Roll20 publishes Game Percentages... Pathfinder at 25%

[Cherno]

Yeah, that's the sticker, right there.

Yes, so now we are theorizing on top of data we should at least question? .

That's why I used the term "theorize", I specifically did not state that this was a fact. Just food for thought, is all.

There is this *huge* drive to determine who is "on top". As consumers, that is not a primary issue. Why do we care who is on top? We care about products, and players, and support directly. If we have what we want in those areas, who is #1 is a non-issue.

WotC and Paizo are not sports teams. The stats don't matter.

(Unconnected to the undoubtly questionable statistics presented in the OP):
I care who's on top because it's interesting to see how the RPG scene has developed in the past years. For players, it can also be an indicator of the future of their game system.

 

[prosfilaes]

It feels to me like a more modern phenomenon that sports team level brand loyalty has spread to consumer products, but it's probably not.

I bet Elmore owners were mocking Model T buyers for buying from a flash-in-the-pan car company. I bet it's worse in industries like roleplaying games and computers, where support matters and can disappear in an instant, and not using the same system as your neighbor can cause a lot of frustration.

 

[Mercurius]

I was a bit surprised by these results until I realized that it was specific to Roll20. That skews it enormously towards the "rules heavy" versions of D&D, namely 3E, 4E, and Pathfinder. I'm guessing that a lesser percentage of AD&D and other "old school" versions of D&D don't use that tool.

Before I realized this was Roll20 only, I was going to comment that it is hard to imagine how 5E can become the leader. I mean, they might skim a few percentage points from the others, but probably not enough to do anything more than come close to Pathfinder. And one would think that, over time, Pathfinder would continue to siphon players from 3E, maybe even a few from 4E. But again, considering that this is Roll20 I don't think it is all that representative.

 

[Jesauce]

Realizing that this is a top-skimmed set of numbers from Roll20 and not a particularly in-depth analysis, I'm more interested to see the numbers for this next quarter. Taking them at face-value for what they are, I'm not overly surprised by 5e's placement. It's a new version of D&D, so it seems fairly natural that there would be a lot of people that are trying it out. I think that seeing how it fares after a few more months of use is going to be more telling. While the numbers may not hold a lot of weight in the grand scheme of things, it's a nice quick-look, as it were, of how the various systems are fairing.

 

[Morrus]

Fantasy Grounds has added its data. This chart shows Q1-Q3 (so Jan through Sep 2014), covering 122K games.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I was a bit surprised by these results until I realized that it was specific to Roll20. That skews it enormously towards the "rules heavy" versions of D&D, namely 3E, 4E, and Pathfinder. I'm guessing that a lesser percentage of AD&D and other "old school" versions of D&D don't use that tool.

Before I realized this was Roll20 only, I was going to comment that it is hard to imagine how 5E can become the leader. I mean, they might skim a few percentage points from the others, but probably not enough to do anything more than come close to Pathfinder. And one would think that, over time, Pathfinder would continue to siphon players from 3E, maybe even a few from 4E. But again, considering that this is Roll20 I don't think it is all that representative.

5e is still in the starting pit. I haven't gotten the MM yet, and the DMG isn't even published. I am a pretty happy 4e player and am going to start up my first 5e game in the next two weeks. It's basically going to be a test-run of the system in our thursday night game.

 

[Desalus]

How often do players utilize these tools for RPGs that are largely played via theater of the mind? It seems that these statistics would be heavily skewed towards RPGs that require a grid to play.

 

[Morrus]

As I mentioned, I asked Fantasy Grounds if they could break the data down by quarter. They did (thanks Doug!) -- this paints a slightly different picture, in which D&D is going up and Pathfinder is coming down.

 

[JesterOC]

Though I never much liked Pathfinder (I played 3E but had fallen out of love of it just before 3.5E). But I know if I loved a game (which most pathfinder players do) I would not jump to 5e right now.
1) I would have some brand loyalty
2) I would be in a game and would at least finish it before we started it
3) The DMG is not even out yet
4) It is being advertised as OSR friendly, and Pathfinder is not about OSR, it is about cool fiddly bits (IMHO) so until 5e gets more fiddly (in time I think it will) why switch now.
5) There is no good support for 5e on either platform.

Give it a year, if 5e gets native support (Maybe because Fantasy Grounds visited WotC a few days ago) I think that 5e will pull from both Pathfinder and 3.5 and become 2-3. I can imagine a 2 years from now it being on top.

Looks like the above chart shows that I was being conservative. It is now 2. If they get official support it will skyrocket.

 

[Morrus]

2) I would be in a game and would at least finish it before we started it.

That's the biggie. Lots of long-term games which were started a year ago. That's why games started per quarter is the more interesting statistic to me, rather than games being played total (although both stats are, of course, interesting and relevant).