How big is our hobby?

[M.T. Black]

Is there any accurate information around regarding how many people regularly play tabletop RPGs?

Is there any historical information available about participation rates - especially back in the "glory days" of the mid-80s?

 

[Morrus]

There's the big survey WotC did back in 1999/2000/whenever it was.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...-Industry-Market-Research-Summary-(RPGs)-V1-0

And ICv2 estimates the current market size:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1984-Top-5-RPGs-Compiled-Charts-2008-Present

I'm sure there's more info about, but those two spring to mind.

 

[M.T. Black]

Thanks Morrus - very helpful!

For those who haven't looked at the links, the 1999 survey basically found that around 2.25 million people played Tabletop RPGs regularly, and that around 5.5 million had played in total. I'm assuming those figures are for the US.

Of course, those figures are 17 years old. It would be very interesting to see an update. I wonder if WOTC have commissioned a similar market segmentation survey since? I wonder what a survey like that would cost to execute, and if there would be sufficient value in it for a number of smaller publishers to band together and fund it?

 

[aramis erak]

Is there any historical information available about participation rates - especially back in the "glory days" of the mid-80s?

Nothing terribly reliable that I've seen.

I know that there were well more than 300 gamers in Anchorage in 1992. Why? Because someone had that many members signed up for a local mailing list. I wasn't on it, nor were my players, but some gamers I knew were on it.

And I know that, as of 2014, Chugiak HS, my alma mater, had a group in front of the old library on the ramp (it's now a classroom pod, and the ramp's 5m wide), a group in the Social Studies center, a group in the Band room, and a group in the ROTC room, all playing at lunch. While the band and ROTC rooms aren't in the same locations, it's the nature of the space. the SSC and the ramp are both locations that are unchanged. A 5th group was playing just outside the staff lounge; that location didn't even exist when I was a student; it's in the expansion that was started when I was a junior.

I know also that East Anchorage High School had at least 4 groups - two in the bridge between SWS, one in the choir room, one in the commons, and one in a classroom. I know that, in 1986-87, there were groups playing in the bridge between SWS... both from days spent on field trips to EAHS, and from friends in those groups... And I know someone who ran a game in a classroom in SWS.

In fact, in all the high schools I spent time at in the 80's, I've found groups in similar locations during my time as a sub. Similar group sizes, too.

In no small irony, at least one of the groups at East was playing using books older than themselves... AD&D 1E. (Other games I saw at east include Rifts, and D&D 3.X.)

The D&D club at Eagle River High had 30 members at one point in 2014...

 

[Morrus]

I wonder if WOTC have commissioned a similar market segmentation survey since? I wonder what a survey like that would cost to execute, and if there would be sufficient value in it for a number of smaller publishers to band together and fund it?

We were talking about exactly that in another thread just the other day.

No, they haven't. They did a big D&D Next survey a few years back, but that was a different animal. It is a very expensive undertaking -- I did try to get it done a couple of years back, on an even larger scale (I had a Kickstarter model in mind).

 

[Nagol]

To put the hobby size in perspective, there are about 5 million stamp collectors, 12 million hunters, 60 million bird watchers, and 75 million NASCAR fans in the U.S. So for every RPG enthusiast, there are two stamp collectors, 6 hunters, 30 bird watchers, and 37 NASCAR fans..

 

[Morrus]

I'm pretty sure the numbers have grown noticeably since that survey; there's been so much outreach and mainstreaming of TRPGs (and a lot of the credit for that must go to WotC, who are making real efforts in that department). It would be fascinating to find out. The 2015 market size according to ICv2 was $25M, up from $15M the year before. That's out of an $880M hobby game market as a whole (US only).

The 1999 figures are US only, and cut off at age 35, so they don't represent the full player base. I don't know how you would extrapolate worldwide.

For comparison (I'm not suggesting this is a robust statistical method, but it's all we have) I looked at the geographical percentages of a couple of major TRPG websites. They tend to put the US at about 50% of the worldwide traffic, and on EN World specifically a little higher at 60%. If you wanted to play fast and loose with numbers, you could perhaps suggest that the same percentage applies to the market, but don't base any business decisions on it!

 

[DM Howard]

I wonder how the growth of RPGs would look like when compared to the decline of miniature wargaming (especially of the Historical kind), and before anyone asks I am not talking about pre-paints like Stars Wars: X-Wing or Armada.

 

[aramis erak]

I wonder how the growth of RPGs would look like when compared to the decline of miniature wargaming (especially of the Historical kind), and before anyone asks I am not talking about pre-paints like Stars Wars: X-Wing or Armada.

There are a lot of people still playing minis wargames... Warhammer has a VERY solid base, if one looks at the published sales figures for GW. (I last looked about 2 years ago...) Even with their exceedingly high prices, they're still selling more units than in their visible heyday of the mid-90's. Problem is, they don't consistently release numbers, as they're still privately held.

And there are several competitors... Ion Age, Reaper, Alternative Armies...
Actual historicals are now, and have been since the 80's, a tiny fragment...

Historical board-wargames (Hex-and-counter) are still selling - look at GMT's P500 or at Columbia Games. They aren't the 5000-counter monstrosities of my college years (and that's only a slight exaggeration - several games ran well over 2000 counters. A standard A4 or letter countersheet was over 400 counters, and several games shipped with 3+ such sheets. Federation and Empire ships with over 2100 counters, still. And adds another 3000 in various expansions.

 

[GreyLord]

By 1981, the game had more than 3 million players worldwide. By 2007, that number grew to 6 million, and the numbers keep rising.

So, the last date on that is still 10 years ago.

Source http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/19/tech/gaming-gadgets/dungeons-and-dragons-5th-edition/

Total possible audience is FAR bigger

With the death earlier this year of Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, one of the world's most iconic games became front page news around the world. With a following of over 25 million players worldwide since its conception in the 70s, Dungeons & Dragons has brought the magic and mystery of fantasy roleplaying to a global audience which includes celebrities such as Vin Diesel and Robin Williams. June 7th sees the global launch of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition with the addition of a new online, interactive element, allowing traditional play formats to be enhanced with unique web tools and content. DDI (D&D Interactive) is a suite of tools being rolled out with the launch of 4E, designed to make managing the game a bit easier, and allowing fans to play with one another remotely. The service includes some free elements, as well as some elements available as part of a paid subscription.

Source http://home.nestor.minsk.by/game/news/2008/05/2101.html

The question then, is what counts as the size of our hobby?

Is it relapsed players. Is it ONLY those that are a counted as actively playing the most recent offerings and/or purchasing these things, or is it somewhere in between.

If it is only those who are playing the more recent offerings, the numbers seem to have stayed relatively steady over the past few years so I would estimate somewhere between 4 million and 7 million, with those playing at least monthly somewhere between 3.5 and 6 million.

If it is lapsed players included, I'd say it would be somewhere between 25 million and 30 million.

If we include those who are still playing, though it may be AD&D, D&D (B/X, BECMI, or OD&D), or RPGs that are no longer sold and many who are no longer counted in these surveys because they do not bother with being included in the modern audiences, I'd guestimate that it is somewhere between 10 million and 12 million players.

Those are just guestimates on my part, but I feel the hobby is currently in a time of expansion and we have grown the number of players recently.