Fantasy Grounds Top RPGs (Last 12 Months)

Fantasy Grounds has sent along its latest figures for RPG rulesets used in the last 12 months. 5E dominates with 70%, of course (up by 1%); Pathfinder 2E has snuck onto the chart at 6th place (though it's only been available for a couple of months), and Starfinder has taken 4th place.

As always, "MoreCore" is FG's default generic module used when there isn't a specific game package available.

 

[aramis erak]

I got to think this is a high water mark for this edition. It can't get higher than 70% can it?

At one point, AD&D1E was 90% of all RPG sales worldwide... it's unlikely to ever get that high again, due to Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, DCU, and other longstanding licensed settings that draw new players from outside the natural word of mouth.

I don't think it will ever exceed 75% again on sales. If it eve

Noting that D&D 5E is poorly represented outside the english-speaking world (it took several years for translations to be authorized

Why? 4E is a dead RPG. PF2 just came out.
That so many are still playing a dead RPG compared to something that just came out speaks highly of the dead RPG.

Roll20 and FG have different featuresets, and different usage profiles for various games and editions...

Roll20 shows more 4E players than AD&D 1&2 combined, while FG shows way more AD&D players than 4E players. Probably because Roll20 has better 4E oriented assets than FG.

Curious that L5R and Genesys don't show up. I see Star Wars.

Not really. Genesys and star wars are close enough that the star wars featureset is likely being employed by Genesys players.

L5R 5e has little online play presence... I like it, it's a good engine... but it's a case of a fanbase divided sharply by the new mechanics.

 

[aramis erak]

They do not have dedicated rulesets. Therefore people playing them on FG will either be using CoreRPG or MoreCore.

Or the FFG Star Wars one, if it allows custom skills added. Stats are the same. Skill list is very similar. Dice are different symbols, but the same meanings and distributions.

 

[ad_hoc]

Sure. It could be 100% in a single day all that fantasy grounds needs do is stop supporting other systems -- remember this is not a graph of "how many people play system X"; this is a chart of "how many people play system X using a single online method".

There is almost certainly a high correlation between the two questions, but it's not 100%. D&D is particularly good for online play; as a data point, from an online point of view, 100% of my play is D&D. However, it's actually about 10% of my total gaming.

Systems that are better F2F, like Fate for example, will be represented poorly.

T

I think the opposite is true.

I think the percentage of people playing 5e on actual tables is much higher than it shows online.

Online is probably more populated with hobby gamers looking for others that play their favourite games.

5e is largely comprised of previously non-hobby gamers. I think a big boost of its popularity is the attraction of being away from a screen.

It occupies the same space as boardgames, only with more talking.

 

[GrahamWills]

I think the percentage of people playing 5e on actual tables is much higher than it shows online.

Well, we can all conjecture without evidence, but if you look at the proportion of people playing 5E at conventions, it is much lower than the numbers for online. If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.

Obviously we can't be sure, but what info is available suggests that online play over-empahsizes 5E. Anyone who has contrary information, I'd sincerely like to hear it

 

[Parmandur]

Well, we can all conjecture without evidence, but if you look at the proportion of people playing 5E at conventions, it is much lower than the numbers for online. If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.

Obviously we can't be sure, but what info is available suggests that online play over-empahsizes 5E. Anyone who has contrary information, I'd sincerely like to hear it

What are you talking about in terms of sales? Every indication I've seen locally and in general indicates a ratio of sales compared to the industry comparable if not higher than the virtual tabletop numbers.

 

[darjr]

Convention play isn’t down as far as I can tell. A well run local convention had to recruit more DMs then they planned to fill the need. They started with 9 tables.

Gameholecon is scheduled 100 tables for their AL epic. That’s just the epic. I think there are many tables at the same time not in the epic. And if things go like they have in the past they’ll have quite a few last minute tables to fill.

 

[Morrus]

If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.

What does that mean?

 

[GrahamWills]

If you look at the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry, it is much lower than online.

What does that mean?

Wizards of the Coast sold over $31 million in print units across the 18-month period between May 2017 and October 2018, according to Bookstat. So that would give annual sales of about $22 million. Digital adds only $1m, so $23 total. Total RPG sales (ICV2 data) is $65 million.

So, the raw numbers show that D&D has 33% of sales, a vastly lower proportion than the portion of online games being played on roll20 -- hence my statement that the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry is much lower than the proportion of online games that are 5e.

Now these are pretty vague numbers -- Bookstat might be reporting sales outside the US/Canada whereas the ICV2 data is US/Canada only, so 33% may be too high (I have to depend on Forbes' reporting of Bookstat info as I am not a member). On the other hand the total ICV2 data likely includes a ton of stuff which is system agnostic (miniatures, maps, dice bags, etc.). Heck Dwarven forge is probably a noticeable part of that

But even if you assume that a third of all gamer sales is system agnostic (which seems high to me) we're still only seeing D&D at about the 50% mark --much lower than online proportions.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm surprised AD&D was more than 4e. 4e isn't my jam, but I understand how a lot of people prefer it, and I'd think more would than AD&D. I mean, a virtual tabletop for the version of D&D that is all about the tabletop seems like a match.

I guess as implied above, FG just isn't the best platform for 4e players to use

Regarding virtual vs in person, this is totally anecdotal, but my virtual groups long died away and my in person gaming groups picked up. FWIW. IME, virtual groups had a lot more cancellations and whatnot.

 

[Parmandur]

Wizards of the Coast sold over $31 million in print units across the 18-month period between May 2017 and October 2018, according to Bookstat. So that would give annual sales of about $22 million. Digital adds only $1m, so $23 total. Total RPG sales (ICV2 data) is $65 million.

So, the raw numbers show that D&D has 33% of sales, a vastly lower proportion than the portion of online games being played on roll20 -- hence my statement that the proportion of money spent on 5e compared to the overall industry is much lower than the proportion of online games that are 5e.

Now these are pretty vague numbers -- Bookstat might be reporting sales outside the US/Canada whereas the ICV2 data is US/Canada only, so 33% may be too high (I have to depend on Forbes' reporting of Bookstat info as I am not a member). On the other hand the total ICV2 data likely includes a ton of stuff which is system agnostic (miniatures, maps, dice bags, etc.). Heck Dwarven forge is probably a noticeable part of that

But even if you assume that a third of all gamer sales is system agnostic (which seems high to me) we're still only seeing D&D at about the 50% mark --much lower than online proportions.

Bookstat tracks online bookstore orders, which is a different dataset from ICV2: doesn't include FLGS sales, among other things.