FANTASY GROUNDS Confirms D&D 5E Lead On VTTs

Last time I wrote about the relative popularity of games played on the largest virtual tabletop platforms, D&D 5E had finally surged into the lead, passing Pathfinder. That was the Orr Group's (them who makes Roll20) quarterly report for Q1 2014. As you may know, Fantasy Grounds also releases such figures, and its latest stats have just come my way - and it tells the same story. These charts are for 2015 so far, and show an enormous surge which took place in March/April of this year.

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Now, there's an obvious caveat. Fantasy Grounds became the official licensed D&D 5E virtual tabletop round about then, so that surge is to be expected. Thanks to Fantasy Grounds for supplying these figures!

Interestingly in these latest figures, you get four "flavours" of D&D (5E, Pathfinder, 3.5, and 4E in that order) before you see the next highest system, which is Savage Worlds.

Measuring the relative popularity of games is an imprecise thing. I try to keep up with various ways to do so. The two VTT reports are great tools, and I report on them every quarter or so. Also relevant is the ICv2 survey figures which come out every quarter or so, and which I maintain a chart of here. Finally, I also track mentions of various games on thousands of forums and blogs in this chart (ignore the arrows on that chart; they're wonky - but it's also intersting to see Green Ronin's AGE system climb up that chart to #13 since Wil Wheaton's Titansgrave launched).

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[Nylanfs]

DSA is Das Schwarze Auge (Translation: The Dark Eye). It's really popular in Germany, which has a sizable RPG gamer population as well.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Schwarze_Auge

I don't know how these games compare outside of Fantasy Grounds. This data just shows what is the most popular to run and play on FG.

Regarding the data, it's solid. D&D has sold extremely well on the platform since the announcement, dwarfing all other products combined. Once people buy one of the adventures, they tend to buy every one of them.

Yea! I was right.

 

[Perram]

When the data doesn't conform to your expectations, it's the data that needs adjusting!

He didn't say adjust the data, he said check it for errors. When you have any giant spike like that in a data set, you want to find out the /reason/ for a giant spike.

As I said above, and others have also said, Fantasy Grounds launched its official 5e support. And then LAUNCHED ON STEAMS FRONT PAGE as /the/ way to play 5e online. That is why, in this particular graph, you see a giant 5e spike for this product.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

DSA is Das Schwarze Auge (Translation: The Dark Eye). It's really popular in Germany, which has a sizable RPG gamer population as well.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Schwarze_Auge

And what makes this even more fun: The fifth edition of DSA launches on August, 7th. The new rules set will be so complicated, of course, that it will probably take some time until someone hast coded it in FG.

 

[Barachiel]

Well, I trust the Roll 20 numbers more than these because Fantasy Grounds has an active partnership with 5e. I don't think they are cooking the books, but more that because they actively market and sell official 5e support it would be artificially higher on these platform.

However, the Roll 20 data supports that 5e is more popular as well, though to a much less extreme margin.

I agree, I was thinking the same thing. They should gather data from ALL the top VTTs out there and then compare numbers.

 

[Hawkwind]

i was looking at these figures and the Roll20 figures and its difficult to compare them as Roll20 is a quarterly return and FG is a monthly one but I expected Roll20's numbers to be bigger in comparison, I suspect you can't just add the last three three months together peoples campigns will be counted in each month. Unique players would be a more useful figure to compare. Congratulations to the FG team for building such a solid ruleset.

 

[Hussar]

I think the takeaway here is that online gaming is here to stay. Holy crap that's a lot of games.

I just wish there was a central location for advertising for games and players.

 

[damned]

Well, I trust the Roll 20 numbers more than these because Fantasy Grounds has an active partnership with 5e. I don't think they are cooking the books, but more that because they actively market and sell official 5e support it would be artificially higher on these platform.

However, the Roll 20 data supports that 5e is more popular as well, though to a much less extreme margin.

Its not artificially higher. Its higher because its a good system, its fun and its so easy on Fantasy Grounds. My Castles&Crusades campaign is on hiatus while we play D&D5e and I know many other GMs in a similar position. In that period Ive played Castles&Crusades, CallOfCthulhu, SavageWorlds, Maelstrom, D&D5e and Star Wars.

 

[Perram]

Its not artificially higher. Its higher because its a good system, its fun and its so easy on Fantasy Grounds. My Castles&Crusades campaign is on hiatus while we play D&D5e and I know many other GMs in a similar position. In that period Ive played Castles&Crusades, CallOfCthulhu, SavageWorlds, Maelstrom, D&D5e and Star Wars.

Yes, it is.

Look at the graph. Notice how there is a GIANT spike in 5e? Notice that there isn't a matching GIANT drop in the other leading systems to match, just slight declines? That means it is all /new/ users. About the same time they launched on Steam and were featured in several prominent video game blogs. If you look at the steam listings, it barely even mentions Fantasy Grounds. Its just GIANT D&D logos. A very good marketing plan.

5e still has the top slot in the other VTTs, but by a much much smaller margin, sometimes just barely, sometimes significantly. But here on Fantasy Grounds there is a huge difference that doesn't line up with the rest of the data.

Does it change the numbers? Nope. Does it make it any less awesome of a game? Nope. Does it make Fantasy Grounds' 5e experience any less awesome? Again, nope. But when we're expecting a 10~20% lead and noticing a 500% lead, it does mean some other factor is artificially tilting the odds in this table. Something 5e has that others don't.

 

[Morrus]

Yes, it is.

Look at the graph. Notice how there is a GIANT spike in 5e? Notice that there isn't a matching GIANT drop in the other leading systems to match, just slight declines? That means it is all /new/ users. About the same time they launched on Steam and were featured in several prominent video game blogs. If you look at the steam listings, it barely even mentions Fantasy Grounds. Its just GIANT D&D logos. A very good marketing plan.

5e still has the top slot in the other VTTs, but by a much much smaller margin, sometimes just barely, sometimes significantly. But here on Fantasy Grounds there is a huge difference that doesn't line up with the rest of the data.

Does it change the numbers? Nope. Does it make it any less awesome of a game? Nope. Does it make Fantasy Grounds' 5e experience any less awesome? Again, nope. But when we're expecting a 10~20% lead and noticing a 500% lead, it does mean some other factor is artificially tilting the odds in this table. Something 5e has that others don't.

I don't think clever player acquisition strategies count as 'artificial tilting'. WotC figured it could grow its player base by licensing a large VTT. The plan worked.

There's a reason behind every statistic. Just because the reason is obvious doesn't make the statistic less valid.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think clever player acquisition strategies count as 'artificial tilting'. WotC figured it could grow its player base by licensing a large VTT. The plan worked.

There's a reason behind every statistic. Just because the reason is obvious doesn't make the statistic less valid.

I agree; bigger, bolder marketing leading to increased market share seems quite logical, organic rather than artificial.