Another Year of EN World Demographics!

As I did last year, this is a look at EN World's demographics. This period is June 2020 to June 2021. The data reflects over 5M unique visitors and tens of millions of page views. The short version -- over the last year, the user base has become younger, and (slightly: 3%) less male. The average EN World reader is now an 18-24 year-old American male (last year it was a 25-34 year-old American male).

As before, you can compare these stats to WotC's official Stats for D&D. The most recent figures can be found here.

Age
So last year the dominant age group on the site was 25-34. This year, it's younger - the 18-24 group is the largest. Like last year, EN World skews a little younger than D&D's overall player base, with a higher percentage in the lower age groups, and a lower percentage in the highest age groups. Note that GA doesn't measure under 18s.

Gender
Next is the gender data. Google Analytics only provides male and female data, and no data for non-binary people. Within those constraints, 83% of the visitors are male, and 17% female. Last year, 14% were female, so that's an increase of 3%. Still not enough, but headed in the correct direction. According to WotC, 40% of the player base is female and just below 1% is non-binary. So there's still work to be done there!

Geography
This hasn't changed much from last year. America dominates the chart, with other primarily English-speaking countries behind it. Brazil has more of a presence than any EU country. The EU in general is only about 5% of the user base.

Country	Percentage
United States	59.7%
United Kingdom	8.3%
Canada	7.5%
Australia	3.3%
Brazil	2.3%
Germany	2.3%
Italy	1.5%
Netherlands	1.3%
Spain	0.9%
Sweden	0.8%
France	0.8%

What do they look at?
The most popular page on the site - unsurprisingly - is the news page, with 12% of the views. Now, bear in mind that each forum thread is a page, so the site has hundreds of thousands of pages and we have tens of millions of page views. That means that a page getting more than a single percentage of the views is a very popular page -- no non-news page has managed that.

About Google Analytics
These are anonymized aggregate stats collected by Google. We only have access to the data in aggregate.

 

[MGibster]

Partnering with Aerosmith, of all acts, to promote the brand seems to be them doubling down on Baby Boomers and Gen X. Whoever is in charge of their outreach to younger consumers is getting paid to do very, very little real work.

Over the last few decades Harley Davidson has kind of painted themself into a corner. As a brand, they are heavily based on identity as their bikes are highly customizable to individual preferences, they still have a reputation as the bike of choice for rebels, and they pride themselves on being made in America. Seriously, if you want to show a character is a badass biker you usually put him or her on a Harley not a Honda. (Honda had an advertising campaign with the tagline "You meet the nicest people on a Honda.) But things change and who rides Harleys now? Mostly old white men with a household income of $90,000 a year. So HD is in a precarious position as they try to figure out how to attract a younger more diverse demographic without alienating what is currently their bread & butter which is old white dudes. It's a difficult situation to be in.

Games Workshop found themselves in a similar situation with Warhammer Fantasy Battles a few years back. The player base was a bit older than it was for Warhammer40k and a lot of those players just weren't buying new models very often. GW made the radical and somewhat risky decision of destroying the Warhammer Fantasy setting and staring with something entirely new. They alienated a lot of their older players. I loved the old setting but I realized something. I didn't actually play Warhammer Fantasy and I never bought their models and was unlikely to do so in the future. They replaced it with Age of Sigmar in 2015 which had a somewhat rocky start but has improved since then. And it might have been a great decision. I never bought Warhammer Fantasy models but I bought an Age of Sigmar starting army.

I don't think WotC is too worried about what grognards think of the game and that's a good thing because I don't think we're their primary customers. They're better served by focusing on providing the type of experience and rules that most of their customers actually want. In twenty years I look forward to hearing the current crop of players complain about the changes that are made in 2041.

 

[Blue]

Oh goodness, I'm a seven-percenter!!

Very happy to see that the hobby is growing and has young blood to keep it alive!

I'd love to know the % of adults who got their kids into it, and they actually pick up the hobby versus just humoring us.

Both my kids play, one is venturing into DMing as well. But alas, anything as old-fashioned as internet forums like ENworld does not catch their interest.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Over the last few decades Harley Davidson has kind of painted themself into a corner. As a brand, they are heavily based on identity as their bikes are highly customizable to individual preferences, they still have a reputation as the bike of choice for rebels, and they pride themselves on being made in America. Seriously, if you want to show a character is a badass biker you usually put him or her on a Harley not a Honda. (Honda had an advertising campaign with the tagline "You meet the nicest people on a Honda.) But things change and who rides Harleys now? Mostly old white men with a household income of $90,000 a year. So HD is in a precarious position as they try to figure out how to attract a younger more diverse demographic without alienating what is currently their bread & butter which is old white dudes. It's a difficult situation to be in.

They should be chasing movies and television productions down the street, offering Harleys to anyone with the right demo.

And -- shudder -- they should be doing the same thing with social media influencers, too. My kids know more YouTubers than they do film or television actors.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We have to be hones,t, no need to be cute about the next generation that will lead the U. S A. Math allergy is an American problem. Probably, why each new edition of D&D targeted primarily at Americans is hiding away the math of the game.

I think you need to broaden your pool of acquaintances.

Post-Common Core, nearly every school kid in America (most states use the Common Core State Standards, which were designed jointly by state level committees) learns Singaporean math educational techniques (usually referred to as "Singapore math").

I'm not allergic to math by any means and my rising ninth grader can do stuff in his head, on the fly, that I have to sit down and puzzle out with pen and paper before I can actually figure out the answer.

Many a time, I met Asian kids more than happy to add numbers mentally, especially Chinese and Japanese youths And many times, I have seen American teens pull out their mobile phone calculator to do something as simple as stacking bonuses in 4th edition.

Math allergies in the U.S A. are just another reason the world now looks to China. Over 1.6 billion people, that is the future, not the U.S.A

And, Whizbang, be grateful that there are many Indian migrants in the medical profession to take care of you. Yes, the world's future heads East. The West is an Empire in decline.. Just India and China alone, two nations with a third of all the world's teenagers. That is the future D&D market.

I mentioned several times on these forums, the next D&D fantasy setting should by about mythic India. Kids in America need to look Eastwards.

This is a very weird tangent. No one is attacking immigrants or anyone of Asian descent. I resent your baseless implication that I have some sort of issue with either.

 

[dragoner]

I'm in the younger group of the two 39%s. Interesting that this site and the D&D community as a whole are getting younger and less and less male-dominant (in numbers, that is). All good changes, too (and no, I don't mean this offensively towards the Grognards on this site. It's just a matter of fact that hobbies need new players to continue on, and it's better for communities to not be so divided based on gender).

All true, and about the grognard grumbling, it is us more than anything else, time takes its toll, so do not worry. I saw a meme of the perfect example: Terminator 1984 "I'll Be Back." 2019 "Ow My Back."

 

[J.Quondam]

We have to be hones,t, no need to be cute about the next generation that will lead the U. S A. Math allergy is an American problem. Probably, why each new edition of D&D targeted primarily at Americans is hiding away the math of the game.

Meh, I doubt it. While innumeracy is certainly a problem in the modern US, linking it to the D&D math is a stretch. I could be wrong, but I honestly doubt there's a whole lot of overlap between people drawn to D&D and those exhibiting legitimate math deficiencies.

The problem with D&D math is not that it's "hard." The problem with D&D math is that it's basically pointless. Why waste time fiddling with lots of little bonuses and penalties (which don't even model anything especially well), when we already know that end result is going to be a smallish numerical offset? Just make a Dis/Advantage roll and be done with it. Seriously, if one is smart enough to do a a few steps of basic arithmetic, one is smart enough to intuit one's way past that arithmetic, and just skip straight to the answer. (Estimation, after all, is a useful mathematical skill, too!)

It's got little to do with innumeracy, and everything to do with the simple fact that, over the decades, experienced designers have determined that most players are interested in the game part of the game, not a bunch of fiddly, pointless arithmetic.

 

[dragoner]

Meh, I doubt it.

Same here, and I am education adjacent. It is not math per se, it is the lack of investment in education. America does a feel good about stem advert, while other countries subsidize stem education, and education in general; which America abandoned in the Reagan 80's. So you meet kids that can't reduce a fraction, except they have fundamental literacy problems as well, which makes it unlikely they are reading D&D books.

 

[Morrus]

Woah, why is this now a thread about the American education system? There are plenty of websites where you can discuss politics. This is not one of them. Drop it, please.

 

[Umbran]

Many a time, I met Asian kids more than happy to add numbers mentally...

Mod Note:
"Asian people are good at math," is just one more stereotype. That it seems "positive" does not mean it isn't putting people in a box based on their ethnicity. Please don't do this on this site.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

It's got little to do with innumeracy, and everything to do with the simple fact that, over the decades, experienced designers have determined that most players are interested in the game part of the game, not a bunch of fiddly, pointless arithmetic.

But I like the fiddly, pointless, arithmetic. I play HERO! Or as Carl Carlson might put it:

the dank - Oh, but the dank, Moe! The dank!

Oh, but the dank, Moe! The dank! - the dank

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