The Pacific Northwest: First-Year Sales Analysis

[Tegyrius]

The Pacific Northwest released just over a year ago, on 21 Feb 2021. I'd like to thank Marc Miller for allowing me to contribute to the world he and his comrades built for us. Moreover, I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to this book's success. I hope those of you who purchased it feel that it was worth your money and reading time, and I'd love to hear how you're using any of its components in your home campaigns.

This forum occasionally sees discussions about the financial viability of getting into game writing. I went into this project knowing it wasn't going to earn out at my standard word rate for contracted freelance game work, but I viewed it as a subsidized contribution to the community. If I had done the manuscript as a contract project with one of my usual publishers, it would have brought me about three mortgage payments (before taxes). As it is, my earnings to date have been about a quarter of that, which is within my expectations. It's also paid for the InDesign license I needed for the layout, which was my only real expense other than time and the attendant opportunity costs. So it's not like I've lost money, precisely...

(Of course, if I'd been under contract, I wouldn't have been able to work on it on and off for three years. Doing these books on my own time has its advantages too.)

In its first 365 days on the market, Pacific Northwest moved 393 copies. (That's a long walk from the 20,000 copies of my Clanbook: Assamite, Revised Edition that were sold in its first two printings, but this isn't 1999 and today's Twilight: 2000 fan base is a lot smaller than the two-decades-ago World of Darkness fan base.) Here's how that breaks down by month:

http://www.de-fenestra.com/t2k/images/PacNW_first_year_sales.png

Note that the months are months of release, not calendar months, so Month 1 is the book's first month on the market: 21 February 2021 to 20 March 2021.

As you can see, initial interest was very strong but sustained sales were fairly weak. Breaking down the first month a bit more, the first week saw 174 copies sold, rapidly dropping off to 38 copies in the second week, 16 in the third week, and 13 in the fourth week. The majority of initial sales came on the day after Marc released the book and sent the email notice to GDW's DriveThruRPG customer base: 97 copies were sold on 22 February 2021 alone.

The interesting thing to me is the sales blip in Months 9 and 10. I was seeing single-digit monthly sales over the summer, then moved 21 copies in Month 9 and 20 in Month 10. What happened then? Well, that was the period of 21 October 2021 to 20 December 2021. According to DriveThruRPG, the retail PDF bundle of 4th edition released on 21 November, right in the middle of that period. This makes me suspect I got some marketing boost from the pre-release hype, people searching DTRPG for Twilight: 2000 titles, and add-on sales from 4th edition's release. Not being the publisher myself, I don't have any other data on which to base this supposition (and I don't know what the publisher's-eye view looks like), but that's what intuition and the calendar tell me.

Incidentally, if anyone is curious about how DTRPG assigns the metal badges that you see on product pages, here are the thresholds of products sold (source (https://onebookshelfpublisherservice.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022135314-Bestseller-metals-and-how-to-earn-badges)):


Copper: 51 - 100
Silver: 101 - 250
Electrum: 251 - 500
Gold: 501 - 1,000
Platinum: 1,001 - 2,500
Mithral: 2,501 - 5,000
Adamantine: 5,001+


These include only direct sales, not "free" copies sent to Kickstarter backers. Thus, we can estimate the success of the 4e PDF bundle's direct retail sales (gold as of this post), as well as my old friend Twilight: 2013 (platinum) and the PDF of the v2.2 Big Yellow Book (also platinum).

That's about all the analysis I can tease out of this data set, but I thought it was interesting. With the release of Tara Romaneasca this week - on Pacific Northwest's one-year releaseaversary, no less - I wanted to crunch the numbers. I figured I'd share them in the hope that some of you might find them useful in assessing your own interest in publishing through FFE/GDW.

- C.

[unipus]

Thanks for that, informative! Funny that there are actually more silver products than copper on DTRPG

[Tegyrius]

What's interesting and a little depressing is to compare contemporary PDF sales figures to those for GDW's old print products. The numbers are available in DriveThruRPG's guide to v1 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/15942/T2000-v1--DTRPG-Guide-to-Twilight-2000-version-10). The smallest print run for a 1e module was White Eagle, at 5,100 copies. For 2e, the low earner was the East Europe Sourcebook, with 4,100 copies. Obviously, not all of those sold at retail, but it illustrates how drastically the market has contracted over the game's lifetime.

(I seem to recall that the print run for the 2013 core book was 5,000 copies, but it's been a while. Compare that to the 1e boxed set's 97,518 copies or the BYB's combined 39,937 copies between 2.0 and 2.2...)

- C.

[unipus]

Yes... but on the other hand DriveThru is not the only source of most products. I know several people who make most of their money on itch or their own shops, particularly if they have nice print offerings. And you're able to keep more of that money in your pocket, kinda no matter where. Writing isn't any easier, but layout and art and publishing is.

I definitely miss the thrill of browsing my local game store for hours (I practically lived there at times), but the same thrill of discovery still exists these days just from the sheer scope of stuff that's out there and how specific a lot of it is.

Edit: as far as T2K specifically goes, it's pretty obvious why brand awareness and popularity declined not long after 1e. History did end, after all! I bet there's an influx of interest fairly soon.

[Targan]

(I seem to recall that the print run for the 2013 core book was 5,000 copies, but it's been a while. Compare that to the 1e boxed set's 97,518 copies or the BYB's combined 39,937 copies between 2.0 and 2.2...)

The general disinterest in T:2013 broke my heart (not as much as it did yours, no doubt). It covered all the bases in terms of crunchiness vs streamlining with its multiple tiers of rules complexity, but it felt at the time that the shrill hysteria and fairly brutal debates around its alt-history timeline generated a general negative vibe in the T2K community. I didn't understand the vitriol at the time and I still don't today.

[Raellus]

I still feel guilty for not reigning that negativity in here when T2013 was released. I don't think I was a mod back then, but still. I'm sorry, T2013 team.

-

[Tegyrius]

I appreciate the sentiment, guys. If it helps, I don't think the bile here had too much of an impact on 2013's sales. Contrary to what some think, this place isn't the majority of the fan base, nor does it speak for the majority (compare the number of active users here to the sales figures above).

- C.

[unipus]

Ha. Yeah I'd say the sales figures for both 2013 and 4th edition are slightly larger than the, I dunno, 20 active users on here?

As much as I loathe FB and try to avoid it, I recently joined the two main groups on there and there is quite a lot of consistent activity out there!

[Raellus]

Regarding tabletop RPG sales in general, then v now, on the one hand, I can understand today's smaller numbers. There are so many more digital gaming options nowadays. Tabletop RPG's seem quaint, and they require a lot more work to play than pushing the power button.

On the other hand, back in the '80s and '90s, tabletop RPG'ing was much less socially acceptable than it has become over the last decade or so. And it's not like there were no computer/console RPGs eating into the market back then. Also, today, there's a lot more venues for playing tabletop RPGs, especially on the interwebs. You no longer have to find a handful of people with similar interests in your town; you can game with people all over the world. And marketing- back in the '80s and '90s, the only way to find out about new games was to go to a brick and mortar gaming store, or find an esoteric gaming mag. With the internet, it's so much easier to learn about, and acquire, new (and old) RPGs. Also, today, it seems like the man-who-still-plays-with-toys (and I don't say that here in a disparaging way) is much more common than he was 25-40 years ago. It seems like the market for tabletop RPGs should be bigger today, instead of smaller.

Is the answer that today's customers are the exact same people as the '80s and '90s customers (just older now)? That can't be it, can it? At the high school I teach at, there's a pretty big, pretty active D&D club. I can't imagine such a thing operating overtly, at least, at my high schools when I was a student, 30 years ago or so.

Apologies if that digression wandered too far afield.

-

[swaghauler]

Regarding tabletop RPG sales in general, then v now, on the one hand, I can understand today's smaller numbers. There are so many more digital gaming options nowadays. Tabletop RPG's seem quaint, and they require a lot more work to play than pushing the power button.

On the other hand, back in the '80s and '90s, tabletop RPG'ing was much less socially acceptable than it has become over the last decade or so. And it's not like there were no computer/console RPGs eating into the market back then. Also, today, there's a lot more venues for playing tabletop RPGs, especially on the interwebs. You no longer have to find a handful of people with similar interests in your town; you can game with people all over the world. And marketing- back in the '80s and '90s, the only way to find out about new games was to go to a brick and mortar gaming store, or find an esoteric gaming mag. With the internet, it's so much easier to learn about, and acquire, new (and old) RPGs. Also, today, it seems like the man-who-still-plays-with-toys (and I don't say that here in a disparaging way) is much more common than he was 25-40 years ago. It seems like the market for tabletop RPGs should be bigger today, instead of smaller.

Is the answer that today's customers are the exact same people as the '80s and '90s customers (just older now)? That can't be it, can it? At the high school I teach at, there's a pretty big, pretty active D&D club. I can't imagine such a thing operating overtly, at least, at my high schools when I was a student, 30 years ago or so.

Apologies if that digression wandered too far afield.

-

I think what we are seeing is a circular "whiplash" effect involving kids who started with video games. Games like FALLOUT and SKYRIM got them into the RPG side of gaming but let's be honest, those games are limited in their choices because they are video games with animations and code. After a while, killing monsters, brewing potions, and forging stuff all become monotonous because you have been doing it for hundreds of hours in the game. You begin to crave something different.

Thus, the next logical step from them would then be a TTRP, where you can pretty much do whatever you can imagine. I believe that is where your "surge" is coming from.

[unipus]

The elephant in the room as much as ever is D&D. Roleplaying is now as you said much more socially acceptable, but the overwhelming majority of people still equate RPG = 5e, and that's it. It still takes substantial effort to coax people into other games, and equally substantial effort to break them of bad habits formed by 5e.