24 Million Lapsed D&D Players - Define "Lapsed"

[jaerdaph]

Or for that matter, define 1.5 million "active" D&D players.

I'd love to know more about how they came up with these numbers, and what they exactly mean.

Are the 1.5M active players playing the current edition (4e) only, or just any published edition of D&D?

Are those playing retroclones considered "lapsed"? Are Pathfinder players considered lapsed?

Enlighten me!

(Edit: These numbers came from a news item in today's EN World News: http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/274686-wednesday-7-april-2010-a.html)

(And please, NO edition wars, hot or cold - thanks!)

 

[Doug McCrae]

24 million must be the number of people who have ever played any edition of D&D from 1974 to the present. It's not far off the 20 million figure cited in the recent court case. Also from the court documents, according to WotC, 6 million currently play some form of D&D (or did in 2007), so the 1.5 million likely refers to 4e.

 

[Aeson]

Where are these numbers coming from? 24 million? 6 million? Court case?

 

[jaerdaph]

Where are these numbers coming from? 24 million? 6 million? Court case?

Mine came IcV2 according to today's EN World News Page: http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/274686-wednesday-7-april-2010-a.html

 

[Doug McCrae]

Court case?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/254013-pdfs-wizards-coast-court-case.html

This is the court case, though I'm not sure if the particular docs linked by John Troy actually contain the figures I mentioned.

 

[darjr]

The lapsed players is, I think, from some survey done where the question was 'have you ever played D&D'.

I don't know where that comes from at the moment. I think it is from WotC on some survey they sponsored.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There's a lot of ways to get that number (which is probably an estimate)

Survey questions like "When was the last time you played D&D?"

Sales details.

Wizards has always been very, very good at getting to know their audience. It is possible that this occasionally backfires in a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" kind of way, but nonetheless, they know their customers at least as well as any other corporate entity, and probably better than most.

 

[Aeson]

They could be using the number of people that purchased their books. I wonder if they take in the fact that some people buy more than one copy. Blizzard does not, as far as I know, take in the number of people with more than one account for WoW.

 

[Stormonu]

Are those playing retroclones considered "lapsed"? Are Pathfinder players considered lapsed?

Though I'm no one of importance, I'm pretty sure WotC would consider both groups to be "lapsed".

That's a pretty big hit to go from the time of PHB2 to now dropping from 6m to 1.5m - sounds to me like someone's been inflating numbers somewhere.

 

[Dire Bare]

I always chuckle at these threads. Every time WotC releases some marketing numbers, we get suspicious folk questioning their motives and methods. As if the idea that "lapsed" players might include those not playing 4e is some sort of veiled insult.

WotC wants you to be playing 4e. Duh. Failing that, WotC wants you playing some form of D&D, either an earlier edition or some sort of clone, as getting your paying business back is easier if you are an active player of some sort. Heck, if you're not playing some version of D&D, WotC would rather you be playing any sort of RPG rather than moving away from the hobby entirely.

The accuracy and source of WotC's numbers are unimportant (to us). WotC's a relatively big company, big enough to be able to do excellent market research. Something they've been doing since the day they purchased TSR (in regards to D&D).

The point of the numbers is that while a lot of people are playing D&D 4e, there is a huge order of magnitude more of D&D fans and former players who are not playing 4e . . . and WotC wants to recapture some of that business. Not as an insult or to demean players of retroclones or Pathfinder, simply to grow their business. Which is neither sinister, suspect, or foolish. Quite smart, actually.