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.

 

[atanakar]

From my anecdotal experience the barrier to female entry in rpgs was (and still is) a category of male players who are socially maladjusted (or voluntarily disrespectful) when it comes time to interact with women at a gaming table.

During the 4e era my group was down to three players. I made player requests on the local gaming store forum and invited new players to my home table. My wife plays D&D with me since 1990 (2e). She's no newbie.

3 out of 4 players on trial runs had inappropriate behaviour towards my wife during the first session. One stared infantilizing her immediately. Another started role-play romance her character (16 charisma) despite the fact that she clearly stated she wanted none of that at the beginning of the session. A third systematically questioned all her role-play decisions. They never came back to our house.

Fortunately we did find one good player in the barrel of rotten apples (local forum.)

 

[Morrus]

So I don't know if I'm interpreting these figure right, but looking at WotC's figures. If that 40-45 demographic is supposed to be 40+, that's 11%.

So those people are the ones who were playing D&D when 3E launched, and some were posting right here on this site. They'd have been most of the audience then, and now they're just 11% of it. So one or both of two things has happened (I imagine both):

1) A lot of the audience has been lost. They stopped playing over the last 20 years, probably for a multitude of reasons (families, work, kids, changing interests, changes to the game).

2) They were more than replaced by a massive influx of younger people, people that are the age those 11% were when they were playing 20 years ago.

Now what I'd find really interesting is to know if that was the hobby in general, or is it a D&D-specific phenomenon. If we took the whole industry except for D&D, would we see the same pattern? Is it a case of older gamers dropping out of the hobby completely, and younger gamers coming in via D&D? Or are the older gamers still around but playing other games?

 

[Zardnaar]

So I don't know if I'm interpreting these figure right, but looking at WotC's figures. If that 40-45 demographic is supposed to be 40+, that's 11%.

So those people are the ones who were playing D&D when 3E launched, and some were posting right here on this site. They'd have been most of the audience then, and now they're just 11% of it. So one or both of two things has happened (I imagine both):

1) A lot of the audience has been lost. They stopped playing over the last 20 years, probably for a multitude of reasons (families, work, kids, changing interests, changes to the game).

2) They were more than replaced by a massive influx of younger people, people that are the age those 11% were when they were playing 20 years ago.

Now what I'd find really interesting is to know if that was the hobby in general, or is it a D&D-specific phenomenon. If we took the whole industry except for D&D, would we see the same pattern? Is it a case of older gamers dropping out of the hobby completely, and younger gamers coming in via D&D? Or are the older gamers still around but playing other games?

I expect people have dropped out/moved on.

In 20 years I expect something similar with 7th Edition.

Most 5E players will drop by then. With the large influx though the % may be higher if 7E isn't a big hit.

 

[atanakar]

So I don't know if I'm interpreting these figure right, but looking at WotC's figures. If that 40-45 demographic is supposed to be 40+, that's 11%.

So those people are the ones who were playing D&D when 3E launched, and some were posting right here on this site. They'd have been most of the audience then, and now they're just 11% of it. So one or both of two things has happened (I imagine both):

1) A lot of the audience has been lost. They stopped playing over the last 20 years, probably for a multitude of reasons (families, work, kids, changing interests, changes to the game).

2) They were more than replaced by a massive influx of younger people, people that are the age those 11% were when they were playing 20 years ago.

Now what I'd find really interesting is to know if that was the hobby in general, or is it a D&D-specific phenomenon. If we took the whole industry except for D&D, would we see the same pattern? Is it a case of older gamers dropping out of the hobby completely, and younger gamers coming in via D&D? Or are the older gamers still around but playing other games?

From what I can tell from my experience over the years (and as a former game store owner), most people who try RPGs don't stick with it. They quit within one game to three months. Sometimes they come back to RPGs later in life.

Of those who are hooked many stop playing when they have newborns and/or go to university. They come back in their late thirties early fourthies when the children can play D&D with them. They usually teach their children the last edition they played when they stopped.

 

[Fanaelialae]

What's really interesting to contemplate is that if the forum membership is so unrepresentative of the general site traffic and of D&D fandom/customers in general, all of our debates and polls and threads are utterly meaningless.

Not meaningless.

It just means that they're representative of a small subset of the larger community. It's what some of us have been pointing out for years in those threads, whenever someone claims that an Enworld poll (or the like) is an indicator that WOTC should turn the ship around and do things differently. Personally, I think a lot of the polls are interesting (or at least entertaining) but it's important to recognize that they don't necessarily reflect the views of the gaming community overall, just those of the Enworld forumites.

 

[Morrus]

From what I can tell from my experience over the years (and as a former game store owner), most people who try RPGs don't stick with it. They quit within one game to three months. Sometimes they come back to RPGs later in life.

Of those who are hooked many stop playing when they have newborns and/or go to university. They come back in their late thirties early fourthies when the children can play D&D with them. They usually teach their children the last edition they played when they stopped.

That's the opposite of what the stats are saying though. The audience isn't dropping off in the middle and coming back at 40. The audience is grows slowly until age 35, then starts to drop sharply. There's no sign of any mid-life resurgence there.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not meaningless.

It just means that they're representative of a small subset of the larger community. It's what some of us have been pointing out for years in those threads, whenever someone claims that an Enworld poll (or the like) is an indicator that WOTC should turn the ship around and do things differently. Personally, I think a lot of the polls are interesting (or at least entertaining) but it's important to recognize that they don't necessarily reflect the views of the gaming community overall, just those of the Enworld forumites.

If you're posting on here or anywhere else you're almost hardcore by default.

Casuals always outnumber hardcore in almost anything.

Except maybe Warhammer.

 

[Morrus]

What's really interesting to contemplate is that if the forum membership is so unrepresentative of the general site traffic and of D&D fandom/customers in general, all of our debates and polls and threads are utterly meaningless.

Well, they mean something to us as we talk to each other in our little community. I mean, that's why we're here, right?

 

[atanakar]

That's the opposite of what the stats are saying though. The audience isn't dropping off in the middle and coming back at 40. The audience is grows slowly until age 35, then starts to drop sharply. There's no sign of any mid-life resurgence there.

That probably has to do with the boardgame resurgence that has been happening in the last 5 years. I guess it is spilling over the rpg sector. The younger generations keep playing, even if they have kids. Hence the terms adulting and adulescents. Which by the way describe me very well even if I'm 55.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Well, they mean something to us as we talk to each other in our little community. I mean, that's why we're here, right?

i would say it also has a signifficant effect on a not insignifficant portion of the people who visit but dont post. Aside from conversation in their own little group forums are some of the only places they can generally see experienced discussion from an outside source generally with a higher standard experience level than in their own group (because more visitors are likely casuals than the average groups in forums) and they dont have to watch a youtube video first to know what the conversation is about because the conversation isnt centered around one. Its also a conversation that is less dominated by a single voice usually.

This is a valuable resource to a lot of people. For many things. I would say dont underestimate how much people who come but do not or rarely post are lurking.