NEWS

An update on SR6e DriveThruRPG ratings

  • 188 Replies
  • 40248 Views

stuh42l

  • *
  • Newb
  • *
  • Posts: 18
« Reply #165 on: <11-09-19/0016:17> »
Exactly. Which means SR6 has solid less than that in the same time frame.

FastJack

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6367
  • Kids these days...
« Reply #166 on: <11-09-19/0832:32> »
And Terminator: Dark Fate has sold more tickets in the same time frame as Avengers: Endgame.

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #167 on: <11-11-19/2014:58> »
And Terminator: Dark Fate has sold more tickets in the same time frame as Avengers: Endgame.

Terminator brought in about 30 million over around two weeks while Avengers took in over 1.2 billion in its first weekend alone.

So like... no. No that isn't true at all. That is about 30 times more sales in the first weekend as opposed to the film's two week release lifetime.

The actual issue with falling off the best seller list 'early' isn't that something else is 'beating' SR, it means SR is no longer meaningfully driving sales. Being pushed off the top 10 slot by an RPG that only has moved 100-250 sales isn't saying good things about that RPG, its saying SR has failed to move more than 33 copies in any given week, which is really kinda not great, and if you crunch the numbers unless SR starts releasing twice a month its hard to understand how they are going to be making money off splats.

I think this is something leadership is aware of, as they have alluded to more dramatic action to fix 'the problem.' At a certain point its not supportive to say things are going ok and that troubling information is not troubling.

Shadowjack

  • *
  • Errata Team
  • Ace Runner
  • ***
  • Posts: 1061
« Reply #168 on: <11-11-19/2235:27> »
One consideration is that Shadowrun is a very old game with an older than average player base. I hate pdfs, I'm sure I'm not the only 30+ player that feels that way. Yes, I know D&D sells tons of pdfs but they also dominate the market in general.
Show me your wallet and I'll show you a man with 20 fingers.

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #169 on: <11-11-19/2300:57> »
I don't think its likely physical sales overtake their digital, which would need to be true for this to be an ok situation, but something lending credence to that theory is the dramatic steps CGL takes to appease physical retailers, holding back PDFs for months despite them being ready and scheduled to go out for a while because of printing delays to maintain parity.

That said I have talked to a few store owners in my area and SR despite being a popular game around these parts don't move physical copies at all. Like they basically only order one copy to just have it on shelf at this point, and my local store of choice only picked up 4 copies of SR6 anticipating extremely low demand and not one has sold yet.

The plural of anectdote isn't evidence, obviously, but SR doesn't have a lot of shelf presence and its community is very much oriented towards online spaces and play, so PDFs should be expected to be the norm even more than D&D or Pathfinder, which have organized play societies pushing physical books REALLY hard.

FastJack

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6367
  • Kids these days...
« Reply #170 on: <11-11-19/2315:13> »
And Terminator: Dark Fate has sold more tickets in the same time frame as Avengers: Endgame.

Terminator brought in about 30 million over around two weeks while Avengers took in over 1.2 billion in its first weekend alone.

So like... no. No that isn't true at all. That is about 30 times more sales in the first weekend as opposed to the film's two week release lifetime.

The actual issue with falling off the best seller list 'early' isn't that something else is 'beating' SR, it means SR is no longer meaningfully driving sales. Being pushed off the top 10 slot by an RPG that only has moved 100-250 sales isn't saying good things about that RPG, its saying SR has failed to move more than 33 copies in any given week, which is really kinda not great, and if you crunch the numbers unless SR starts releasing twice a month its hard to understand how they are going to be making money off splats.

I think this is something leadership is aware of, as they have alluded to more dramatic action to fix 'the problem.' At a certain point its not supportive to say things are going ok and that troubling information is not troubling.
Yes, but Terminator brought in $29,033,832 the weekend of the 2nd, while Avengers: Endgame made $0 the weekend of the second. Which is the point I was making.

FastJack

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6367
  • Kids these days...
« Reply #171 on: <11-11-19/2321:51> »
I don't think its likely physical sales overtake their digital, which would need to be true for this to be an ok situation, but something lending credence to that theory is the dramatic steps CGL takes to appease physical retailers, holding back PDFs for months despite them being ready and scheduled to go out for a while because of printing delays to maintain parity.

That said I have talked to a few store owners in my area and SR despite being a popular game around these parts don't move physical copies at all. Like they basically only order one copy to just have it on shelf at this point, and my local store of choice only picked up 4 copies of SR6 anticipating extremely low demand and not one has sold yet.

The plural of anectdote isn't evidence, obviously, but SR doesn't have a lot of shelf presence and its community is very much oriented towards online spaces and play, so PDFs should be expected to be the norm even more than D&D or Pathfinder, which have organized play societies pushing physical books REALLY hard.
Unfortunately, we won't know until ICv2 releases sales numbers for Summer 2019. Currenty, they only released the numbers for Spring 2019

Shadowjack

  • *
  • Errata Team
  • Ace Runner
  • ***
  • Posts: 1061
« Reply #172 on: <11-11-19/2336:28> »
I don't think its likely physical sales overtake their digital, which would need to be true for this to be an ok situation, but something lending credence to that theory is the dramatic steps CGL takes to appease physical retailers, holding back PDFs for months despite them being ready and scheduled to go out for a while because of printing delays to maintain parity.

That said I have talked to a few store owners in my area and SR despite being a popular game around these parts don't move physical copies at all. Like they basically only order one copy to just have it on shelf at this point, and my local store of choice only picked up 4 copies of SR6 anticipating extremely low demand and not one has sold yet.

The plural of anectdote isn't evidence, obviously, but SR doesn't have a lot of shelf presence and its community is very much oriented towards online spaces and play, so PDFs should be expected to be the norm even more than D&D or Pathfinder, which have organized play societies pushing physical books REALLY hard.

I don't disagree but I still think my observation is relevant, not every 40 and 50 year old long-term SR fan is buying pdfs. I have seen that SR5 did sell poorly at my local shop although it's a really small town and mostly just D&D players.
Show me your wallet and I'll show you a man with 20 fingers.

Michael Chandra

  • *
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Prime Runner
  • ***
  • Posts: 9920
  • Question-slicing ninja
« Reply #173 on: <11-12-19/0044:01> »
CGL also has its own e-shop, making number-crunching harder.

For what it's worth, I dropped 80 bucks on four Edge+token sets, bought the Beginner Box to have something physical at hand (shame the German Seattle box maps don't fit) and bought several books. Haven't bought PDFs yet, since I have free access to them, and so do others.
How am I not part of the forum?? O_O I am both active and angry!

dezmont

  • *
  • Chummer
  • **
  • Posts: 190
« Reply #174 on: <11-12-19/0115:47> »
Yeah. It also isn't a BAD thing to make a lot of your sales on PDFs if that is true. It makes your product really accessible but creates issues in terms of casual presence. Part of why I think the LCs are really good for SR is that they sorta are a 'super' Pathfinder League so to speak and help divert people to PDF sales. But as was pointed out the personal shop makes number crunching harder and this assumes they mostly make their online sales on Drivethru, which I think is the more likely scenario but full well might not be, ESPECIALLY if they get a lot of action from people who are there for Battletech!

penllawen

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 804
  • Let's go. In and out. Twenty minute milk run.
« Reply #175 on: <01-24-20/0958:52> »

   Position      Title      Score      Number of ratings      Release date      Sales award   

...

   2      Shadowrun, Sixth World Core Rulebook      2.8/5      34      August 26, 2019      Platinum (Tier 3 - 1000-2000)   

A small update, a few months later:

   Position      Title      Score      Number of ratings      Release date      Sales award   
   3      Shadowrun: Cutting Black      3.5/5      4      January 17, 2020      Silver (Tier 3 - 100-250)   
   60      Shadowrun: Free Seattle      4.0/5      1      December 11, 2019      Silver (Tier 3 - 100-250)   
   71      Shadowrun, Sixth World Core Rulebook      2.7/5      46      August 26, 2019      Platinum (Tier 3 - 1000-2000)   

It's notable that the sales tier award hasn't moved. If this post is accurate, this implies SR6 CRB is selling fewer than nine copies per day, on average (<1000 sales in 116 days.)
« Last Edit: <01-24-20/1000:52> by penllawen »

adzling

  • *
  • Guest
« Reply #176 on: <01-24-20/1012:23> »
those seem like awful sales numbers, anyone know what 5e did for comparison?

FastJack

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6367
  • Kids these days...
« Reply #177 on: <01-24-20/1318:37> »
Can't really tell since 5E is in the Adamantine level of 5000+. If we assume it sold 10,000 copies on DTRPG, that would put it at just over 4 copies a day since it was released.

Lormyr

  • *
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 820
« Reply #178 on: <01-24-20/1421:25> »
those seem like awful sales numbers, anyone know what 5e did for comparison?

They probably are. Most of the conversation and reviews I see around 6e break down as follows:

- tiny portion of die hards who love it.
- moderate portion of die hards who hate it.
- large portion of individuals who neither love nor hate it, but are either not impressed or need the full errata before willing to commit to a stronger opinion.
"TL:DR 6e's reduction of meaningful choices is akin to forcing everyone to wear training wheels. Now it's just becomes a bunch of toddlers riding around on tricycles they can't fall off of." - Adzling

The Tekwych

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 400
« Reply #179 on: <01-24-20/1739:22> »
In dollars spent by game stores through Alliance Distribution on product for a game system in 2019. The top RPG game systems for 2019 were
1. D&D 5e
2. Pathfinder 2e
3. Shadowrun 6e
4. Vampire 5e
5. Star Wars (FFG)
6. Starfonder 1e

These figures were provided by Alliance to store owners who have accounts with the distributor