Jan van Leyden
Adventurer
He's only considering systems with at least 130 campaigns registered at Obsidianportal. So D&D(1.0) (?) just barely made the cut with 130 campaigns while D&D (4e) ist the leader of the pack with its 7,805 campaigns.
How many people play D&D, and what percentage play various editions?
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
He's only considering systems with at least 130 campaigns registered at Obsidianportal. So D&D(1.0) (?) just barely made the cut with 130 campaigns while D&D (4e) ist the leader of the pack with its 7,805 campaigns.
Mercurius
Legend
Ah, OK. I think the Obsidian Portal info is reasonably useful, even the most reliable source I've seen so far, although moreso within D&D and less so for other games - I just don't see a larger percentage of Exalted players, for instance, using Obsidian Portal.
So adding up those numbers:
Old School: 3%
3.X (incl Pathfinder): 33%
4e: 49%
That's only 85% of the total. If we translate that to 100%, we get relative percentages of D&D players from Obsidian Portal:
Old School: 3.5%
3.x: 39%
4E: 57.5%
That's pretty close to my initial guess of 10/32/58. Another area it is probably inaccurate in accounting for is the number of "Old School" campaigns, because Old Schoolers are probably less likely to register an online campaign. I don't think this would make a huge different, but maybe a couple percentage points. I don't think we need to adjust 3.x or 4E too much; so here's some rounded off numbers:
Old School: 5%
3.x: 40%
4E: 55%
Now if you are WotC you simply have to take that 40% seriously as a potential market for 5E. The 5% Old School probably won't change and most of it is comprised of people that never switched over to 3E. But in the early years of 3E, there was almost certainly not such a larger number of people playing earlier versions of the game; I would imagine that, two and a half years into 3E, at least 80% of active D&D players were playing 3E, if not 90%+, especially considering that 3E brought a lot of people back to the game.
So relativeto the game itself, 4E is far less popular than 3E was. This is not news, of course, but it must--or should--inform WotC unless they are satisfied with a downsized market. If and when 5E comes out it will be interesting to see how many 4E holdovers there are. I imagine there won't be a lot; assuming 5E is able to draw some 3.xers and most 4Ers, we could end up with a strange grouping like so:
2015 Speculation
Old School: 5%
3.x: 25%
4E: 10%
5E: 60%
This is one of the reasons why WotC must create 5E with 3.xers in mind. Most 4Ers will move on simply because it is the latest version of the game, and The Shiny Is Good. But unless 5E addresses some of the major criticisms people have of 4E, 5E will only further fracture the market.
So adding up those numbers:
Old School: 3%
3.X (incl Pathfinder): 33%
4e: 49%
That's only 85% of the total. If we translate that to 100%, we get relative percentages of D&D players from Obsidian Portal:
Old School: 3.5%
3.x: 39%
4E: 57.5%
That's pretty close to my initial guess of 10/32/58. Another area it is probably inaccurate in accounting for is the number of "Old School" campaigns, because Old Schoolers are probably less likely to register an online campaign. I don't think this would make a huge different, but maybe a couple percentage points. I don't think we need to adjust 3.x or 4E too much; so here's some rounded off numbers:
Old School: 5%
3.x: 40%
4E: 55%
Now if you are WotC you simply have to take that 40% seriously as a potential market for 5E. The 5% Old School probably won't change and most of it is comprised of people that never switched over to 3E. But in the early years of 3E, there was almost certainly not such a larger number of people playing earlier versions of the game; I would imagine that, two and a half years into 3E, at least 80% of active D&D players were playing 3E, if not 90%+, especially considering that 3E brought a lot of people back to the game.
So relativeto the game itself, 4E is far less popular than 3E was. This is not news, of course, but it must--or should--inform WotC unless they are satisfied with a downsized market. If and when 5E comes out it will be interesting to see how many 4E holdovers there are. I imagine there won't be a lot; assuming 5E is able to draw some 3.xers and most 4Ers, we could end up with a strange grouping like so:
2015 Speculation
Old School: 5%
3.x: 25%
4E: 10%
5E: 60%
This is one of the reasons why WotC must create 5E with 3.xers in mind. Most 4Ers will move on simply because it is the latest version of the game, and The Shiny Is Good. But unless 5E addresses some of the major criticisms people have of 4E, 5E will only further fracture the market.
prosfilaes
Adventurer
I'd cut it differently. D&D 3.0 is old school in a sense; the users have decided to stay with a decidedly out-dated system. Pathfinder isn't D&D 3.5; its players have decided to take up with a new system and have an investment in it. It's the 3.5 people who are either going to have to go to Pathfinder (or another 3.5± system), move to 4th ed or future editions, or join the old school with the dwindling number of books, no source of legal new copies and the whole curmudgeon feel.* So I'd count the numbers as
Old School: 4%
D&D 3.5: 24%
Pathfinder: 8%
D&D 4: 49%
I think many of those 3.5 users are going to find Pathfinder, and that Pathfinder users are not going to be amenable to anything WotC has to pull them back.
* "Hey, so you've never played D&D before! Oh, we don't play the game that WotC puts out; it's been going down hill for years. We play old-school; they stopped making new books for this 10 years ago. Hey, be careful with the book, it's not replaceable. Here, we've got a photocopy of the important parts."
Old School: 4%
D&D 3.5: 24%
Pathfinder: 8%
D&D 4: 49%
I think many of those 3.5 users are going to find Pathfinder, and that Pathfinder users are not going to be amenable to anything WotC has to pull them back.
* "Hey, so you've never played D&D before! Oh, we don't play the game that WotC puts out; it's been going down hill for years. We play old-school; they stopped making new books for this 10 years ago. Hey, be careful with the book, it's not replaceable. Here, we've got a photocopy of the important parts."
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
From my perspective 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder are all vaguely the same: a d20-system base with varying amount of bells and whistles added...so I just call 'em all 3e and have done with it. Same can be said for BD+D, OD+D, and the original AD+D - from a distance they're all vaguely the same, and I lump 'em together as 1e.
And yes, from the perspective of someone who recently started playing and has only ever touched 4e, 3.0 is old-school. History as a whole, however, would beg to differ.
Lanefan
prosfilaes
Adventurer
If what you're looking at is where people are going to be in the future, the fact that they're all a d20-system base is irrelevant. 3.0 players have already chosen to skip a reasonable upgrade. Pathfinder players have already decided to move on from 3.5 and have started to build an investment in something new. The 3.5 people are the ones that are either going to have to find a new system or join the "old school" people and fade away.
MortonStromgal
First Post
I'm not sure how good Obsidian Portal is as an indicator. Pathfinder has a Google Site template and 4e does not. There are a lot of Goggle Sites dedicated to Pathfinder as such. Maybe if you took 4 or 5 D&Dish campaign sites and meshed the numbers together you might get something reasonable but I think most AD&D 2e and before players probably are not even using internet sites for their games.
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