ICv2 tries to count subscriptions (kind of). It's an estimate of the entire industry - including revenue streams which aren't publicly available.
It's not an objective tally of available data but rather a "best guess".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oooo... yeah, that's not great. Guess we'll see what the numbers say in another 3 months.
It hasn't been three months, but right now it's at #13, behind 'old' supplements for 5e such as Xanathars, Mordenkainen's and Volo's. Also behind preorders for the new Eberron campaign setting book and the Baldur's Gate adventure. Hmmmm.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This thread is super interesting to read through, especially the speculation early into the game's lifespan.
The solid belief that a slow release schedule was bad and not sustainable, or that WotC wouldn't be able to restore its reputation in the community, or that the brand would never be able to grow in recognition let alone get close to the heights of the early 1980s.
Or even that Pathfinder might still rival D&D in sales and serve as lasting competition...
Other thought:
It's 2019 and 5e still hasn't given me a proper urban druid, a psionic, a firearm dedicated class, a hybrid divine/arcane caster, an alchemist and about a dozen other things I'd like to see but WotC is too afraid of evoking nightmares of 3.5/PF1 bloat to move away from their glacial pace of printing player-side options.
Which is absolutely fine with many people, but I'd have my game of choice sit somewhere between the baroque splurge of PF1 and the monastic asceticism of 5e. There's a reneassaince-sized hole between the two and I'm looking forward to Paizo exploiting it.
Keep in mind that's Pathfinder 1's release schedule of two splatbooks every year was also considered a "glacial pace of printing player-side options" compared to 3e and 4e which had new player facing books every 2-3 months.
It didn't take Pathfinder long to go from "restrained 3e" to "baroque splurge".
And that's the catch. Because if 5e had done one Xanathar-sized splatbook a year since release (which feels like a small amount of content) each class would have well over a dozen subclasses for likely over 150-PC choices spread out over six books. And that's a LOT of content.
Plus, at that point you're also releasing content faster than you can test. WotC has done two playtests of a psionic class and neither was particularly well received; had they been releasing a new class every year (or even every other year) they'd have likely said "eh, close enough" and released the Mystic they did in 2017 to make their arbitrary deadline.
You don't want to release content faster than players can consume or play said content.
Especially when you also want to grow the game. D&D added a staggering number of new players in 2017 and 2018, and having a small number of options almost certainly helped.
I've often compared RPG release schedules to board games. There's a LOT of expansions to Catan, but they don't expect everyone to buy all the expansions nor do they expect people to play with all of them all the time. And they certainly don't release 1-2 expansions every single year.
Doubling in the next 5 years is impressive. Doubling in the last five was coming off a pretty low ebb, so is less impressive. (In fact, I'm surprised that in 2013 they sold half of what they sold in 2018. I would have predicted the increase to be way more than double).
Oh, cheers. I read that too quickly. That makes more sense to me (though I still find it impressive so deep into Magic’s lifetime).
More tie-ins like this will keep things on the current trajectory:
Wizards of the Coast Announces CRITICAL ROLE setting for D&D' --> Explorer's Guide to Wildemount
I'll be interested to see how this goes.
There's been a reasonable amount of complaints about this (my initial thought was that I'd skip it, but chances are I'll pick it up just to be complete).
Despite my personal ambivalence, I was expecting it to be met with much more positive press than it actually got.
To answer my own question here:
1)D&D5e
2)PF2e
3)Shadowrun 6e
4)V:tM 5e
5)Star Wars - FFGs editionInteresting discussion on the same topic over at ENWorld
Looks like the consensus is the SF release schedule caused it to be temporarily(?) shoved off the Top 5 list.
I think the fact that three of those top five were "new edition core releases" would have had something to do with it too. (Four maybe? I don't keep track of the Star Wars stuff anymore).
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
More tie-ins like this will keep things on the current trajectory:
Wizards of the Coast Announces CRITICAL ROLE setting for D&D' --> Explorer's Guide to Wildemount
I'll be interested to see how this goes.
There's been a reasonable amount of complaints about this (my initial thought was that I'd skip it, but chances are I'll pick it up just to be complete).
Despite my personal ambivalence, I was expecting it to be met with much more positive press than it actually got.
Critical Role has a second season problem - their first campaign made them superstars, made people cosplay the hell out of characters, got all the loves and cuddly wuzzly feels.
And then it was over.
And a new campaign started and there was no Grog and Vex. Critical Role discovered just how hard it is to *change* anything about your show (or game, hi diehard fans of any edition of D&D/PF) if your fanbase is emotional, nostalgic, invested and treats your stuff less as a hobby and more like therapy.
So now they're basically forced to do retro-content (animated series, one-shot) that focus on the beloved first campaign and if they put out something based on the "so-so, why couldn't you just continue Vox Machina for ever?" campaign they get flak for focusing their attention on something else than more Grog and Vex.
So when they get the Might Nein book out ... diehard Critters will be angry that it isn't yet another Vox Machina book.
Fans might be fun, but in some ways they are some of the worst *customers* out there.
Impossible not to love Jester.
More tie-ins like this will keep things on the current trajectory:
Wizards of the Coast Announces CRITICAL ROLE setting for D&D' --> Explorer's Guide to Wildemount
I'll be interested to see how this goes.
There's been a reasonable amount of complaints about this (my initial thought was that I'd skip it, but chances are I'll pick it up just to be complete).
Despite my personal ambivalence, I was expecting it to be met with much more positive press than it actually got.
Critical Role has a second season problem - their first campaign made them superstars, made people cosplay the hell out of characters, got all the loves and cuddly wuzzly feels.
And then it was over.
And a new campaign started and there was no Grog and Vex. Critical Role discovered just how hard it is to *change* anything about your show (or game, hi diehard fans of any edition of D&D/PF) if your fanbase is emotional, nostalgic, invested and treats your stuff less as a hobby and more like therapy.
So now they're basically forced to do retro-content (animated series, one-shot) that focus on the beloved first campaign and if they put out something based on the "so-so, why couldn't you just continue Vox Machina for ever?" campaign they get flak for focusing their attention on something else than more Grog and Vex.
So when they get the Might Nein book out ... diehard Critters will be angry that it isn't yet another Vox Machina book.
Fans might be fun, but in some ways they are some of the worst *customers* out there.
I enjoyed campaign one, but didn't come in until the Tarion Darrington arc. I have been with campaign two since the first episode, and can't wait for the Wildemount book!
I can't even guess how Wildemount will come across. The promo chatter sounds good though.
You must be reading different chatter to me. My impression is that it’s announcement has been received pretty negatively.
I’ll be interested to see how it manifests in behaviour though. For me it’s a total miss and my thought was I’d skip it. However, I’m pretty confident now that I’m going to buy it expecting not to like it.
From WotC’s perspective, my behaviour is identical to a die hard critter.
No matter what people say, their buying behaviour is what actually matters to a company (witness high level modules, art books and the price of environmentally friendly packaging).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I find the comparison of amazon ratings a pretty meaningless game.
I guess you could usefully compare a WotC Eberron book with a WotC Dark Suns book on that basis. But I suspect the rating given says just as much about ones relationship with the company as it does about the book (especially when it comes to flagship products like the CRB).
I also think there’s a “What do you think about Paizo stopping publishing PF1?” element that’s manifesting. Some who didn’t like PF1 are probably giving the CRB a higher mark than they would have in a vacuum. No doubt some who loved PF1 are not evaluating the CRB purely on its standalone merits.
(Four maybe? I don't keep track of the Star Wars stuff anymore).
FFG’s SW is still in its first edition.
It’s mildly concerning that FFG is taking the #5 spot in sales in the quarter just before they fired their entire RPG product team and halted dev on both their own IP (GeneSys) and their big license (Star Wars.)
Their CCG and Board Game lines seem to have been unaffected by the staff reduction.
I think the fact that three of those top five were "new edition core releases" would have had something to do with it too.
Only two actually, V:TM 5e released a full year earlier in August of 2018.
V:TM 5e ?
Fifth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade from the smoking embers of a games company once known as White Wolf.
WW is dead?!
More or less, and has been for a while. CCP bought White Wolf in the mid 2000’s with the hopes of creating a V:tM MMO, eventually they strip mined the WW operation and fired the entire RPG dev team.
Rich Thomas created his own company Onyx Path and licensed a number of former WW titles from CCP and they continue to produce content to this day - though primarily for the NWoD (now Chronicles of Darkness) line.
A few years back Paradox press bought White Wolf from CCP and intended to jump start the OWoD line. They formed White Wolf as a small company inside Paradox, and there were a number of very visible and very terrible public relations snafus with alt right, fascist, and anti LGBTQ devs going out of their way to put their identity politics into the game. Ultimately Paradox had to let the White Wolf team go and handles the licensing of WW titles to other companies.
Modiphius handles some of it, Onyx Path (the spiritual successor) handles another huge chunk of it and some other companies are getting new licenses.
It’s basically an imprint now that licenses its IP to other developers
|
|
V:TM 5e ?Fifth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade from the smoking embers of a games company once known as White Wolf.
Ah, got it - thanks.
This is a good example of why people should avoid using needless abbreviations when writing - assuming everyone reading what you write will understand all of your abbreviations is a good way to alienate people and/or lead to unnecessary confusion ...
Stepping down from my soapbox now ...
(Four maybe? I don't keep track of the Star Wars stuff anymore).FFG’s SW is still in its first edition.
Well sure technically. But the way they bundle up each “sub genre” as it’s own thing is what I meant. I expect that gets them the same bang for their buck as a new edition.
But the way they bundle up each “sub genre” as it’s own thing is what I meant. I expect that gets them the same bang for their buck as a new edition.
Are you talking about the distinction between the three core game: Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny?
Don't let the size of those recent releases fool you, they're just splatbooks, and this years releases were the setting splats for the rise of the empire era and an NPC codex.
I'd say the sales boost is more due to Rise of Skywalker than some hidden mystique in their splat release schema.
The truth is that as you cast your eye backward across ICv2 of years past: Star Wars consistently finds its way onto the list, whether it's FFG's version WotC's Saga or WotC's standard. If there were a reliable way to track all the way back to its release I suspect WEG'S Star Wars would also rather consistently rise toward the top. It's just one of the evergreens of the hobby.
I'm sure anything Star Wars gets bought by some people who don't play RPGs as well.
But the way they bundle up each “sub genre” as it’s own thing is what I meant. I expect that gets them the same bang for their buck as a new edition.Are you talking about the distinction between the three core game: Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion and Force and Destiny?
Don't let the size of those recent releases fool you, they're just splatbooks, and this years releases were the setting splats for the rise of the empire era and an NPC codex.
I'm referring to that yes.
"Splatbook" or "Core Rulebook" is a relatively meaningless distinction in this context - for sales data it's about how things appear. I suspect that the way they break things up gives them a bigger fillip than if everything was identical with an ever expanding line of identically branded splatbooks/campaign sourcebooks/rulebooks.
Star Wars do well when they open up a new genre - whether it be "now you can be smugglers", "now you can be jedi" or "this is probably like the rogue one movie".
"Splatbook" or "Core Rulebook" is a relatively meaningless distinction in this context - for sales data it's about how things appear.
Then by that rationale your own exercise in noting how many of the top five were core releases was also relatively meaningless because if a full price Star Wars book is enough to quality as a “core release” then so is a full price D&D book and thus all 5 of the top releases were core releases.
Star Wars do well when they open up a new genre - whether it be "now you can be smugglers", "now you can be jedi" or "this is probably like the rogue one movie".
Star Wars does well because gamers play Star Wars. A splatbook of expanded Jedi powers is no different than Ultimate Magic.
This tone of justifying the sales of their books on the basis of the way they “break things up” or speculating needless that non gamers are fueling the sales is just dismissive and insulting of a sales demographic that has been a large component of this hobby since 1987.
The game sold well because the game is good and people play it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
V:TM 5e ?Fifth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade from the smoking embers of a games company once known as White Wolf.Ah, got it - thanks.
This is a good example of why people should avoid using needless abbreviations when writing - assuming everyone reading what you write will understand all of your abbreviations is a good way to alienate people and/or lead to unnecessary confusion ...
Stepping down from my soapbox now ...
You could google it and find out in seconds too!