Here is composed of 300,000 posters. Scientific polls do not even reach that sort of representation. Looking at the dates when some accounts were made and how some themes keep coming up in threats (e.g. aligments), I'd say there is a fair share of new people to the game and the hobby here. Granted, the grognard demographics might be more represented, but there are lots of new folk here.
Looking at Amazon charts, the core books are the ones who stay high, not the APs (Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage aren't even APs) or supplements. Newbies attracted to the hobby because of streaming seems to drive those sells. Ashame the products that would root them in the community aren't up to par.
Streaming might just be a fad like many others, so what will drive sells of 5e once that fad passes? Certainly not the products.
That’s 300,000 accounts, not posters. And that’s made over the history of the site, not active forumites. It includes a lot of former posters, lurkers, sock puppet accounts, RP alts, etc.
The site has maybe 2,000-3,000 active posters. (Which is still nothing to sneeze at.) Yes, we’ve gotten a lot of new posters. But not a representative number: three-quarters of the posters here aren’t new.
Compare this to reddit/r/dnd that has 784,230 subscribers with 4,717 online last I checked. And that’s one subreddit of many. See what the posters there are talking about. Compare the conversations.
And looking at the Amazon chart, even the less popular storyline adventures are selling better than Starfinder and Pathfinder, the next most popular game. This means they’re potentially selling better than 4e! Even the old adventures are still selling, which is a dramatic difference from old editions where new products would spike is sales and then vanish, falling out of print. WotC is keeping all their products available now. They’re doing very, very well.
And accessories like
Guide to Everything and
Guide to Monsters continue to sell well. And
Guide to Ravnica is selling very well still.
Meanwhile, streaming games has only grown in popularity over the last two-three years and shows no sign of slowing down. If it is a fad, it’s a long lasting one. (And the Critical Role campaign setting book is also outselling Paizo’s RPGs.)
While the popularity made wax and wane, I doubt people will stop watching altogether.