Now there's an interesting thought... everyone like to point to Solo's ticket sales as backlash to TLJ but what about all the other SW stuff? Did games see a decline in sales? Toys? (I know there's been a lot on sale, so I'm curious if there's a noticeable rapid plummet.) Can we compare the TFA novel sales to TLJ? Hmm...
And I do wonder how much change there is in canon between the editions. (other than Han shooting first) I mean I'm fine if the universe as a whole wants to treat the SE as the "true" versions but just letting us have the originals would be nice.
In regards to other media, what I know is probably a little outdated, but here's what I have.
Comics:
According to Comichron, Marvel Star Wars comic sales were very high when first released with TFA, but ever since have been in a horrible decline much like everything else. The main Star Wars comics and the 2015 print of Darth Vader had insane sales and were the best they had initially, with the first issue of SW #1 getting over a million and being #1 on Marvel sales for quite a time if I recall (these were the same issues that had Luke fight a spider hutt which I talked about many pages back). However the current Vader comics that started in 2017 after the 2015 run finished are nowhere near as high as the 2015 version, which made more than double what Dragon Ball Vader is making now, however its sales are consistent. Not great, but consistent. The main SW comics though are in complete shit right now and are dropping fast, with Darth Vader (2017) surpassing it easily. It doesn't help that aside from the shit stories, the main SW comics no longer have decent art as I've shown in this thread before. More recent sales shows things to be even worse with the horribly declining art and story quality while people are creaming their pants over Vader, including some people who say they don't like Disney.
Some sales comparisons.
And despite all the shitty praise and circlejerking it gets, Doctor Aphra never sold more than 50k outside of its first 2 issues. The Poe comics started off a little bit better but went the same way as Dr. Aphra eventually. These are from 2017 and I'm told the sales have continued to drop since then except for the 2017 Vader comic which have surpassed the main SW comics but its still just average when compared to the 2015 version. It also doesn't help that Marvel has been outsourcing SW comics to IDW which are horribly meh, yet still somehow more creative and original than Marvel's SW comics (I'm shocked). As for story quality, Dr. Aphra and the main SW comics are just abysmal beyond reason. Poe's comics are mediocre but tolerable, although I really don't care for the guy. The 2015 Vader comics are the only ones with occasionally above average writing with some interesting moments and some dumber moments (it all varies)... As for art: both Vader comics have the best art, Aphra in second (a waste of talent that should be used on the main fucking comics ffs), Poe in third (cheap) and the main SW comics in dead last for worst art which is evidently traced the majority of the time to save as much money as possible since its one of their "big sellers". Also, even the comics that started off well ended up going to shit near the end or ended on a really mediocre note.
Forgot to add that the 2017 run of Vader officially ended this week on the most drug-addled note possible. Some will call it artistic, for me, its just an obvious crash full of "remember this?" moments as Vader's soul travels through time and shit gets fucked for no reason. I'll talk more about the new Vader comic in a later post. Also even if its ended, I doubt they'll let that mild cash cow stay dead. So expect a new Vader comic titled Vader (2019) soon enough...
Games:
In 2017, EA's SW game sales also plunged after the lootbox controversy. No improvement there and EA is still getting a lot of shit. As of January, BFII missed sales expectations.
On other notes, the mobile game, Galaxy of Heroes received mixed reception, however it was EA's most profitable mobile game during Summer of 2017. No idea how its doing now after TLJ and so much drama, my guess its doing good since Disney hasn't announced they want to shut it down like everything else.
In 2016, both Disney Infinity (which had just added a new SW update) and Star Wars: Uprising both bit the dust.
The mobile game, Star Wars: Force Arena was supposedly good from what I was told and relatively popular, but its not doing well enough I guess since Disney announced they'll begin shutting it down in March and it will be removed from online stores in a few weeks.
However the most important was Battlefront and EA bit its SW IP in the ass with BFII. I mean for fuck's sake, unlocking everything requires either 4000 hours or $2,100 dollarydoos.
I know its a dank meme, but it was the most widely used one at the time.
Toys:
There's been a huge decline in that. And yes, the entirety of the toy industry has been suffering, but SW is rather noteworthy since they actually started off great in 2015 with TFA, but by 2016 a drop in sells was evident and many then realized the quality of its toys were really weak, to the point where not just kids, but even manchild collectors can't seem to stand them (except for the truly mind-numbed ones who will buy anything with a logo on it), having only gotten into them due to the blind euphoria caused by TFA.
http://fortune.com/2018/03/28/hasbro-star-wars-toys/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/luketh...-toys-selling-as-well-this-year/#5bdab53c54e5
https://cosmicbook.news/star-wars-last-jedi-toy-sales-tank
All manner of the usual excuses have been made in defense, some however have given actually interesting validation. That it was not TLJ (it helped but it wasn't the biggest toy-killer), that it was actually Rogue One, with its darker imagery and less kid-friendly story and visual design made it hard to really appeal to kids. Years later and stores were still filled with unsold RO crap that no parent or kid was interested in outside of some college trustafarian brats. Even the RO nerf guns were unappealing. Then TLJ comes along and clutters up the stores even more along with Forces of Destiny Barbie-esque dolls that no kid wants and everything shits the bed from there. It doesn't help that a good chunk of new SW toys that didn't look cheap were huge and expensive as fucking
El Dorado. Even collectors didn't want these toys not just because of the cheapness or awful designs I mentioned above, but because these toys were fucking everywhere, so there was little collector's value to be had. To this day I still see them cluttering up stores. BB-8 toys and Porg toys also clutter up a shit ton of places and
BB-8 has lost any appeal it had and Porgs never had any to begin with. The only ones that have actually interested collectors or hardcore fans were just a few of the figures in the Black Series toy line (mostly Thrawn and Jaina Solo who won a popularity poll), and the ones in the Black Series actually looked somewhat better than the main toys, but in the end not even the Black Series has endured. The fall of Toys R Us also didn't help much and I think they were banking on Star Wars to save there ass which is probably why they relied so much on it, which only helped to put them deeper in the red than they already were.
Edit:
Novels:
I don't keep track of the numbers on these but from what I've been told, they're nowhere near as good as the comics or anything else, but again that's just what I'm told since I really don't want to waste too much precious memory on shit regarding this. All I know is reception, and what's clear is that Chuck Wendig's books are hated, with his second and third books only getting mixed reviews due the severe drop in interest after his first book. Paul S. Kemp wrote the first good book under Disney, but he shat the bed when he sperged on Twitter and took Rian and Chuck Wendig's side against "evil bigoted fans". Luceno and Zahn are the only good writers under Disney who have a good public image and apparently have good sales at the moment to the point where a third Thrawn novel has been announced. There's also something called Lost Stars which is mediocre but it got a manga adaptation so I guess some japanese fans liked it, but this was back in 2015 where everything was doing well thanks to the narcotic influence of nostalgia among casuals. I have been told that the Ahsoka and Phasma books got a decent reception, but for sells I don't know anything other than that the woke crowd loved it, and I honestly wanted to read the Phasma one to see if she failed again miserably (5 minutes I'll never get back fml). Other than that, I've been told the junior novels for kids are actually mediocre, but the Adventures in Wild Space series is supposedly on par with old stories to the point of using a similar style, illustrations that actually look and feel like Star Wars (unlike the majority of new media) and a lot of old lore, but it suffers from predictability, but at the same time its probably the only new material that's 100% woke free. I've only been reading one book of it online and so far, its the only Disney book not written by Luceno that hasn't made me blow chunks, however the dialogue is childish as one would expect in a children's series, but its surprisingly enjoyable regardless and it still sounds more mature than the drivel by Wendig, but it really can't grab my attention for too long. If not for the references to Disney Wars, this shit might be pretty good as standalone or even fit in well with Legends. However I don't know how well the junior novels are selling.
End Edit.
TL;DR
To sum it up, it seems the masses who delve beyond the films only seem to really care about the Vader comic, Rebels reruns, the remaining mobile games and some Legends reprints (most of which are being removed from reprint in Europe). The woke crowd, college hipsters and the types who browse Twitter, The Mary Sue and Dorkly on a daily basis are the only ones chugging everything SW down, especially Aphra.
You beat me to the horror first...
