I strongly suspect ENW demographics are nothing like RPGers as a whole. But enjoy the polling.
Yes, agreed, and I don't expect them to be. What I'm curious about is A) What are the demographics and interests of the EN World community, and B) To what degree are those demographics representative of the larger gaming community?
Bear with me as I speculate wildly...
This poll gives us some small inclination of the 2nd point in that 60% of ENWorlders (so far) are primarily GMs. Obviously 3 out of 5 gamers aren't primarily GMs; if the average gaming group is, say, 5 people, it would be 1 out of 5, or maybe 1.5 out of 5, which still only comes to 30%. So my sense is that approximately 20-30% of all gamers are primarily GMs (let's say 25%). If 60% of ENers are primarily GMs, we are getting a slice of--at most--40% of all gamers (60/100 = 25/40ish, thus 40%).
This is not to say that 40% of all gamers post at EN World--obviously they do not. But that EN World is a microcosm of,
at the very most, 40% of the gaming population.
My guess is that in order to discuss the gaming community, you have to look at different "tiers" of interest (let's use the 4E terminology for the fun of it).
1) Epic tier - "Serious Gamers", often designers or would-be-designers to some degree, usually GMs; they put a significant amount of daily thought into RPGs; almost always spends a significant percentage of spare change on game books.
2) Paragon tier - "Regular Gamers", usually players, who are probably part of a regular gaming group or buys books semi-regularly; spends some money on game books, but almost always only for games they play, and only what is necessary.
3) Heroic tier - "Casual Gamers", almost entirely players, who either play semi-regularly or once-in-a-blue moon, or may play "when they get a chance" or did so "back in college" wouldn't mind playing again; may own a Player's Handbook or the main Vampire book, but little else--doesn't buy books, just shows up to play. Often-times they are spouses and relatives of Regular and Serious Gamers.
I have no idea what the percentages are, but I'd guess something like <5/25/70. If the commonly bandied-around 5.5 million D&D players is at all accurate, and if D&D makes up--I'm pulling this one out of a hat--80% of all gamers (including much overlap; the other 20% being those that don't play D&D at all), then there are approximately 6.5-7 million gamers worldwide. Let's be generous and round up to 7 million. With my percentage guesstimates of the tiers, that would make 350,000 Serious Gamers, 1,750,000 Regular Gamers, and 5,900,000 Casual Gamers. Somehow I don't see there being 350,000 Serious Gamers, but I could be wrong.
Anyone want to speculate wildly?
