Is D&D Entering a New Golden Age?

Sales of the hobby game market are on the rise, with tabletop role-playing games increasing along with other tabletop games. With a new Wizards of the Coast CEO in place who values Dungeons & Dragons as much as Magic: The Gathering and a movie on the horizon, we're starting to see signs that D&D is doing very well indeed.

Picture courtesy of Unsplash.​

The Hobby Market is Doing Well​

ICv2 reported that the hobby market is hitting eye-popping numbers:

Sales of hobby games in the U.S. and Canada topped $1.4 billion in 2016, reaching $1.44 billion, according to a new estimate compiled by ICv2 and reported in Internal Correspondence #92. That’s a 21% total growth rate over 2015, with rates of change ranging from 17% for the slowest-growing category to 29% for the fastest-growing. Growth rates were pulled higher by more rapid growth of hobby games in the mass channel, especially in collectible, board, and card & dice games.

Of those categories, collectible games grew the most, followed by hobby board games and role-playing games. Role-playing games increased the most, by 29%, from $35 million to $45 million. Of the top five RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and Pathfinder retained their first and second position, respectively.

Ancillary RPG markets are doing well too, like non-collectible miniatures. Non-collectible miniature sales were up from $175 million to $205 million, a 17% increase. Star Wars X-Wing led the charge, followed by Warhammer 40K and D&D's Nolzur's Marvels Minis, high-quality unpainted miniatures produced by Wizkids.

Unsurprisingly, Hasbro is benefiting from this bump.

Hasbro's Games Are Doing Well​

Hasbro topped $5 billion in revenue for the first time:

Net revenues for the full-year 2016 increased 13% to $5.02 billion versus $4.45 billion in 2015. Excluding a negative $61.0 million impact from foreign exchange, 2016 revenues increased 14%. As reported net earnings for the full-year 2016 increased 22% to $551.4 million, or $4.34 per diluted share, compared to $451.8 million, or $3.57 per diluted share in 2015. Adjusted net earnings for the full-year 2016 were $566.1 million, or $4.46 per diluted share. Adjusted 2016 earnings exclude a pre-tax $32.9 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, non-cash fourth quarter goodwill impairment charge related to Backflip Studios. Adjusted full-year 2016 net earnings compares to 2015 adjusted net earnings of $445.0 million, or $3.51 per diluted share, which exclude a pre-tax gain of $9.6 million from the sale of the Company's manufacturing operations in East Longmeadow, MA and Waterford, Ireland.

Hasbro gaming increased by 23%, reflecting the hobby games market trends:

Hasbro's total gaming category, including all gaming revenue, most notably MAGIC: THE GATHERING and MONOPOLY, totaled $518.7 million for the fourth quarter 2016, up 11%, and $1,387.1 million, up 9%, for the full year 2016. Hasbro believes its gaming portfolio is a competitive differentiator and views it in its entirety.

Note that last sentence. Hasbro experienced a decline in Magic: The Gathering sales, and it's likely the leadership team was eager to share other good news in its gaming segment. That would turn out to be beneficial for D&D.

D&D is Doing Well​

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner did something unusual -- he mentioned Dungeons & Dragons on an investor call. For years, D&D has been overshadowed by Magic: The Gathering's success when Hasbro reported out Wizards of the Coast's wins to investors. The shout-out alone on the Q1 investor call says something about D&D's success:

I also am very happy to see very strong growth for brands like DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and Duel Masters. So, the team at (46:34) has gone to a new storytelling modality for MAGIC and, obviously, impacted the quarter. But they've also done some very good work around DUNGEONS and storytelling and in engagement with that audience. So overall, I would expect that our face-to-face gaming business will continue to perform at a high level and the team's done an absolutely stellar job at both the social media oriented games, as well as some more of our classic games.

Hasbro seems to have a renewed interest in what they term "face-to-face" and "social" games, thanks to its launch of the Hasbro Gaming Crate that focuses on getting people to play together -- a staple of D&D. This is of course Wizards of the Coast's specialty. Investors are noticing.

Jim Cramer on Mad Money led the segment with an old D&D commercial and mentioned the RPG along with Star Wars as brands that allow Hasbro to "bring imagination to life." Cramer interviewed Goldner, who had some nice things to say about D&D:

...and our games business, a raft of great games. Dungeons & Dragons up 50%, Monopoly was of course up, and then of course Magic: The Gathering was up. So great strength in games, 6% growth, 20% growth in the gaming category overall...both Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons are on our Twitch programming... Dungeons & Dragons did a very special Twitch channel that they launched with the fans. We've had millions of views on Twitch around Dungeons & Dragons. We're seeing the brand really in resurgence.

So what does this mean for the future of D&D?

The Future of D&D​

D&D's demographics have shifted, according to the Daily News, with more female and older players:

While Wizards of the Coast, which manages the D&D franchise, won't share sales figures, reps tell the Daily News that Millennials (ages 25 to 34) presently make up the largest group of D&D players, followed closely by those aged 35 to 44 and 18 to 24 — and up to 30% of these gamers are girls.

The success of Pathfinder, the Old School Renaissance, mainstream fantasy media, and the nostalgia of gamer kids reaching the 35 to 44 age range in creative fields like movies and television is likely a major factor in the renewed interest in D&D. Todd Kenreck explains on Forbes:

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won 11 Oscars in 2004. 16 million people watched the premiere of season 7 of Game of Thrones this year. A serious interest in cinematic fantasy storytelling has steadily reached a fevered pitch and with the game D&D itself seeing a tremendous resurgence, this the perfect time for a Dungeons & Dragons movie or series that puts acting and story first. Like comic books before them, D&D the role-playing game is filled with stories, art, characters and world building that have been largerly left unused by television or film...The game has had impact on so many of the writers, actors, directors and show-runners making television and film today that is might not be a matter of if, but when.

Will Joe Manganiello pull off a film that does D&D justice? A confluence of events -- the rise of social gaming, nostalgia for D&D, and the increasing accessibility of the D&D brand thanks to live streaming -- might be the perfect time for him to pull it off.

 

[Emerikol]

I'm to the point where I create my own game from elements of old D&D editions which amazingling resembles early D&D a lot. I just streamline it a little and I avoid a million rules. DM can adjudicate.

I didn't buy 5e exactly because of these "modern gamist" elements that got added. I thought they wiffed on catering to all sides on hit points. So I just decided not to give them my money on this edition. I love D&D in the abstract but I guess I'm just an old timer.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't buy cities or campaign settings just for the fluff and ideas. I tend to create my own worlds but I'm by nature a cannibalizer of stuff from all over the place. I'm over the hate. Just acceptance at this point. I doubt I join the next discussion on 6e when it comes out.

 

[Hussar]

No Golden Age for D and D 5e.....Its a dinosaur of an edition/game that specifically is built contrary, and as a reaction to, modern Gamist principles - despite its self serving and self proclaimed label as "The Edition for Everyone". Its sloppy, inconsistent, imbalanced, and fluffy.
/snip

/snip

I didn't buy 5e exactly because of these "modern gamist" elements that got added. I thought they wiffed on catering to all sides on hit points. So I just decided not to give them my money on this edition. I love D&D in the abstract but I guess I'm just an old timer.
/snip

LOL. Now this is funny.

 

[Shasarak]

Umm, you realize that at the tail end of 2e, TSR was banging out tons of supplements.

And they went out of business.

Number of supplements =/= health of the hobby.

And in pure sales terms, I wouldn't be surprised to see 5e selling more total books/year (as in add together all sales per year) than any other edition than possibly 1st for the age of the edition. Let's not forget that 3e by this point had tanked so badly that they brought out 3.5 a year or two early. 3.5 tanked so hard that they had to bring out 4e two years early. The fact that they are doing that with a handful of titles is just icing on the cake.

It is always good when an insider gives us a look at the numbers of what is actually being sold.

 

[Jhaelen]

*blinks* Am I seeing 'Micronauts' there? Now, that's a blast from the past! When I was about six I was totally crazy for these guys. So awesome!!!

 

[DM Howard]

It doesn't feel like a new "Golden Age of D&D" to me, but maybe I'm just not tapped in to the market/target market segments as much anymore.

I DO see lots of videos about D&D 5th Edition on YouTube.
I DO see lots of internet traffic/discussion on sites like EN World about 5th Edition.
I DO see a healthy stock of 5th Edition books on book store shelves.
I DO see a lot of good (and bad) 5th Edition content coming out on the Dungeon Master's Guild.

I DON'T see the game being played when I go down to my LFGS and I would often see multiple 3.0/3.5 games being played, and I don't see an enormous uptick in play of 5th Edition in my city.
I DON'T see many products coming out that I (Very personal opinion, of course!) care about. I miss source books, campaign settings, and compendiums of spells and magical items.
I DON'T see magazines on book store shelves, the likes of DUNGEON and DRAGON.
I DON"T see more novels being published based on the game worlds we all know and love.
I DON'T see a focus on WOTC's part to foster the tabletop game, they simply want to milk the brand for all it is worth.

Golden Age for D&D? You be the judge, but I think not. I feel that the 3.0/3.5 era of D&D was much closer to the near-mythical idea of a Golden Age than 5th Edition is/will be. WOTC has swung the pendulum too far in the direction of content sparse and community content generation than they should have. The game, to me, says much but accomplishes little that earlier editions, including 4th Edition, do better. I suppose I have officially crossed over into the realm of Grognard now!

I'm going home for lunch, and I'll whisper sweet nothings to my 3.5 reprints.

The above is what I would have said if someone had asserted that D&D might be entering a new golden age, and I think many of my concerns are still pretty valid, but they don't really reflect upon the quality of the game itself. 5th Edition is great, it strikes a good middle ground, and hopefully something like Xanathar's Guide to Everything will help out in this regard by illustrating ways that each group can further customize the skeleton of 5E to their own tastes while still feeling very recognizable to the random 5E player off the street.

I would still love a proper DUNGEON and/or DRAGON magazine in digital format that had more of a focus on the tabletop rather than being a brand mouthpiece like DRAGON+, and I would like to see a little bit more transparency in terms of what the direction the game is going instead of being secret-squirrel-club like Games Workshop used to do with their release schedules.

I think there is a lot to congratulate WOTC over, when it comes to 5th Edition, but there are also areas that are supremely lacking. I understand that many people enjoy the glacial release schedule, but it seems that they are trying to use the Dungeon Master's Guild as a substitute rather than an accessory to their own releases. It's like when a developer for a sandbox MMORPG excuses lack of content by saying that players are the content. *facepalm*

 

[Emerikol]

LOL. Now this is funny.

Yeah it's kind of how it is...when you split the difference with everybody. It's okay apparently it's working for them. This edition is very popular. I will just build my own using what I like is all I'm saying. I don't care that much what they do.

I'm sure a game that was perfect for shoak1 would be intolerable for me.

 

[GrahamWills]

And, middle-school to college age was the prime demographic for D&D, so it's not like D&D is bringing 25-44 year-olds into the hobby, right now - they probably started anything up to 30 years prior. (Though, I guess these days, 34yo may still 'be college age.')

Here, it skews quite old. Nice to see we're not as representative as feared.

So, the article says that 25-34 are the most common with the next younger and older cohorts just slightly less. That is *exactly* the same as the overall US population (e.g. https://knoema.com/egyydzc/us-population-by-age-and-generation) for the under 50 demographic. So there's zero evidence it's attracting anyone in particular, and a much better message would be "baby boomers play D&D less than other age cohorts".

I think we might actually be old ...

 

[Tony Vargas]

So, the article says that 25-34 are the most common with the next younger and older cohorts just slightly less. That is *exactly* the same as the overall US population (e.g. https://knoema.com/egyydzc/us-population-by-age-and-generation) for the under 50 demographic. So there's zero evidence it's attracting anyone in particular, and a much better message would be "baby boomers play D&D less than other age cohorts".

Yeah, that's fair. The height of the fad was as the last cohort of boomers was aging out of the prime get-into-gaming demographic.

Then again, there were so effing many of them...

 

[Rygar]

Umm, you realize that at the tail end of 2e, TSR was banging out tons of supplements.

And they went out of business.

Number of supplements =/= health of the hobby.

And in pure sales terms, I wouldn't be surprised to see 5e selling more total books/year (as in add together all sales per year) than any other edition than possibly 1st for the age of the edition. Let's not forget that 3e by this point had tanked so badly that they brought out 3.5 a year or two early. 3.5 tanked so hard that they had to bring out 4e two years early. The fact that they are doing that with a handful of titles is just icing on the cake.

This argument comes up fairly often in one form or another, there are two things that happened in the past.

1. TSR made a lot of supplements/settings.
2. TSR went bankrupt.

People continuously point at #1 as the cause of #2, but I have yet to see any evidence to support that conclusion. What is needed is:

1. Total number of sales per product (By supplement and setting)
2. Total number of units produced for each of those products
3. Cost of those units
4. Sales price of those units
5. Definitive survey showing that people who bought Setting Product A would have bought Setting Product B if A did not exist. (The argument that too many settings fragments sales)

Quite frankly, I suspect that the reason TSR went bankrupt was because they were overproducing (Given stories of warehouses full of discontinued product when WOTC took over) and poor pricing strategies. I suspect that the number of supplements and settings has very little to do with TSR's bankruptcy, as that would mean that all of the 3PP and all of DriveThruRPG are all not working. Those are all nothing but supplements and settings, so I am very confused how too many supplements/settings are bad for D&D, made TSR bankrupt, and would kill D&D...except they're perfectly viable and workable business strategies if your name isn't TSR/WOTC.

 

[Hussar]

You realize that even the gold level sales on DrivetThruRPG would be considered as a complete and utter failure by either TSR or WotC right? Anything under about 10000 sales isn't even worth attempting for a company that size. There's a reason that WotC leaves that for other people to do.

And, really? Many supplements are a perfectly viable business strategy for other companies? Even Paizo puts out a fraction of what TSR was producing per year. And no one else comes even close. Heck, most games that aren't D&D see what, 2 maybe 3 supplements per year?