ICv2 Reports On RPGs Growth This Year

ICv2 has published its latest quarterly hobby channel game rankings for Spring 2022. The Top 5 contains D&D twice (once from WotC, and once from third parties Goodman Games and Darrington Press/Critical Role), along with two licensed Hasbro (owner of WotC) properties, plus Pathfinder.

"RPGs are the story of the year so far," a hobby distributor told ICv2. "D&D’s king by leaps and bounds, don’t get me wrong, but the number of RPGs that were [significant contributors to] sales was 40 different brands."

The chart is based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. As always you can see the compiled chart going back to 2004 here.

RPGs the 'Story of the Year'

Explosive Growth in Players, Sales

icv2.com

 

[teitan]

I've been eyeballing the Tal'dorei book. I remember seeing the first print at BAM and regret not getting it. This one is supposedly updated and bigger.

It is, and it is HUGE compared to the original. It is about the size of Eberron vs SCAG. A lot of reused artwork and some copypasta but still wonderfully done and the PDF even has some neat little lightning effects going on when you change pages.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I must say that it does feel weird to group together 3rd-party stuff for D&D as one entry, and also surpised that Pathfinder has stayed at a high place for so long. Not surprised over Power Rangers and GI Joe, they are both new games, and rides hard on the nostalgia factor. I doubt they will be there for long.

 

[teitan]

Another thing:

Though Renegade Game Studios firmly denied that Essence20 was in any way a playtest for 6E, it would be folly for Wizards to not take the success of the Essence20 games into account when designing 6E, whether that be in 2024, or some years down the road.

Because, despite the great success of D&D 5E, it says a lot when your own Hasbro licensee basically refuses to use the system due to its over-complicatedness vis-a-vis the totally fresh, “non-rpg savvy” group of consumers which those lines are targeting.

Renegade originally announced they we using 5E, but they later changed their tune, probably after playtests with new consumers indicated that 5E just wouldn’t fly.

Essence20 is still quite similar to 5E. Its four attributes are clearly collapsed versions of the six D&D attributes. And its skill list even uses the same names, but likewise collapses outlying D&D mechanics (e.g. initiative) into the skill list as well.

I’m not suggesting that 6E (whenever it comes) will have less than six attributes, but except for that, the rest of Essence20 could very well serve as 6E as-is, right out of the gate.

Methinks someone wasn't around during 3.x when people were also putting out OGL games and making their own games like Mutants & Masterminds, Spycraft, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, Arcana Evolved, etc that essentially tore down 3.x era D&D and built whole new games from them, especially M&M or that the OSR was constructed based on that whole concept of the OGL allowing for people to take the SRD and rebuild their favorite games from childhood and new games like WHite Star or Zweihander. It's not new, people have been doing it since M&M showed what the OGL and D20 mechanics can do and some of the best games today were birthed in that era like DCC, M&M, Pathfinder...

 

[teitan]

It means they are strong within their niche, a niche which has seen remarkable growth over the last few years, but, in the grand scheme of things, a very small niche.

The question, it seems to me, is how much power (external to the quality of their product) they can wield within that niche. Are the retailers who sell D&D exclusively doing so because it's part of the contract with D&D, or is it because it's the only TTRPG that they can reliably sell? Do we think that D&D has sufficient power in their negotiations with their distributors to successfully bake that into their agreements?

I doubt it. Frankly, I just do not think there are a lot of businesses that are that reliant on TTRPG sales. Amazon sure isn't. Other bookstores aren't. Comic shops aren't. Maybe some FLGSs might be, but not any that I've seen. Perhaps some VTTs are, but at that point we're at a niche within a niche.

D&D is doing very well. That does not mean that D&D is very strong.

We know that WOTC makes up half of Hasbro's operating income with essentially 2 IP, MTG and D&D. We also know D&D is massive now so it's not "niche" at this time, hitting best sellers lists including NYT. WOTC topped 816 million in 2020 and reported continued growth numbers this year. They reported over 50 million D&D players NOW worldwide.

 

[teitan]

I honestly wonder if whoever made that decision got fired after Paizo announced Pathfinder....

Considering that the market fracture started with the OSR before 4e launched and Pathfinder wasn't overtaking 4e except in the months that 4e didn't have products until the end of its lifecycle I doubt it would have impacted them. D&D 4e wasn't canned because of Pathfinder or even loss of market share, it was canned because it didn't hit the expected sales goal that Hasbro set for it to become a "core brand" which is a tag they put on IP they expect to his more than 50 million (in 2008 money) a year in profit and those brands were earmarked with unlimited budgets for product development. WOTC developed a huge marketing and product strategy for 4e and failed to deliver on all fronts within the timeframe allotted for core brand development and the budget was slashed. Usually they put the IP on ice for a few years and then relaunch it years later, while doing soft products like anniversary products, one off collectors pieces (sound familiar anniversary edition core rulebooks and special edition adventures with D&D next playtests?) that have low cost development cycles and small teams. While 4e was operating it was always shy of that 50 million and hampered by Hasbro not letting them include licensing, novel sales (didn't have the D&D logo on Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels after all) and other periphery things. When 5e launched they had a small budget, small staff, small (still) release schedule compared to any non 1e era in D&D history. None of that was because Paizo and Pathfinder. It was failure to be able to deliver on the plan and most of it wasn't really the development team's fault as DDI fell apart due to tragic events and was such an integral aspect to 4e, the product was rushed to market, Essentials should have been the final product but 3.5 sales had started to collapse under the weight of the bloat. PAthfinder certainly rejuvenated 3.5 players but the OSR started the cracks in the ship. Pathfinder was popular enough to catch the people as Hasbro crippled the ship that was 4e.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Methinks someone wasn't around during 3.x when people were also putting out OGL games and making their own games like Mutants & Masterminds, Spycraft, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, Arcana Evolved, etc that essentially tore down 3.x era D&D and built whole new games from them, especially M&M or that the OSR was constructed based on that whole concept of the OGL allowing for people to take the SRD and rebuild their favorite games from childhood and new games like WHite Star or Zweihander. It's not new, people have been doing it since M&M showed what the OGL and D20 mechanics can do and some of the best games today were birthed in that era like DCC, M&M, Pathfinder...

Methinks someone missed the point. None of those games you listed were Hasbro-licensees!

Methinks I’ll spell it out for you my good fellow. To make a parallel example, it would as if in, say, in the year 2006 (when 4e was first announced, two years before its 2008 release) Hasbro licensed out their MTG IP and Axis & Allies IP to another RPG studio, and that studio announced they were going to use D&D 3.5e (or at least the 3.5 SRD d20 system).

But then a few months later, they say: “f**k that, we’re going to make our own system called Essence20, which only has four attributes, and which is mechanically a lot more streamlined than 3.5e/d20. Because we found through playtesting, that our target audience—the vast world of MTG and A&A players who’ve never played D&D before—was f***king stumped by the gigantic and complex rulebook and legacy quirks of 3.5e.”

And then MTG and Axis and Allies become two of the top five sellers in the RPG market.

At that time, an ENWorld member (a 2006 version of myself) suggests that it would be wise for Wizards to take note of this highly successful Essence20 system (which licensees of Hasbro produced, in conscious defiance of D&D 3.5) as they prepare the groundwork for the upcoming 4th edition.

Methinks another ENWorld member strolls by and not only misses the point, but also makes personal inferences about the OP’s longevity which are off the mark and kinda irksome.

 

[Parmandur]

Methinks someone missed the point. None of those games you listed were Wizards-licensees!

Mithinks I’ll spell it out for you my good fellow. To make a parallel example, it would as if in, say, in the year 2006 (when 4e was first announced, two years before its 2008 release) Wizards licensed out their MTG IP and Axis & Allies IP to another RPG studio, and that studio announced they were going to use D&D 3.5e (or at least the 3.5 SRD d20 system).

But then a few months later, they say: “f**k that, we’re going to make our own system called Essence20, which only has four attributes, and which is mechanically a lot more streamlined than 3.5e/d20. Because we found through playtesting, that our target audience—the vast world of MTG and A&A players who’ve never played D&D before—was f***king stumped by the gigantic and complex rulebook and legacy quirks of 3.5e.”

And then MTG and Axis and Allies become two of the top five sellers in the RPG market.

At that time, an ENWorld member (a 2006 version of myself) suggests that it would be wise for Wizards to take note of this highly successful Essence20 system (which their own licensees produced, in conscious defiance of D&D 3.5) as they prepare the groundwork for the upcoming 4th edition.

Methinks another ENWorld member strolls by and not only misses the point, but also makes personal inferences about the OP’s longevity which are off the mark and kinda irksome.

Hasbro licensee, not WotC.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Hasbro licensee, not WotC.

Right. I will correct it in the post.

 

[Gammadoodler]

We know that WOTC makes up half of Hasbro's operating income with essentially 2 IP, MTG and D&D. We also know D&D is massive now so it's not "niche" at this time, hitting best sellers lists including NYT. WOTC topped 816 million in 2020 and reported continued growth numbers this year. They reported over 50 million D&D players NOW worldwide.

Random googling (grains of salt)..

Global streaming market.. $59 billion
Global publishing market.. $110 billion
Global movie theater market.. $60 billion
Global gaming market.. $200 billion.
Global toy market..$129 billion

Global tabletop market (which includes board games like Monopoly and Life with rpgs)...$7 billion

This is what I mean by niche market. Slightly more than 10% of the nearest comp and that's lumped in with other board games.

I agree WotC is doing great and the hobby is likely more popular than its ever been. But there's still a long way to go before it's no longer niche (imho).

 

[darjr]

True. But at the rate the PHB is selling it might be headed there. Or at least a lot bigger.