=== I don't care if I ever see another 3rd-party class, rules bolt-on, magic system, etc. Even in the heyday of OGL publishing, this stuff was hard to integrate, dubiously playtested, and often WAY more specific than I had any use for. But I would LOVE to see more creative and useful, practical game aids, adventures, encounters, traps, monsters, and background sourcebooks. ===
The problem, honestly, is that I'm not sure the sales numbers are there for ANY kind of 4E product. I'd like to see 300, 400 sales of top-line products, 200+ of the second-fiddles at One Bad Egg. Instead, our top-line products (all two of them -- Hard Boiled Armies and Hard Boiled Cultures) have managed to sell between 200 and 250 copies in the space of 3-5 months. The remainder (9 or so) are well below 200, some below 100 in number, and cover a big spread, short maybe only in adventures. Our most adventure-like product (The Purifiers) is our worst seller. Since October, we've spent $3,700 to generate gross sales of $3,500.
gmskarka's right: the sales aren't there, not in quantity. I do see us continue to do some things with OBE, but the market's weakness may make that a shorter term thing than originally anticipated.
Goodman Games reports an uptick: "I don't usually discuss business on these forums, but I will answer enough to say, '4E is doing well for us.' 4E is definitely smaller than the launch of 3.0 so many years ago, and people have a valid point in saying it's a smaller 'edition launch' overall. But compared to the trends of the last couple years, 4E has definitely caused a significant increase in sales."
But that's Goodman Games. They have a lot of good will to start with, they have the ability to get product out the door at a fairly speedy rate, and so on. They're also known for adventures, which is right in the third party 4e sweet spot.
Its worth noting that that Goodman Games quote was from October 2008 - 8 months back. A lot can change in 8 months. It wouldn't surprise me if they'd been hit by the same poor sales as everyone else.
I can't help wondering how much of the poor sales are a result of the current economic situation though. People just don't have the money to spend at the moment. I know the exchange rate has stopped me buying physical copies of books (with the exception of S7S) and moved me to exclusively pdfs on imported products (which for someone living in the UK is most products). As such can you really expect recessions 4e sales to resemble the 3.5e sales.
I'm not sure I'd say Adamant and OBE is "everyone else" without more evidence. Right now you've got one big third party publisher who was doing fine eight months ago, one publisher that's new to the D&D game doing not as well, and Adamant doing not as well. Not really enough to draw conclusions from.
So it turns out Goodman Games is continuing to do fine. I'd strongly recommend reading that post before talking about 4E sales. He's sharing not only his own experience but the results of his research on TSR and WotC sales figures over the course of the last 30 years -- fascinating stuff.
Summary: 4e is not doing as well as D&D did during the two peak TSR/WotC years (1982 and 2001). It is doing better than it's done most of the rest of its life. Goodman Games is quite happy with sales.
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I don't care if I ever see another 3rd-party class, rules bolt-on, magic system, etc. Even in the heyday of OGL publishing, this stuff was hard to integrate, dubiously playtested, and often WAY more specific than I had any use for. But I would LOVE to see more creative and useful, practical game aids, adventures, encounters, traps, monsters, and background sourcebooks.
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Word.
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gmskarka's right: the sales aren't there, not in quantity. I do see us continue to do some things with OBE, but the market's weakness may make that a shorter term thing than originally anticipated.
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But that's Goodman Games. They have a lot of good will to start with, they have the ability to get product out the door at a fairly speedy rate, and so on. They're also known for adventures, which is right in the third party 4e sweet spot.
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I can't help wondering how much of the poor sales are a result of the current economic situation though. People just don't have the money to spend at the moment. I know the exchange rate has stopped me buying physical copies of books (with the exception of S7S) and moved me to exclusively pdfs on imported products (which for someone living in the UK is most products). As such can you really expect recessions 4e sales to resemble the 3.5e sales.
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...At the same time, though, since RPGs are such a great cheap hobby, I've actually been running and playing more games. Funny, ain't it?
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Summary: 4e is not doing as well as D&D did during the two peak TSR/WotC years (1982 and 2001). It is doing better than it's done most of the rest of its life. Goodman Games is quite happy with sales.
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