Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I posted this over on ENWorld in a thread that has devolved into edition comparisons. I've added the quotes for PnP & Henry in full, so that folks don't have to go digging for the full context (but in case you care, the link is at http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=174548):

grodog on ENWorld wrote:

PapersAndPaychecks on ENWorld wrote:

Henry on ENWorld wrote:Nobody has a friggin' clue. Best estimates come from sales figures of various companies willing to share, but no one has done a statistically successful poll because, frankly, there's no monetary gain in doing so. All we have are figures like Kenzer's from three years ago saying their Hackmaster PHB sold about 25,000 copies at the time and their DMG sold 15,000 copies, and so forth.

The pool of INTERNET ACTIVE AD&D players is possibly a little easier to find; Just based on message boards, I'm guessing about 1,500 to 5,000 or so. If each one accounts for a group of 2 to 6 players, you're looking at somewhere between 3,000 to 30,000 total players that internet groups account for. Of those, the ones who buy products online are pretty devoted; in other words, if there's something out, they'll scoop it up.

Note this also does not include the current player base, which has no hard figures released, and this does not cover those who play AD&D less than once per month but more than zero times per year; I myself even fall into that category. I'm mainly talking those who play at least once a month. Note finally this is all total anecdotal speculation based on the number of boards I've visited and in some cases just gazed at.

I think Henry's figures might be a bit low -- perhaps the numbers he gives could be doubled or tripled. (This is based on the distribution figures for my 1e .pdf's which are hosted on Dragonsfoot.)

I think you're both way low: the AD&D MM, PHB, and DMG were each printed and reprinted in the millions through the height of D&D's heyday. Based on WotC's 1999 pre-3e marketing survey--which speaks to 1e/2e D&D player demographics---6% of the overall US population have ever played rpgs, while 3% play monthly. Those percetages are after at least two major rpg market crashes and the emergance of PC games as key competitors, neither of which which were factors for TSR or D&D until well-after 1986; I think those figures would be higher if TSR had performed market research back in the day.

The US population in 1980 was 226,545,805 so 6% of that figure is 13,592,748 people who ever played AD&D in its heyday (the percentage was likely higher), and 6,796,374 people who played at least monthly (again, likely higher too).

The question becomes how many players are still playing pre-3.x D&D after 1999, when the national survey was conducted? The US population in 2000 was 281,421,906, so there should have been 16,885,314 folks who'd ever played rpgs around (using the 6% figure sans caveats), and 8,442,657 active monthly+ gamers. While TSR's market share had fallen during those darkest years just before WotC bought them, they still commanded around 60% of the market, so there should have been 5,065,594 folks who had ever played D&D around, and 2,532,797 or so active gamers playing D&D at least monthly.

How many of those 2.5 million active players never converted to 3.x, or converted and switched back? That's much harder to guesstimate, and will have to wait for a night when I have a little more time on my hands than is left in this evening

Does anyone have any further ideas on ways to estimate the AD&D market?

I haven't gone back to pull out the publisher circulation statements for Dragon yet, but they're about the only other way that I can think, offhand to get a good sense of the market, other than print run figures, which we don't have a lot of info on (see the Acaeum @ http://www.acaeum.com/library/printrun.html):

I've been saying that Kenzer told me they estimated 30K Hackmaster players. I found the actual e-mail, however, and they said 25k:

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 16:41:40 -0600
From: Kenzer & Company Customer Service <service@kenzerco.com>
To: francisca@(nixed to stem spam)
Subject: Re: number of hackmaster players

Hi Rich,

Thank you for your e-mail. We are guessing that around 25,000 people play
HackMaster.

Sincerely,

Kenzer & Company
Customer Service
www.kenzerco.com
ph 847-540-0029
fax 847-540-8065

Dunno if that helps, but there you are.

Gro, are you looking for the number of people who actively play AD&D or the number of people who might be interested in an AD&D-compatible product? If the latter, then Kenzer & Co.'s "stats" (in as much as "we are guessing" can be considered stats) might be helpful in establishing the size of one segment of the AD&D market. Dragonsfoot's download stats would also be helpful (if you can get them).

It is worth mentioning that when authorized PDFs of 1e products first rolled out on WotC's online store, the 1e hardback scans pretty much dominated online sales. The Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook were traditionally in the #1 slot.

thedungeondelver wrote:It is worth mentioning that when authorized PDFs of 1e products first rolled out on WotC's online store, the 1e hardback scans pretty much dominated online sales. The Dungeon Master's Guide and Player's Handbook were traditionally in the #1 slot.

Earlier today I was looking at RPGNow for something else and noticed by chance the non-d20 lists. There's quite a few TSR D&D pdfs in both the Non-D20 RPG - This Month & Non-D20 RPG - All Time lists. Even some in the All Categories, including the This Month one.

http://www.rpgnow.com/toplists.php

- Casey (who had an account on the previous incarnation of this forums and is up with a cold)

Welcome C777. I've read your stuff at DF, glad to see you here. Do check out the other forums as well.

Casey777 wrote:Earlier today I was looking at RPGNow for something else and noticed by chance the non-d20 lists. There's quite a few TSR D&D pdfs in both the Non-D20 RPG - This Month & Non-D20 RPG - All Time lists. Even some in the All Categories, including the This Month one.

http://www.rpgnow.com/toplists.php

- Casey (who had an account on the previous incarnation of this forums and is up with a cold)

For reference the grading system is based upon sales: Copper 50-100, Silver 101-250, Electrum 251-500, Gold 500-1000, Platinum 1001+.

ToEE is Plat

Queen of the Spiders, Rules Cyclopedia, 2ndE Monstrous Manual are Gold.

Greyhawk Ruins, Wiz Companion 1, Planescape Faces of Evil, Planes of Chaos, Planes of Law, Adventures in Space, menozoberranzan, Uncaged Faces of Evil, 1E Monster Manual II, Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins, In the Cage, Hellbound, City of Splendors, Planewalker's Handbook, Planes of Conflict, Dark Sun Setting, Birthright Setting, Greyhawk Setting, DMG 2E, PH2E, Ruins of Undermountain, Return to ToH, MM1E, and Basic Set (4th), Scourge of the slave lords, and the planescape setting, are all electrum.

There's alot of silvers: anything under sale ranking 60 is silver.

These number also don't include all the sales that occured at the other sales site TSR was at (I can't remember the name right now) and only include sales at rpgnow.com.

joe b.

jgbrowning wrote:These number also don't include all the sales that occured at the other sales site TSR was at

SVGames.com

and Paizo has them as well, I think.

And don't forget, WotC themselves sold them before farming them out to SVGames.

Yah SVgames was the one I couldn't remember and I'd forgotten that Paizo had them.

joe b.

jgbrowning wrote:These number also don't include all the sales that occured at the other sales site TSR was at (I can't remember the name right now) and only include sales at rpgnow.com.

And none of the pay-for-download sites take into account that mass of Original/Basic/Advanced D&D pdfs that have been downloaded and distributed amongst P2P and other networks. I can guarantee that distribution of old school pdfs by far out strips all of the pay-for-download sites put together.

i personally account for at least 9% of the 1E downloads..as my computer and i have some communication issues

but id say there is at least 12 players in the entire state of New Mexico
...heh

so ...1.9 million pop. in the state...12 players....uhhhhh

you do the math

regards
1 E Ad&d the new "chick magnet"

j gv

John Stark wrote:I can guarantee that distribution of old school pdfs by far out strips all of the pay-for-download sites put together.

Yes, but if they're not willing to pay for the rules I have to wonder whether they would be willing to pay for add'l stuff.

dcs wrote:

John Stark wrote:I can guarantee that distribution of old school pdfs by far out strips all of the pay-for-download sites put together.

Yes, but if they're not willing to pay for the rules I have to wonder whether they would be willing to pay for add'l stuff.

You're assuming that those folks who download a pdf of one of the rulebooks didn't buy the hard copies in the first place (whether back in the day when they were in print, or from ebay or whereever). If those who download bootleg pdfs of old school products also seek out those products in print form (and I'd assert that they do, check out the very healthy trade in out of print RPG books on ebay and elsewhere), then there IS a market waiting to be tapped by those who can emulate the creativeness and quality of those out of print products.

Further, there's a big difference between acquiring a print product and a pdf product. The main demand for products time and again is for printed material, not pdf. Its easy to get your hands on a scan of a printed product, but that is not the demand that people have. Most want to hold something in their hands; that is the real market that is available, the one that will ulitmately drive the gaming "industry," and the one that should be in question.

Certainly there are some who will be satisfied with grabbing a bootleg scan of something and printing it out themselves, but those people are going to do that regardless, and I think they are the minority (especially given how fast the price of home printing can grow). Most folks are looking for something printed and bound professionally to add to their collection, and we can gage those numbers, at least in a general way, by how widespread the distribution of bootleg pdfs is. That distribution represents an established interest in, and demand for, old school products.

Meet that demand with print products as good as some of the old school stuff (G series, Greyhawk, D series, T1, B1 or 2, the S series, etc.), and reap the windfall.