PM
I don't know why people find it so hard to believe that 5e is popular. It's an absolutely TERRIBLE game, but it's extremely popular. When has more popularity correlated with more quality - ever?

Yup, that's about the size of things. If anything, the growth of 5E seems to be Gen Z entering the market. At least they have an excuse because they've never played anything else. Millennials and Gen X...not so much.

The other thing I notice with these demographics; 1% "other" genders means that this is really not an LGBTQ industry. In fact, their trans participation rate is lower than the background population rate, which is usually reported as 1.4%. This is especially noteworthy when you consider how young the D&D target demographic is; trans is more a younger person thing, so for you to have 80% of your consumer demographics split between Millennials and Gen Z, netting out a lower trans rate than the overall population means your game is significantly negatively correlated with being trans.

Also notably absent is race stats. We all know the black participation rate is low (likely because of the Satanic Panic) but I would like to know how low. Also seeing how communities like Asian, Indian, Native American, and Hispanic participate would be valuable data. You know that WotC collected this, so I have to conclude for it to not be presented...the results are probably pretty darn unflattering.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 27, 2023, 08:04:38 AM
The other thing I notice with these demographics; 1% "other" genders means that this is really not an LGBTQ industry. In fact, their trans participation rate is lower than the background population rate, which is usually reported as 1.4%. This is especially noteworthy when you consider how young the D&D target demographic is; trans is more a younger person thing, so for you to have 80% of your consumer demographics split between Millennials and Gen Z, netting out a lower trans rate than the overall population means your game is significantly negatively correlated with being trans.

I think you're misinterpreting the result here. The 1% is only those who don't identify as male or female, but many transgender people identify as male (i.e. transmen) or female (transwomen). Estimates vary widely about how many transgender and nonbinary people there are. One estimate says 0.4% of the population (1.2 million) identify as non-binary (ref) - though that seems high. Also, some of the 1% might be "refuse to report gender" rather than positively identifying as nonbinary.

It's hard to tell from the rounded-off 1%, but it sets some limits. It could be a little over-represented or a little under-represented depending on how one is counting and which estimates one goes by.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 27, 2023, 08:04:38 AM
Also notably absent is race stats. We all know the black participation rate is low (likely because of the Satanic Panic) but I would like to know how low. Also seeing how communities like Asian, Indian, Native American, and Hispanic participate would be valuable data. You know that WotC collected this, so I have to conclude for it to not be presented...the results are probably pretty darn unflattering.

I'd tend to agree that RPG players are probably more white than the population which is why they don't survey or report it, though I also think there's no reason that it should be exactly representational.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 25, 2023, 06:04:57 PM
I don't know why people find it so hard to believe that 5e is popular.

The reason I'm skeptical is because whenever I try to find data to support 5e's popularity it is always written in deliberately deceptive ways. For example, WotC stated that 5e was the most popular "WotC edition" but they treat 3.0 and 3.5 as separate editions. Or they will go on about how big the "D&D community" is when that includes non-gamers.

The only actual data point I could find was a statement that 5e has sold 800,000 copies of all book combined. Yet AD&D sold 1.2 million copies of just the Players Handbook, and that was back when the population of the US was half what it is today.

So there is plenty of reason to doubt the narrative that 5e is the most popular version of D&D ever made.

Quote from: S'mon on May 27, 2023, 01:49:59 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on May 26, 2023, 06:36:21 PM
The initial sales of 4e well outsold Pathfinder at the time. Pathfinder only overtook it a year later.

That might possibly be because 4e released in 2008 & PF in 2009. 

I was wrong earlier apparently it took years to overtake 4e. The old IcV2 numbers show 4e did well to start and held the top spot until Qtr 2 2011.

Tasha's outsold the ENTIRE RUN with one supplement book for 5e.

Quote from: Aglondir on May 27, 2023, 02:23:16 AM

Quote from: Mistwell on May 26, 2023, 06:36:21 PM

Quote from: Aglondir on May 25, 2023, 05:21:42 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on May 25, 2023, 04:57:16 PM
"Tasha's initial print run for ONE of WotC's distributors was larger than the full print numbers for all of 4e combined."

Which sounds impressive at first, until you take into consideration the hatred for 4E. How do the sales of Tasha compare to the combined print run of Pathfinder? Because that's where the potential 4E customers went.

The initial sales of 4e well outsold Pathfinder at the time. Pathfinder only overtook it a year later.

How did the entire print run of 4E compare to the entire print run of Pathfinder?

I have no idea?

Quote from: Valatar on May 27, 2023, 02:34:57 AM
These are 5e players, so I believe the numbers are probably accurate in a general sense.  Most of the older players jumped ship for Pathfinder or just stayed with their version of choice instead of going to 5th, and so are off in their houses playing their non-5e game rather than answering D&D polls.  If we had a crystal ball and could get an actual accurate headcount on all D&D/OSR/Pathfinder gamers, the population would abruptly skew much older, I expect.  I'm not the only person in my circle of friends who cracked a 5e PHB in the store, looked in it, said, "These class options are dumbed down and bland as fuck," and proceeded to never play it.

We know the OSR is not statistically large overall. And we know Pathfinder is around 20% of 5e, and itself skews younger than the OSR. So I don't think your assumptions are accurate. The overwhelming majority of D&D players these days, of any flavor, are Millennials or younger.

Why this is something to fight against and doubt, I don't know. The game was always focused on a younger generation and it's healthy for RPGs that younger people are into an RPG at this age.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on May 27, 2023, 11:04:21 AM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on May 25, 2023, 06:04:57 PM
I don't know why people find it so hard to believe that 5e is popular.

The reason I'm skeptical is because whenever I try to find data to support 5e's popularity it is always written in deliberately deceptive ways. For example, WotC stated that 5e was the most popular "WotC edition" but they treat 3.0 and 3.5 as separate editions. Or they will go on about how big the "D&D community" is when that includes non-gamers.

The only actual data point I could find was a statement that 5e has sold 800,000 copies of all book combined. Yet AD&D sold 1.2 million copies of just the Players Handbook, and that was back when the population of the US was half what it is today.

So there is plenty of reason to doubt the narrative that 5e is the most popular version of D&D ever made.

My man, 5e had sold 800,000 copies by 2017. That was 6 years ago. Tashas alone sold 105,022 units just in November 2020.  All the core books soared back into the top 100 on Amazon throughout the pandemic and so did their new releases those years.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on May 27, 2023, 11:04:21 AM
The reason I'm skeptical is because whenever I try to find data to support 5e's popularity it is always written in deliberately deceptive ways.

And what ways would not be in some way partly deceptive? You want WOTC to summon a angel to objectively present what is the "For real no fooling" edition? Yet somehow whenever the same sort of halfway statistics represent something the OSR community likes, its 100% slam dunk.
With this sort of statistical analysis you will never get the 100% accrurate representation of who plays. Just because thats not possible doesn't mean there is always malicious intent or that there is a legion of 3 billion D&D 2e players in some secret vault somewhere being "The REAL" popular edition.
Comparing book sales at a time of PDFS/online games and mass sharing/piracy is just really disengenous.

And I think 5e is ass. The worst edition of D&D in terms of ambition and creativity (4e is a fine experiement, bite me). But Ass things are popular.

Quote from: Mistwell on May 27, 2023, 12:03:16 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on May 27, 2023, 11:04:21 AM
The reason I'm skeptical is because whenever I try to find data to support 5e's popularity it is always written in deliberately deceptive ways. For example, WotC stated that 5e was the most popular "WotC edition" but they treat 3.0 and 3.5 as separate editions. Or they will go on about how big the "D&D community" is when that includes non-gamers.

The only actual data point I could find was a statement that 5e has sold 800,000 copies of all book combined. Yet AD&D sold 1.2 million copies of just the Players Handbook, and that was back when the population of the US was half what it is today.

My man, 5e had sold 800,000 copies by 2017. That was 6 years ago. Tashas alone sold 105,022 units just in November 2020.  All the core books soared back into the top 100 on Amazon throughout the pandemic and so did their new releases those years.

Sales data is always tricky to come by. This is what I see for 1st and 2nd editions.

From http://dmmagazine.blogspot.com/2019/11/tsr-sales-numbers-for-ad-first-and.html

QuoteTo compare to previous editions of AD&D, the 1st edition DMG and PHB together sold over 146,000 copies in 1979. Putting those numbers together makes AD&D 2nd edition look like a solid hit. But it hides a deeper problem.

AD&D 2nd edition didn't have the legs that AD&D 1st edition did. Combined sales of the 1st edition DMG and PHB actually went up at first, selling over 390,000 in 1980, over 577,000 in 1981, over 452,000 in 1982, and 533,000 in 1983 before finally sliding to just over 234,000 in 1984, at the time when TSR began its first crisis. Meanwhile, the 2nd edition DMG and PHB would never sell more than 200,000 copies in a single year after 1989. In short, 2nd edition wasn't selling like its predecessor.

For 5th edition, the only number I see for core books is 800,000 in August 2017.

From https://www.enworld.org/threads/d-d-5e-nearing-800-000-copies-sold.579618/

Quote5e is close to selling 800,000 copies! He did say, "I think", and "maybe", but he's at WotC and in a position to know. He doesn't say if that's PHB's or all books combined, but it shure sounds like the he meant the PHB. Nor does he say if it's electronic versions or not.

The PH was released on August 19, 2014 - and the DMG on December 9, 2014. So that figure is after 3 years for PHB and 2.5 years for DMG. We don't know if it was combined sales or not. So that's 260,000 to 320,000 per year -- but I don't know what the curve is like or how it has sold since August 2017.

It sounds like it sold significantly better than 2E its first 2-3 years, but worse than 1E, which covers a lot of ground.

Mistwell's quote on Tasha's - 105,022 units sold in November 2020 - is mentioned in Wikipedia, citing Publisher's Weekly data which seems to check out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasha%27s_Cauldron_of_Everything#Reception

I don't find the gender split very surprising considering D&D has drifted much closer to LARPing, if not entirely in rules then definitely in how it is marketed(e.g., Critical Role).

wrt 5e, I'd assume it's the most popular mostly considering it has by far the most reach of any edition thanks to how widespread the internet & digital storefronts are now. The debate over whether AD&D sold as well as 5E shouldn't be framed as "competitive" but how much of a cultural juggernaut D&D was at the time compared to the blip it is now.
One area that TSR's D&D did quite well in, video games, WotC completely dropped the ball on. TSR could boast licensing D&D to some of the best computer games made at the time. Getting people into your product from other mediums is very important, especially as the potential video game audience grew exponentially.

Quote from: jhkim on May 27, 2023, 09:30:28 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on May 27, 2023, 08:04:38 AM
The other thing I notice with these demographics; 1% "other" genders means that this is really not an LGBTQ industry. In fact, their trans participation rate is lower than the background population rate, which is usually reported as 1.4%. This is especially noteworthy when you consider how young the D&D target demographic is; trans is more a younger person thing, so for you to have 80% of your consumer demographics split between Millennials and Gen Z, netting out a lower trans rate than the overall population means your game is significantly negatively correlated with being trans.

I think you're misinterpreting the result here. The 1% is only those who don't identify as male or female, but many transgender people identify as male (i.e. transmen) or female (transwomen). Estimates vary widely about how many transgender and nonbinary people there are. One estimate says 0.4% of the population (1.2 million) identify as non-binary (ref) - though that seems high. Also, some of the 1% might be "refuse to report gender" rather than positively identifying as nonbinary.

It's hard to tell from the rounded-off 1%, but it sets some limits. It could be a little over-represented or a little under-represented depending on how one is counting and which estimates one goes by.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 27, 2023, 08:04:38 AM
Also notably absent is race stats. We all know the black participation rate is low (likely because of the Satanic Panic) but I would like to know how low. Also seeing how communities like Asian, Indian, Native American, and Hispanic participate would be valuable data. You know that WotC collected this, so I have to conclude for it to not be presented...the results are probably pretty darn unflattering.

I'd tend to agree that RPG players are probably more white than the population which is why they don't survey or report it, though I also think there's no reason that it should be exactly representational.

Yes and no. I think that RPGs are by their nature probably theraputic for things like gender dysphoria because it encourages you to become comfortable being another roleplaying as another person. Could this be people simply identifying as a gender? Possibly. But I think that an actual negative correlation with gender dysphoria is reasonable, too.

A lot of WotC's actions make more sense if you assume that Hasbro is intent on courting ESG investor funding. The intent with things like the OGL debacle and making D&D an online service isn't to make the fans happy, but to put themselves in a position where they can appeal for ESG bailouts. To quote Razorfist, "it isn't 'get woke, go broke,' but 'go broke, get woke.' " In this case, moving online is probably an attempt to pander towards blacks specifically, because blacks play a fair number of video games. I imagine that Hasbro probably doesn't understand how black charismatic churches combined with the Satanic Panic to drive blacks out of the hobby, so they probably attribute poor participation to low literacy and D&D not being culturally sensitive.

Quote from: Fheredin on May 28, 2023, 09:38:41 AM
In this case, moving online is probably an attempt to pander towards blacks specifically, because blacks play a fair number of video games. I imagine that Hasbro probably doesn't understand how black charismatic churches combined with the Satanic Panic to drive blacks out of the hobby, so they probably attribute poor participation to low literacy and D&D not being culturally sensitive.

IME Tomb of Annihilation attracted a lot of black players, because it was set in a cool pseudo-Africa, with a non-derogatory take on an African culture (based on Dahomey & similar slave states, but let's pass over that). Whereas the likes of Strixhaven, Witchlight, and the fantasy Seattle Barristas scenarios is about as pasty white, un-black as you can possibly get. All respect to my black compadres, but they have zero interest in playing baizuo barristas.