Fantasy Grounds Usage Stats Confirms D&D #1, Followed by Pathfinder, Savage Worlds

Hot on the heels of ICv2's latest industry report are the Quarter 2, 2018 usage statistics for the virtual tabletop, Fantasy Grounds. They tell a similar, but not identical story, with D&D 5E in the lead, followed by Pathfinder, Savage Worlds, and more. FG reports that D&D increased by 50%, and Pathfinder by 29% in the same time frame.

​

"Core RPG" refers to Fantasy Grounds' generic module which can be used to play a variety of systems.

 

[LordEntrails]

The growth of 5E amazes, and pleases, me. But I wish for the health of the market that the other systems had more growth.

 

[Superchunk77]

I'm a big fan of 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5.0, but I am most happy to see that Savage Worlds is going strong. It's a great game for almost any genre. The character generation and the play mechanics work well in modern, fantasy, sci-fi, and other settings. I ran a 3-session zombie apocalypse game in June and the SW engine was fast and smooth. My large group (6 players) didn't argue about the rules once!

Also happy to see Savage Worlds going strong! Love that game system. It's soooooooo easy to model any campaign setting using a few Savage Worlds rules plus the core book.

 

[Jester David]

It's interesting to compare the report from Fantasy Grounds and the [/FONT[URL="http://blog.roll20.net/post/174833007355/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2018"][url]http://blog.roll20.net/post/174833007355/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2018[/URL]]Orr Group[/url] with the [/FONT[URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?5476-NA-Hobby-Games-Market-Increases-To-1-55M-D-D-Remains-On-Top"][url]http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?5476-NA-Hobby-Games-Market-Increases-To-1-55M-D-D-Remains-On-Top[/URL]]ICv2 sales chart[/url].

While the sales chart puts Starfinder on top of Pathfinder for the last eight months, this doesn't seem to be reflected in either VTT’s number of games played. Fantasy Grounds does have a Starfinder package and the number of games went from 4,000 to 10,000, but its market share stayed at 1%. It barely passed the #4 RPG (FFG's Star Wars).

This either means people are buying Starfinder but not running it OR that that Starfinder is only selling moderate copies but that Pathfinder's sales have dropped. Or a combination of the two.
(Regardless, it looks like Paizo picked a good time to start working on Pathfinder 2…)


And it also shows the giant gulf in sales between D&D and Edge of the Empire. Other games can come along and hit the chart but still not quite get played...

 

[Eyes of Nine]

What is MoreCore?

 

[Karma Kollapse]

This either means people are buying Starfinder but not running it OR that that Starfinder is only selling moderate copies but that Pathfinder's sales have dropped. Or a combination of the two.

Pathfinder is a pretty old game at this point, there can't be that many people buying those books and most of the rules are available for free online anyway. Where as Starfinder is still pretty new; but even now it feels like the initial excitement for the system has passed. My FLGS doesn't seem to have much in the way of stock for either system.

 

[Nylanfs]

What is MoreCore?

MoreCore is a community ruleset that adds a lot more different mechanics for playing even more niche games.
http://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?34860-MoreCore-Ruleset

 

[Lord Kakabel]

The disparity between this and the Orr Group report in regards to Pathfinder and Starfinder can be explained by the nature of Fantasy Grounds. PF & SF are much harder to run on a virtual tabletop than 5e. I know I despised running PF on a VTT, but enjoyed a few 5e games (PF is my game of choice). The Orr Report is probably a better reflection of what is going on at face-to-face game tables.

 

[Morrus]

The disparity between this and the Orr Group report in regards to Pathfinder and Starfinder can be explained by the nature of Fantasy Grounds. PF & SF are much harder to run on a virtual tabletop than 5e. I know I despised running PF on a VTT, but enjoyed a few 5e games (PF is my game of choice). The Orr Report is probably a better reflection of what is going on at face-to-face game tables.

The Orr Report is a VTT too - it’s just Roll20’s usage stats.

 

[Lord Kakabel]

Ah, thank you; I didn't realize that. I thought it was industry surveys, like asking game shop owners what they see their customers playing. It means much less to me now.

 

[Morrus]

Ah, thank you; I didn't realize that. I thought it was industry surveys, like asking game shop owners what they see their customers playing. It means much less to me now.

You’re thinking of ICv2.