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.'”

 

[Rygar]

The article says the DnD Brand, so in my opinion assumption 1 is wrong. There are more players than ever, more content available than ever, and more places to buy that content than ever. All of those seem to be indicators that sales are going up, not plateauing at all.

How long they can keep going up no idea, but they seem to be doing a great job on marketing the game and producing DnD stuff people buy.

That's not true.

1. We don't know how many players there are. Neither do they. Nor do we know how many people have ever played D&D, nor do they.

2. There's nowhere near more content than ever. WOTC produces almost no content now. 3rd edition had how many books? How many issues of Dungeon and Dragon existed? How many 3rd party 3.x products existed? 5th edition, at its current pace, will need decades just to catch up to 3rd edition.

3. In 1980, or even 1990, how many book stores existed? How many exist now? How many magazine stores existed? How many exist now? Not even touching how many hobby shops existed then compared to now.

Marketing D&D?? They haven't marketed it at all. They're really not even producing D&D. Most of the product for it is made by someone else, and what little product they have released is largely just content from the 1980's with a new coat of paint. Heck, they're so hellbent on not producing D&D they turned down a few proposals for video games.

The saddest part is, if they actually tried producing D&D they'd probably be able to grow their market to huge proportions.

 

[Parmandur]

That's not true.

1. We don't know how many players there are. Neither do they. Nor do we know how many people have ever played D&D, nor do they.

2. There's nowhere near more content than ever. WOTC produces almost no content now. 3rd edition had how many books? How many issues of Dungeon and Dragon existed? How many 3rd party 3.x products existed? 5th edition, at its current pace, will need decades just to catch up to 3rd edition.

3. In 1980, or even 1990, how many book stores existed? How many exist now? How many magazine stores existed? How many exist now? Not even touching how many hobby shops existed then compared to now.

Marketing D&D?? They haven't marketed it at all. They're really not even producing D&D. Most of the product for it is made by someone else, and what little product they have released is largely just content from the 1980's with a new coat of paint. Heck, they're so hellbent on not producing D&D they turned down a few proposals for video games.

The saddest part is, if they actually tried producing D&D they'd probably be able to grow their market to huge proportions.

They haven't had an outsourced book in approaching three years, and have been producing three large books every year. Quantity of product is not success of product; how many books did 3.x have, but how many layoffs did they have, and how many years did it last?

5E has a lot of books (I can see them on my shelf now), and will likely be around long enough to see it's fair share. They have some pretty good ideas about how many people play D&D (statistics is a thing, and they are actively using data collection methods), and they certainly know how many books they are selling. Xanathars Guide, in particular, is the fastest selling D&D book of all time, and it hasn't really had a drop-off yet.

 

[RangerWickett]

"The Da Vinci Code meets Gangs of New York."

So a conspiracy investigation amidst an industrial revolution with civil unrest?

 

[Parmandur]

2e, 3.x, PF, even 4e with its 2yr run, GURPS, oWoD, and, I suspect, plenty of other near-forgotten games, each had more content than 5e is likely to accumulate at it's stately pace of release - unless it really is D&D LAST and D&D goes another 44 years without a rev roll...

That is, I think, part of the way it threaded the needle: it doesn't appear intimidating, sitting on the shelf.

Mearls has been saying for years that they want 5E to be evergreen (notice how there is zero marketing around it being "5E," just "D&D"), but it does look to be working out that way.

If there is a 6E, it will likely be more B/X to BECMI than 1E to 2E even.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Seems to be going well but once again they decline to provide sales numbers. They can claim anything they want I suppose how they get 15 million players IDK.

Personally I think D&D is doing great, I'm not claiming its failing or anything like that. They don't provide any evidence, sales figures or how they arrived at the 15 million conclusion, there is no data, primary sources or anything like that provided. Its basically PR.

12 to 15 million is also 25% growth not 44% in the OPs post lol. Wife watches some zombie show (I Zombie?)and they were playing D&D in that which I thought was funny.

Note it says "Dungeons and Dragons" and not "Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition." Hence why no sales on 5e, as these numbers are for all editions played. 1 in 20 Americans playing ANY edition of D&D makes a lot more sense anyway.

 

[Yaarel]

I am most happy about the, 40% of D&D players are women!

Every gaming group I have been part of has at least one woman, usually more.

The women that I have played with tend to detail and enrich the personal lives of all of our characters.

My gaming experience is better because of women.

 

[Yaarel]

Wait, I thought of one group. The guy that taught me how to play D&D. It was just me and him − he as the DM and me as the player. There were no women in that group.

 

[Vicente]

That's not true.

1. We don't know how many players there are. Neither do they. Nor do we know how many people have ever played D&D, nor do they.

2. There's nowhere near more content than ever. WOTC produces almost no content now. 3rd edition had how many books? How many issues of Dungeon and Dragon existed? How many 3rd party 3.x products existed? 5th edition, at its current pace, will need decades just to catch up to 3rd edition.

3. In 1980, or even 1990, how many book stores existed? How many exist now? How many magazine stores existed? How many exist now? Not even touching how many hobby shops existed then compared to now.

Marketing D&D?? They haven't marketed it at all. They're really not even producing D&D. Most of the product for it is made by someone else, and what little product they have released is largely just content from the 1980's with a new coat of paint. Heck, they're so hellbent on not producing D&D they turned down a few proposals for video games.

The saddest part is, if they actually tried producing D&D they'd probably be able to grow their market to huge proportions.

You are thinking about DnD 5e and not about DnD in general.

- They have been producing a reasonable amount of DnD 5e official books.
- They have produced a very big amount of PDF support for 5e through DM Guild.
- There is a ton of unofficial DnD support in DM Guild (and several great authors they are showcasing).
- They have put nearly all past DnD content available in PDF (and more in print on demand every week) on DnD Classics.
- They have started supporting digital tabletop tools.
- You are right that there is less 5e 3rd party support (from big companies) than during the 3e era. Still, the 3rd party support 5e has gotten is of amazing quality (Adventures in Middle Earth, all Kobold Press stuff, Goodman Games...).

And that's just books for the RPG. Then you have miniatures: most people I have met in the AL have bought at least a few of the Nolzur's minis, with GMs having a considerable amount of them. And DnD themed boardgames, which have had a pretty good reception. Heck, they have even released DnD PDFs to tie in with Magic the Gathering, something no one would have imagined in any previous edition.

Another poster said much better already: they want to grow the DnD brand (that's why they don't want to split into half a dozen of settings). IMHO their strategy is a sound success.

So at least for me: kudos to WotC for managing the brand in such a great way, and for proving so much DnD to its fans.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Mearls has been saying for years that they want 5E to be evergreen.

Yeah, he said that about Essentials, too...
;P

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Da Vinci's Code? I hate Dan Brown's work. Have you seen the image of Spain, my land, in "Origin"? I will laugh when the visions by Maria Valtorta about life of Jesus becomes a movie or teleserie and mass blockbuster.

* Do you remember the movie of Captain America?....( tha old film from 1990!). Today marvel comics superheroes are a gold mine. D&D could become a blockbuster franchise, more than transformers, with the right movie or videogame.