ICv2 Reports Disappointing Year For Hobby Games Channel: TTRPGs Down, D&D Declines 30%

2023 was a tough year for hobby game sales.

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According to ICv2, 2023 was a tough year for hobby game sales. The US and Canada market increased by just 1%, which was less than the rate of inflation, growing from $2.86 billion in 2022 to $2.89 billion in 2023.

The hobby game sales channel is defined as specialist game and card stores--it doesn't include Amazon, direct sales, etc. It does include Kickstarter.

Top Hobby Channel TTRPGs (2023)
  1. Dungeons & Dragons (WotC)
  2. Pathfinder (Paizo)
  3. Cyberpunk Red (R. Talsorian)
  4. World of Darkness (Renegade Game Studios)
  5. Starfinder (Paizo)
  6. Warhammer 40K (Cubicle 7)
  7. Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying (Marvel)
  8. Kobold 5E Books (Kobold Press)
  9. Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium)
  10. Pirate Borg (Free League)
The only two categories to grow in 2023 were collectibles and miniatures. All other categories--board games, card games, and roleplaying games--were down. ICv2 reports a 30% hobby store sales decline for Dungeons & Dragons specifically, citing the impending new edition and lackluster movie performance, and the tail end of a pandemic-fuelled high; they also report that while the OGL crisis of last year impacted some lifestyle gamers, newer players as a whole were oblivious to the situation. The other important element ICv2 mentioned was D&D's increasing move to digital, which impacted retail sales.

Older D&D players, says ICv2, are also migrating to other games, with Pathfinder as one of the major beneficiaries.

The last 6 years has seen much larger growth rates--partly fuelled by the pandemic--ranging from 10% to 30%. 2022 saw a 7% growth over 2021. Despite the small increase, 2023 represents the 15th year of growth for the overall market. ICv2 does predict a market decline in 2024, though.

ICv2 conducts periodical surveys and speaks to publishers, distributors, and retailers, along with publicly available company information and Kickstarter data.
 
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Morrus

Morrus is the owner of EN World and EN Publishing, creator of the ENnies, creator of the What's OLD is NEW (WOIN), Simply6, and Awfully Cheerful Engine game systems, publisher of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, and co-host of the weekly Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast. He has been a game publisher and RPG community administrator for over 20 years, and has been reporting on TTRPG and D&D news for over two decades. He is also on the socials.

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Racegamer

Racegamer

Explorer
Anecdotal...
I am 66 years old and I have played every edition/version of D&D since the White Box edition - Didn't do any "Roleplaying" with Chainmail, but did some miniaturs battles with it... I currently run 3 different 5e games, each once a month.
I have absolutely no interest in ever going back to a number-crunching, min-max, style of play - i.e.: 3.0, 3.5, or Pathfinder.
 

Umbran

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
AstroCat said:
I hear you. You know what is so telling. I just spent the last week at Founders and GaryCon. The vibe and scene was so amazingly positive, the people, games, everything was just awesome. That is the hobby I know and love, and will continue to support as long as I can. My young son played in several games which was awesome and my friend's daughter even ran her first con game, all amazing stuff. It was all of the positivity of the hobby with none of the negativity.
Click to expand...

Mod Note:
@AstroCat You have been around on these boards for over 20 years.

So, you have little to no excuse for not knowing the rules of the place. Moderation posts are NOT an invitation to argument or conversation.

Therefore, we can only take it that you are now willfully violating rules - which rather belies the positive "vibe" you are espousing. So now I have to remove you from the discussion, and stick a warning point on you.
 



Warpiglet-7

Warpiglet-7

Cry havoc! And let slip the pigs of war!
There is also regression to the mean as well.

If you have a good popular product and all the stars align, things explode. Conditions will change over time because that is how markets and the world work.

If it is a good popular product it will still sell well. But I look at it this way:

If you buy an index fund in stocks, it will have some insanely good times and some less so. But it’s often a good bet over time.

There is no way for anything to have explosive growth forever. And that does not mean that the thing has radically changed…
 


Jer

Jer

Legend
Supporter
Whizbang Dustyboots said:
While it does my black heart good to see Pirate Borg on that list, I am surprised to see several of those titles there but not Dungeon Crawl Classics. I wonder if Goodman does most of its sales directly.
Click to expand...
I will say that every one of those companies are on the shelves at my local game store along with other companies that don't rank in the top 10 and they don't carry any Goodman Games stuff that I've seen. And they carry some far more niche stuff than the other stores in town.
 

lyle.spade

lyle.spade

Adventurer
I wonder what share of FLGS RPG sales are books as compared to minis and other accessories. WOTC, by going more and more digital, is actually at least partially responsible for killing the physical stores that have served the community since the beginning.

But all WOTC cares about is money, and money now, so this isn't a surprise.
 

jerryrice4949

jerryrice4949

Hero
Racegamer said:
Anecdotal...
I am 66 years old and I have played every edition/version of D&D since the White Box edition - Didn't do any "Roleplaying" with Chainmail, but did some miniaturs battles with it... I currently run 3 different 5e games, each once a month.
I have absolutely no interest in ever going back to a number-crunching, min-max, style of play - i.e.: 3.0, 3.5, or Pathfinder.
Click to expand...
Yup. Me too. Love 5E. I played every edition of D&D except 3.0 and many other games such as Rifts, GURPS, TMNT, 7th Seas just to name a couple and I think 5E hits the sweet spot for me and my groups.
 

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