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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[Morrus]

Uhhhmm. no, not the boss of you, just displeased that you would not do proper research before estimating the size of the RPG Industry.

You’re still confused. I haven’t estimated anything. I am reporting on the estimates of an industry magazine, as I have done for many years now.

Already provided. D&B Says WOTC earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $295 Million in 2016. That's D&D, Magic, Everything else. Magic is still #1 of course. I have seen D&D 5e in every book and game store still around. That means it's probably #2. What makes you think WOTC would be earning less than they did in 2003-2005? ...and we are not even looking at the other big RPG companies. green Ronin, SJG Games. Games Workshop.

Lots of guessing there. Why should I believe your guesses over ICv2’s research? Who are you?

You need to put up or shut up. Present your research. If it’s credible, I’ll gladly report on it.

Ooooh... check this out. Earning report for Games Workshop alone from June-November of 2016 - 13.8 Million pounds AFTER EXPENSES, which is something like $17.6 Million dollars at current exchange rates, they alone are earning almost $40 million a year AFTER EXPENSES. WOTC is still bigger than them. What does that make your ridiculous claim.

OK..

First: calm down. You’re getting excited.

Second: you are comparing different markets. WotC isn’t D&D and Games Workshop isn’t roleplaying games.

Third: if you have an issue with ICv2’s research, take it up with them. If you have credible alternate research, present it, and I might report on it.

Why are you pretending the established RPG companies are not making any money?

You can still redeem yourself by being a man, and fessing up, and then go do some real research and report back on your website with some semblance of truth, instead of the absolutely ridiculous claim you started this thread with.[/I]

Oh, for goodness’ sake. I don’t have time for baby internet anger-monkeys. Learn some basic social skills or go elsewhere. “Redeem yourself”, “be a man”, “fess up”, “ridiculous claim” – really? All in one sentence? About some industry stats? Dude.

 

[GameDaddy]

What is really fascinating is that the global "games" market which includes everything that is considered gaming has eclipsed $24 billion!. It has even surpassed the global market for box office movies!!!!.

Umm. sorry no. Box office revenues for movies in 2016 was somewhere in the neighborhood of 71-91 Billion Dollars U.S. let's see....

Global Games Market 2016 (This is everything included and especially video games)
https://newzoo.com/insights/article...aches-99-6-billion-2016-mobile-generating-37/

Global Theater/Box Office Revenues 2016
https://www.statista.com/topics/964/film/

Film Entertainment Revenue in the U.S. 2016
https://www.statista.com/statistics/259984/filmed-entertainment-revenue-in-the-us/

...and you can get a second opinion by adding up all the top grossing movies worldwide for yourself...
http://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/domestic/all-movies/cumulative/

If the tabletop games market is 24+, it still has to beat 39 or so, to eclipse movie earnings at the box office in the United States alone.

 

[GameDaddy]

Oh, for goodness’ sake. I don’t have time for baby internet anger-monkeys. Learn some basic social skills or go elsewhere. “Redeem yourself”, “be a man”, “fess up”, “ridiculous claim” – really? All in one sentence? About some industry stats? Dude.

I'm not angry. just disappointed. I see you opted not to man up. congratulations.

 

[Morrus]

I'm not angry. just disappointed. I see you opted not to man up. congratulations.

Yeah, bye. Don’t post in this thread again.

 

[Joseph Nardo]

I've been trying to find what is the rpg growth potential for 2020 but have not been able to find d anything. I'm curious to see what it could be. I think that by 2020, the rpg market will grow significantly.

 

[see]

When Wizards of the Coast allows Amazon to sell the Player's Handbook below distribution costs, well duh. It hurts new player acquisition as the FLGS is the acknowledged marketing arm of the game trade.

How exactly would you expect Wizards to stop this?

I mean, I don't know if Wizards is selling directly to Amazon. But refusing to is pretty much the only thing they could do, and that wouldn't be able to stop a distributor who bought PHBs from turning around and selling a bulk order to Amazon for less per unit than they sell to hobby retailers. Any restrictions they tried to place on distributor resales would skirt US antitrust laws, and the more effective the restrictions at forcing Amazon's prices up, the more likely they'd be found to liable in a lawsuit and forced to pay treble damages.

 

[Gareman]

How exactly would you expect Wizards to stop this?

Publishers have plenty of strategies to implement brand protection that doesn't run afoul of antitrust laws. We've seen this already with a number of publishers, with Asmodee being the biggest and most recent example. There is nothing stopping WOTC from protecting their brand other than their will to do so. It's one of those taboo discussion points as well. They're willing to discuss anything but this.

 

[Morrus]

When Wizards of the Coast allows Amazon to sell the Player's Handbook below distribution costs, well duh. It hurts new player acquisition as the FLGS is the acknowledged marketing arm of the game trade.

They mitigate that a bit by letting FLGS' have the books 11 days early, and by running a massive Organised Play program which is geared towards player acquisition.

 

[Maxperson]

Is there a reason why you compared the hobby market from the US and Canada only to the global market for film and entertainment? That doesn't seem accurate to me.

 

[see]

Publishers have plenty of strategies to implement brand protection that doesn't run afoul of antitrust laws. We've seen this already with a number of publishers, with Asmodee being the biggest and most recent example.

There are three problems comparing Asmodee to WotC here.

First, almost everything in US antitrust law is governed by the "rule of reason" and issues of market power. Which in practice means the larger your market share, the more things that will violate antitrust law; a (say) #3 company with 15% market share can do all sorts of things that would be illegal for (say) a market leader with 40%. So restrictions from the publisher of D&D are more likely to provoke antitrust issues than those of more niche games.

Second, smaller companies are much harder to successfully extract worthwhile damages from than larger ones. The bigger your market share, the higher the likely damages awarded; the bigger your company, the more likely you are to pay out the damages rather than go bankrupt. Both mean Hasbro (market cap $14.5 billion) is more likely to get threatened by a lawsuit by (say) Amazon than two-orders-of-magnitude-smaller Asmodee (implicit valuation around €0.14 billion, based on a 2013 investment); there's more likely to be a financial return on the expense of the lawsuit.

Third, it is quite likely that Hasbro and Asmodee evaluate the risks differently because Asmodee is fundamentally a European company, and European antitrust law is focused more on the health of businesses than the impact on consumers. Agreements restricting the rights of distributors and retailers and establishing minimum prices and the like are vastly more acceptable under European antitrust laws than US, and thus corporate culture is far less wary about imposing them. Add in that US culture tends to be more litigious than European, and there are lots of things a European company (especially one with few American lawyers) would be willing to tell a US subsidiary to do that a US company (especially one with a large legal department) would prohibit a division/subsidiary from doing.

Now, obviously, this is all speculative and amateur outsider estimation rather than insider knowledge. Maybe WotC could, in the case of D&D, copy Asmodee safely. But it's likely that Hasbro legal doesn't think that the health of FLGSes is remotely worth the legal risk, which would also explain why they'd prohibit WotC employees from talking about the issue.