WotC Comparing EN World's Demographics to the D&D Community's

WotC released some figures this week. I thought it would be fun to compare them to the demographics of our own little community here on EN World for the same period (2019).

WotC uses a metric it refers to as 40,000,000 'D&D Fans', but that's not defined. For the purposes of this, I assume a fan is a person who has interacted directly with D&D in some way (played a game, bought a book, watch a stream, played a video game, etc.) A fan's a fan, however they interact with D&D!

For comparison, I'm using people who have interacted with EN World in some way -- and what we can measure is unique visitors. Obviously this isn't on the same scale (40M people is a LOT) but it doesn't matter too much for what we're doing here; they're both samples for conversation. So, let's start at the top!

• Short version: EN World skews younger, but more male than the overall D&D community.

WotC is looking at 40M fans, we're looking at 5.6M unique users (as opposed to overall visits, which numbers in the tens of millions). We get this data using Google Analytics, which provides a lot of anonymized demographic data. I can't identify any individual person with this; it merely shows the overall numbers. Our demographic data includes just under half of those 5.6M users; I don't know how WotC's data is derived. I know they do surveys from time to time, but I don't know what percentage of those 40M fans fill out those forms.

As an aside - 40 million D&D fans is awesome! We're definitely living in a golden age of tabletop gaming, and as the market leader, WotC is the entity most responsible for bringing in new gamers. Well, maybe Critical Role is, but they're playing D&D!

Age

So, the controversial data that everybody on Twitter is talking about -- the age groups. Google Analytics breaks it down a little differently to WotC's figures, so here's what we have. GA doesn't give stats on people under 18 years of age. The figures below are those GA has data on for EN World -- obviously that's only about half of overall users.

Age​	Numbers​	Percentage​
18-24	592,401 users	24.58%
25-34	1,309,373 users	54.33%
35-44	330,755 users	13.46%
45-54	138,372 users	5.74%
55-64	26,689 users	1.11%
65+	12,631 users	0.52%

As you can see, the figures aren't as evenly distributed as WotC's. There's a significant number of 25-34 year-olds, and a higher number of 18-24 year-olds. Also, it shows people above the age of 45, who don't appear in WotC's stats.

• We show a slightly higher percentage of people 34 or under (79% compared to WotC's measure of 74%) although we're not measuring people under 18, which would skew it younger if we were.
• 26% of WotC's audience is over 25, while only 20% of EN World's is.
• 7.37% of EN World's audience is over 45.
• Under 18s are not included in the stats.
• EN World skews younger than the D&D community overall.

For comparison, here are WotC's figures.

I've turned them into a quick and dirty bar graph. The number of players increases slowly from 8 up until age 35, peaking at ages 30-34, and then it starts to drop off sharply. That's the same age that the drop-off on EN World's readership takes place, too. Seems about 30 is peak age.

And here are those same figures in absolute numbers -- 10% of 40,000,000 people is a LOT of people!

Age​	Percentage​	Numbers​
8-12	12%	4.8 million
13-17	13%	5.2 million
18-24	15%	6 million
25-29	15%	6 million
30-34	19%	7.6 million
35-39	15%	6 million
40-45	11%	4.4 million

Gender

The gender demographics here skew much more male than WotC's stats do. Google Analytics shows male and female (it doesn't track non-binary people) and reports on under half of overall users (2.3M out of 5.6M total).

Of those, it reports 85.56% male, 14.44% female. It doesn't provide data on non-binary visitors.

Geography

WotC's report shows that Europe is growing for them. As a European (at least geographically!) that's heartwarming news for me. So here's some figures on EN World's geographical distribution.

As you can see, it skews primarily English-speaking heavily, which is expected for an English-language community.

United States	3,376,839 users	59.14%
United Kingdom (yay!)	478,217 users	8.38%
Canada	411,179 users	7.2%
Australia	198,922 users	3.48%
Brazil	125,682 users	2.2%
Germany	109,248 users	1.91%
Italy	95,682 users	1.68%
Netherlands	74,139 users	1.3%
Sweden	51,479 users	0.9%
Spain	47,096 users	0.82%

The list goes on for pages, but we're under 1% now.

The average EN World reader is male, American, between 25-34.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

One of the reasons why I constantly tell people not to believe in the pseudoscience of statistics is because it invites attitudes like this. The people who are having the conversation are the ones who are important; any data which supposedly proves them "statistically irrelevant" is as wrong as Nazi pseudoscience about inferior races, because it is equally excluding real people from consideration on the basis of some dry intellectual nonsense that a bunch of ivory-tower academics produced through some sort of theoretical formulae.

Wow. Just wow.

Do you correlate your odd stance on statistics with an equally odd idea that the scientific method, which relies on statistical analysis of data, is also bunk?

Curious to know if you have ever taken an actual statistics class and if so, which parts you think are "wrong"?

 

[ad_hoc]

Show me any proof of all this that doesn't rely on poorly-constructed surveys of people's subjective opinions. Has anyone found a woman who, having grown up in some rural community and thus not been indoctrinated with liberal philosophies by the university system, is hooked up to a brainscan so that you can measure the actual neurological impact of showing them a few D&D books, and actually documented whether they suddenly feel ashamed of themselves because they looked at pretty pictures created by the "male gaze"? I think that, absent that guilt-based "education", most people would not automatically have that negative reaction, that impulse to immediately feel inferior because they saw an example of something superior in a piece of FICTION. Most ordinary people would have better things to do with their time than even play D&D, let alone sit around analyzing what it supposedly symbolizes.

I'm tired of bored, sheltered college students, who are furloughed from their already part-time jobs as baristas, sitting around and crapping all over a hobby that wouldn't be making so much money if there weren't so many people with too damned much free time on their hands. It exists because of them, it's trying to pander to them, and they're never satisfied, all they can do is complain about it and try to destroy it. Nobody can come down from their elevated ego long enough to recognize "this isn't for me" and move on, let other people enjoy what they like, and stop trying to control things which aren't any of their business.

Why are you talking about feeling inferior?

 

[Todd Roybark]

the basis of some dry intellectual nonsense that a bunch of ivory-tower academics produced through some sort of theoretical formulae.

The term you are looking for is Expertise. See, while you are adding a proficiency bonus of +0 to an ability check Intelligence: Statistics, (because you have no proficiency in that skill), real experts can add twice their proficiency bonus in 5e.

Please, no need to respond: you are on my ignore list.

Don’t wish to be rude, but nonsense is lethal, given the world today.

 

[Envisioner]

Wow. Just wow.

Meme-tier non-responses really don't accomplish all that much. I get the temptation, I did one just an hour or so ago; even so, it's not impressive.

Do you correlate your odd stance on statistics with an equally odd idea that the scientific method, which relies on statistical analysis of data, is also bunk?

The scientific method has nothing to do with "statistical analysis of data". The scientific method consists of constructing a hypothesis, performing experiments to test it, and having others perform similar experiments to see if they get the same result, then correcting the hypothesis if necessary, before formulating it into the final form as an empirically proven theory. Hence my example about hooking people up to a brain scan, to find out whether they're actually being measurably impacted by these images in the way that sociologists (who aren't real scientists, because they don't deal in anything objective or empirically measurable) say that they are being.

Curious to know if you have ever taken an actual statistics class and if so, which parts you think are "wrong"?

I haven't taken any phrenology classes either. College isn't free, and time is limited. I only study subjects that I believe have enough actual validity to be worth studying, and then I do it in my own time, on my own recognizance, like Leonardo DaVinci would have, instead of just relying on demagogues to instill into me whatever beliefs they would like me to have.

Why are you talking about feeling inferior?

It's a paraphrase of the exact point you brought up, when you said that seeing these images will make women feel inadequate or whatever. I maintain that you are simply wrong, that your anecdotal evidence of "I once knew a person who reacted this way" does not prove that people in general react this way. The ones who do, I assert it is because they have been indoctrinated to do so, by a system that finds it politically expedient to do so.

 

[ad_hoc]

It's a paraphrase of the exact point you brought up, when you said that seeing these images will make women feel inadequate or whatever. I maintain that you are simply wrong, that your anecdotal evidence of "I once knew a person who reacted this way" does not prove that people in general react this way. The ones who do, I assert it is because they have been indoctrinated to do so, by a system that finds it politically expedient to do so.

I didn't say they will make women feel inadequate.

I responded against that notion and said instead that they are designed for the male gaze.

It isn't that women are feeling inadequate. At best they're not interested because it isn't for them. At worst they may be wary of entering an environment created by something that isn't for them.

 

[Envisioner]

I didn't say they will make women feel inadequate.

I responded against that notion and said instead that they are designed for the male gaze.

It isn't that women are feeling inadequate. At best they're not interested because it isn't for them. At worst they may be wary of entering an environment created by something that isn't for them.

Okay, correction accepted. I still disagree, though. Whether it's "I feel inadequate" or just "this isn't for me", either way it's a negative reaction that the female person is jumping to, and I think they shouldn't react that way, and wouldn't if they weren't being programmed to by our educational system.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

I'm tired of bored, sheltered college students, who are furloughed from their already part-time jobs as baristas

Ageist much? (Also, I'm a receptionist at a doctor's office, not a barista).

sitting around and crapping all over a hobby that wouldn't be making so much money if there weren't so many people with too damned much free time on their hands.

So you want D&D to fail by becoming commercially non-viable so WotC discontinues it? What, are you working for Paizo?

It exists because of them, it's trying to pander to them, and they're never satisfied, all they can do is complain about it and try to destroy it.

WotC just put out a PR stunt celebrating D&D's best year yet. D&D's on the upswing, though social distancing may be putting a damper on that for now. Their art team being concerned with not commissioning excessively lewd art pieces for the books isn't destroying the hobby, not by any means.

Also, by your own admission, you're not the one being pandered to. Say what you will about the invisible hand of the market (and boy, do I have some choice words for that), but WotC's just following the money. Them's the breaks of capitalism.

Nobody can come down from their elevated ego long enough to recognize "this isn't for me" and move on, let other people enjoy what they like, and stop trying to control things which aren't any of their business.

How about you take your own advice? Because it's increasingly looking like 5e isn't for you.

 

[The Old Crow]

The fact that today's girls mostly look at it and see only sexism, that's the fault of the ideologues who have educated them with the idea that they should view the world through this lens. If we were raising our girls to be, say, artistically inclined, and to place their priority on evaluating the beauty of images from a technical and aesthetic perspective, then they'd look at those scantily-clad women and see only the artistic beauty being presented. Instead, they're being told to imagine sociological ramifications which aren't actually there, and they think everything has a message and is trying to change people's minds, instead of just being a pretty picture which is there for them to look at if they'd enjoy doing so, and can easily be ignored otherwise.

Wait, did you just make a blanket statement about how all of "today's girls" just have incorrect opinions about what they like? Like, women just can't know for themselves what they want to see in art, because they have been trained wrong, and can't possibly have thought this out themselves or actually know their own feelings on the matter unless someone tells them what to think?

There is nothing wrong with sexy art, but my rpg books-- especially the older ones-- are littered with a lot of unsexy men, and a bunch of lingerie clad jailbait women. Honestly, the genders often don't look like they belong to the same game system or art direction.

 

[MNblockhead]

Poor people don't tend to play.

Well...some do:

 

[Zardnaar]

Remember when every cover was a scantily clad warrior woman with a gravity defying bosom and a serious threat of chafing? that was a barrier to entry. It was intimidating. And it was unnecessary. The game did not lose anything by putting female characters of different body types in sensible adventuring clothes, and the community gained new players. It's win-win.

Well...some do:

I did but D&D was my fun, friends liked to party

A Complete XYZ handbook was the same price as a bottle of spirits.

PHB was weeks rent.

If I did nothing one week I could buy a splatbook and have $10 left over.