1. The new D&D Books were reclassified by places like Amazon into "Toys and Games" rather than books. That is a very, very, very different category than Books - and a much, much more competitive category, dominated by things like Lego, Pokemon, crayons, regular playing cards, etc. D&D is big - and making hundreds of millions is big even in the book selling world. But in the greater toy world, where there are billion dollar brands running about? Obviously their best selling ranking is going to be dwarfed by the juggernauts, in a way they were not dwarfed when they were competing with books.
2. He does have a reason to be biased. Conversely, the statement you are trying (badly) to disprove is made by two entities (Wizards and KPMG) where they are required by law to be accurate.
3. There are numbers to support these claims - we do not have access to these numbers, but KPMG did when they performed an independent audit and signed off on Wizards' quarterly reporting.
I get that you are trying to spin a narrative, for whatever reason. But this is a losing argument you are making. Your entire argument essentially boils down to "Please, ignore the fact a Big Four accounting firm (one of the best auditors in the world) looked at the hard data and verified this information - look at my own anecdotal evidence (much of which has been shown to be flawed), and listen to me, even though I am neither an auditor nor have sufficient hard data to support my claims."
You are, of course, free to share your own, personal reasons why you dislike 5.24 - though that might be long on a different thread, as this thread was really more curious about those who do like it. But you cross the line into conspiratorial and to tilting at windmills when you use bad data, lies, and poor reading of facts to try and pretend your anecdotal opinion reflects the majority. It is not really fair to those of us who do like 5.24 - those of us who made 5.24 the best selling set of books in the game's history - to have our opinions summarily dismissed by someone who is choosing their own narrative over the fact of our existence.
I'm pretty sure Amazon lists RPG books under both toys and books. Look up the PHB on Amazon. Narrowing your search down to books. The 2014 one will show up. There you will find a link to what it calls the '2024 edition.' Seems odd to put that there if that's not even a book but it is what it is. Click on it. Now look at the bar above. You are still in the books category. Someone on these forums some months ago posted a screen shot showing the new PHB wth Toys & Games displayed in the bar above. Like this were evidence it was no longer seen as a book internally at Amazon. But it's both apparently.
Can you say with 100 percent certainty that sales of the PHB on Amazon do not at all register as book sales at either Amazon or elsewhere? Can you back up saying such a thing with such certainty? I'm happy to admit to my being wrong. If I am.
Mearls hasn't worked for WoTc in two years. He knows as much as we do.
Then why assert you know better? I imagine he has greater insight into how things work and how well or unwell things are going than people on a forum where they respond to anything negative with 'nu uh.' Two years and things have gone through such a transformation he couldn't possibly know what he is talking about? The man is an expert in his field. He has been hired to be the Executive Producer at Chaosium.
Because, as people keep pointing out, they said in their stockholder announcement that the 2024 PHB is their best selling book, and that is a detail that it's quite trivial for an audit team to fact-check. There's very clear trails both digitally for copies purchased on Beyond and physically from the entire supply and distribution chain. There's a reason a lot of the big frauds you're likely to have heard about involve intangibles like property or stock values- it's somewhere between really really hard and outright impossible to fake product sales so they'll hold up to an audit like this- particularly when you'd be making them up from whole-cloth. Sure, what's-his-name might be an expert in TTRPG development, but a big 4 accounting firm is going to have hundreds of experts at picking apart statements made by companies for their big official stockholder reports and firsthand access to the books. Oddly enough, given that I trust the latter's assessment of the sales over the former's prediction about them.
Um... think before you speak? Corporations don't share financial information with ex-employees, so there's no reason someone released in 2023 would have sales data from 2024.
I never suggested he would have those numbers. I am saying it's not as if his no longer working there these past two years means all the insight and knowledge he obtained while there just disappeared the moment he walked out the door. I mean many are those here who have never been on their payroll who act as if they know the ins and outs of the company and its every motivation.
Because, as people keep pointing out, they said in their stockholder announcement that the 2024 PHB is their best selling book, and that is a detail that it's quite trivial for an audit team to fact-check. There's very clear trails both digitally for copies purchased on Beyond and physically from the entire supply and distribution chain. There's a reason a lot of the big frauds you're likely to have heard about involve intangibles like property or stock values- it's somewhere between really really hard and outright impossible to fake product sales so they'll hold up to an audit like this- particularly when you'd be making them up from whole-cloth. Sure, what's-his-name might be an expert in TTRPG development, but a big 4 accounting firm is going to have hundreds of experts at picking apart statements made by companies for their big official stockholder reports and firsthand access to the books. Oddly enough, given that I trust the latter's assessment of the sales over the former's prediction about them.
As has been pointed out by many who doubt that statement:
It likely includes duplicated hybrid (physical-digital) sales.
If every bundle is counted as two sales that skews figures.
They're technically not lying to say 100 copies of the PHB were sold when 50 customers bought bundles. They're making the money.
But to make it sound as if this means the book is selling twice as well as another not calculated in the same fashion is deceitful.
Um... think before you speak? Corporations don't share financial information with ex-employees, so there's no reason someone released in 2023 would have sales data from 2024.
I never suggested he would have those numbers. I am saying it's not as if his no longer working there these past two years means all the insight and knowledge he obtained while there just disappeared the moment he walked out the door. I mean many are those here who have never been on their payroll who act as if they know the ins and outs of the company and its every motivation.
Here is the real question for you - why do you trust someone who has zero access to the relevant numbers and might hold a grudge against the company (even if he loves the game)… over the Big Four Auditing company that does have access to those numbers, doesn’t have any financial stake in the outcome of their audit (they get paid the same whether it is good or bad for Wizards), and would stand to loose tens of billions of dollars per year if they were caught falsifying data?
You are basically taking the word of someone who has nothing directly on point and cause to stir up trouble over someone who knows all the information and has every reason to remain unbiased.
You said you were willing to admit when you were in the wrong. Truly think about the source you are venerating and the source you are dismissing, and then answer whether you are placing your trust in the wrong entity.
And then, to get it back on the topic of the thread. once you acknowledge there is merit to the “best selling books of all time” take the next step. Place yourselves in the shoes of people who love 5.24 and who helped make it the best selling D&D book set. Surely you can see why folks would find that incredibly disheartening? You are basically choosing to believe a stranger to the financial reporting in an effort to justify ignoring our existence. That’s not really cool - and people like you make folks feel uncomfortable voicing their support for something they like.
Can you say with 100 percent certainty that sales of the PHB on Amazon do not at all register as book sales at either Amazon or elsewhere?
Back when this whole idea first came up, I decided to do my own checking on Amazon. My first check was on the top sellers list in the category previous books had been in, and it wasn't there at all. Not being #1 was something I would have been willing to believe, but not being in the top 100 was not. So, I then did a top level search on Amazon and discovered that it had changed category.
I couldn't check every distributor because the people posting hadn't said what all the distributors were, and it's likely that some are still listing it as a book... but it doesn't take that many major distributors reporting zero to produce an illusion of direly bad sales. Which does not mean that it sold particularly well, it just told me that the YouTubers yapping about it were unable to do basic fact checking so I should ignore them.
Here is the real question for you - why do you trust someone who has zero access to the relevant numbers and might hold a grudge against the company (even if he loves the game)… over the Big Four Auditing company that does have access to those numbers, doesn’t have any financial stake in the outcome of their audit (they get paid the same whether it is good or bad for Wizards), and would stand to loose tens of billions of dollars per year if they were caught falsifying data?
You are basically taking the word of someone who has nothing directly on point and cause to stir up trouble over someone who knows all the information and has every reason to remain unbiased.
You said you were willing to admit when you were in the wrong. Truly think about the source you are venerating and the source you are dismissing, and then answer whether you are placing your trust in the wrong entity.
And then, to get it back on the topic of the thread. once you acknowledge there is merit to the “best selling books of all time” take the next step. Place yourselves in the shoes of people who love 5.24 and who helped make it the best selling D&D book set. Surely you can see why folks would find that incredibly disheartening? You are basically choosing to believe a stranger to the financial reporting in an effort to justify ignoring our existence. That’s not really cool - and people like you make folks feel uncomfortable voicing their support for something they like.
Why do you trust an auditing company for whom its mere sales figures?
If you buy a digital-physical bundle have Wizards made more money (as well as sort of sold more copies) than if you had just bought the physical book? You bet they have.
But does it really mean the content is selling better than that of any other D&D book ever made? No. Far from it.
Saying it is their best selling book ever could be about how much money the title has earned them.
That's not the same thing as its selling more copies than any other D&D book. Not when 'copies' can be duplicated because one purchase of the digital and physical versions is counted as two.
Back when this whole idea first came up, I decided to do my own checking on Amazon. My first check was on the top sellers list in the category previous books had been in, and it wasn't there at all. Not being #1 was something I would have been willing to believe, but not being in the top 100 was not. So, I then did a top level search on Amazon and discovered that it had changed category.
I couldn't check every distributor because the people posting hadn't said what all the distributors were, and it's likely that some are still listing it as a book... but it doesn't take that many major distributors reporting zero to produce an illusion of direly bad sales. Which does not mean that it sold particularly well, it just told me that the YouTubers yapping about it were unable to do basic fact checking so I should ignore them.
This makes sense. Thanks.
On the subject of 'basic fact checking' however:
I already pointed out how someone used the fact Toys & Games was displayed at the top when on the item's page. Some 'basic fact checking' will show you if you search under books and find the book by way of the link from the 2014 edition you will have Books displayed at the top when on the item's page.
So what you say about those YouTubers can also be said for others. Because too many emotions are running hot for facts to really matter.
Because, as people keep pointing out, they said in their stockholder announcement that the 2024 PHB is their best selling book, and that is a detail that it's quite trivial for an audit team to fact-check. There's very clear trails both digitally for copies purchased on Beyond and physically from the entire supply and distribution chain. There's a reason a lot of the big frauds you're likely to have heard about involve intangibles like property or stock values- it's somewhere between really really hard and outright impossible to fake product sales so they'll hold up to an audit like this- particularly when you'd be making them up from whole-cloth. Sure, what's-his-name might be an expert in TTRPG development, but a big 4 accounting firm is going to have hundreds of experts at picking apart statements made by companies for their big official stockholder reports and firsthand access to the books. Oddly enough, given that I trust the latter's assessment of the sales over the former's prediction about them.
As has been pointed out by many who doubt that statement:
It likely includes duplicated hybrid (physical-digital) sales.
If every bundle is counted as two sales that skews figures.
They're technically not lying to say 100 copies of the PHB were sold when 50 customers bought bundles. They're making the money.
But to make it sound as if this means the book is selling twice as well as another not calculated in the same fashion is deceitful.
An interesting hypothetical, though one that assumes the auditors aren't capable of basic critical thinking or independent analysis. And, regardless, if the PHB has already come within half the sales that Tasha's has had over its 4 year life in about half a year, then it's still performing very well.
Mearls has gone public with how poorly he sees 2024 doing.
Providing the rather grim numbers for where the books landed and went in subsequent weeks on best seller lists. Compared to Tasha's.
Why would he do that?
Is he 'uninformed' if we are supposed to believe what is 'informed' is the most abstract of statements?
Mearls was laid off in 2023 - he has no internal knowledge of the current sales for 2024. The only tangible information we have on numbers is that they are larger than anything else - show your receipts if you claim something to the contrary, and folks here will probably be able to show you why you (or the folks you're parroting without fact-checking) are misreading the data. Bestseller lists mean very little - especially with major changes both in how Wizards' books are classified (making them not as eligible for certain lists) and the increased push for both digital sales and LGS sales (which also do not submit data to bestsellers lists).
Call me old fashioned, but I am going to trust the Big Four Accounting firm's independent audit on sales data - which is going to be backed up by hard data and a dedication to accuracy in order to preserve a reputation worth more than Hasbro's entire net worth - over what some Youtubers, ex-employees, and forum commenters are saying as they try to make up a narrative out of very different data points.
It is pretty naive to think Mearls couldn't comunicate with ex-coworkers and couldn't have some information that others wouldn't have. But hey narratives are pushed by most everyone and not everyone is allowed to reveal how they know something.
An interesting hypothetical, though one that assumes the auditors aren't capable of basic critical thinking or independent analysis. And, regardless, if the PHB has already come within half the sales that Tasha's has had over its 4 year life in about half a year, then it's still performing very well.
It doesn't assume that at all. If you sell a digital copy of something. That's a sale. If you sell a physical copy of it. That is too.
Are you really suggesting if the very same customer bought a digital copy of the PHB one day but a physical copy perhaps even in a physical store another day then that's obviously two sales but if he or she bought them at the same time it's just one? Would you like to explain how auditors exhibiting any degree of 'basic critical thinking' or 'independent analysis' would believe both of these things?
Why would bundles not be counted as two sales? Technically they are. Just as much as your ordering the physical book from Amazon and then deciding a month later you want that content here and buying access to it here.
My point is simply there are factors in place that make the statement too abstract.
The content is what it is. You could personally buy more than one copy. A DM who buys a few for his or her tables is making a few sales. Not one.
Sales—and particularly if bundles are calculated as two—do not give an accurate indication of how popular or unpopular 2024 is.
But a new PHB—the baseline for the game—performing worse than a supplement for its previous version is not performing 'very well.' That is unprecedentedly bad. No matter how well Tasha's sold.
Remember, no one has said the 2024 books are the "best-selling" D&D books, but the "fastest-selling".
Which, when you get right down to it, is not unreasonable. D&D has become massively more popular as the years have gone by, with more and more people playing it. The audience for the game is significantly larger than it was for the release of 5e, for example. And this is meant to be the most important releases since the launch of the original core books.
It's more than likely the new PHB is the fastest-selling D&D book ever. Even if maybe they're taking advantage of numbers, i.e. taking a very narrow slice of the release window/preorders to define the period for sales. It's still entirely possible that 2024 5e has underperformed despite that. Pure initial numbers mean little; the success of 2024 5e will hinge on whether enough people switch over to the revision and continue to buy content, versus those who cease to purchase WotC materials due to their effective abandonment of 2014 5e.
So being the "fastest-selling" D&D books isn't even necessarily an indicator of the success of the revision; rather, it's the bare minimum 2024 5e needed to not be a massive failure right out of the gate.
And given that most folks I know have had little interest in 2024 5e for various reasons, no matter how hostile its defenders are regarding the glaring flaws and issues with the end product, I think it's ultimately going to be a bomb for WotC. Rather than building further on something that became a massive success because it appealed to people beyond its usual demographic, WotC decided to supplant its most popular edition with a revision primarily vetted by "optimizers" and their followers, stripping flavor, depth, and balance from the game in favor of appealing to people who want their character to do bigger numbers because they made the right mechanical choices.
Agree on all points.
I personally think it was a bad idea to put out new rulebooks in the year marking the hobby's anniversary.
They could have reissued OD&D or even reissued 5E but looked to OD&D for how it might be presented.
Another company did that. Several years ago.
Complied the basic rules for 5E into three little books. Put them in a white box.
It ain't cheap. But I happily paid for it more than I am prepared to pay for 2024.
Then in this case I'm grossly insensitive and I'll leave it there so the conversation as to why people either have love or hate.
Your argument was that because D&D offers 'for the most part 0 value outside of entertainment'—something that isn't even true provided the proven therapeutic and educational benefits of playing role-playing games—it needn't be made more affordable or more accessible to those in need.
You were asked about the costs of movie tickets. Whether theaters should no longer allow pensioners or students in for less. Because going to the movies has 'for the most part 0 value outside of entertainment.'
Why is it always one rule for Wizards of the Coast but different rules for others? Apparently capitalism is only a bad thing when those with whom one disagrees are singing its praises. I reckon most people on these forums probably have no time for commentators whose content is largely geared towards defending it. But they sound just like them.
I initially wrote up my thoughts on how you interpreted my stance but in the end decided not to as it distracts from the topic - so I'll just say that I stick by my previous comments, if you would like to know more - feel free to reach out in private and we can have a friendly discussion there :)
In saying that I do find it interesting that alot of the negatives people mention work in the grey area of "what ifs", "did you hear" or "someone thinks this" with little outside of emotions and knee-jerk reactions as their reasoning.
What happened to the days where people were able to voice their likes or dislikes for something and give reasons based of their own conclusions rather then what someone else says...
So I'll ask a simple question, without referencing/comparing older editions or mentioning what someone else may think, sale figures or what not - what are your thoughts on the new core books released?? Because honestly the only opinion I'm personally interested in is the individuals, and in this case yours, not Mike mearls or some ex-employee, not YouTube's, not some social media entity, just yours.
So I'll ask a simple question, without referencing/comparing older editions or mentioning what someone else may think, sale figures or what not - what are your thoughts on the new core books released?? Because honestly the only opinion I'm personally interested in is the individuals, and in this case yours, not Mike mearls or some ex-employee, not YouTube's, not some social media entity, just yours.
In simple terms, it's a better-edited player's handbook of 5th edition but as a new product does little to inspire running a new campaign for me, especially with the current set of adventures available for it at least from Official 5e releases. I think in part because I have already played a lot of 5th edition, the novelty of it is gone and 2024 is not a new game but also I found a lot of parts of that system to be problematic. The new edition doesn't do anything about the issues of the original release and I find the general commitment to anything goes super-hero fantasy a pretty boring version of Dungeons and Dragons as a whole.
I will make one argument for 5th edition and that is that many great variants of D&D were created based on it, including Five Torches Deep, Shadowdark, Grim Hollow as well as Crown & Skull. So the base system I think has a lot of potential, but 5e as it is today is quite overcooked resulting in a game that is tough to manage, slow and interferes too much with traditional storytelling and D&D gameplay.
In my immediate gamesphere, I think the issue is that I find a lot of people are ok to play 5th edition as it is today, but considerably fewer people are excited to run it. This is a problem, both for the longevity of the game as all RPG's are essentially driven by GM's but also because if you don't have someone willing to GM or you have someone who is talked into it rather than excited to do it, you either don't have a game or end up with a poor one.
The rule of thumb is that the GM has to be the most excited player, they are the driving force behind a good table experience and I'm finding such people to be few and far in between, I'm certainly not one of them. I'm fairly sure if I were to create a list of games I was excited to run as a GM, 5e wouldn't even make the top 20.
I understand what Wizards of the Coast is doing with 5e 2024 and honestly, I don't blame them at all, it makes business sense. They are trying to maintain a sort of continuity between editions and maintain a stable and long-term system to avoid upsetting the community as has so often happened when D&D is re-invented. This evergreen approach I think will probably pay off in the short term, but I think its misguided as a long-term strategy. The various editions of the game may not always worked to maintain a constant community, but each edition of the game added something new, creating a new evolution to the game and to the genre.
We already had 5e once, we had a good time with it, it was exciting, new, it triggered people to start new campaigns and explore a new game. This time around that excitement just isn't there. Sure the new books are better edited, but its still the same game we have been playing for 10 years. There is nothing to be excited about.
I tried starting a new 5e campaign with my local group and after 5 sessions, it just died, mainly because there just wasn't any excitement for it and honestly I was mostly just running it because it was a new edition and I wanted to explore it a bit, but there just wasn't much to explore and after 5 sessions I completely lost interest in it. At this stage I'm not sure what's going to happen, but whatever it is, its not going to be running 2024 edition of D&D. From the looks of it, its going to be a sort of non-D&D period where we will explore other games.
Public information can be skewed, statistically distorted, & otherwise misrepresented.
What are you referring to specifically?
(If Wikipedia sources are not acceptable, than neither are TTRPGtubers, since a good chunk don't disclose their sources or just repeat random articles verbatim & sprinkle in commentary that sells well in Shorts/TikTok), if they even use a human voice.
I personally think that things are selling better than doomsayers think they are, but there is some standard statistical distortions across the fandom, because everyone has an agenda.
Unless someone solidly sues to get the facts, not just reaffirmation of personal truth, then discovery might generate something.
There are still people who like the game, most dislike Hasbro(Who have virtually eliminated all of WotC's independence, so blaming WotC is redundant after 2019-2020), and are neutral towards the fandom.
There are people who work on the games whose passion is visible.
There's still great non-AI art being made of DND material by independent creators.
There IS love. Denial of such due to doomerism & being in other fandoms is, quite frankly, dishonest to ignore for the sake of pushing a narrative.
Just because HASBRO doesn't make Beyond go full Archives of Nepthys doesn't mean there is no love & doom is upon DND.
I'm tired of doomerism in general. There's very little honesty in it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
And when a major corporation utilizes the fact that “Public information can be skewed, statistically distorted, & otherwise misrepresented.” And that evidence is noticeable in the context of reports that have to be publicly released, it’s not doomsayers who are spreading false information, they are simply telling it like it is.
If you look at Quarterly reports digital licensing is up, a deal with a major casino operator is a big win and any sales of “digital” books or cards or anything “digital” is classified as a digital license and can easily bury bad news. That comes from the continued decline in “Consumer Products” ( physical books, toys and anything physically manufactured) of around -7% quarter over quarter, year after year for at least 2 years.
That alone is enough to force a very serious inquiry by the US Securities Exchange Commission into Hasbro’s statements, and the evidence against Hasbro doesn’t look good for them. The company has been doing some questionable practices since 2021, and given the recent events of D&D in the same time periods, and the reality is messing with the D&D general community is not like messing around with other brands, people have grown up and have had D&D as a “brother from another mother” for 50 years, and the 50 year love is being eroded. “Goodwill” from a major company is actually “money in the bank, savings” that Hasbro used (1,196M or 1.2billion dollars) to prevent there debt from jumping into the 3+:1 debt to income ratio, which is a very bad sign in business.
When Chris Cho, Cynthia Williams, and a number of other prominent figures are stating all is fine and better than what is rumored, while the very company they are representing is having to “work the spin of business is restructuring” and the rest is just the tip of the iceberg.
Love for hasbro/wotc who bought DDB, and has shown that instead of reallocating resources to improve the site’s functionality, has wasted time and development resources on a project that like per usual has blown up in the corporate executives face, and one has to seriously question if Hasbro/WotC even cares anymore.
Before this massive push to an all digital content business model, the company was doing very well, now it’s question of can the company can survive an all digital roadmap, and the recent events clearly demonstrate the answer is “no”.
Love for the new rules is mixed, love for the corporate “incompetence” is getting old, and it’s high time the masses get some real honesty and accountability from the company, else we start looking elsewhere and supporting the 3party projects that have shown better quality than the sadly produced elements of a major Corporation.
The SRD5.2 will be the make or break of D&D in the future, and is the last chance for Wizbro to get itself together, otherwise it doesn’t look like the “game”s future is all that great.
”Prepare for the worst, hope like hell for the best.” , bring the love back by starting with being absolutely honest, yes people will jump on it, but discourse would be short lived, and the “goodwill” restored.
[ or keep pushing the roadmap, and watch as the brand is driven off an incomplete bridge into a deep chasm. ether way the last remains of this site and the company is hanging by a thread and sooner or later ether that thread snaps, or a welcoming hand is offered. Start being honest, or fall and watch as the D&D community breaks the company’s financial back like a twig. Ether way love it or not, D&D is seeing bad days, and the future is uncertain. ]
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
KPMB is one of 4 major Auditing agencies, but ranks 4th and has a reputation for “you get what you pay for.” Meaning they have ended up being sued by major corporations that used them for Audits, look it up and look around, and the stories are not rosy.
4th in the world is not an indictment of their quality. They themselves are audited by the PCAOB, just like the other three. And it's KPMG.
So with all due respect, love the game, hate the billion dollar mega-corp that is doing more “incompetent” executive decisions that erode “goodwill” faster than it is made.
That's fine, you're allowed to hate the company (opinion). None of that changes their financial results (fact).
I myself am enjoying the new rules. I am playing a PBP right now that uses them and while it is still early, I have enjoyed reading the rules and preparing my character ahead of time, plotting advancement and things that I would like to achieve. It is still early yet for the full core release and I believe once we have our first adventure published post-core release, we will see more transitions to the new rules. Right now, people are still deep in their 2014 games. Two years from now though, I think we will see a strong shift to the new rules.
And who knows, OP, maybe they will expand your potion options by then too!
I'm pretty sure Amazon lists RPG books under both toys and books. Look up the PHB on Amazon. Narrowing your search down to books. The 2014 one will show up. There you will find a link to what it calls the '2024 edition.' Seems odd to put that there if that's not even a book but it is what it is. Click on it. Now look at the bar above. You are still in the books category. Someone on these forums some months ago posted a screen shot showing the new PHB wth Toys & Games displayed in the bar above. Like this were evidence it was no longer seen as a book internally at Amazon. But it's both apparently.
Can you say with 100 percent certainty that sales of the PHB on Amazon do not at all register as book sales at either Amazon or elsewhere? Can you back up saying such a thing with such certainty? I'm happy to admit to my being wrong. If I am.
Why would Mearls be biased? He loves D&D.
Because, as people keep pointing out, they said in their stockholder announcement that the 2024 PHB is their best selling book, and that is a detail that it's quite trivial for an audit team to fact-check. There's very clear trails both digitally for copies purchased on Beyond and physically from the entire supply and distribution chain. There's a reason a lot of the big frauds you're likely to have heard about involve intangibles like property or stock values- it's somewhere between really really hard and outright impossible to fake product sales so they'll hold up to an audit like this- particularly when you'd be making them up from whole-cloth. Sure, what's-his-name might be an expert in TTRPG development, but a big 4 accounting firm is going to have hundreds of experts at picking apart statements made by companies for their big official stockholder reports and firsthand access to the books. Oddly enough, given that I trust the latter's assessment of the sales over the former's prediction about them.
I never suggested he would have those numbers. I am saying it's not as if his no longer working there these past two years means all the insight and knowledge he obtained while there just disappeared the moment he walked out the door. I mean many are those here who have never been on their payroll who act as if they know the ins and outs of the company and its every motivation.
As has been pointed out by many who doubt that statement:
It likely includes duplicated hybrid (physical-digital) sales.
If every bundle is counted as two sales that skews figures.
They're technically not lying to say 100 copies of the PHB were sold when 50 customers bought bundles. They're making the money.
But to make it sound as if this means the book is selling twice as well as another not calculated in the same fashion is deceitful.
Here is the real question for you - why do you trust someone who has zero access to the relevant numbers and might hold a grudge against the company (even if he loves the game)… over the Big Four Auditing company that does have access to those numbers, doesn’t have any financial stake in the outcome of their audit (they get paid the same whether it is good or bad for Wizards), and would stand to loose tens of billions of dollars per year if they were caught falsifying data?
You are basically taking the word of someone who has nothing directly on point and cause to stir up trouble over someone who knows all the information and has every reason to remain unbiased.
You said you were willing to admit when you were in the wrong. Truly think about the source you are venerating and the source you are dismissing, and then answer whether you are placing your trust in the wrong entity.
And then, to get it back on the topic of the thread. once you acknowledge there is merit to the “best selling books of all time” take the next step. Place yourselves in the shoes of people who love 5.24 and who helped make it the best selling D&D book set. Surely you can see why folks would find that incredibly disheartening? You are basically choosing to believe a stranger to the financial reporting in an effort to justify ignoring our existence. That’s not really cool - and people like you make folks feel uncomfortable voicing their support for something they like.
Back when this whole idea first came up, I decided to do my own checking on Amazon. My first check was on the top sellers list in the category previous books had been in, and it wasn't there at all. Not being #1 was something I would have been willing to believe, but not being in the top 100 was not. So, I then did a top level search on Amazon and discovered that it had changed category.
I couldn't check every distributor because the people posting hadn't said what all the distributors were, and it's likely that some are still listing it as a book... but it doesn't take that many major distributors reporting zero to produce an illusion of direly bad sales. Which does not mean that it sold particularly well, it just told me that the YouTubers yapping about it were unable to do basic fact checking so I should ignore them.
Why do you trust an auditing company for whom its mere sales figures?
If you buy a digital-physical bundle have Wizards made more money (as well as sort of sold more copies) than if you had just bought the physical book? You bet they have.
But does it really mean the content is selling better than that of any other D&D book ever made? No. Far from it.
Saying it is their best selling book ever could be about how much money the title has earned them.
That's not the same thing as its selling more copies than any other D&D book. Not when 'copies' can be duplicated because one purchase of the digital and physical versions is counted as two.
This makes sense. Thanks.
On the subject of 'basic fact checking' however:
I already pointed out how someone used the fact Toys & Games was displayed at the top when on the item's page. Some 'basic fact checking' will show you if you search under books and find the book by way of the link from the 2014 edition you will have Books displayed at the top when on the item's page.
So what you say about those YouTubers can also be said for others. Because too many emotions are running hot for facts to really matter.
An interesting hypothetical, though one that assumes the auditors aren't capable of basic critical thinking or independent analysis. And, regardless, if the PHB has already come within half the sales that Tasha's has had over its 4 year life in about half a year, then it's still performing very well.
It is pretty naive to think Mearls couldn't comunicate with ex-coworkers and couldn't have some information that others wouldn't have. But hey narratives are pushed by most everyone and not everyone is allowed to reveal how they know something.
It doesn't assume that at all. If you sell a digital copy of something. That's a sale. If you sell a physical copy of it. That is too.
Are you really suggesting if the very same customer bought a digital copy of the PHB one day but a physical copy perhaps even in a physical store another day then that's obviously two sales but if he or she bought them at the same time it's just one? Would you like to explain how auditors exhibiting any degree of 'basic critical thinking' or 'independent analysis' would believe both of these things?
Why would bundles not be counted as two sales? Technically they are. Just as much as your ordering the physical book from Amazon and then deciding a month later you want that content here and buying access to it here.
My point is simply there are factors in place that make the statement too abstract.
The content is what it is. You could personally buy more than one copy. A DM who buys a few for his or her tables is making a few sales. Not one.
Sales—and particularly if bundles are calculated as two—do not give an accurate indication of how popular or unpopular 2024 is.
But a new PHB—the baseline for the game—performing worse than a supplement for its previous version is not performing 'very well.' That is unprecedentedly bad. No matter how well Tasha's sold.
Agree on all points.
I personally think it was a bad idea to put out new rulebooks in the year marking the hobby's anniversary.
They could have reissued OD&D or even reissued 5E but looked to OD&D for how it might be presented.
Another company did that. Several years ago.
Complied the basic rules for 5E into three little books. Put them in a white box.
It ain't cheap. But I happily paid for it more than I am prepared to pay for 2024.
I initially wrote up my thoughts on how you interpreted my stance but in the end decided not to as it distracts from the topic - so I'll just say that I stick by my previous comments, if you would like to know more - feel free to reach out in private and we can have a friendly discussion there :)
In saying that I do find it interesting that alot of the negatives people mention work in the grey area of "what ifs", "did you hear" or "someone thinks this" with little outside of emotions and knee-jerk reactions as their reasoning.
What happened to the days where people were able to voice their likes or dislikes for something and give reasons based of their own conclusions rather then what someone else says...
So I'll ask a simple question, without referencing/comparing older editions or mentioning what someone else may think, sale figures or what not - what are your thoughts on the new core books released?? Because honestly the only opinion I'm personally interested in is the individuals, and in this case yours, not Mike mearls or some ex-employee, not YouTube's, not some social media entity, just yours.
In simple terms, it's a better-edited player's handbook of 5th edition but as a new product does little to inspire running a new campaign for me, especially with the current set of adventures available for it at least from Official 5e releases. I think in part because I have already played a lot of 5th edition, the novelty of it is gone and 2024 is not a new game but also I found a lot of parts of that system to be problematic. The new edition doesn't do anything about the issues of the original release and I find the general commitment to anything goes super-hero fantasy a pretty boring version of Dungeons and Dragons as a whole.
I will make one argument for 5th edition and that is that many great variants of D&D were created based on it, including Five Torches Deep, Shadowdark, Grim Hollow as well as Crown & Skull. So the base system I think has a lot of potential, but 5e as it is today is quite overcooked resulting in a game that is tough to manage, slow and interferes too much with traditional storytelling and D&D gameplay.
In my immediate gamesphere, I think the issue is that I find a lot of people are ok to play 5th edition as it is today, but considerably fewer people are excited to run it. This is a problem, both for the longevity of the game as all RPG's are essentially driven by GM's but also because if you don't have someone willing to GM or you have someone who is talked into it rather than excited to do it, you either don't have a game or end up with a poor one.
The rule of thumb is that the GM has to be the most excited player, they are the driving force behind a good table experience and I'm finding such people to be few and far in between, I'm certainly not one of them. I'm fairly sure if I were to create a list of games I was excited to run as a GM, 5e wouldn't even make the top 20.
I understand what Wizards of the Coast is doing with 5e 2024 and honestly, I don't blame them at all, it makes business sense. They are trying to maintain a sort of continuity between editions and maintain a stable and long-term system to avoid upsetting the community as has so often happened when D&D is re-invented. This evergreen approach I think will probably pay off in the short term, but I think its misguided as a long-term strategy. The various editions of the game may not always worked to maintain a constant community, but each edition of the game added something new, creating a new evolution to the game and to the genre.
We already had 5e once, we had a good time with it, it was exciting, new, it triggered people to start new campaigns and explore a new game. This time around that excitement just isn't there. Sure the new books are better edited, but its still the same game we have been playing for 10 years. There is nothing to be excited about.
I tried starting a new 5e campaign with my local group and after 5 sessions, it just died, mainly because there just wasn't any excitement for it and honestly I was mostly just running it because it was a new edition and I wanted to explore it a bit, but there just wasn't much to explore and after 5 sessions I completely lost interest in it. At this stage I'm not sure what's going to happen, but whatever it is, its not going to be running 2024 edition of D&D. From the looks of it, its going to be a sort of non-D&D period where we will explore other games.
[Quote]
"for me"
Being the operative word.
A lot of what you argue is based on your specific experience, and you're assuming that it's representative of the whole because if fits your biases.
[Redacted]
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
[Quote]
I was not implying anything more than my opinion, nor arguing for or against anything, I simply gave a direct answer, to a direct question.
[Redacted]
Public information can be skewed, statistically distorted, & otherwise misrepresented.
What are you referring to specifically?
(If Wikipedia sources are not acceptable, than neither are TTRPGtubers, since a good chunk don't disclose their sources or just repeat random articles verbatim & sprinkle in commentary that sells well in Shorts/TikTok), if they even use a human voice.
I personally think that things are selling better than doomsayers think they are, but there is some standard statistical distortions across the fandom, because everyone has an agenda.
Unless someone solidly sues to get the facts, not just reaffirmation of personal truth, then discovery might generate something.
There are still people who like the game, most dislike Hasbro(Who have virtually eliminated all of WotC's independence, so blaming WotC is redundant after 2019-2020), and are neutral towards the fandom.
There are people who work on the games whose passion is visible.
There's still great non-AI art being made of DND material by independent creators.
There IS love. Denial of such due to doomerism & being in other fandoms is, quite frankly, dishonest to ignore for the sake of pushing a narrative.
Just because HASBRO doesn't make Beyond go full Archives of Nepthys doesn't mean there is no love & doom is upon DND.
I'm tired of doomerism in general. There's very little honesty in it.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
And when a major corporation utilizes the fact that “Public information can be skewed, statistically distorted, & otherwise misrepresented.” And that evidence is noticeable in the context of reports that have to be publicly released, it’s not doomsayers who are spreading false information, they are simply telling it like it is.
If you look at Quarterly reports digital licensing is up, a deal with a major casino operator is a big win and any sales of “digital” books or cards or anything “digital” is classified as a digital license and can easily bury bad news. That comes from the continued decline in “Consumer Products” ( physical books, toys and anything physically manufactured) of around -7% quarter over quarter, year after year for at least 2 years.
That alone is enough to force a very serious inquiry by the US Securities Exchange Commission into Hasbro’s statements, and the evidence against Hasbro doesn’t look good for them.
The company has been doing some questionable practices since 2021, and given the recent events of D&D in the same time periods, and the reality is messing with the D&D general community is not like messing around with other brands, people have grown up and have had D&D as a “brother from another mother” for 50 years, and the 50 year love is being eroded. “Goodwill” from a major company is actually “money in the bank, savings” that Hasbro used (1,196M or 1.2billion dollars) to prevent there debt from jumping into the 3+:1 debt to income ratio, which is a very bad sign in business.
When Chris Cho, Cynthia Williams, and a number of other prominent figures are stating all is fine and better than what is rumored, while the very company they are representing is having to “work the spin of business is restructuring” and the rest is just the tip of the iceberg.
Love for hasbro/wotc who bought DDB, and has shown that instead of reallocating resources to improve the site’s functionality, has wasted time and development resources on a project that like per usual has blown up in the corporate executives face, and one has to seriously question if Hasbro/WotC even cares anymore.
Before this massive push to an all digital content business model, the company was doing very well, now it’s question of can the company can survive an all digital roadmap, and the recent events clearly demonstrate the answer is “no”.
Love for the new rules is mixed, love for the corporate “incompetence” is getting old, and it’s high time the masses get some real honesty and accountability from the company, else we start looking elsewhere and supporting the 3party projects that have shown better quality than the sadly produced elements of a major Corporation.
The SRD5.2 will be the make or break of D&D in the future, and is the last chance for Wizbro to get itself together, otherwise it doesn’t look like the “game”s future is all that great.
”Prepare for the worst, hope like hell for the best.” , bring the love back by starting with being absolutely honest, yes people will jump on it, but discourse would be short lived, and the “goodwill” restored.
[ or keep pushing the roadmap, and watch as the brand is driven off an incomplete bridge into a deep chasm.
ether way the last remains of this site and the company is hanging by a thread and sooner or later ether that thread snaps, or a welcoming hand is offered. Start being honest, or fall and watch as the D&D community breaks the company’s financial back like a twig.
Ether way love it or not, D&D is seeing bad days, and the future is uncertain. ]
" Darkvision doesn’t work in Magical darkness, and if something is magical, Never Trust it acts the same way as a non-magical version of that same thing!”- Discotech Mage over a cup of joe.
4th in the world is not an indictment of their quality. They themselves are audited by the PCAOB, just like the other three. And it's KPMG.
Right, nobody who wants to paint a narrative of D&D failing has a bias of any kind. Pull the other one.
That's fine, you're allowed to hate the company (opinion). None of that changes their financial results (fact).
I myself am enjoying the new rules. I am playing a PBP right now that uses them and while it is still early, I have enjoyed reading the rules and preparing my character ahead of time, plotting advancement and things that I would like to achieve. It is still early yet for the full core release and I believe once we have our first adventure published post-core release, we will see more transitions to the new rules. Right now, people are still deep in their 2014 games. Two years from now though, I think we will see a strong shift to the new rules.
And who knows, OP, maybe they will expand your potion options by then too!
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