2001 Bestsellers at the Space-Crime Continuum

[Chris Aylott]

I'm busy analyzing my sales figures for last year, and thought people might be interested in the year's bestsellers. Make of these what you will . . .

2001 BESTSELLING RPG ITEMS

1. D&D3 Player's Handbook
2. D&D3 Monster Manual
3. D&D3 Dungeon Master's Guide
4. D&D3 Psionics Handbook
5. Star Wars RPG (D20)
6. D&D3 Sword and Fist
7. Exalted RPG
8. D&D3 Forgotten Realms Campaign
9. D&D3 Tome and Blood
10. D&D3 Song and Silence
11. Adventure! RPG
12. The Last Dance (D20 adventure)

(My ego demanded that I extend the Top 10 List down to #12 this year! :) )


2001 BESTSELLING RPG LINES

1. D&D (WotC only)
2. D20 (all non-WotC publishers)
3. Palladium (Rifts and related games)
4. GURPS
5. Star Wars (D20)
6. Vampire (all Storyteller games together would have come in at #4)
7. Call of Cthulhu
8. L5R RPG
9. Exalted
10. Unknown Armies

The funny thing is that we used to be the non-D&D store. A lot can change in 18 months.

I don't have a by-line list for our all-time sales, but I do have a list of individual items. We can go down to #15 on this one before everything starts clumping together:

BESTSELLING RPG ITEMS, 1995-2001

1. D&D3 Player's Handbook
2. D&D3 Dungeon Master's Guide
3. D&D3 Monster Manual
4. GURPS Basic Set
5. GURPS Compendium 1
6. Unknown Armies RPG
7. Star Wars RPG (D20)
8. Vampire: the Masquerade RPG
9. D&D2 Player's Handbook
10. Adventures of Baron Munchausen RPG
11. GURPS Magic
12. 7th Sea Player's Guide
13. D&D3 Player Character Record Sheets
14. Rifts RPG
15. Star Wars RPG (West End)

yours,

[Bruce Baugh]

Once again, Chris, you're my hero. You know as well as I do how hard it is to get this kind of information; I really, really, really appreciate the service. Thank you!

[Chris Aylott]

De nada. It's just one data point, but I like to think every little bit helps.

yours,

[Andy K]

Wow... Simply Wow...

-Andy

[bondetamp]

So... D&D is selling alright then? :)

EDIT: One damn line and there's a spelling error in it. :(

[Judas]

Holy crap.

That 2001 list really puts into perspective the chances of creating a hit game that isn't a DnD3/D20 product or the occasional White Wolf product in today's market.

Wowza. A feeling of futility washes over me...

[NPC Hating posting from work computer]

Originally posted by Judas
Holy crap.

That 2001 list really puts into perspective the chances of creating a hit game that isn't a DnD3/D20 product or the occasional White Wolf product in today's market.

Wowza. A feeling of futility washes over me...

I don't see why it should. Name a non WotC game that was a hit. Sure d20 overall sold well, but there was tons of it. As for WW I think you're taking the exact wrong lesson here.

Sure WW can get their games distributed fairly easily. However Exalted and Adventure are both very atypical WW games. I think it shows if a company takes an interesting concept and implements it well they can compete with the d20 juggernaut.

I think any of the mid rank rpg companies could have done Exalted or Adventure and done just as well. I'm VERY curious to see if anyone else tries to do an Exalted style rpg. Implemented well with d20 rules it could do VERY well I think.

[NPC Judas]

Originally posted by NPC Hating posting from work computer


I don't see why it should. Name a non WotC game that was a hit. Sure d20 overall sold well, but there was tons of it. As for WW I think you're taking the exact wrong lesson here.

Sure WW can get their games distributed fairly easily. However Exalted and Adventure are both very atypical WW games. I think it shows if a company takes an interesting concept and implements it well they can compete with the d20 juggernaut.

I think any of the mid rank rpg companies could have done Exalted or Adventure and done just as well. I'm VERY curious to see if anyone else tries to do an Exalted style rpg. Implemented well with d20 rules it could do VERY well I think.

Well, there have been a few dark horses which did pretty well. 300,000 Call of Cthulhu core rule books isn't bad. Over a million GURPS core rules isn't bad. Traveller sold a few hundred thousand if I remember correctly. WEG Star Wars sold pretty damn well. Since sales numbers are so hard to get for many companies, there may be other games who have sold quite well.

If you look at the numbers he gave for 1995-2000 you will see GURPS, Unknown Armies, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Rifts, and WEG Star Wars. 2001 shows NOTHING but WW and D20. That's a change. My local bookstores and gaming stores stock the stuff almost exclusively. Just a few years ago I could walk in and get all kinds of titles, from original tiles like Torg to licensed properties like Trek.

The RPG market seems to go in spurts of diversity. I'm not saying that the end of RPG diversity is here, but today it looks as though D20 rules the market, with a few heavily marketed titles from the number 2 squeezing in... I know in my FLGS there were free full-color Exalted promos right on the front counter, prominently displayed for every single person standing at the register. I doubt many other companies will able to do something similar. Hell, many FLGSs openly say they don't want any non-D20 titles, and almost any D20 product gets an immediate order of at least a few to test the market.

So I stand by my point: at this moment small press titles are going to fight an uphill battle at the consumer, and more importantly, distribution level. How long the total dominance of D20 and the heavily-marketed titles from the #2 boys will run, I don't know. Maybe in a year people will burn out on the stuff, and go looking for some new games. That will be the time to make a splash.

[Chris Aylott]

Originally posted by NPC Judas
2001 shows NOTHING but WW and D20. That's a change.

Yep. And the change was very visible month-to-month over the course of the last year. The D&D/D20 percentage has kept going up, and one by one the other systems have been sputtering out.

We still sell a lot of non-D20 games, but I've noticed that most of those sales are mail order. Subtract the mail order and our local market seems to be a lot of D20 and at best a sprinkling of other games. This in a store where 2 years ago Unknown Armies was outselling D&D.

In the last few days I've gotten to see some other lists from stores and manufacturers. There's about 8 D20 books in every store's top 10, and those manufacturers that are doing D20 products are seeing those products outsell their proprietary lines. I've only seen a few lists -- less than 10 -- but the results are very consistent so far.

We live in interesting times.

yours,

[Guildofblades]

>>That 2001 list really puts into perspective the chances of creating a hit game that isn't a DnD3/D20 product or the occasional White Wolf product in today's market.

Wowza. A feeling of futility washes over me...<<

Its not all that bad, really.

A number of thinhs have transpired to temporarily make D&D/D20 gain a LOT more market share, in terms of unit and dollar volume sales, than it traditionally has. This is a temporary trend that will correct itself over the next 2-3 years, maybe sooner.

First, consider that a few of the traditional mid sized companies in the industry, ones which were prominant RPG publishers have ceased operations or ceased producing independant RPG systems.

Ice
FASA
West End games lost the Star Wars RPG
Last Unicorn Games

At that same time you had a huge upswing in D&D sales due to the 3rd edition release, followed by D20. The great anticipation of D20 and the huge renewed interest in D&D made the first D20 releases sell in excessively large numbers, numbers that most small publishers only dream of. That caused an "bandwagon effect" (our industry sees that all the time), and a LOT of companies switched over to publishing D20 materials, hoping to cash in.

Fast foward to today. D20 sales have dropped dramatically for a lot of companies. Still respectible numbers, but probably not large enough to keep the smaller publishers healthy and growing by themselves, as it had been in 2001. The mid sized companies with established distribution and brand identity will continue to sell D20 well, though I suspect 2002 will still be below 2001 sales by a good 20-40%. Smaller publishers wil begin to have more difficulty. Their products will begin to be scrutinized very closely and merely publishing a D20 product will in no means be a guarantee of distribution or retail shelf presence. I expect by the summer of 2002 a new publisher entering the RPG arena would have just as good a chance of breaking into the industry with a non D20 RPG as with a D20 product. While D&D/D20 by FAR has the largest consumer base of all RPG systems, even it can hit a saturation point and the market is rapidly getting there. Come 2003 I think a new D20 publisher will have a v...e...r...y touhg time of it.

Speaking as a company that has not gone down the D20 route, I can say that sales levels of our RPG product has not dropped. Its actually increased a bit. Of course, we were fortunate that we were already somewhat established within the industry by the time D20 hit. But interest in non D20 product really hasn't diminished among the consumers. Its actually remained pretty constant. Just the upswing in sales in D20 product has made the non D20 consumer base look smaller. Its a matter of perception. However, with so many publishers supporting D20, there is >less< competition for product sales catoring to non D20 RPGers.

My prediction is that soon, while D20 sales will begin to taper off and begin to settle down to more normal sales levels (Which will still be higher in unit volumes than the average title was selling before D20), non D20 products will begin to see greater increases in sales starting in late 2002. Traditionally non D&D game systems have generated consumers from two sources. The first was they had to reach out beyond the current RPG gamer base to recruit new players, most typically attracting those new gamers with a topical theme of some sort (Star Trek, Star Wars, MERP, Robotech, and some non license themed games). The second was a percentage of D&D players would double dip, playing both D&D and experimenting with other systems. Other D&D players would get bored with D&D and for a time (and a smaller group of these, perminantly) switch to another system. With the large upswing in D&D players, as players of D20 products begin to tire of that system, some will begin to explore other systems. Now that the D20 player base is larger, the bleed off numbers to other systems will naturally be a bit larger than it had been as well. Only now, with so many manufacturers supporting the D20 gaming experience, there are a lot less publishers competiting for that blled off market and the leaders and mid sized companies among them will really profit from this transition. Start up publishers targeting that market may get a better chance of attracting a solid core base of consumers than they might have had otherwise.

Which is all to say, RPGs in general, as an entire market, are up. D20 is at a high tide currently, but the market balance is returing.

[mark1260]

well your prediction was wrong wasn't it....i predict no one will post on this thread for 5 years...i bet my car on htis...kinda have a feeling on htis one...

[Guildofblades]

>>well your prediction was wrong wasn't it....i predict no one will post on this thread for 5 years...i bet my car on htis...kinda have a feeling on htis one...<<

Well, its not entirely clear. D20 sales sure are waaay down compared to where they were 5 years ago, so that much of it was predicted right. The return of upswing sales in non D20 systems though, well, we've seen a minor upswing in a few systems but thats about it. RPG sales have just generally been bad across the board.

So I would have to say I was only half right.

Boy, how far back did you have to dig to come up with this old thread? lol.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com
http://www.thermopylae-online.com