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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7723364" data-attributes="member: 37579">True. But it helps if valid counter statistics are offered. This is pretty shaky stuff. You're equating D&D and "hobby gaming" with "videogames" and then saying D&D is not in a new golden age because of things like Warcraft. But, even if D&D were selling twice as much as they were at the height of the D&D fad in 1983, they still wouldn't be close to a single video game. To say nothing of other "geeky media" like movies (Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy or Game of Thrones.) It doesn't seem useful to lump videogames in with "hobby gaming" anymore than it would be to lump in sports.When you compare D&D to other RPGs, then D&D blows them out of the water. You can see this on the sales chart of Amazon, where D&D compares favourably with regular books, while no other RPG but Starfinder/ Pathfinder comes close. While Starfinder made it up to the Top 100 in books for a weekend, it rapidly shot down, while D&D has been maintaining its position for multiple years. Beyond that, the other RPG books are seldom even available outside of hobby stores or direct from the manufacturer. You're not going to see many in generic book stores like you will D&D. If statistics have to be taken with a grain of salt, your "gut feeling" requires an entire shaker.No way of knowing for sure. But we can look at who is playing what online:<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4295-D-D-s-Lead-Slightly-Increases-On-Roll20-World-of-Darkness-On-The-Rise#.Wa14Dch97cs" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4295-D-D-s-Lead-Slightly-Increases-On-Roll20-World-of-Darkness-On-The-Rise#.Wa14Dch97cs</a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3779-Who-s-Playing-What-On-Fantasy-Grounds-Final-Stats-For-2016!#.Wa13Kch97cs" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3779-Who-s-Playing-What-On-Fantasy-Grounds-Final-Stats-For-2016!#.Wa13Kch97cs</a>50% of games being played on Roll20 are D&D, and 58% on Fantasy Grounds. Which seems like a lot of gamers are playing non-D&D, the next highest game in both is Pathfinder at 14% and 12% of games. D&D 5e is not only in the lead, but it's nearest competitor has a third of its market.And if you look at the number of games on the Roll20 statistics, you can see most games holding steady but D&D 5e skyrocketing from <5,000 to >35,000 in less than three years. There's no reason to believe this is only digital and the numbers are not close in meat space. So of that $45 million RPG business, D&D 5e is $22-$27 million of it. And D&D likely accounted for $5 million of its 10 million growth. At least.But keep in mind that in 2013 - according to ICv2 - the RPG market was only $15 million dollars. In the intervening four years it has grown threefold. During that time 5e launched, which is likely not coincidental. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1984-Top-5-RPGs-Compiled-Charts-2008-Present#.Wa15W8h95aR" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1984-Top-5-RPGs-Compiled-Charts-2008-Present#.Wa15W8h95aR</a>We bother to look farther back than a single year. Which shows that the RPG industry has been steadily growing. Did you READ that full thread? The industry insider said that what he knew as the best selling RPG moved only 800,000. They 1e PHB - or more likely the Red Box - is rumoured to have sold a million copies, but that cannot be verified. The 750,000 almost certainly refers to the total number of books sold over the year, not just the core book. 750,000 copies worth of Red Boxes, PHBs, DMG, modules, etc. 25%? You also realize you literally have ZERO information backing up that number beyond what feels right to you. You're including films in that, right? Hollywood? Television. Because, keep in mind, the video game industry makes twice as much as the film industry. So if you're including the video game industry as competition for D&D now, you also need to include the box office of 1982-84 when talking about 1e D&D.The inflation point is a good one. There are more people now, so to have the same percentage of people playing D&D the number of copies sold needs to be that much larger. Except… this ignore the fact that people could still be playing 1e, 2e, and 3e. Those copies are still there and there is not a 1:1 overlap in sales. While 5e might not not yet be played by the same percentage of North America as 1e, more total people could easily be playing D&D. The inflation angle does assume that geeks increase at the same rate as It's not YOUR golden age. It's different. There's online games. Streaming platforms. Professional DMs who earn their living running games. Arguably, just because not as golden for you, doesn't mean the rest of the industry and games isn't finding it damn shiny.</blockquote>

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