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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shoak1" data-source="post: 7723349" data-attributes="member: 54380">Statistics come in many forms, some more useful than others.  Marketing snippets need to be taken with a grain of salt, especially given that your post is entitled "Is D and D entering a new Golden Age?"As I review your evidence, I am especially keyed in on anything related to how well D and D 5e is doing as a market share compared to D and D in the 70s and early 80s, when it sure seemed like D and D was huuuuuge as a market share of hobby gaming.  Back then it was pretty much wargaming (Avalon Hill and SPI), D and D, and miniatures – also no real video or computer strategy gaming to speak of.  People – ordinary people – knew about D and D (and didn’t really think you mean World of Warcraft, League of Legends, or something else).So my initial gut feeling is that heck no, we are not in a Golden Age – it doesn’t at all feel the same way.  But lets see if your evidence contradicts my life experience:OK - so according to the data Morrus posted <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?563442-How-big-s-the-RPG-market" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?563442-How-big-s-the-RPG-market</a>, rpgs as an industry only constitute 3% of the total sales of hobby games in the U.S. and Canada.  So the fact that the hobby game industry overall grew may or may not mean growth for rpgs and/or D and D.So here we seem to have something solid - a 29% increase in RPG sales with D and D being the highest selling RPG.........  Or do we?  How much of the RPG market share is D and D?  If it is 70%, then clearly any such massive upward tick would indicate D and D is also growing, but what if D and D were only 20% of the market?  What if the number 3 RPG is responsible for the growth?Furthermore, while growth is better than no growth, everything is relative.  Even if D and D itself grew by 40% in the last year, what does that mean as far as market share compared to the 80s? So:  The company that owns D and D is doing well….or, then again, maybe it means they are sucking 23% less than last year – who knows?  I guess I would have to know more about what constitutes good and bad profit levels in the industry, what their market share is, etc.  But more importantly, how the heck can you argue that data shows anything at all about how D and D itself is doing??So they don’t want to talk about Magic or Monopoly, and DO want to talk about D and D and DuelMasters.  Therefore its likely that D and D is doing well compared to its other products – and since Hasbro experienced 23% growth, I agree D and D likely showed growth.  But growth from what numbers to what numbers?  And to what kind of market share?  And how does that market share compare to the 70s/80s?So they are promoting a playstyle compatible with one of its games?  lol of course they are.  No statistics here to help the Golden Age question.OK this is the weakest eveidence of all.  How many views do other games get?  What constitutes a view?  Does it include peeps redirected there or only people seeking it out?  This all marketing spin mumbo jumbo, nothing to be relied on for evidence of anything really other than “D and D is doing well for Hasbro and is growing.” (Btw, my earlier conclusion D and D probably had experienced growth was right – 50% - but again FROM what numbers TO what numbers? and to what market share?)More underwhelming “data.”  I could have told you women are 30%-ish of the RPGing world….so what?  Why is this good vs. bad?Pointing to the fact that something *might* happen (a D and D film) does not constitute evidence of a Golden Age, needless to say.So I didn’t see anything evidence-wise that actually pointed to a D and D Golden Age in the original post, so lets look at numbers posted elsewhere:<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?579618-D-amp-D-5e-nearing-800-000-copies-sold" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?579618-D-amp-D-5e-nearing-800-000-copies-sold</a> indicates that 800,000 copies of 5e D and D book(s) were sold in the last 3 years.   Lets compare to this:So 750,000 per year in 1984, adjusted upward 33% for population growth, means the today equivalent of 1 million copies a year, compared to 5e’s 270,000 per year.  That’s 37% of 1e.  Not exactly Golden Age-esque, right?  Furthermore, although I don’t have market share analysis data to share, I can tell you that the rpg share of the US/Canada Hobby Gaming market in 1984 was much higher than the 3% it is currently – my guess is that it constituted 25% conservatively.  PLUS there was much less video/ computer  gaming than now, so the market share of D and D within the combined hobby/gaming industry was MUCH higher than its current 1.2%, – my guess again is that it constituted 25% conservatively.Put those numbers together and you find D and D 1e was 500 times as much a portion of the combined 1984 hobby/video gaming as 5e is today.  And that squares pretty well with how it felt living thru it.  There’s really no comparison and it REALLY is demeaning to the legacy of D and D to call this iteration anything of the sort.  Here’s what I think is fair to say about 5e:  it is profitable, growing, and is doing much better than 4e.   To be fair I think it would be impossible for any current day RPG to have anywhere remotely close to the impact D and D had in its heyday, there are just too many more appealing genres available  to the modern gamer.To borrow and pervert a Lloyd Bensen line:  "Sir, I grew up with D and D. I experienced the Golden Age of D and D. I lived the Golden Age. And Sir, let me tell you: this ain't no Golden Age for D and D."</blockquote>

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