D&D General D&D Worth "23 Billion"?!?!

[Clint_L]

According to this article from ABC News, anyway: Dungeons and Dragons' latest wave of adventurers roll with the punches

However, they cite "some sources," so...anyone know what they are talking about, or what these sources might be?

On the other hand, this is one of the few news stories that correctly cites WotC's original claim that "more than 50 million people have interacted with D&D" over the past 50 years. This claim commonly gets misrepresented as 50 million active players today, so getting it right gives me some hope for the journalism of this piece. But I wanna know more about the $23 billion because that seems very optimistic to me.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah it just says "which some studies value at more than $23 billion" but doesn't cite any of them. Hard to tell where they're getting their figures from. Hasbro itself--as a whole--has a worth of under half that number, IIRC. A quick google tells me about $8B. But I am not the person to ask about company valuations!

 

[CleverNickName]

Gaming is big business, so I suspect the numbers are accurate. I'm hardly a market analyst, however.

Especially for video games. According to this article from the BBC, "the (video) games industry is still a $223bn industry, and will grow by approximately another $78bn by 2030...For context, that's more than the current size of the whole global recorded music industry."

They're saying that D&D is worth about as much as 1/10th of the video game industry. My gut says that's pretty close--but my gut is a liar.

 

[aco175]

"more than 50 million people have interacted with D&D"

Need the data. I might count 7 times if I bought a new PHB with each edition.

Or I could say that I interacted with the concrete industry last year since I walked down the sidewalk.

 

[Oofta]

The valuation presumably includes video games and related merchandise. They could include everything from D&D Monopoly to Chessex dice.

 

[Morrus]

Gaming is big business, so I suspect the numbers are accurate. I'm hardly a market analyst, however.

I dunno. In 2017 (a while ago admittedly) the entire TTRPG market was with about $35M. $23B would be about a 700 times increase since then.

How big's the RPG market?

How big is the RPG market? Pretty damn tiny, is the answer. As of 2016/2017 it's about $35m in size, according to ICv2. That's of a Hobby Games market currently worth just over a billion dollars. The RPG segment is a mere 2.9% of the overall Hobby Games market, which includes boardgames...

www.enworld.org

The hobby game industry in total (inc board, games games) was about $1B back then. And TTRPGs are about 3% of that market. At least, they were.

I guess they're talking about the brand rather than the TTRG though. So if that includes the movie and BG3 I guess that pushes it up an awful lot.. but at that point we're not talking about the game any more.

 

[Zaukrie]

That would make the rest of Hasbro worth negative 16 billion, so, no chance. None. Nada. Nil.

 

[Parmandur]

According to this article from ABC News, anyway: Dungeons and Dragons' latest wave of adventurers roll with the punches

However, they cite "some sources," so...anyone know what they are talking about, or what these sources might be?

On the other hand, this is one of the few news stories that correctly cites WotC's original claim that "more than 50 million people have interacted with D&D" over the past 50 years. This claim commonly gets misrepresented as 50 million active players today, so getting it right gives me some hope for the journalism of this piece. But I wanna know more about the $23 billion because that seems very optimistic to me.

OK, big game of telephone here: first off, this is $23 Billion AUD, not USD.

They are quoting this thinkpiece:

50 years on, Dungeons & Dragons is still a gaming staple. What’s behind its monumental success?

Research shows many of us are lonely. Embracing analogue gameplay could go a long way in helping us become happier, socially connected people.

theconversation.com

And the $16.8 billion USD number is actually clearly for the entire board game industry for the next 8 years estimated by this study:

Board Games Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis 2024-32

The global board games market size reached US$ 16.8 Billion in 2023 and grow at a CAGR of 9.81% to reach US$ 40.1 Billion by 2032.

www.imarcgroup.com

 

[Morrus]

OK, big game of telephone here: first off, this is $23 Billion AUD, not USD.

They are quoting this thinkpiece:

50 years on, Dungeons & Dragons is still a gaming staple. What’s behind its monumental success?

Research shows many of us are lonely. Embracing analogue gameplay could go a long way in helping us become happier, socially connected people.

theconversation.com

And the $16.8 billion USD number is actually clearly for the entire board game industry for the next 8 years estimated by this study:

Board Games Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis 2024-32

The global board games market size reached US$ 16.8 Billion in 2023 and grow at a CAGR of 9.81% to reach US$ 40.1 Billion by 2032.

www.imarcgroup.com

Wow. Yeah. Totally different. Thanks for finding that!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

OK, big game of telephone here: first off, this is $23 Billion AUD, not USD.

They are quoting this thinkpiece:

50 years on, Dungeons & Dragons is still a gaming staple. What’s behind its monumental success?

Research shows many of us are lonely. Embracing analogue gameplay could go a long way in helping us become happier, socially connected people.

theconversation.com

And the $16.8 billion USD number is actually clearly for the entire board game industry for the next 8 years estimated by this study:

Board Games Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis 2024-32

The global board games market size reached US$ 16.8 Billion in 2023 and grow at a CAGR of 9.81% to reach US$ 40.1 Billion by 2032.

www.imarcgroup.com

Now THAT makes a whole lot more sense!