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

 

[Parmandur]

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

Probably not: they didn't bring the OGL back until 20q6.

Which ages me wonder: did the OGL put 5E into megaoverdrive...?

 

[Retreater]

lol, I remember the threads about Paizo's announcement. "Damn, I love Paizo but they will be out of business in 6 months without supporting 4E"

I'm trying to remember the big 3PPs who went in to support 4E.
Goodman had a line of 4E. If I remember they had to liquidate their 3.x offerings - which was their initial Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure line. I assume the 4E modules weren't popular enough, so they created their own DCC RPG.
Also, I think EN Publishing did a 4E AP as well - Zeitgeist?
Can you think of any other big supporters of 4E?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I think the chart’s groupings are odd.

“D&D 5E products produced directly by Wizards” = one category.

“D&D 5E products produced by Goodman Games + Darrington” = another category.

Why? What is the defining criterion for this grouping? Is it all WotC licensees? Does it also include those companies’ non-Wizards-licensed “5E compatible” products as well?

Does Pathfinder include non-2E sales, such as their 5E AP conversions and residual 1E sales?

And then, two categories are allotted to Renegade Games, even though they use the same Essence20 system. By that standard, each Wizards campaign world (Spelljammer, Radiant Citadel, etc) could be given its own ranking in the chart.

The grouping seems to stack the results in certain ways.

 

[BigZebra]

I'm trying to remember the big 3PPs who went in to support 4E.
Goodman had a line of 4E. If I remember they had to liquidate their 3.x offerings - which was their initial Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure line. I assume the 4E modules weren't popular enough, so they created their own DCC RPG.
Also, I think EN Publishing did a 4E AP as well - Zeitgeist?
Can you think of any other big supporters of 4E?

Kobold Press did a little 4e. I think some of the first Open Design stuff was actually 4e.
And Zeigeist should be an awesome 4e campaign. I actually bought the first hardback - an enormous book.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I'm trying to remember the big 3PPs who went in to support 4E.
Goodman had a line of 4E. If I remember they had to liquidate their 3.x offerings - which was their initial Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure line. I assume the 4E modules weren't popular enough, so they created their own DCC RPG.
Also, I think EN Publishing did a 4E AP as well - Zeitgeist?
Can you think of any other big supporters of 4E?

Not a big publisher, but Zeitgeist Games made a 4E version of Blackmoor, as a licensee of Wizards. AFAIK, this was the only world-license which continued after 3E. And it shortly ended after Dave’s death.

 

[BRayne]

Haven't the foggiest. Sorry!

IIRC the RPG streaming episode TrooperSJP touched on it a bit?

 

[Dungeonosophy]

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

Probably not: they didn't bring the OGL back until 20q6.

Yes, Licensing Manager Linae Foster was fired.

Game System License - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Jer]

Yes, Licensing Manager Linae Foster was fired.

IIRC that was because the folks at the top had become hostile to the entire idea of open gaming licenses, not because they were punishing her for something. I think she was fired when the guy in charge of the D&D line - who was her boss - was also fired. I also recall hearing that the GSL was an internal compromise between most of the folks at the top after Ryan Dancey left who hated the idea of open gaming at all and a few folks around the D&D brand who knew what a disaster it would be to try to go back to the old TSR way of doing things (which is basically what the folks at the top wanted). And that's how 4e's licensing became the disastrous mess that it remains today.

Fortunately by the 5e roll out the folks at the top had turned over and the new folks who came in understood the open source model from software and understood why trying to go back to the old way of doing things was counterproductive to growing the brand (which is where I think the tension came from - the group of folks who thought the game was the most important thing were the ones were in charge when 4e rolled out, and the group of folks who thought the brand was the most important thing were in charge when 5e rolled out. The branding folks have clearly won that argument.)

 

[darjr]

I think a lot of people were let go or left D&D WotC after 4e.

And during

 

[darjr]

IIRC that was because the folks at the top had become hostile to the entire idea of open gaming licenses, not because they were punishing her for something. I think she was fired when the guy in charge of the D&D line - who was her boss - was also fired. I also recall hearing that the GSL was an internal compromise between most of the folks at the top after Ryan Dancey left who hated the idea of open gaming at all and a few folks around the D&D brand who knew what a disaster it would be to try to go back to the old TSR way of doing things (which is basically what the folks at the top wanted). And that's how 4e's licensing became the disastrous mess that it remains today.

Fortunately by the 5e roll out the folks at the top had turned over and the new folks who came in understood the open source model from software and understood why trying to go back to the old way of doing things was counterproductive to growing the brand (which is where I think the tension came from - the group of folks who thought the game was the most important thing were the ones were in charge when 4e rolled out, and the group of folks who thought the brand was the most important thing were in charge when 5e rolled out. The branding folks have clearly won that argument.)

I’m not sure the 5e OGL was a done deal before or at the roll out of 5e. Yes it was decided it was the way forward at some point but I think the DMSGUILD was a defacto requirement before it could be released. Though I’m not sure it was announced at the same time.