(Spinning off from the 4E Essentials thread).

The places where I posted inquiries about printings of 4E books are:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/286090-printings-d-d-4th-edition-books.html

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=528528

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/4thEdition/printingsOf4EBooks

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/25498101/Printings_of_4E_books.


A brief summary of subsequent printings (ie. non-first printings) of WotC 4E books found at bookstores, gaming stores, etc ...

Second Printing

- PHB1
- DMG1
- MM1
- Forgotten Realms Player's Guide  (earliest seen:  August/September 2009)  
- MM2
- PHB2
- Keep on the Shadowfell  (*)  (earliest seen:  early/mid-2009)
- Thunderspire Labyrinth  (earliest seen:  May 2009)

Third Printing

- MM1
- PHB1 (earliest seen:  January 2009)
- DMG1 (*)
- PHB2

Fourth Printing

- PHB2


(*) indicates it was mentioned in one of the above threads, but for which I personally have not seen the particular printing yet.

Entries without an (earliest seen) blurb, were seen recently by myself and others (ie. July 2010).

At this point, it would be nice to verify the existence of a third printing of PHB1.

What info are we gleaning from this?  Not being snarky here, I am curious.

Quote from: Semah;396921What info are we gleaning from this?  Not being snarky here, I am curious.

Examining how far along the 4E books are being printed, and how much errata corrections were incorporated into the subsequent printings.

If possible, an approximate timeline of when the subsequent printings first started to appear on the market.  (This is a lot harder to determine).

At this point, I doubt this 4E printings information collected will ever be in as great detail as "The Acaeum" is for 1E AD&D books.

http://www.acaeum.com

http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/phb.html
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/dmg.html
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/monster.html

For reference, here were some minor findings in regard to errata (in a previous post in another thread).

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=396706&postcount=326

QuoteThe printings of 4E books I came across were:

- second printing of 4E Forgotten Realms Player's Guide
- second printing of 4E PHB1
- second printing of 4E DMG1
- third printing of 4E MM1
- fourth printing of 4E PHB2

(The other 4E books in stock were all first printings).

At one big box bookstore, I sat down and took a closer look at the subsequent printings of PHB1, DMG1, and MM1. It appears there were not many errata (if any) corrections incorporated into these subsequent printings. For example:

- The second printing of PHB1 still had the old stealth rules as the first printing of PHB1.
- The second printing of DMG1 still had the old skill challenges as the first printing of the DMG1.
- The third printing of MM1 still uses the old hit points formula for solo monsters above level 11. (ie. The level 33 Orcus has 1525 HP in the first, second, and third printings of the 4E MM1. With the corrected hit points formula for solo monsters in the 4E DMG2, a level 33 Orcus should have 1220 HP).

How large was each print run? Knowing a book is in its 6584th printing doesn't mean as much when the print run is only 25 books.

Quote from: jeff37923;396928How large was each print run? Knowing a book is in its 6584th printing doesn't mean as much when the print run is only 25 books.

That's the million dollar question.  WotC has not said anything about how many copies were printed for each printing.

For perspective, here's some print numbers from the 3E days.

Ryan Dancey mentions that 300,000 copies of the 3E PHB were sold in 30 days.  (This was most likely the first printing).

http://rpgpundit.xanga.com/698172157/item/?page=1&jump=1482254924#1482254924

Mike Mearls mentions these figures from 2004:

3E PHB -> between 700,000 and 800,000
3E DMG -> 300,000 to 400,000
3E MM1 -> 200,000 to 300,000

http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=11075.msg%msg_id%


No idea how accurate Mearls' figures are, considering the post was made before he was hired as a full-time employee by WotC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mearls

Quote from: ggroy;396930That's the million dollar question.  WotC has not said anything about how many copies were printed for each printing.

Yes, they did. They said their first printing of the 4e core three were expected to last a year. I'm sure subsequent print runs were smaller (and then much smaller), but the first one was hefty.

Seanchai

In the article

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12654.html

they give a vague description of

QuoteSell-in of 4th Edition has "far exceeded expectations" and even though the initial print run for 4th Edition was 50% higher than the order for the previous D&D 3.5 Edition, WotC has now realized that it is necessary to go back to press to meet anticipated reorder demand.

The catch is that it does not state exactly which printing of 3.5E it is referring to, and does not state the precise number of copies.

Quote from: Seanchai;397024Yes, they did. They said their first printing of the 4e core three were expected to last a year. I'm sure subsequent print runs were smaller (and then much smaller), but the first one was hefty.

Let's look at the 3E PHB numbers, as a rough outline.

In a previous post, there's the Ryan Dancey figure of 300,000 copies of 3E PHB sold in 30 days.  This was most likely the first printing sold at Gencon in August 2000.

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=396950&postcount=9

On my bookshelf, I have a second, third, and fourth printing of 3E PHB.  The second printing explicitly states that is was printed in November 2000.  The third and fourth printings do not mention any explicit printing dates.  (I have not seen a 5th printing of the 3E PHB yet).

Mike Mearls gave a figure of 700,000 to 800,000 copies of the 3E PHB sold, back in 2004.  If we take the midpoint of Mearls' 3E PHB figures as reliable (ie. 750.000), then 450,000 copies were printed over the second, third, and fourth printings.

If WotC still thought there was still a huge pent-up demand for the 3E PHB in mid/late-2000, perhaps it wouldn't be too surprising if they ended up printing 300,000 copies for the second printing during November 2000.  With a huge pent-up demand for the 3E PHB during mid/late-2000, the question is how long it took to sell out the entire second printing, whether it was 300,000 copies (or less).

Assuming there was still pent-up demand for the 3E PHB in late-2000, this still leaves 150,000 copies for the third and fourth printings during 2001 and early/mid-2002.  Given that WotC usually spends around a year or so developing D&D books, from start to release date, most likely they were already working on the 3.5E core books already sometime in early/mid-2002.  Most likely they did not do another printing of the 3E PHB, by the time it was mid/late-2002.

I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up doing 100,000 copies for the third print sometime during mid-2001.  They probably saw that there was not a huge pent-up demand anymore, by the time the second printing was already sold out sometime in early/mid-2001.  For a fourth printing sometime in late-2001/early-2002, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 50,000 copies.  By then, the 3E PHB book sales probably wasn't as good as they wanted and hence the start of the development of the 3.5E core books.

In contrast, if WotC didn't think there was pent-up demand for the 3E PHB in late-2000, then the second printing would have been less than 300,000 copies.  Whether they printed 100,000 or 200,000 copies, is anyone's guess.

Further Mike Mearls' 2004 figures:

3E DMG -> 300,000 to 400,000
3E MM1 -> 200,000 to 300,000

My copies of the 3E DMG and 3E MM1 are first printings from September 2000 and October 2000 respectively.  So far I have not seen any second printings of the 3E DMG and 3E MM1.

If WotC was caught up in the euphoria of selling 300,000 copies of the 3E PHB in 30 days during Gencon in August 2000, wonder if they gave the green light to print up as many as 300,000 copies each of the 3E DMG and 3E MM1 in September and October 2000 respectively.

I'm not going to say anything bad about WOTC on this thread btw - since I appreciate ggroy probably split off the thread to avoid derailment by flamewar.
Slightly off topic but how do the print run figures line up with the quoted figures of "1.5 million active players"? Its generally assumed that's 4E players, which would have to mean that many 4E PHBs were sold, at a minimum? Possibly more, given people that bought the PHB may still not be playing.

The 1.5 million active players figure is more recent.

http://www.livingdice.com/3690/wizards-of-the-coast-gts-2010-seminar/

They didn't mention whether this 1.5 million figure represents active 4E players, but for the sake of argument let's assume this is the case.

IIRC from the WotC lawsuit documents from early/mid-2009 (I don't have a link offhand), they mentioned sales of 4E core books in the hundreds of thousands.  Though they do not mention explicitly what exactly they mean by "core books".  But for the sake of argument, let's assume "core book" means the 4E PHB1.

Hundreds of thousands of core books can mean anything from 100,000 to 900,000 copies.  (If they sold more than a million copies, most likely they would have mentioned a "million").

Let's take the ratio P/B of active players (P = 1.5 million) to the possible number of core books sold (B).  (P/B could represent the number of players per book).

B = 100,000 -> P/B = 15
B = 200,000 -> P/B = 7.5
B = 300,000 -> P/B = 5
B = 400,000 -> P/B = 3.75
B = 500,000 -> P/B = 3
B = 600,000 -> P/B = 2.5
B = 700,000 -> P/B = 2.14
B = 800,000 -> P/B = 1.88
B = 900,000 -> P/B = 1.67


In the case of 200k or 300k core books sold, the P/B ratio is around 5 to 7.5 which could mean that only one person in a typical gaming group (ie. 5 players and 1 DM), bought the core book.

In the case of 400k or 500k core books sold, the P/B ratio is around 3 to 3.75 which could mean that two people in a typical gaming group bought the core book.

In the case of 600k or 700k core books sold, the P/B radio is around 2.14 to 2.5 which could mean that three people in a typical gaming group bought the core book.

Most likely they sold more than 100k core books, since a P/B ratio of 15 would mean that two typical gaming groups (ie. 12 people) would only have one core book.

A P/B ratio of 6 would be equivalent to B = 250k core books.  A P/B ratio of 6 could mean that one person in a typical gaming group would have the core book.


Hmmm .... From these numbers, the inference is inconclusive beyond 100k or 250k core books.  To determine anything further, one would have to have a reliable figure for the number of 4E PHB1 core books at a typical gaming table.

For example, in my 4E games both past and present, usually two or three of the people had a 4E PHB1 book.  Other 4E games played at the same venues, typically had two or three people having a 4E PHB1 book.  If one really wanted to stretch the inference further, then having two PHB1 books at an average typical gaming group table could mean B = 500k core books.  Similarly, having three PHB1 books at an average typical gaming group table could mean B = 750k core books.

If the number of "active players" (P = 1.5 million) is problematic or wrong, this analysis goes completely out the window.