Is it time for a new ENWorld demographics survey?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was thinking today, on my morning walk, about how old and American and White the average ENWorld poster was, last time we did a survey. While there's nothing wrong with any of that -- I count as all three of those -- it's strikingly different than what we last heard the average D&D player was, now that the game has undergone the most rapid period of growth in its history.

I was watching a new-to-me D&D YouTuber the other day, DianaOfTheRose, and was struck by how experienced of a DM she sounded, while being so oh-my-god young, reminding me that there are whole swaths of the gaming community I have little to no contact with. (I've DMed for some of her fellow Millennials and Gen Z folks, in games for my coworkers, but I was 100% the oldest person any of them had ever gamed with.)

Has ENWorld's user base changed dramatically since the last time one of these surveys were done? Are we attracting significant numbers of new, younger gamers, or are they mostly flowing to reddit and TikTok instead?

Was the last survey run by the site (I think it was) or by users?

 

[Gradine]

I know Morrus has run Google Analytics to check the demographics of the visitors to the site. That's a different thing than the users on the forum. I would wager that the forum skews older than EnWorld site visitors writ large, which itself probably still skews older than the median D&D player, which probably skews older still than, like... D&D reddit/discord.

 

[schneeland]

Was the last survey run by the site (I think it was) or by users?

If I remember correctly, Morrus didn't run a survey, but used data pulled from Google Analytics.
There was also a poll here on the forums not too long ago (What's your age group?), but I think Morrus' last report already showed that active participants on this forum skew significantly towards an older user group.

 

[Gradine]

If I remember correctly, Morrus didn't run a survey, but used data pulled from Google Analytics.
There was also a poll here on the forums not too long ago (What's your age group?), but I think Morrus' last report already showed that active participants on this forum skew significantly towards an older user group.

Yeah, in that poll the median respondant was in the 45-50 age group. Meanwhile, the last site visitor demographics Morrus ran (at least that I could find) was in 2021, where the median age was in the lowest quartile of the 25-34 age group, which matches pretty well D&D's own demographics released in 2020.

 

[payn]

A new survey would be interesting. Though, I think the internet forum is just simply dying.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A new survey would be interesting. Though, I think the internet forum is just simply dying.

Well, it's moving to Discord, which isn't quite as good yet, but the developers clearly want to make it a comparable experience.

 

[payn]

Well, it's moving to Discord, which isn't quite as good yet, but the developers clearly want to make it a comparable experience.

I'm not sure they do. Comparable in that its a place to share info on topics. I dont think it functions in a way that facilitates discussion as we have come to know forums. Its like a twitter version of a forum. YMMV.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure they do. Comparable in that its a place to share info on topics. I dont think it functions in a way that facilitates discussion as we have come to know forums. Its like a twitter version of a forum. YMMV.

Oh, I don't think they're doing a good job of it, but they've explicitly talked about adding "message board functionality" to Discord. But seeing it in action on the Shadowdark and Pirate Borg servers, it's just OK and not as good as the experience here.

But it's also what current gamers are growing up with, and I suspect they have complaints about phpBB and comparable message boards, themselves.

 

[schneeland]

But it's also what current gamers are growing up with, and I suspect they have complaints about phpBB and comparable message boards, themselves.

Certainly some truth in that - I have heard statements like forums being a thing of the past/for old people too often to discount them as outliers.
But I do agree with @payn that Discord, even with the message board channel feature, feels like a poor replacement for a forum. I do like it, but it essentially feels like IRC + Teamspeak for people with mobiles . And I find that it works way better for smaller servers of one or two dozen regulars than it does for large user groups.
Unfortunately, as a result of shifting communication platforms and patterns, forum software is also showing it's age. This site is certainly one of the better ones due to the migration to XenForo. Others, like phpBB, SMF and the like really feel like tech from the past.

 

[Lanefan]

My experience with glitchy laggy barely-functional Discord over the last few years, on both desktop and phone, has made me not want to use it for anything, ever, if I can possibly avoid it.