Green Ronin Joins WotC and Paizo on ICv2's Fall 2015 Chart

Icv2's latest tabletop gaming survey (for Fall 2015) is in, and Dungeons & Dragons has maintained its top spot on the chart with Pathfinder and Star Wars following behind. Great news for Green Ronin Publishing is that two of their games, Dragon Age and Fantasy Age separately make up the 4th and 5th spots, spurred on by endorsements from Wil Wheaton and his Titansgrave web show for the game. The usual disclaimer applies (before the thread turns into a lengthy list of people saying it) - this is a survey based on interviews of retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, and isn't a report of actual sales figures.

1	Dungeons & Dragons	WotC
2	Pathfinder	Paizo
3	Star Wars	FFG
4	Dragon Age	Green Ronin
5	Fantasy Age	Green Ronin

There hasn't been any change in the top three positions (D&D, Pathfinder, Star Wars) in the last year. Pathfinder held the top spot for three years from 2011 until 2014, before D&D regained its position in 2014.

Here are the compiled charts from 2004 until now. Here is ICv2's Fall 2015 report.

 

[Xavian Starsider]

Judging by the reports roll20's ORR group puts out, there is indeed a lot of drop off percent wise in the top 5, but Star Wars by FFG definitely has its own fans. Some things to keep in mind as to why you don't hear much.

1) It has its own forums and podcasts. If you don't play, you're not likely to be crossing paths with them.

2) The game is very balanced, well laid out and the system has very few mechanics to argue over. It's the most narrative of the Star Wars RPGs, which leaves little to debate or misunderstand mechanics-wise

3) Think about other popular RPGs. GURPS, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu. You know they're being played but how much discussion of them do you see? They don't seem to get any more coverage on ENworld than Star Wars does.

 

[Umbran]

2) The game is very balanced, well laid out and the system has very few mechanics to argue over. It's the most narrative of the Star Wars RPGs, which leaves little to debate or misunderstand mechanics-wise

A good point, this. I think it applies to most highly narrative games (games based on FATE, for instance). For FATE games, discussion is usually limited to getting a new person over the hump of differences from more traditional games, there isn't a whole lot of need to discuss them as compared to a mechanics-heavy game like D&D.

3) Think about other popular RPGs. GURPS, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu. You know they're being played but how much discussion of them do you see? They don't seem to get any more coverage on ENworld than Star Wars does.

Well, Morrus has the "Hot Games Chart" that tracks discussion on sites *other* than EN World and the Paizo forums....

 

[Chimpy]

1) It has its own forums and podcasts. If you don't play, you're not likely to be crossing paths with them.

2) The game is very balanced, well laid out and the system has very few mechanics to argue over. It's the most narrative of the Star Wars RPGs, which leaves little to debate or misunderstand mechanics-wise

3) Think about other popular RPGs. GURPS, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu. You know they're being played but how much discussion of them do you see? They don't seem to get any more coverage on ENworld than Star Wars does.

Very good points.

 

[delericho]

To be fair it essentially dropped to #2 to itself.

There was also a very brief spell in the late 90's where it is thought to have dropped to #2 behind the Storyteller games (Vampire, et al). Though that was probably more due to TSR's problems than anything else.

 

[delericho]

Oh, and I forgot: congratulations to Green Ronin!

 

[Chimpy]

True enough. I guess from that perspective, the top spot has always been a flavour of D&D, albeit under a different brand name for a few years.

I think when people mention tabletop roleplaying to someone not into the hobby, Dungeons and Dragons is the one the general population have probably heard of. In a similar way if someone mentions games consoles, people think "playstation". So I think D&D will for a long time have an advantage for new players in the hobby, as a likely starting point.

 

[Jabborwacky]

And I have all of those sitting comfortably on my shelf.

 

[twincast]

I think when people mention tabletop roleplaying to someone not into the hobby, Dungeons and Dragons is the one the general population have probably heard of. In a similar way if someone mentions games consoles, people think "playstation". So I think D&D will for a long time have an advantage for new players in the hobby, as a likely starting point.

While you do have a point, your example actually works against it, as "Nintendo" had been what everyone was automatically thinking of before they gave birth to the first rival to ever crush them. (Don't know which, if any, predecessor in turn had similarly penetrated the collective conscience previously. I suspect no console or home computer but instead a handful of individual games.) Feel familiar? I'm quite sure that if Wizards had continued to fail at their TRPG business a few years (and/or for an edition or two) more, Pathfinder may well have ended up trumping D&D not only in system loyalty but also in brand loyalty. And nobody knows the future; D&D's ultimate downfall might still happen one day (before the heat death of the universe), especially as the grandfather of RPGs isn't nearly as profitable as the grandmother of TCGs. Not to mention that there are several countries where one or both of these are not the number one.

 

[Louis Brenton]

I'm genuinely happy for Green Ronin. I think their AGE system is great, & I'm very pleased to see that other people think so too. If I weren't playing so much D&D 5e right now, I'd probably be playing either Dragon AGE or Fantasy AGE.

 

[MerricB]

The comments in the Internal Correspondence issue indicate sales of RPGs in general are up (led by D&D), but Pathfinder is flat or declining.

Just outside the Top 5? Numenera, Fate and Mouseguard!

Cheers!