According to ICV2’s Internal Correspondence, D&D has now slipped to fourth place in overall sales in the retail sphere, behind Pathfinder, Star Wars, and now Fate.
This shouldn’t be surprising, and the Q2 numbers are likely to be just as dismal for D&D. With the imminent release of 5th edition, and no 5th edition material being generally available until July (other than a few pdf offerings that don’t register in the retail sales channel), customers are holding their collective breath for the new edition.
Look for D&D to vault back into first place come Q3. The interesting question will be how it fares once it gets over the initial bounce.
If the starter set drops in July like the B&N website leaked we may have a good indicator early. If it's a steaming pile than sales will drop, if it's something special though . . .
I wonder if these sales reports count the entire franchise. D&D minis and board games and reprints and video games. I think it is still safe to call D&D the worlds most popular role playing game.
However I son't think it is the world's leader for roleplaying games. It is not setting a standard by which to measure other games by.
On a side note. Some roleplaying games have moved so far away from D&D that it starts to be like comparing apples and oranges.
In fact I would much rather play Adventures Dark and Deep then play Pathfinder. They aren't even similar in my opinion.
Pathfinder is like the Minecraft of RPG's. ADD is like a modern rougelike. IMHO
"I wonder if these sales reports count the entire franchise. D&D minis and board games and reprints and video games."
From what I've been able to gather it only represents sales in brick and mortar hobby shops. Digital downloads, online shipments from sites like Amazon, in stores sales from box retailers (like Barnes and Noble), and the like aren't factored in.
I can accept D&D slipping, but behind FATE? Ugh.