Compare The Market's Tabletop Gaming Survey

Insurance comparison site Compare The Market recently (January 2025) undertook a survey of about 3,000 people across the US, Canada, and Australia about their tabletop gaming habits.

They found that about 13% of people in the US say they collect and play tabletop RPGs or wargames, followed by 10% in Canada and just under 5% in Australia. About three times as many indicated that they used to play or collect such games.

They also broke the data down by age group, which showed that popularity of tabletop gaming peaked at ages 18-24 and then declined over the decades to the 65+ age group.

Dungeons & Dragons is the most popular tabletop game across all three countries. This was followed by the wargame Kings of War, space skirmish game Star Wars X-Wing, and giant robot battle game Battletech. Call of Cthulhu edged into the top 10 also.

The survey went on to look at expenditure, with the most common response being an annual spend of $100-$200. Check out the survey for the full analysis.

 

[Morrus]

One thing to consider is that the sample sizes get really small if you subdivide the data too low but the numbers above feel representative.

Sample sizes don't need to be that big--it's a pretty tiny number above which percentages don't tend to change (I can attest fro experience; a survey of a few hundred gives a certain percentage, and when it increases to many thousands those percentages don't budge an inch). But 3,000 across 3 countries does sound small to me.

 

[Hussar]

Just out of curiousity, doesn't this dovetail pretty closely with what the demographics we've been seeing for the past twenty or thirty years? Big bloat of players in the 30 (ish) and under crowd and a nearly straight line decrease after that. Does seem about right.

 

[Scribe]

Can someone please explain to me how GW is not on this list.

I'm sorry, but unless the world has flipped upside down (pausing for laughter) I cannot imagine a world where GW games are not at the top of Table Top lists.

 

[payn]

Can someone please explain to me how GW is not on this list.

I'm sorry, but unless the world has flipped upside down (pausing for laughter) I cannot imagine a world where GW games are not at the top of Table Top lists.

A good question. I know x-wing is on there and that game has all but died in the last few years.

 

[Koloth]

Wonder if Pathfinder and others being missing is due to D&D becoming a generic term for role playing games? I know that several times when I have answered a question about "what are you playing?" with 'Pathfinder', I got the stare of "What??". When I added "Think D&D" the comprehension light came on. Similar answer of "D&D in space" when I mean Traveller. And Battletech for any game with mechs on a hex grid.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Sample sizes don't need to be that big--it's a pretty tiny number above which percentages don't tend to change (I can attest fro experience; a survey of a few hundred gives a certain percentage, and when it increases to many thousands those percentages don't budge an inch). But 3,000 across 3 countries does sound small to me.

3000 is plenty. It’s when you start to subdivide and then subdivide again that the sample rate starts to break down.

12.8% of Americans playing tabletop games is now significantly less. They don’t say what percentage were per country of the 3,000 so we don’t know what number we’re looking at. When you start to also split it by age group, the numbers get even smaller.

Thats when the data might be skewed with too low a sample size for any given question.

 

[aiouh]

I'd wager a guess and say that this is a very poor measure for anything related to TTRPG because the list of options is capped at 40 which isn't even close to Collectively Exhaustive when it comes to survey design.

The way I see it, the only thing you can glean from this is that D&D is freaking huge in comparison to other trad games, and its surprisingly popular amongst young folks.

Like the sample size is totally fine, I think the issue of this survey is the question/survey design itself. Which skews the primary data gathered.

If I were to critique a study, my first question would be "What is the list of those 40 games, where there options to put 'Other' or state specific games outside of those 40?"

Second would be

"Did people really mean D&D when they filled out the survey or where there no other options and could it possibly have served as a proxy because it is most similar to the game they actually played?"

Like not showing the 40 games presented in the survey is CRAZY work. Like even Undergrads writing their first thesis draft wouldn't miss that part.

 

[The Soloist]

The way I see it, the only thing you can glean from this is that D&D is freaking huge in comparison to other trad games, and its surprisingly popular amongst young folks.

Bold my emphasis.

I'm not surprised. D&D is learned either from your parent(s), who played when they were young. There are a lot of us who teach them D&D as soon as they are old enough. Or watching streaming shows like Critical Role. Also, Stranger Things on Nextflix had a direct effect on D&D sales.

 

[aiouh]

Bold my emphasis.

I'm not surprised. D&D is learned either from your parent(s), who played when they were young. There are a lot of us who teach them D&D as soon as they are old enough. Or watching streaming shows like Critical Role. Also, Stranger Things on Nextflix had a direct effect on D&D sales.

Yes, that is just my personal blindspot as I am 30 and feel old enough to be exactly out of touch with what 14-21 year olds are doing and feeling but strangely plugged into what the 4-8 age group is into at the moment.

 

[Jimmy Dick]

So they spend the same as you, then?

They obviously spend quite a bit less than I do over the course of a year. I really don't want to buy less for the same amount, nor do I wish to pay more for the same amount. The price hikes from the pandemic disaster have negatively impacted my purchases and the tariffs are just going to add to that problem. So much for cutting taxes. The tariffs are a tax and the consumer is forced to pay them or to not buy the products that have been taxed via the tariffs.