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.
jerryrice4949

jerryrice4949

Hero
lyle.spade said:
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.
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Well my local hobby shop now charges $65 for D&D books. So it isn’t really WoTC killing them as much as their own pricing plus Amazon and online places like Miniature Market, Game Nerdz etc who not only sell the books much cheaper but the miniatures too. Plus a lot of small publishers like KP, FGG and Nord have some pretty big sales throughout the year from their own website that is much cheaper than the local hobby store.
 
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R

Reynard

Legend
lyle.spade said:
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.
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WotC making an effort to sell books with covers only available at specialty stores puts the lie to this. I don't like WotC either, but this is blaming them for something that the actual consumers are most responsible for: choosing Amazon discounts over having a FLGS. WotC didn't do that, (the general) you did.
 

R

Reynard

Legend
jerryrice4949 said:
Well my local hobby shop now charges $65 for D&D books. So it isn’t really WoTC killing them as much as their own pricing plus Amazon and online places like Miniature Market, Game Nerdz etc who not only sell the books much cheaper by the miniatures too. Plus a lot of small publishers like KP, FGG and Nord have some pretty big sales throughout the year from their own website that is much cheaper than the local hobby store.
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You know that retail stores have staff they need to pay, right? It isn't WotC or Amazon killing stores, it is you.
 

Alzrius

Alzrius

The EN World kitten
jerryrice4949 said:
Well my local hobby shop now charges $65 for D&D books. So it isn’t really WoTC killing them as much as their own pricing plus Amazon and online places like Miniature Market, Game Nerdz etc who not only sell the books much cheaper but the miniatures too. Plus a lot of small publishers like KP, FGG and Nord have some pretty big sales throughout the year from their own website that is much cheaper than the local hobby store.
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But don't they understand that TTRPGs are the cheapest hobby there is? That if you divide that cost by the hours put into it, they're not really paying very much at all? Why, those books could be five times as much as they are now, and they'd still be cheaper than any other hobby pastime you could name!
 


jerryrice4949

jerryrice4949

Hero
Reynard said:
You know that retail stores have staff they need to pay, right? It isn't WotC or Amazon killing stores, it is you.
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Yes. If and when my local hobby store goes out of business it is my fault. I will keep that in mind. Hyperbole aside I still buy from them. Not as much as I did before though. In your righteousness you may not have noticed that they actually charge above MSRP. Yup $65 for any WoTC book not $60 and sometimes even more for the alternate covers. During the Tome of Foes alternate cover debacle they charged $80 which I paid because I wanted it so bad. There are no victims here. They charge as much as they can at every opportunity and I pay what I can and sometimes look for deals.

Right now you can get Bigbys for $32 on Amazon or $65 at my local hobby store. Where would most people shop?
 




jerryrice4949

jerryrice4949

Hero
Reynard said:
Amazon acts as a distributor. That is how they are able to cut 30% off the price of the book.

Look, I am not saying that people have to pay the retail MSRP+ but if they don't they really can't complain that they don't have a FLGS anymore.
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Understood. And like I mentioned I still shop and buy things at my local FLGS but not as much as I have in the past. But as I mentioned too my FLGS sells over MSRP and the price difference is more than 30% most of the time.
 

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