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How's MGT Selling?

saundby

saundby

SOC-14 1K
Thought I'd start a new thread to pull this question out of the What YOU Like About Mongoose Traveller thread.

Since there's no print source for RPG sales figure estimates any more, I thought I'd check the Amazon sales figures just to see where MGT sits there. Not the best set of numbers, but I thought I'd at least see if we could see some patterns there in rankings compared to some other RPGs.

I tried to pick some sort of sampling, both new titles and older ones, to get an idea of how much is selling through now, and what sort of staying power the titles have. I did it by feel, no real method.

Here's what I turned up:
Publisher/Game/Book, followed by Amazon book sales rank:

Traveller
MGT TMB 77,171
MGT TMB PE 375,535
MGT MERC 471,876
MGT HG 405,647
MGT SCOUTS 382,107
MGT SM 561,286
MGT UoB5 620,743
MGT PSION 102,979

Dark Heresy
FFG DH 79,562
FFG DH HL1 18,093
FFG DH PtU 584,828
FFG DH DDG 61,465
FFG DH CA 51,960
FFG DH GMK 322,202

World of Darkness
WW WOD 44,520
WW WOD:A 74,719
WW WOD:A2R 13,865
WW WOD:Inf 301,253
WW WOD:Ant 274,691
WW WOD Slasher 270,361
WW WOD Innocents 182,125

D&D 4th Edition
WC DD4 Gift Box 1,607
WC DD4 PHB2 714
WC DD4 AP 670
WC DD4 MP 11,126
WC DD4 AV 6,738
WC DD4 DMScreen 5,643
WC DD4 DMG 13,878
WC DD4 MM 8,550

D&D 3.5
WC DD3.5 Set 86,853
WC DD3.5 PHB2 31,713
WC DD3.5 DMG 4,049
WC DD3.5 PHB 2,056
WC DD3.5 Eberron 48,301

Mongoose RuneQuest
MGT RQ DX 105,671
MGT RQ SB 725,710
MGT RQ GMH 1,172,287
MGT RQ Core 345,287
MGT RQ Glorantha 997,228
MGT RQ MII 1,308,097
MGT RQ Empires 1,173,029
MGT RQ Elric 762,020
MGT RQ A&E 1,004,496
MGT RQ Lankhmar 885,886
MGT RQ Nehwon 1,672,717

Chaosium BRP and Call of Cthulhu
Ch BRP d100 150,663
Ch CoC 6th 63,881
Ch CoC KC1 131,145
Ch CoC MM 170,756

Gamma World d20
WW GWd20 PH 583,747
WW GWd20 GMG 612,730
WW GWd20 OV 612,730
WW GWd20 MM 610,727

Shadowrun
CGL SR4 83,513
CGL SR4 Arsenal 42,079
CGL SR4 Augment 48,081
CGL SR4 Emergence 445,582
CGL SR4 FC 274,382
FPR SR4 Street Magic 252,451

Paizo Pathfinder
Pz PC:Campaign 224,322
Pz PC:Absolom 450,499

Serenity RPG
MWP Serenity S&S 26,907
MWP Serenity Core 69,283
MWP Serenity Adv. 239,620

Warhammer Fantasy RPG
FFG WFRP:CareerComp 32,385
BI WFRPCore 201,984
FFG WFRPComp 587,577

What I see in these numbers:
D&D is in a class all its own. Even "ha ha, Eberron" is selling at a level on a par with World of Darkness. D&D sells well as books, never mind games.

World of Darkness leads those that follow. It's not a long way ahead of the rest of its pack, but it would seem to be measurably so by these numbers.

Dark Heresy, Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Shadowrun and Serenity are all in a bunch, too close to call from these numbers, though Shadowrun looks to be a bit behind, perhaps.

Paizo has fallen a long way, it would seem, though its certainly not conclusive based on what I've pulled here.

There's a clear distinction between the games sharing "3rd place" and other well known games on the market.

My conclusion is that Traveller is selling VERY well. Think about it--it's breathing the same air as Dark Heresy. It's close to WoD. As games other than D&D go, that's a success. Even more so when you consider that in many ways, Traveller, DH, and Serenity are competing for the same gamers' ducats.

If anyone wants to throw some more data into the mix, it'd be interesting to see how it fits in.

Here's an catch as catch can list of novel sales ranks for comparison:
Terry Pratchett Nation 3,042
Niven and Pournelle Escape from Hell 23,294
Novik His Majesty's Dragon 13,670
Robinson Red Mars 54,708
Brooks World War Z 375
Martin et al Inside Straight 289,784

Edit: The figures are from Amazon US. It'd be interesting to check out the other Amazon stores...mostly U.K., but also DE, JP, etc.
 
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Here's the q&d version of numbers pulled from Amazon.ca:

mgt
tmb 10,737
sm 146,087
hg 202,355
merc 190,558
pe 100,348
uob5 482,911
psion 34,633
scout 214,067
wob5 158,350

dh core 19,953
dh hl1 31,906
dh ptu 29,641

wod core 18,318
wod armory 28,618
wod anta 145,872

serenity core 52,230
serenity adventures 70,711

coc 6th 68,728
brp 130,234

shr core 15,559
shr aug 29,807
shr str mag 192,203
shr arsenal 14,022

dd4 set 2,868
dd4 mm 14,119
dd4 dmg 36,203
dd4 phb 19,343
dd4 phb2 419
dd4 av 2,359
dd4 eberron 42,958

d&d3.5
dd3 eberron 94,975
dd3 dmg2 74,166
dd3 phb2 70,624
dd3 dmg 53,837
dd3 phb 49,594
dd3 mm 46,925

gurps4 cha 57,637
gurps4 cam 54,492

wh frp core 65,482
wh frp careers 1,695

The D&D4e PHBII and WHFRP Career Compendium lead the pack. MGT core is outselling all other core rules except D&D4. But additional MGT book sales are spiking at release then going flat, compared to additional books for other popular systems.

Also, volume is low on Amazon.ca so these numbers are heavily artifacted. It'd take some integration over time to get some real sense here.
 
I'll add GURPS 4e.
Characters... 115,966
Campaigns... 128,548
Interstellar Wars... 311,337
Ultra Tech... 539,851
Bio Tech... 295,465
High Tech... 209,666
Fantasy... 579,981
Martial Arts... 257,267
Powers... 226,980
Thaumatology... 83,853
Mysteries... 175,065
Supers... 120,251
Spaceships... 365,749
Space... 353,301
 
Thank you.

That answers my question and establishes the basic validity of the claim "Mongoose Traveller is selling well" as more than just unfounded opinion.
 
atpollard said:
That answers my question and establishes the basic validity of the claim "Mongoose Traveller is selling well" as more than just unfounded opinion.
Click to expand...

Also worth pointing out that we intentionally throttle sales to the book trade in favour of the hobby trade. And also that Amazon is a law unto itself, but that is another story. . .
 
Well, yeah there are a million little reasons why you can't read too much into amazon sales figures and a ton of minor inacuracies ranking games off them.

But I think there is easily enough here to support the idea that it is popular and selling well.
 
I remember Gar saying at the end of last summer that Traveller sold its 12,000th copy. Or something like that. Quick google search did not turn up a reference.
 
Classic Traveller reprints book 0-8 (amazon.com):

Sales Rank: 695,084

;)
 
drh said:
Classic Traveller reprints book 0-8 (amazon.com):

Sales Rank: 695,084

;)
Click to expand...

Out of roughly 6 million.

Kinda have to wonder about the 5.3 million+ titles below it :smirk:

Now if someone would just sneak a copy onto Oprah's coffee table...

Anyway, if anyone is wondering about the Amazon rankings, the lower the number the higher the sales. And as noted it's a (unique) ranking out of every title they have sold at least one copy of, which is (was) in the neighbourhood of 6 million titles last year.

A rough* guideline of rank translated to sales:

Code: 
   Rank           Weekly Sales
   1,000           90 copies
  10,000           60 copies
 100,000           16 copies
 300,000           12 copies 
 500,000            1 copy

1,000,000       1 copy per month
* very rough, from one publisher's numbers (www.dogearpublishing.net), might not hold true across the board
 
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dmccoy1693 said:
I remember Gar saying at the end of last summer that Traveller sold its 12,000th copy. Or something like that. Quick google search did not turn up a reference.
Click to expand...

Yes, I vaguely recall someone mentioned a sales figure. I seem to recall it was third hand info and no one corroborated it. That's one thing I don't understand. Used to be trumpeting sales figures was a source of pride. Publishers couldn't wait to run a quick note in a newletter or such "We sold 400 copies this month and total copies sold are now 10,000! Woot!!"

So what changed? Why no more celebration of sale milestones? Specifically why is Mongoose so quiet about actual copies sold while allowing if not saying "It's selling like gangbusters!"? Or have I just been missing the news, and if so where is it published?
 
Also, it's hard to rely on AMAZON sales rank in some cases.

As an example, some companies - notably Paizo and SJ Games (warehouse 23) maintain extremely active online stores of there own, so there is somewhat less incentive for company loyalists to use them. Thus, I wouldn't necessarily call a low sales figure by Paizo on Amazon as representing a downgrade of Paizo popularity - it might instead reflect increased success in Paizo's own online store
 
Thanks for pulling GURPS 4e, I intended to pull the U.S. numbers, but got swamped, finished the first post, and didn't go back.

Yeah, I expected these numbers to miss the fact that we're in direct sales and hobby channel territory here. Though the presence of RPGs alongside manga & SF&F in chain bookstores has been really strong. I see TMB in about half the B&Ns I go into in the western U.S. I won't even consider Borders as a data point with the upheavals and stupidity they've been going through (not to mention many publishers rightfully won't do business with them unless it's cash on the barrelhead.)

For myself, I buy through the FLGS even though Amazon sells at a discount. I'm not just buying a book when I do business there. If Chris wasn't there at Ship It Games (shipitgames.com - you can buy from Chris, too ;) ) I'd probably buy off the Mongoose website or make a pilgrimage to A-One Comics every so often and see if I can still find games among the action figures. :p
 
I found this on Planet Mongoose, posted on the 8th August 2008:

http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/index.php?blog=2&title=rumour_control&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

In the meantime, our RPG sales (which have always been the core of our business) have accelerated, all our main lines remain strong and as for Traveller, well! It is on its third print run already, and we are about to pass into the five figure territory for unit sales on the core book alone - which, given its two month lifespan thus far, is healthy to say the least. Long may it continue!
Click to expand...

I would guess that the corebook is around or over the 20,000 sales mark by now. I wonder how many copies of other editions of Traveller have sold in that same period (between June 2008 and now)? Somehow I doubt they sold as many as MGT.
 
The question is, will it ever hit the 6 digits and counting of CT? Probably, simply because the market overall is at least 10 times bigger...

CT was fighting limited distribution, limited knowledge of RPG's, and often hostile public image of RPG's as satanic; most of those are diminished to almost inconsequential in most places, and it's no longer a requisite to buy from a local store. (Really, it wasn't in 87, either, but it wasn't nearly as convenient as it is now.)
 
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