D&D 5E (2024) Is WOTC done publishing campaigns?

[FitzTheRuke]

There are complicating factors, of course, like the sales of other versions of D&D in the 1980s, but those are at least matched by the complications of things like 5E having both multiple starter sets and completely free versions available online.

And an unknown quantity of DDB digital PHBs.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And an unknown quantity of DDB digital PHBs.

Yeah I mentioned that the 6m didn't seem to include digital, and I'm trying to avoid being too repetitious so didn't repeat that there. Also I suspect owning the digital PHB is less relevant to how many people are playing because I suspect that's the book with by far the highest "owns in digital" and "owns in physical" overlap (well, of the pre-2024 books).

 

[FitzTheRuke]

To quote myself...and to those who are not the hardcore fans who somehow stumble across this thread...

I present the last few pages of this thread as evidence of the exact thing I stated would happen.

I mean, for example - your crowing about how right you are seems really strange when you're arguing against people who are saying, "IDK - maybe WotC isn't lying that D&D has 85 million fans, or whatever, who knows?"

And you say that they are claiming that it's more popular than Baseball, when this thread also contains posts that say that Baseball appears to have 130 million fans.

85m is not greater than 130m.

And I don't think anyone has said that they are certain that the 85m idea is correct, just that it might be possible.

 

[bedir than]

when this thread also contains posts that say that Baseball claims to have 130 million fans.

baseball has 500 million fans, per the linked data. that includes people who root for the Cuban national team, and wouldn't watch the MLB World Series for example.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah I mentioned that the 6m didn't seem to include digital, and I'm trying to avoid being too repetitious so didn't repeat that there. Also I suspect owning the digital PHB is less relevant to how many people are playing because I suspect that's the book with by far the highest "owns in digital" and "owns in physical" overlap (well, of the pre-2024 books).

Yeah, that makes sense, but I felt like it was worth repeating, because while we could never tell how many people were playing D&D based on the sales of the PHB (many groups had only one), we can rely on PHB sales to illustrate players even less now.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

baseball has 500 million fans, per the linked data. that includes people who root for the Cuban national team, and wouldn't watch the MLB World Series for example.

Right, so way way more than than 85m. I think everyone agrees that Baseball is more popular than D&D.

 

[Reynard]

::checks horses pulse::

 

[Cergorach]

::checks horses pulse::

Poor Khartoum...

 

[FitzTheRuke]

::checks horses pulse::

It's dead, Jim!

 

[HatWearingFool]

Yes I think a big issue is that fans/players doesn’t mean active buyers for WOTC.

All of my son’s friends own video consoles, they need them to play. They all play D&D and don’t personally own anything.

Like I said his schools D&D club is running multiple groups from boxed sets that were more or less donated by some of us parents. That’s a lot of kids playing who didn’t buy anything, probably won’t buy anything for sometime, and won’t have beyond accounts.

But they are still fans. The cliche of the DM being the only person buying books is a cliche for a reason. There are a lot of players at a lot of tables that don’t own anything for sometime of the books. So you definitely can’t equate players/fans with sales in anyway.

But are there more people playing ttrpg’s than video games? No. The video game industry is just about as big as it gets.