Dungeons & Dragons has 15 Million Players in NA Alone; Storyline Is "The Da Vinci Code meets Gangs o

Interesting. The following tidbit has me excited about the new storyline:

“The Stream of Many Eyes” ... story — which will be revealed on June 1 — was described by one D&D staffer as 'The Da Vinci Code meets Gangs of New York.'”

 

[silentdante]

why does it matter if it's misleading or not, the general consensus is that D&D is doing well, gaming as a hobby is up, and that is good all around, for competitors, stores, and players all around. i get not trusting numbers and understanding that some things are just PR to promote good tidings toward the brand, but cant we just be happy things are going well, a ton of indy RPG's and things are releasing again, old games are getting reprints or new editions, and generally things are progressing in a positive manner with D&D and gaming. i dont know if people think they are saving others from some kind of malicious double speak in articles like this by coming in and poopooing stats, or if they generally think wizards/hasbro has some agenda (other then the normal one of making money, having a positive outlook on a brand).

EDIT: or what the poster under me says in a better more comical way*

 

[Mouseferatu]

Hobby leader: The hobby's doing well! Here are a few general numbers!

Most rational people in that hobby: Cool! Let's talk about what that means!

Message board posters: Prove it, you damn liars! You can't possibly know anything, and even if you could, you obviously don't, because you didn't provide your entire financial history! I am very smart!

It's really getting tiresome, and it kills enthusiasm for actually discussing the topic.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's because the OP got it wrong. In the article, it's two different statements:

the D&D brand had a 44 percent sales growth over 2016,
The most number of players in its history — 12 million to 15 million in North America alone.

So two statements, one about the growth in sales year-to-year, and another about the current number of players in North America.

Once again they don't provide any context, 44% growth over the previous year looks great but.

1. Previous year is 2 years after release, one would assume sales were plateauing.
2. We don't know what the previous year sales were.
3. There have been deep Amazon discounts, PHB was lower and it shot up high again.

Its still basically PR spin, translation D&D is doing great is all you can really state assuming they are not outright lying, which they do not seem to be doing.

Its a weekly thing here and the usual suspects all pop out to pat themselves on the back lol.

I mean are some peoples lives that great that a weekly thread on how great 5E is doing is the highlight of their week or something? I don't recall threads like this when 3.0 was on top and doing well. Does Morrus need to contact WotC to get some poms poms with Mearls face on it for the weekly cheer leading squad to lead chants about it.

Eventually 5E will die or 6E will come out or the sun goes supernova etc etc etc.

 

[Alzrius]

I haven't looked at WotC's site lately, but have they posted this survey for public consumption? I'd love to take a look at it in more detail.

 

[Parmandur]

American only make shy of a third of the population of North America (Canada & Mexico being most of the rest), 12-15 mil is 2.1-2.7% of North Americans.

Which is staggering compared to what it's been like for most of the last 30 years....



I think what he meant was from 12, to 15 is 25% growth.

But Parmandur misread the article: "He declined to disclose sales numbers but noted that in 2017, the D&D brand had a 44 percent sales growth over 2016, and the most number of players in its history — 12 million to 15 million in North America alone."
44% is /sales/ growth (but they're not telling you sales).
12 to 15 mill is the number of players in North America, in 2017, the range is indicating uncertainty about the number of players, not growth.

If growth in players corresponded to neatly to growth in sales (might, might not), 12 to 15 million players, now, would mean 8-10 mill the year before. Of course, we don't know if that's active players or 'have ever played' or 'have played in the last year' (seems plausible) or what, nor how the number was arrived at. It could be off by a lot more than 3 mill - /in either direction/.


"Lies, damn lies, and statistics" aside, it's still an encouraging collection of factoids and buzz in the article.








....but, it does sound like - units or $s - D&D has a huge freeloader problem. Just say'n.

My original post was just the quote about the number of players and the link, but this is essentially how I read it myself. Indeed, the number that you reverse engineered here happens to match the number provided last time WotC made about the playing audience (about 10 million players, IIRC).

I was intrigued that they straight up said more people are playing now than ever before, that means their market research indicates that D&D is bigger now than the late 70's-early 80's.

WotC doesn't see players without books as freeloaders, they see them as a resource to attract merchandising deals (their real economic goal is t-shirts and toys, rather than game books, it's why they give away the rules for free).

 

[flametitan]

American only make shy of a third of the population of North America (Canada & Mexico being most of the rest), 12-15 mil is 2.1-2.7% of North Americans.

Er... The United States (325.7 Million people) makes up half to two thirds the population of North America (579 Million). If you're counting South America, then that's more accurate (As that adds a further bonus of 422.5 million.)

There's more people in California than all of Canada.

EDIT: your end math is about right (2.59%) but the way you phrase your correction's off.

 

[happyhermit]

Businesses, News departments, election polls, etc make these kind of estimates all the time. ...

And people studying wildlife, forests, astronomy, not to mention anything related to humans. The idea that if data isn't perfect it's useless, is just nonsense. The quality of the data varies of course.

As usual, I would love it if the actual statistics involved here were linked in some fashion, since newspapers do a poor job of handling such matters (the only journalists who ever seem to see a stats class in college are those writing about electoral polling...at least some of them). There are different references to sales data and surveys, but we aren’t told whether the aggregate information on how well D&D is doing is a package of numbers that WotC presented or partly background that the Seattle Times aggregated. In any case, we don’t know the methods of the surveys used (it appears that 40% of surveyed players were female, which could arguably be telling of the often-younger digital audience, given the survey methods we’ve seen WotC use, unless the reference is to an external survey).

Like other reports, bookseller lists, and popular culture references, the numbers here certainly reference that D&D is popular, wide-selling, and catering to a diverse audience. But the numbers as provided in this column (especially without notes on statistical methodology) don’t inform us exactly on how well. To what degree of confidence can they (and we) assume the percentage given of total players, for example? There’s no information here like a more “serious” story extrapolating numbers from surveys would contain (much less a breakdown of the actual definition/question of player by current, modern, or lifetime status).

It's not a scientific paper, it's a newspaper article, about a hobby. It would be nice to know all the details (I would be interested), but it's not like those numbers are going to alter anyone's life, if it does something has gone horribly wrong.

 

[happyhermit]

"At a recent planning meeting, staffers were tasked with finding “an actual blacksmith,” fire dancers and keeping a close eye on fire codes." In case anyone was wondering where WotC's promotional budget for D&D was going these days. Not that I'm complaining! I just get wistful thinking about those nice certs and Faction Folios you used to get for free when playing in-store. The event sounds like it's going to be awesome, though.

Considering they are selling tickets to each of the events for 200 bucks a pop, I wonder how much "budget" is going into this? It's hard to say. Pretty sweet when people will pay you to see your "marketing" (I don't know that I wouldn't consider it if I were close).

 

[Tony Vargas]

EDIT: your end math is about right (2.59%) but the way you phrase your correction's off.

Yep, it's right between half & two thirds, and I was waffling, changed it a couple of times, and left out the 'two.'

....just doesn't do to make a careless error like that when correcting someone else's careless error!

My original post was just the quote about the number of players and the link, but this is essentially how I read it myself. Indeed, the number that you reverse engineered here happens to match the number provided last time WotC made about the playing audience (about 10 million players, IIRC).

Sorry I didn't notice that was Morrus, I've edited my post, above...

I was intrigued that they straight up said more people are playing now than ever before, that means their market research indicates that D&D is bigger now than the late 70's-early 80's.

Yeah: "“It’s a special time, and I have a big belief that people are really craving face-to-face connections,” he said. “Gaming is the perfect construct.”
As a result, 2017 was “the biggest” in D&D’s 44-year history, Stewart said."

IDK about the Scare Quotes, there, but the difficulty-to-parse bits about growth & numbers came right after that. Maybe "the biggest" is in terms of number playing, or maybe it's sales (before or after inflation?), or maybe it was the fastest growth, even, "biggest" in business speak can mean a lot of different things.

But I'd have to guess the raw numbers playing. 12-15 million just seems unprecedentedly huge to me. In the past, people trying to puff up the hobby have cagily said 'millions of players' a lot, which, y'know, typically means "we're pretty sure we can round it up to 2 million."

But when you've got 10 million or 12 or 15 million, you say it!

WotC doesn't see players without books as freeloaders, they see them as a resource to attract merchandising deals (their real economic goal is t-shirts and toys, rather than game books, it's why they give away the rules for free).

It just feels off that people are playing, but, not, IDK playing 'deeply' enough to want a book... a group of 7 friends where one DMs and he's the only one who buys books, sure, it happens, but the disconnect between selling 750k books, and having 15 million players, that's more like 20:1.

But, yes: 5e doesn't have to sell that many books to turn a profit, and even if it did sell that many, it wouldn't be a whole lot of money, not compared to getting people to go see a D&D movie the way they go to Marvel movies, or whatever they're hoping for.
The 'freeloaders' still generate buzz for the /brand/, even if not revenues for the game, but, wow, there seem to be a lot of 'em.

 

[happyhermit]

...
Its a weekly thing here and the usual suspects all pop out to pat themselves on the back lol.

I mean are some peoples lives that great that a weekly thread on how great 5E is doing is the highlight of their week or something? I don't recall threads like this when 3.0 was on top and doing well. Does Morrus need to contact WotC to get some poms poms with Mearls face on it for the weekly cheer leading squad to lead chants about it.
...

If somebody predicted this, I hope they pat themselves on the back, and I would be very interested to hear and see their predictions (past and present). I certainly did not expect this to happen and am frankly still fascinated that it has, so what can I pat myself on the back about exactly? It's not my doing.

If you want to assume my life is a miserable pit of despair because I enjoy reading or posting in threads about how well a hobby of mine is doing... Ok? Is it possible that some people find it interesting?