D&D 5E New ORR Group numbers - 5e at 49.10%

[bmfrosty]

Source:
http://blog.roll20.net/post/159952619415/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2017

Our Sample Size grew by 13% this quarter! Thanks once again to our returning users, and welcome to all the new ones.
Given the results of the last few Industry Reports, it will come as a surprise to no one that Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition continues to increase in both player and game activity – this quarter, 49% of Roll20 games were 5E games. Pathfinder continues to hold the second most popular spot, and 3.5E remains in third place.
The FATE series increased in activity this quarter, hopping over GURPS. This may very well have something to do with the new Rollplay show, Nebula Jazz, which uses the FATE Accelerated ruleset.

Looks like 5e is a rounding error away from 50%.

 

[Jester David]

For comparison:



http://blog.roll20.net/post/143493281735/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2016

From this time last year (since it'd be as impacted by the same holidays and such).

19,000 more games and 25,000 more gamers! Looks like Pathfinder increased by 1,300 games and Star Wars by 100. 3.5e, 4e, and World of Darkness all dropped by a couple hundred games.
But the big winner is 5e D&D. While "Other" increased by 200 and "Other Listed" by 2,200 D&D increased by 15,600 games. So of the new games added in the past year, something like 80% were for 5e! That's staggering.

Just look at the past quarter:
http://blog.roll20.net/post/156907010215/the-orr-group-industry-report-q4-2016
In the last four months, D&D jumped by 5000 games and 3% of the games played.

 

[Lanliss]

man, Single handedly holding half the population is no joke. Props to 5E, I can understand why it is at the top, I love it.

 

[Morrus]

The percentage increased drastically once they became an official licensee for D&D and were able to start selling the official D&D adventures (same as what happened when Fantasy Grounds did). I'm not sure we should read anything more than that into it.

It would be interesting to see stats from an independent VTT.

 

[Jester David]

The percentage increased drastically once they became an official licensee for D&D and were able to start selling the official D&D adventures (same as what happened when Fantasy Grounds did). I'm not sure we should read anything more than that into it.

It would be interesting to see stats from an independent VTT.

The "official" aspect is a fair point. I don't see a "drastic spike" though.
Q4 2015 had the percentage of games as 31%. It rose to 35% in Q1 2016, 39% in Q2, 44% in Q3, 46% in Q4, and now 49% in Q1 2017. It's fairly steady in growth, other than the dip in Q4, but the announcement of the license would have taken place at the very end of Q2.

Looking at the rest of 2015, D&D started at 25% before slowly creeping to 27 and then 31 and hovering at that number. So it could be argued being official has helped Roll20 sustain its growth. But D&D still had an unrelated spike of growth for half a year prior.

We don't know for certain, but regardless D&D is doing well.

 

[iserith]

Wow, D&D 4e at only 2.08% - that explains why I struggled a little to find some pickup players to fill up my D&D 4e one-shot.

 

[darjr]

Try a gamma world D&D 4e game.

 

[iserith]

Try a gamma world D&D 4e game.

Love that game. I have one in the can on Roll20 - "A Book of Eli's" wherein the PCs are tasked with taking Eli's porno mag to a safe place in Boca Raton.

 

[Oofta]

That is good, and not terribly surprising. It's a great game.

As long as they don't screw it up by <rant class="sarcastic">releasing the wrong version of Greyhawk/not releasing more mods/releasing too many mods/publishing something from that one UA article I hated/let the people most directly involved in writing 5E do anything/...</rant>

 

[happyhermit]

The percentage increased drastically once they became an official licensee for D&D and were able to start selling the official D&D adventures (same as what happened when Fantasy Grounds did). ...

Did it though? I have heard that said but I don't really see it in the numbers. I am sure it got a boost but the trajectory seems largely unchanged, would be interesting to see it graphed out.