Does anyone care to speculate on what could be the top ten current bestselling RPGs?

Is there any possible way to know? I suspect anything below the first five is nothing more than utter guesswork and wishful thinking.

RPGPundit

I think beyond the top 1 it will be guesswork, really.

First: D&D still holds top spot.  It's the oldest has a large fanbase many of whom continue to buy new D&D products, in spite of still using 1E for their "rules" choice. It will continue to be top most likely until its majority fan base starts facing the rigors of age.  While it has brought new people in, many of the younger set have already begun ditching tabletop play for MMORPG's. (Which offer the same rewards to those types of players as D&D does--power increases, gear of importance, but with added graphics power) I'd really like to see a poll of how many people play AD&D/D&D broken down by editions of core rules they are using.


Second (guess) is probably NWOD which builds on some OWOD and some other peripheral fans of "play the monster" style games.


Third (guess): Rifts. (despite the popularity of Exalted in certian places, I think its overspoken to actual play) where as Rifts is probably played more, sells still, and is talked about usually less (or at least not positively.)

It is quite possible that Mutants and Masterminds should gain third spot these days. But I base my guesses on how ubiquitous owning the core book seems (How many gamers I know online, offline, or have spoken too who own it)

Quote from: RPGPunditDoes anyone care to speculate on what could be the top ten current bestselling RPGs?

There is no way to know for certain. However, the estimates have kept the #1 and #2 spots (D&D and WoD, respectively) fairly consistant for multiple years, so you could be pretty confident in those two.

After that, you're talking differences smaller than the margin of error, IMO. Rifts, Castles & Crusades, Serenity, Shadowrun, Warhammer, Mutants & Masterminds, Exalted -- they're all in there somewhere, but you won't likely get any consensus on which system is in which slot, at least for any extended period of time.

Well according to Ken Hite, Palladium lost that ill-understood second place spot and are now smaller than Mongoose.  I don't think Rifts is selling much any more, Sembieda's "problems" would seem to be consistent with this.

I'd guess the following:

#1 D&D
#2 Vampire
#3 GURPS

And after that, it get's too difficult to tell.  I think it's even possible that lingering Star Wars materials might be at #4.  Rifts is almost certainly #5 or lower nowadays.

Quote from: PaulChapmanAfter that, you're talking differences smaller than the margin of error, IMO.

Seriously?

Whacky.

I think Palladium lost their vaunted #3 a while ago.

One quick way (not necessarily totally representative) is to look at Amazon sales rankings of core and recent books.

Amazon Sales Rankings:

D&D 3.5 PHB - #2,953

Serenity RPG - #4,416 (I suspect we have some fan buyers here. Still, sales is sales!)

Mutants & Masterminds 2e - #10,975

The World of Darkness - #22,231 (worse than I expected)

D20 Modern - #28,828 (better than I suspected)

Exalted 2e - #40,404

Spycraft 2.0 - #51,902 (that surprised me... better than GURPS? Really?)

GURPS Basic Set: Characters - #71,860

Shadowrun 4e - #114,441

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - #173,752

Rifts Ultimate Edition - #192,956

Castles & Crusades Player's Guide New Printing - #234,588

True20 Adventure Roleplaying - #273,117

Conan RPG - #364,085

Babylon 5 RPG - #420,489

Hollow Earth Expedition - #541,215 (Not bad, for a newcomer)

Hero System 5th edition revised - #837,923 (and here I thought HERO was back from the brink)

FUDGE 10th anniversary edition - #844,248

Quote from: Caesar SlaadI think Palladium lost their vaunted #3 a while ago.

One quick way (not necessarily totally representative) is to look at Amazon sales rankings of core and recent books.

Good idea

I checked a few books from each to get a range of ratings.

D&D books -ratings around 1500-3000

Rifts: 100,000-300,000

C&C: 200,000-500,000

Gurps: 70,000-200,000

Exalted: 138,000-240,000

NWOD: 44,000-250,000

Star Wars: 96,000-300,000


Of course rankings bounce around since sales come and go with new releases.  But it looks like D&D is far ahead and then there is a pack with NWoD holding a slight lead - pretty much what people had thought.

Quote from: RPGPunditDoes anyone care to speculate on what could be the top ten current bestselling RPGs?

Is there any possible way to know? I suspect anything below the first five is nothing more than utter guesswork and wishful thinking.

Ken Hite has a series of market analyses in his column, Out of the Box.  He collects numbers from a couple source, notably Comic & Games Retailer's annual report, and the ICv2 Retailer's Guide to Games.  

A good example would be the recent: State of the Industry 2005: Another Such Victory Will Destroy Us

Short form of the latter: 53% for WotC, 19% for White Wolf, and the rest is noise.  Numbers differ on the latter: he suggests Green Ronin in third with around 3.5%, SJG in fourth with around 3%.  The others: Palladium, Mongoose, and FanPro are each around 2%.  Then Hero, Troll Lord, Privateer, Goodman Games, Margaret Weis Productions, and AEG are each around 1%.  

While White Wolf took a beating in 2005, they have very consistently held onto second place.  They had 19% in 2001, for example.  So they're not shrinking.  They have always been a distant second to D&D, even during the nineties -- with a maximum market share of no more than 30%.  

But this isn't broken down by product.  If we count best-selling, are we only looking at core book sales?  Or do we count supplements?

Quote from: SilverlionI think beyond the top 1 it will be guesswork, really.

First: D&D still holds top spot.  It's the oldest has a large fanbase many of whom continue to buy new D&D products, in spite of still using 1E for their "rules" choice. It will continue to be top most likely until its majority fan base starts facing the rigors of age.  While it has brought new people in, many of the younger set have already begun ditching tabletop play for MMORPG's. (Which offer the same rewards to those types of players as D&D does--power increases, gear of importance, but with added graphics power) I'd really like to see a poll of how many people play AD&D/D&D broken down by editions of core rules they are using.  

But wait, is D&D meant to cover all of D20?? Because to me, D&D and D20 are two different game systems; and if you separate them, then I'm willing to bet you easily have the number 1 and number 2 spots there, pushing WoD down to number 3...

QuoteSecond (guess) is probably NWOD which builds on some OWOD and some other peripheral fans of "play the monster" style games.

Again, same problem. We can't be sure that NWoD has been more successful and is more played than OWoD. We know that overall it lost a lot of the market; it basically failed to pull WW out of the loss spiral its been falling down for the last 5 years or so. However, you're probably right that after D20 these are the two most successful games. Again, we don't know for sure at this point which is 3rd and which is 4th.

QuoteThird (guess): Rifts. (despite the popularity of Exalted in certian places, I think its overspoken to actual play) where as Rifts is probably played more, sells still, and is talked about usually less (or at least not positively.)

It is quite possible that Mutants and Masterminds should gain third spot these days. But I base my guesses on how ubiquitous owning the core book seems (How many gamers I know online, offline, or have spoken too who own it)

Yup, RIFTS and M&M are two strong possibilities... but again we're pretty lost at this point.

Quote from: NicephorusGood idea

I checked a few books from each to get a range of ratings.

D&D books -ratings around 1500-3000

Rifts: 100,000-300,000

C&C: 200,000-500,000

Gurps: 70,000-200,000

Exalted: 138,000-240,000

NWOD: 44,000-250,000

Star Wars: 96,000-300,000


Of course rankings bounce around since sales come and go with new releases.  But it looks like D&D is far ahead and then there is a pack with NWoD holding a slight lead - pretty much what people had thought.

This is probably the most accurate of many non-accurate means of judging this whole thing.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYup, RIFTS and M&M are two strong possibilities... but again we're pretty lost at this point.

My figures are suggesting that NWoD has slid down a bit, with exalted making up some ground, with M&M 2e very strong, but Rifts not even on the chart.

Which I can believe.

Quote from: jhkimKen Hite has a series of market analyses in his column, Out of the Box.  He collects numbers from a couple source, notably Comic & Games Retailer's annual report, and the ICv2 Retailer's Guide to Games.  

He does a great job and is frank that his numbers are very limited.  It comes only from game stores in in the organization.  It ignores book stores and online sales.  WOTC and White Wolf are the only companies that I see every time in non-specialty stores so their market share is probably bigger than Ken's numbers suggest.  But Amazon rankings are reasonably close to his numbers.

Quote from: RPGPunditBut wait, is D&D meant to cover all of D20?? Because to me, D&D and D20 are two different game systems; and if you separate them, then I'm willing to bet you easily have the number 1 and number 2 spots there, pushing WoD down to number 3...

Hm.  D20 Modern is ranked behind World of Darkness on Amazon, and isn't in the top 5 of ICv2's 2005 Report list of top RPG lines.  The others are way behind that.  Checking today, I get:

D&D 3.5 PHB - #3,620
D20 Modern - #38,543
Star Wars RPG - #324,927

Quote from: RPGPunditWe can't be sure that NWoD has been more successful and is more played than OWoD. We know that overall it lost a lot of the market; it basically failed to pull WW out of the loss spiral its been falling down for the last 5 years or so. However, you're probably right that after D20 these are the two most successful games. Again, we don't know for sure at this point which is 3rd and which is 4th.

Well, the entire industry has been in a downward trend for the past several years, as Ken shows very clearly in his report.  White Wolf's share has kept fairly steady during that time.  At least, they were 19% in 2001 and still 19% now.  They're down from the 22% they had in 2004, but that's shuffling back and forth, I think.  I don't think you can put too much into year-to-year fluctuations of a few percent.