D&D and Call of Cthulhu Climb Again in Roll20's Latest Stats

Roll20 has released its latest usage figures. These are for Q2, 2021. And they have a new fancy format!

D&D is, of course, still right up there at the top with nearly 54% of the market -- up from 53% in Q1 of this year. Call of Cthulhu continues its inexorable rise, climbing from 11% to 16%, and Pathfinder 2E gained from 1.5% to 1.8% (I'm told that most VTT action for PF2E happens on Foundry, not Roll20).

Roll20's Latest Report Shows Growth Everywhere!

Roll20 has released its latest usage stats. These are from Quarter 1 2020, and while there isn't much change in the relative ranks of different games since 2019, they report that nearly everything has doubled during these pandemic times when a lot of gaming has shifted online to virtual...

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Roll20's Latest Numbers: Cthulhu Holding Strong!

Roll20 has released its usage stats for Q4 2020, and D&D maintains its multi-year firm lead with over half the games being played, and Call of Cthulhu continues to cement itself in 2nd place. There was strong growth from Cyberpunk Red and the French game Chroniques Oubliées (Forgotten...

www.enworld.org

 

[Knightfall]

3.5/PF1 does well.

That makes me happy. 3.5 is my favourite edition.

Post edited because I was being a jerk. Sorry.

 

[darjr]

Pf2e on roll20...
View attachment 144279
Pf2e on Foundry... made by the community...
View attachment 144281

Wait, is the PF1 interface any better on Roll20?

 

[MGibster]

I remain somewhat surprised that CoC is doing so well. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, I just constantly underestimate it's appeal I guess.

 

[TerraDave]

Also I don't think anyone can by 4e content on these platforms now. So you have it now or you don't and will not.

PDFs for all past editions are available, including if you want to pay for them.

In each case you bring the maps in from the pdfs...this is why I started using roll20.

In any case, 3.5 and AD&D are lording it over 4E.

 

[Hussar]

Seriously? It's been TEN years since 4e was put to pasture and you folks are still dancing on the grave? Good grief, move on already.

 

[Teemu]

4e has way better VTT integration on Fantasy Grounds.

 

[Jaeger]

3.5/PF1 have an open and usable gaming license that allows for plenty of community creative content and support. GSL for 4e is too prohibitive to allow anyone license or distribution of a usable system for any vtt, but it's not for a lack of want. WotC scorched the earth when they tossed aside 4e and its fans.

In defense of: "WotC scorched the earth when they tossed aside 4e and its fans."

They were compelled to.

WotC had already made an own goal of epic proportions with the switch to 4e.

PF1 showed that 3.5 still had legs for a good 4-5 more years. Give or take.

They had alienated part of the fanbase with the way they rolled 4e out, and continued to run into various issues early on. Which when taken all together, ensured that for various reasons; 4e was just not a very well received edition of D&D.

The proof in the pudding was the fact that 4e got outsold on merit, by a clone of the previous edition.

Yes, it happened... D&D, the all singing, all dancing, market leading mother of RPGs, got outsold by a clone of its previous edition.

For Ha$bro/WotC, this was an unacceptable situation.

Unacceptable. Period.

Whatever merits 4e had as a system were made irrelevant when Pathfinder took over the number one spot.

Good, bad, didn't matter. 4e was divisive for the D&D fanbase. Yes it had fans, but not enough fans!

It had to go.

So house was cleaned, heads rolled at WotC, and Mike Mearls herded cats on keyboards until 5e popped out the other side.

And we continue to see the proof today that WotC made the correct decision for D&D.

As soon as WotC gave D&D fans a reason to come back into the fold of "Official D&D"; they did.

PF got put firmly back into the number two spot almost immediately, and 5e has been putting all things Pazio way way back in their rear view ever since...

PF1e doubling PF2e...wonder why? Probably has to do with the fact there wasn't a real demand for it and PF1e was doing just great, then Paizo tossed it aside for PF2e like it was the best thing ever to come to gaming. Bad idea to have their fanbase split apart, they could've gone strong with PF1e but I guess that's the point of a venturing risk...it's a risk for probably success or failure.

And in Pazio's defense of: "...then Paizo tossed it aside for PF2e like it was the best thing ever to come to gaming."

They had to do something.

Pathfinder 1 took the number one RPG spot from 4e on merit. But once 5e came out Paizo began to hemorrhage market share back to WotC like a bleeding swimmer at a shark frenzy.

By Pazio's own admission they never fixed the underlying math issues with 3.5. The Pathfinder rules were essentially an employees house rules laid on top of the OGL. Whether you want to admit it or not, the roaring success of 5e has shown that 3.x D&D had reached the end of its edition life cycle...

So Pazio had to do something to generate excitement for its brand and try and reclaim some of the paying customers lost to 5e. (IMHO Pazio was just trying to stop the bleeding, and even they had no notions about ever being the number one fantasy RPG anymore.)

Personally, I think that they waited too long, (almost 5 years from 5e's launch), and went in the wrong design direction. But it is easy to backseat drive with 20/20 hindsight, and tell other people what they should have done with their money.

While one can quibble that roll20 is not accurate for PF2 because it is better supported on other platforms, but given that the subject has been discussed at length on other threads, I don't feel I am being controversial at all when I state that I don't think PF2 was quite the success that Paizo was hoping for.

Regardless, the end result is largely as you mentioned; Paizo has essentially split their fanbase.

 

[Hussar]

4e has way better VTT integration on Fantasy Grounds.

I used to play 4e on Maptool and the homemade framework we used back then, and that's about fifteen years ago now, was fantastic. You could very easily do up every power - and, after first level, you only generally had to do one. And making monsters in Maptool in 4e took about 30 seconds. It was really a dream for VTT play.

 

[Hussar]

Pathfinder 1 took the number one RPG spot from 4e on merit.

You can keep repeating this, but, it really doesn't make it true.

But, hey, whatever floats your boat.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Seriously? It's been TEN years since 4e was put to pasture and you folks are still dancing on the grave? Good grief, move on already.

Edit: I actually misread your comment. My bad.