Olde House Rules wrote:
This article from The Dragon #22 (Feb 1979) is interesting because it cites an impressive sales figure for HOLMES' BASIC of 4,000 a month! But it's also prescient with respect to the role computers would eventually play, although it appears Gygax never anticipated edition wars and the like. To quote the master...
"I envision only minor expansions and some rules amending on a gradual, edition to edition, basis..."
Yeah, good luck with that, Gary. Anyway, this really speaks to the mainstreaming of D&D back in the day and how TSR worked to make it happen! These dispatches are a fascinating read for sure...
And the sales numbers were still going up! A July 1979 article in the LA Times reported 5,000-6,000 Basic Sets per month. And in an interview in the summer of 1980 in Gryphon magazine, Gygax reported 12,000 Basic Sets per month!
ReplyDeleteZach H wow! That's an incredible three-fold increase in an eighteen month period. Holmes was, I think, responsible for bringing D&D to the mainstream, and we can't credit him enough for what he did...
ReplyDeleteHe may not have been right about future D&D editions, but what's he's saying has been true of the Call of Cthulhu RPG (FWIW), which now in it's 7th Edition is still pretty much completely backwards-ly compatible with the earlier editions (even though 7th is the biggest change, by far to-date).
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