D&D Surges Into Lead In Orr Group Figures

The last two times the Orr Group (makers of the popular Roll20 online gaming tools which cite a user base of close to a million users) produced statistics on which games were being played, Pathfinder held the top spot. Those were in October 2014 and January 2015. However, April 2015 brings us a different picture: it seems like D&D 5th Edition has surged into first place in terms of games played (but not in terms of number of players, a title curiously held by D&D 3.5).

Interestingly, the top 4 spots are all one flavour of D&D or another (including Pathfinder, of course). This matches ICv2's latest hobby game retailer surveys which have D&D regaining the top spot after several years. Paizo's Erik Mona does note, however, that the "post-5th Edition paradigm" has not significantly harmed Pathfinder's sales.

 

[Waller]

I'm curious about their claim of nearly a million users. I've heard them claim that a few times. Looking at this list, adding up the number of players doesn't come to close to a fraction of that. What are these million people playing? The list includes "other games".

 

[Agamon]

A million users? Do you have a link to these claims? I find it highly unlikely.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

I'm curious about their claim of nearly a million users. I've heard them claim that a few times. Looking at this list, adding up the number of players doesn't come to close to a fraction of that. What are these million people playing? The list includes "other games".

If you look at the top it mentions a "Sample Size" of around 70,000 gamers, so this appears to be a random sampling not the actual breakdown of all members.

A million users? Do you have a link to these claims? I find it highly unlikely.

You can go to roll20.net and check out the prominent "Join 800,000 Tabletop Gamers" headline, if that helps.

 

[Morrus]

At the ENnies last year they said they were at 600K users. Whether it's 600K, 800K, or a million, they're clearly a popular platform.

[video=youtube;P-gIXk4xeN0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-gIXk4xeN0[/video]

 

[Agamon]

Impressive. Of course, a user is probably just someone who has signed in at least once. But impressive, nonetheless.

 

[TerraDave]

As expected.

In terms of user #s, the way roll20 is set up, you don't need to identify the game to use it.

 

[Mercurius]

Roll20 probably has 800K users in a similar way that EN World has 168K users ;D (actually, I'm curious [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], if you know the percentage of those 168K users who post at least once a week, once a month, have 10+ posts, etc).

Anyhow, interesting stuff although of limited use for a variety of reasons. One that comes to mind is that it is an online gaming suite which might be skewed more towards certain games. I'm guessing, for instance, that a lower percentage of OD&D players use online gaming tools than 3E or 4E. Not to mention World of Darkness (speaking of which, why are there more games of Vampire than of all White Wolf games?).

I am a bit surprised at how low certain games are - Dragon Age, Warhammer, one or two others.

I'm also wondering why Settlers of Catan is one there. Isn't this RPGs only?

 

[Fildrigar]

Roll20 probably has 800K users in a similar way that EN World has 168K users ;D (actually, I'm curious [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], if you know the percentage of those 168K users who post at least once a week, once a month, have 10+ posts, etc).

You'd probably find quite a few members who hardly post at all. Note that I've been a member since 2008, but posted the first time this January.

 

[Kramodlog]

What are the percentages next to the numbers supposed to mean? The first clearly means the total percentage D&D games represent in relations to the total number of games being played. But the second percentage, I'm not sure.