According to Pathfinder tied with 4e in terms of sales during the 3rd quarter. It looks like it was not only a local situation unique to my area.

Whether this is because sales of Pathfinder are up or because sales of 4e is down... I dunno. For the health of the industry I hope that it is the former, but the pessimist inside of me leans towards the latter.

Mongoose has scrapped all plans for 4e, but is starting a line of Pathfinder supplements. However, the mentions a general softening of the market.

*EDIT* Mongoose scrapping 4e products was done last year. Too bad, Wraith Recon looked good for conversion to Fantasy Craft. On the up side - the Quintessential series is likely to be updated for Pathfinder.

The Auld Grump, who went to order Wraith Recon....

I liked what I saw of True20...

Many mentioned others, but I like . I got to help beta test it and it can handle pretty much anything I have thrown at it (from zombie games, to super heroes).

I just read The Escapists interview with Mike Mearls... what a bunch of toothless prearranged questions. Freakin' softballs, with no followup on any negatives. I remember when The Escapist actually did some digging.

Mearls response in regards to third party support for 4e? They should make adventures... Do you know what 3PP have discovered about 4e adventures? They don't even sell as well as 3.X adventures, which were generally not worth making.... (In part this is because 4e has made adventure creation much easier than in 3.X)

Mearls did admit that it is very unlikely that the online generator will ever support 3PP.

In short, the GSL continues to suck, and will continue to suck. Meanwhile Pathfinder is gaining 3PP support from companies that have abandoned the GSL. I honestly think that supporting the OGL is a big chunk of what allowed Pathfinder to achieve parity with 4e in the third quarter of 2010.

A bright spot for WotC - the local Borders the Gamma World box has sold out all six copies. I am fairly certain that the store could have sold more copies if they had more copies to sell. Both times they got the box in the three copies that they got sold in a matter of days.

A downside for Paizo - Bestiary 2 missed the Christmas shopping window.

The Auld Grump

I'm making the transition from 3.5 to Pathfinder. I tend to agree with Grump about 4E being too focused on combat. 4E feels like a board game, which can be fun, but when I want good role playing with smooth mechanics, I found that Pathfinder filled the niche. Several character generators are availible for Pathfinder,(I'm using Hero Lab), you can get just about everything in PDF form, and I like what they've done with the rules.

* Just a gentle moderator reminder to keep the discussion about the topic not the posters. *

Thanks for posting those stats UHF. I've been wondering what actual evidence there is for how things are going right now.

As for how many players there are out there, current sales may not be a great indication as there are often groups playing with old versions. (I was in a group that played 2e for over 10 years but after the first couple of years our only purchases were the very occasional adventure module.)

Ninivah The stats you posted were for like 600 guys... of like a million. I'm talking about aggregate measurement of a significant portion of the market.

You need large (or accurate) numbers to measure anything, and I am hand waving here. I think, ENWorld is representative. I could be wrong, but I have noticed that WOTC made quite a splash there when they were rolling out Essentials. They didn't make much noise on their own forums.

Zenguy Thanks... I think that is kind of the point I'm making. And checking postings on a large scale seemed to be the only logical guesstimate of actual market activity. But of course, that's slanted to internet users who like certain web pages...

Even then, I have to strip off numbers for 'play by mail'. They are much bigger for Paizo if you must know... I think older style games lend themselves better to verbal\written description rather than maps and minis.

...
A bunch of folks posting on a forums does not represent the entire D&D community.
As any game developer will tell you, the vast majority of the people who post in forums are the folks who will make a lot of noise no matter what. Those are just the people who want to get attention. If you look at the World of Warcraft forums, you would get the impression that most players hate the game or whatever change was most recently made. In fact, there are still 13 million players continuing to pay monthly for that game and most of them aren't even bothering with the forums. So, it's not considered a good representation of the community.

My examples from a few months ago showed 432 games, not players, playing versions of D&D online. If we assume the average party size of 5 plus a DM, that's 2,592 gamers. Quite a bit more than a few hundred. How many posts did you actually see on ENworld about Essentials? A few hundred? Even a thousand? And how many of those were multiple posts from the same person?

...

Moderators note: Edited for tone and content: inappropriate sections deleted; changed content is italicized.
PM me if you have any questions about this. - Zenguy

By its nature, EN World is not a good indicator. And I say this in spite of a recent poll that showed that Pathfinder was a lot closer than 10%.... (In the 40% range, if I recall properly, with 4e coming in at something like 55%.)

For one thing GMs make up more than 50% of their posters. And it is pretty much the domain of dedicated gamers. Folks who are impassioned about gaming, as opposed to casual players. (Though I would expect 4e to appeal more to the casual gamer than Pathfinder.)

It is similar to comparing PDF sales, too much of a corner case to really count. (Pathfinder does quite well with PDF sales, but if we include WotC's Digital Initiative as PDF sales then I think D&D has the edge. 3PP PDFs... not so much in either case.)

WotC themselves were the ones who outright stated, in the same prequel book to 4e, that 'D&D is a game about combat!' and tried to make that a selling point, so, no, problem not solved - the problem is still WotC's handling of its own property. This was in the same damning paragraph as the line about talking to the little people, and lost them more sales than just my own. The focus has shifted from the setting to the encounter, and thus to combat.

Those prequel books to 4e were really pretty atrocious - charging $20 for what amounted to an advertisement... pretty much the same things that would have gone into Dragon articles about the forthcoming game, if they hadn't already deep sixed Dragon and Dungeon, both.

As for it being unfair to compare third quarter sales - Paizo did not have that many new releases either, so null point. One thing that was noticed at Borders in the fourth quarter was that the APG definitely drove Core rules sales, that it was bringing in new players. By comparison the Gamemastery Guide (the main third quarter release) did not spur sales in the same way. (The GMG is definitely the slowest seller in the line.)

Borders does not carry the adventure paths from Paizo, so parity was based solely on the hardcover books or, in the case of the Essentials line, the thicker trade paperbacks.

One thing that surprises me is that the sales of the Essentials line is much lower than anticipated - I was actually expecting it to sell like gangbusters. I think that the Essentials move is an excellent idea, given the problem of high returns, but the books are just doing so-so. Heck, if I ever buy any 4e material it is almost certainly going to be in this line. The low price point plus a good coupon... I can see how it might be tempting.

There are exceptions to the softish sales - the boxed Essentials starter set is doing just fine, and both of the boxed tiles sets are doing quite well (and, I suspect, may well be selling to Pathfinder players as well - maps just don't care what rules are being used ).

Another area where I was dead wrong is the sales of the D&D minis - the completely random Lords of Madness set is selling much better than the ones where the Large or Huge figure was visible. This... I just don't understand. At all. When I bought the few D&D minis sets that I have it was purely on the basis of the single visible figure. (Stranglevise vine and the Remorhaz.)

By sales density Pathfinder is actually doing much better than D&D at the local Borders, this may change as Pathfinder accumulates more books. Odd as it sounds, having too many books can kill sales, as the perceived start price increases. Sales density is simply how much shelf space is being used for how much product is actively being sold. The Pathfinder space sees a good deal sell through and replacement, some 4e books see the same, but there is an awful lot of dead product that just does not move. The dead product is not what I would expect, either. The Draconomicons, for example, have just been sitting there, the first one did okay, then when the second volume came out sales just dried up.

The 'All books are core!' approach of 4e may be working against it - core books are evergreen. Having all books as core kind of takes away from that. Currently the hardcover releases for Pathfinder have had a similar, but untrumpeted, approach, with the exception of the GMG, which is pretty much optional, and is quite open about it. But with only two books required for a player it isn't nearly as scary to approach. WotC has been maintaining an aggressive release schedule for 4e, and I think that they reached saturation a lot faster than they did with 3.X. (Releases have been a lot faster coming than under 3.X.)

No, you don't need the whole collection of 4e books to play, but some people look at twenty some odd books and flee in terror... soon or late the same thing is likely to happen to Pathfinder. This is part of the reason that I think the Essentials line is a good idea. I really don't know why it is not doing better. (Well, other than the rules... but that is a personal taste. It should still be selling better than it is, the strategy seems strong, and the opt in cost is fairly low. You can get most of the main Essentials books for the cost of one Core book for Pathfinder. )

It will be interesting to see how Ultimate Magic does for Pathfinder - this is where a player's book becomes purely optional. If you aren't the sort to play a magic using type then the book has a lot less draw. One of my players is running a Magus from the Playtest rules for Ultimate, and is having fun with it. It may cap out on its magic with 6th level spells, but the ability to cast and fight in the same round has some serious appeal. It would have been interesting to make that ability an archetype for the bard. I am just not certain whether a dedicated magic user book is enough to drive sales.

The big loser, however, is not D&D but Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - to date the local Borders has gotten one of each of the major releases in the line and sold none. In all the months that big box has been sitting on the shelf they have never sold any. Sales density wise it is somewhere in the ionosphere.... The WH40K games, on the other hand, are doing okay. Not a lot of flow through, but also not a lot of shelf space.

I also think that the pretty pictures in Pathfinder may be working better than the pretty pictures inside of 4e. Again, not something that I actually understand. The rules are what should matter. (Even though the silliness is helping Pathfinder in this case.)

I will accept your stance on the DCC releases. Some nice maps created with either Photoshop or Campaign Cartographer would likely have helped, even under 3.X. Sell the dead tree versions without the color maps, then have the color maps as free downloads with a pass key in the book.

However, Expeditious Retreat uses a similar format, B&W illos, small scale maps, etc., but is doing quite well compared to DCC. I think that just means that Mr. Browning just plain makes a superior product otherwise. Not a surprise - his Magical Society books for 3.X were excellent, I see no reason to think that his 4e releases would be otherwise. It could also be that both his expectations and overhead are lower. ERP is a tiny company, with some very good releases.

It is worth reiterating that my dislike of WotC and my antipathy towards 4e are somewhat separate - WotC, the company, has taken has taken an approach that causes me some consternation, which, when coupled for a more general dislike of the 4e rules themselves, results in my taking a more active voice in my dislike of 4e then I would had I been annoyed by the rules alone. The only company that has annoyed me in a similar fashion has been Paladium, and that was primarily because of a single person, not the concerted approach of 4e. (Those who have had any dealings with Paladium will know whom I am writing about.)

You may want to look at Bad Axe Games Trailblazer - which is sort of a compromise between Pathfinder and 4e. There are some parts that I have embraced, and some that annoy me as much when converted to Pathfinder as they do in 4e. I felt that it was a worthwhile purchase, and I think that you may actually get more satisfaction from it than I did. (As an aside... two days after I purchased the PDF for Trailblazer I was sent a free copy by the company. The gods of irony felt in need of amusement I think....)

The Auld Grump

OK... so 2,500/1,000,000=.0025 ... .0025*100= .25% statistically its meaningless. I don't mean to upset you, but I wouldn't invest in that trend. It could be just noise.

Anyways.. check out enworld (it was offline today)... Check the categories.. 4e.. Pathfinder... Older Editions I think. The web page reports how many people are active in those forums (very consistent to the numbers I posted). They also post totals for number of posts in those categories. Lastly... I lump 4e in with Essentials. They are the same game. At least I haven't seen a 4.5 or Essentials forum appearing anywhere.

If you do a little more work, check out the Paizo forums... check out the totals by category. Do the same at WOTC... check out the totals. Its comparing apples and oranges in many cases, but you get the jist. 4e is significantly more active.

Heh, an update on Essentials at the local Borders.

Essentials did not do very well on the important days before Christmas.

However, once the gift certificates started rolling in just about the entire pile of softcover Essentials books got wiped out! That was what I was expecting to see before Christmas - An awful lot of folks used their gift certificates, so while the books themselves did not get bought as gifts they still got bought. (And I would be willing to bet that a lot of folks held off until after Christmas, either waiting to see if they got the books under the tree or if they got certificates in the stocking.)

Pathfinder was also cleared out, again, but with fewer copies of fewer books it was not quite as dramatic. I was glad to see so much damage inflicted on the games section. However, even with gift certificates Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay failed to sell that lone copy.

The hardcover D&D was less successful, but I think that the paperback Essentials were a successful experiment.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* And Goodman Games has announced that Dungeon Crawl Classics will become a stand alone game using the 3.x compatible rules.

Pathfinder is outselling D&D at Amazon. At a guess, Paizo is now a 400 pound gorilla and WotC is discovering that it is only a 450 pound gorilla.... There is no 500 pound gorilla.

The 'All Books are Core' theme of 4e means that nothing is evergreen, and the number of books may be turning new players away.

Paizo has kept the Core and Optional books system, making it easier for new players, maybe? (Not sure on that one, the Pathfinder Core rulebook is pretty darned intimidating.)

Word from a friend who manages a local Borders is similar - Pathfinder was doing better than 4e until right after Christmas, and is now doing better again now that the Gift Certificate Frenzy is over, but the 4e Tiles boxes are doing stupidly well. I wonder how many are being bought by Pathfinder players, 'cause the tiles just don't care what system you use.

Ah well, back to scheming and plotting on how to use an undead army in Pathfinder....

The Auld Grump

Interesting. Certainly makes you wonder...