How big's the RPG market?

How big is the RPG market? Pretty damn tiny, is the answer. As of 2016/2017 it's about $35m in size, according to ICv2. That's of a Hobby Games market currently worth just over a billion dollars. The RPG segment is a mere 2.9% of the overall Hobby Games market, which includes boardgames, miniatures, hobby card games, and collectible games. Of course, the competition for RPGs isn't just boardgames or card games, it's entertainment; and on that scale, the RPG market is a tiny niche of the Hobby Games market, which is a tiny niche of the global entertainment market. Note that these figures are US and Canada only, and include Kickstarter sales.

UPDATE: the below $1.19B figure has since been revised upwards by ICv2 to $1.4B in 2017, with an RPG segment of $45M.

The hobby games market as a whole is the size of one major movie blockbuster. The global film industry market was 38.3 billion in 2015. Putting that into perspective:

The video game industry is even bigger, at $91B in 2016.

However, the entire hobby games market is growing year on year. Just look at the latest stats: the market has grown from $700M in 2013 to $1.19B in 2016/2017. Of that, RPGs have more than doubled in size, from $15M to $35M. Boardgames have over tripled in size. There is definitely a tabletop boom going on right now, powered by a number of factors ranging from Kickstarter, to the introduction of US West Coast media (shows like Tabletop and outlets like Geek & Sundry have helped to mainstream tabletop gaming), and more.

Data from ICv2 and other sources.

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[Ted Serious]

15 million people play D&D but the whole RPG industry is 35 million. That doesn't add up.

 

[Morrus]

15 million people play D&D but the whole RPG industry is 35 million. That doesn't add up.

Why not?

 

[Pauper]

It's a complicated issue, so taking any one source and treating it as authoritative is probably putting more weight on that data than it can really support, even if there are few other sources for the data.

It's kind of like saying, because we only have Aristotle's word for all this 'science' stuff, then Aristotle must have been right about everything he wrote.

With that said, the data on the overall size of the market is probably in the ballpark, since other data seems to be within the same order of magnitude. The NPD Group, for instance, does retail tracking for member retailers, and estimates the 'games and puzzles' segment of the North American toy industry to have been just over $2 billion in 2016 and 2017, with 2017 representing 4% growth over 2016.

Trying to extract specific conclusions or strategies from such general data is likely a mistake, though; for instance, some wag at Hasbro might take a look at that linked data and decide where WotC should really be focusing their energy is on RPG material for infants and preschoolers, since that market is, by the NPD numbers, over half again as large as the North American game and puzzle market. I'd like to imagine such a plan would seem ludicrous to the rest of us, but the truth is that extrapolating any kind of strategy out of this thin wash of data invites similar levels of error.

--
Pauper

 

[Ted Serious]

Why not?

The average of 2 bucks and change revenue per player per year seems awfully low.

 

[Umbran]

3. .... It hurts new player acquisition as the FLGS is the acknowledged marketing arm of the game trade.

Except, it isn't. Maybe it was for a while, but not anymore. They may *want* the FLGS to be this, but, to be honest, there are not enough of them, and they are generally the haunts of established players who are looking for more game, rather than new players who don't know games.

I think we are back to the apprenticeship model. New gamers are created by current gamers, not by the FLGS. It is gaming parents teaching their kids. It is those kids teaching their friends. It is gamign clubs in junior high and high schools. It is people meeting each other in college ad teachign them. None of this in the FLGS, but in their homes and school venues.

Anyone know how much WotC spends in supporting school gaming clubs?

 

[Morrus]

The average of 2 bucks and change revenue per player per year seems awfully low.

I think that works. D&D is one of those hobbies where you don’t need to be a customer to be a player. A lot of players don’t buy books (or if they do, just a PHB). Our group has two PHBs between 6 of us. And only I as the DM get the adventures.

 

[delericho]

15 million people play D&D but the whole RPG industry is 35 million. That doesn't add up.

The vast majority of players buy nothing for the game. Further, of those who do buy something, the vast majority buy the PHB and then nothing else.

(WotC estimate ~15M players in North America, while the PHB has probably sold somewhere between 1 and 2 million copies. Further, WotC's aspiration is that each of their supplements will shift 100k units.)

 

[Ted Serious]

So there's a massive freeloader problem.

 

[Umbran]

So there's a massive freeloader problem.

Glass half-full/half empty.

You say there's a massive freeloader problem. I say that RPGs are simply among the most cost-efficient entertainments ever created.

 

[Morrus]

So there's a massive freeloader problem.

It’s not a problem for me.