ICv2 Reports Disappointing Year For Hobby Games Channel: TTRPGs Down, D&D Declines 30%

According to ICv2, 2023 was a tough year for hobby game sales. The US and Canada market increased by just 1%, which was less than the rate of inflation, growing from $2.86 billion in 2022 to $2.89 billion in 2023.

The hobby game sales channel is defined as specialist game and card stores--it doesn't include Amazon, direct sales, etc. It does include Kickstarter.

Top Hobby Channel TTRPGs (2023)

1. Dungeons & Dragons (WotC)
2. Pathfinder (Paizo)
3. Cyberpunk Red (R. Talsorian)
4. World of Darkness (Renegade Game Studios)
5. Starfinder (Paizo)
6. Warhammer 40K (Cubicle 7)
7. Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying (Marvel)
8. Kobold 5E Books (Kobold Press)
9. Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium)
10. Pirate Borg (Free League)

The only two categories to grow in 2023 were collectibles and miniatures. All other categories--board games, card games, and roleplaying games--were down. ICv2 reports a 30% hobby store sales decline for Dungeons & Dragons specifically, citing the impending new edition and lackluster movie performance, and the tail end of a pandemic-fuelled high; they also report that while the OGL crisis of last year impacted some lifestyle gamers, newer players as a whole were oblivious to the situation. The other important element ICv2 mentioned was D&D's increasing move to digital, which impacted retail sales.

Older D&D players, says ICv2, are also migrating to other games, with Pathfinder as one of the major beneficiaries.

The last 6 years has seen much larger growth rates--partly fuelled by the pandemic--ranging from 10% to 30%. 2022 saw a 7% growth over 2021. Despite the small increase, 2023 represents the 15th year of growth for the overall market. ICv2 does predict a market decline in 2024, though.

ICv2 conducts periodical surveys and speaks to publishers, distributors, and retailers, along with publicly available company information and Kickstarter data.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Also honestly surprised that Cyberpunk Red is #3.

Not my favorite edition of the game, but it's still nice to see R Talsorian having some success here in 2024. Maybe they'll re-invest some of the profits in a new edition of Mekton or Castle Falkenstein.

Heck, I'd take an updated TFOS at this point.

If only there was a way that WotC could publish an additional book or a boxed set that would help lead people from the CRPG space to the ttrpg space.

Yes. If only. Sigh.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, I'll let you know when meat hits 2022 prices.

That would require deflation, which can be really, really bad for the economy and is not something anyone should want.

 

[ART!]

Not too surprising. Despite all the hyperventilating about this not being a new edition, the market is still showing the traditional inter-edition sales slump.

The industry and hobby is probably holding its breath to some extent, waiting to see how the 2024 edition and DDB's new features play out.

 

[Scribe]

That would require deflation, which can be really, really bad for the economy and is not something anyone should want.

Then we just increase wages to account for it all, and the cosmic joke that is the "Global Financial System" just keeps on rolling.

Sure, whatever. My annual pay review is coming up, I'll let you know how that works out.

 

[zakael19]

Are they playing BG3 instead of going to their regular D&D games, or are they playing BG3 and wishing they had a regular D&D game?

I am old enough to remember when WoW ate D&D groups by the thousands. I haven't gotten any sense that BG3 is doing that. the opposite, in fact: it appears BG3 is inspiring folks to give tabletop D&D a try.

My 5e games are entirely made up of folks who played BG3 and wanted to start playing D&D (except for 1 guy, who had played a bit). 3 of those players have dived in hard, bought a ton of digital content, and are playing in 3 games a week. They were all CR watchers, but not until BG3 did they decide to make the leap towards actually playing.

 

[overgeeked]

The industry and hobby is probably holding its breath to some extent, waiting to see how the 2024 edition and DDB's new features play out.

One of the many problems with one game being such an outsized portion of the industry. D&D slumps and the industry slumps.

 

[darjr]

One of the many problems with one game being such an outsized portion of the industry. D&D slumps and the industry slumps.

Yea absolutely. And no. The article points out that PF2 has been a beneficiary. I think others have been too. I wouldn’t have found Pirate Borg if I hadn’t dived into Mörk Borg recently, for instance.

 

[MGibster]

I don't think anyone is surprised there is a slump in sales due to an upcoming edition combined with a (possible) peak of COVID sales. While I certainly don't expect RPGs to disappear or anything so dramatic, I wouldn't be surprised if they went down in popularity over the next few years. These things ebb and flow. I miss the good old days when I could walk into my local game store and see multiple shelves full of AD&D, GURPS, White Wolf, Palladium, and a myriad of other games all in once place, but that was thirty years ago and I don't ever expect we'll go back to that. On the other hand, we have a myriad of excellent games available to us through online retailers that likely wouldn't have been available in 1992.

I'm an older person, I just turned 48, and I can't say WotC has done anything to alienate me. They've made changes, some of which I think were silly and unnecessary, others which I'm indifferent to, and still others that I don't actually like, but I think they make a pretty solid game.

 

[Jimmy Dick]

Go Pathfinder! Second Edition is a great system in itself. The Remaster project is coming along well. I am not seeing a decline in our player base for my area. However, without Amazon and digital sales included in the research, I would venture the report is incomplete.

 

[lyle.spade]

WotC making an effort to sell books with covers only available at specialty stores puts the lie to this. I don't like WotC either, but this is blaming them for something that the actual consumers are most responsible for: choosing Amazon discounts over having a FLGS. WotC didn't do that, (the general) you did.

Good points, and yet the company isn't helping the issue by pushing more things online. Consumers will go where stuff is cheap, but given WOTC's dominance of the market, they could choose to better support FLGSs; instead, their move to perhaps all or mostly digital is a huge middle finger to them.