D&D 5E (2024) Is WOTC done publishing campaigns?

[bedir than]

btw - the number of fans of baseball globally is about 500 million, much larger than the 80-85 claim WotC makes about D&D.

Most Popular Sports in the World by Fans | Top 10 List (2025)

Soccer/Football is the world's most popular sport with 3.5 billion fans! Fact-checked & updated top 10 list of the most popular sports by number of fans worldwide (2025).

www.topendsports.com

PlayStation has 120+ million monthly users, a much stricter term than number of fans

Nintendo sold nearly a billion game consoles/handhelds globally.

Nintendo History

Nintendo System History provides detailed info on Nintendo handhelds and consoles: NES, Game Boy, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Pokémon mini, GBA SP, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Micro, DS Lite, Wii, Nintendo DSi and DSi XL.

www.nintendo.com

There's no one using similar metrics suggesting D&D is close to that -- not WotC, not a fan on these boards

 

[GreyLord]

btw - the number of fans of baseball globally is about 500 million, much larger than the 80-85 claim WotC makes about D&D.

Most Popular Sports in the World by Fans | Top 10 List (2025)

Soccer/Football is the world's most popular sport with 3.5 billion fans! Fact-checked & updated top 10 list of the most popular sports by number of fans worldwide (2025).

www.topendsports.com

PlayStation has 120+ million monthly users, a much stricter term than number of fans

Nintendo sold nearly a billion game consoles/handhelds globally.

Nintendo History

Nintendo System History provides detailed info on Nintendo handhelds and consoles: NES, Game Boy, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Pokémon mini, GBA SP, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Micro, DS Lite, Wii, Nintendo DSi and DSi XL.

www.nintendo.com

There's no one using similar metrics suggesting D&D is close to that -- not WotC, not a fan on these boards

Baseballs world series was viewed by a little more than 30 million people.

We are talking about the Playstation 3 (which had doom and gloom all over it by many at the time).

We are talking about Nintendo in the 80s and early 90s...which yes, had a large number of fans.

However, with these things I am going by HARD numbers. Not statements, HARD evidence. There IS evidence to support the numbers of things sold and used which reflects an actual amount.

WotC's numbers of items sold (let's take you numbers at face value for the Playstation...with close to 86 million PS5's sold, 120+ monthly users is a far closer sell through rate than anything WotC shows in relation to anything close to their numbers. Where are the 40 million PHB's sold? Where are the 40 million Beyond accounts? Their hard numbers do not support the soft numbers that I am hearing about how many fans they have.

 

[bedir than]

Baseballs world series was viewed by a little more than 30 million people.

Yes, there are many more fans of a singular sport than watch a single game of its championship. That's true for all fandoms.

Someone could like the Seattle Mariners, a baseball team, and not watch the World Series for example.

Just as someone could really like Basic D&D so they don't buy 2024 and still be a fan of D&D.

Fandom definitions in marketing ignore the gates trying to be kept here.

 

[Reynard]

For this tangent, I am deeply ashamed.

The point is the customer base is much larger than it has ever been, and that should mean we actually get a greater variety of products because no single product has to sell to everyone to maintain profitability. But we aren't getting that.

 

[GreyLord]

Yes, there are many more fans of a singular sport than watch a single game of its championship. That's true for all fandoms.

Someone could like the Seattle Mariners, a baseball team, and not watch the World Series for example.

Just as someone could really like Basic D&D so they don't buy 2024 and still be a fan of D&D.

Fandom definitions in marketing ignore the gates trying to be kept here.

So, by that logic, D&D Beyond should have at LEAST over 100 million Beyond accounts...right?

I only asked for half of that number...but by your metrics that you are telling me...The hard evidence is even more skewed and pointing to less than 20 million fans...much less 50 to 80 million.

Once again, give me the HARD evidence...not some fanciful number some WotC PR made up to try to build hype. Real hard numbers and real hard evidence is how you get movies that make over half a billion. Fake hype built up to make a fanbase excited is how you give someone too much money to make a movie which loses money at the box office because you believe the fake hype rather than the hard numbers.

 

[GreyLord]

For this tangent, I am deeply ashamed.

The point is the customer base is much larger than it has ever been, and that should mean we actually get a greater variety of products because no single product has to sell to everyone to maintain profitability. But we aren't getting that.

I can get behind that idea.

 

[bedir than]

So, by that logic, D&D Beyond should have at LEAST over 100 million Beyond accounts...right?

I only asked for half of that number...but by your metrics that you are telling me...The hard evidence is even more skewed and pointing to less than 20 million fans...much less 50 to 80 million.

by the logic of "there are many more fans than people who experience a single expression of a brand/hobby" you think there should be fewer fans?

You've read real data and reached the exact opposite conclusion of anyone with any experience in brand metrics.

 

[GreyLord]

by the logic of "there are many more fans than people who experience a single expression of a brand/hobby" you think there should be fewer fans?

You've read real data and reached the exact opposite conclusion of anyone with any experience in brand metrics.

No, but you were relating numbers viewing Baseball's last Championship 30 million vs. a lot more fans as per your statements, as well as Playstations digital signups vs. sales (120 vs. 85M+) which indicates that digital signups and indications of those items should be far higher than listed numbers.

I wasn't even going for that. I'm looking for hard numbers (backed up evidence that can be supported by tally sheets, etc) and would be somewhat believing with numbers far lower than that (ones that I said I should see at a minimum, or something similar to back up the statements regarding the numbers of fans).

My assumptions on that aren't that high a bar in relation to many other things. 40 million digital accounts should not be that high a bar to pass if one actually has 80 million fans (that means half or less of those supposed "fans" even care to sign up!). 40 million copies of a required rulebook to play a game should not be that high of a bar to pass. Even if we take a standard of 1 PHB sold per 5 players...we still don't get to that 80 million (meaning they sold at least 10 million for 50 million, and 16 million copies for that 80 million).

Once again.

Hard Evidence dude...hard evidence. Give me those hard numbers...not some PR fakery from someone building hype among the fans.

 

[bedir than]

No, but you were relating numbers viewing Baseball's last Championship 30 million vs. a lot more fans as per your statements, as well as Playstations digital signups vs. sales (120 vs. 85M+) which indicates that digital signups and indications of those items should be far higher than listed numbers.

I wasn't even going for that. I'm looking for hard numbers (backed up evidence that can be supported by tally sheets, etc) and would be somewhat believing with numbers far lower than that (ones that I said I should see at a minimum, or something similar to back up the statements regarding the numbers of fans).

My assumptions on that aren't that high a bar in relation to many other things. 40 million digital accounts should not be that high a bar to pass if one actually has 80 million fans (that means half or less of those supposed "fans" even care to sign up!). 40 million copies of a required rulebook to play a game should not be that high of a bar to pass. Even if we take a standard of 1 PHB sold per 5 players...we still don't get to that 80 million (meaning they sold at least 10 million for 50 million, and 16 million copies for that 80 million).

Once again.

Hard Evidence dude...hard evidence. Give me those hard numbers...not some PR fakery from someone building hype among the fans.

if your ratios are correct than the 19 million D&D Beyond accounts and 80 million fans isn't that weird.
of course, there's a lot more to define fandom than active players, something which you seem intent on denying

 

[SkidAce]

...

If that's something you're even considering might not be the case I think you must be making some truly bizarre assumptions. D&D books sell many, many times the numbers they did even at the absolute peak of the TSR era. Even 4E was probably thrashing the TSR era, sales-wise, let alone 3E, let alone 5E. D&D 2024's PHB has already probably significantly outsold the 1E AD&D PHB's lifetime sales, for example. I suspect you may be vastly overestimating how well D&D sold back in the day. It was actually shockingly low. There are some threads where people explored the figures.

...

I'd like to see such numbers expressed as percentage of population. How much has that number grown?

Just selling MORE copies wont tell the entire story.