Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
io9: 2023 Should Have Been D&D's Best Year, Until It Wasn't
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9221131" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>They have supplied a number. Its hardness is precisely what is in dispute. 60 million sounds like a blowhard overconfident estimate designed to inflate the numbers as much as humanly possible, e.g. every DM runs for ~3 groups of ~5 people each and all of them are completely distinct, so if they've sold 4 million DMGs then there must be 60 million players. <em>That</em> would be a hard number, and would show the patently ridiculous assumptions involved in producing the unsourced number they cited.</p><p></p><p>Which would further explain why the estimates vary so widely. If you instead assume that there are maybe ~3M actual DMs, and they run for an average of four <em>genuinely distinct</em> players each, then you get the still quite high but much more reasonable 12M, which is far closer to the previous estimates of how many people are playing (I have previously seen "8 to 20 million" thrown around.) I say "genuinely distinct" because most people I know who play are players in more than one game, and nearly everyone who runs is also a player in someone else's game.</p><p></p><p>Companies have a vested interest in choosing statistics and assumptions which inflate their numbers. It makes them look better, can lead to investor confidence (or at least avoid freakouts), and implies growth and positivity regardless of whether that implication bears out. World of Warcraft used to tout total subscribers...until Cataclysm saw those numbers start to drop, and they conspicuously switched to "Monthly Active User" counts....and then they stopped giving even those for WoW, and aggregated it with other Activision-Blizzard products...and then there was nowhere else to turn when even <em>those</em> numbers started falling.</p><p></p><p>So, until they put their money (or, rather, sales) where their mouth is, nah bro, this ain't a hard number. It is, at best, corpspeak, and at worst actively fudging the numbers and assuming the most ridiculously rosy things possible. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9221131, member: 6790260"] They have supplied a number. Its hardness is precisely what is in dispute. 60 million sounds like a blowhard overconfident estimate designed to inflate the numbers as much as humanly possible, e.g. every DM runs for ~3 groups of ~5 people each and all of them are completely distinct, so if they've sold 4 million DMGs then there must be 60 million players. [I]That[/I] would be a hard number, and would show the patently ridiculous assumptions involved in producing the unsourced number they cited. Which would further explain why the estimates vary so widely. If you instead assume that there are maybe ~3M actual DMs, and they run for an average of four [I]genuinely distinct[/I] players each, then you get the still quite high but much more reasonable 12M, which is far closer to the previous estimates of how many people are playing (I have previously seen "8 to 20 million" thrown around.) I say "genuinely distinct" because most people I know who play are players in more than one game, and nearly everyone who runs is also a player in someone else's game. Companies have a vested interest in choosing statistics and assumptions which inflate their numbers. It makes them look better, can lead to investor confidence (or at least avoid freakouts), and implies growth and positivity regardless of whether that implication bears out. World of Warcraft used to tout total subscribers...until Cataclysm saw those numbers start to drop, and they conspicuously switched to "Monthly Active User" counts....and then they stopped giving even those for WoW, and aggregated it with other Activision-Blizzard products...and then there was nowhere else to turn when even [I]those[/I] numbers started falling. So, until they put their money (or, rather, sales) where their mouth is, nah bro, this ain't a hard number. It is, at best, corpspeak, and at worst actively fudging the numbers and assuming the most ridiculously rosy things possible. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
io9: 2023 Should Have Been D&D's Best Year, Until It Wasn't
Top