Roll20 RPG Usage Stats: Growth Everywhere During Pandemic!

Roll20 has posted its latest Industry Report, revealing that the first quarter of 2020 shows growth for almost every game on its platform during the pandemic. D&D, of course, remains by far the most popular (up from 50% to 53% after a dip last year), with Call of Cthulhu and Pathfinder coming in behind. Call of Cthulhu has seen a bit of a drop from 12% to 8.5%, while Pathfinder is approximately steady.

(See the Quarter 1 2020 report here).

Cyberpunk Red saw high growth of over 100%, as did Tormenta, City of Mist, and the Year Zero Engine.

Here's the full list!

 

[Morrus]

The site has more than four million users.

Four million accounts. That doesn't mean that four million people played a game in the reported quarter (and they've stopped reporting user numbers, so there's no way to know how many did).

 

[Ibrandul]

Even if the vast majority of those four million accounts don't play in any given quarter

Four million accounts. That doesn't mean that four million people played a game in the reported quarter

I mean, it's possible my estimate is wrong. I figured at least one in forty accounts would be active in a quarter. Maybe that's too high. But it seems like a reasonable estimate to me.

 

[Paragon Lost]

I'm curious as to what the "uncategorized" are exactly versus the "other games" category.

 

[Retreater]

I'm curious as to what the "uncategorized" are exactly versus the "other games" category.

It's code for the FATAL RPG.

 

[TheSword]

And of course I do, but I’d really like if D&D’s (and the likes) dominance would decrease as I don’t even consider it an RPG, thus it’s misleading for the crowds who enter this hobby just now and naturally, they start with it as it is the one they constantly hear about and they are lead to believe “that is the way to go” and unfortunately, very few move on. Though this leads far from here so other than this, I let it go.

A rising tide lifts all boats

 

[macd21]

I'm curious as to what the "uncategorized" are exactly versus the "other games" category.

I believe it’s cases where the game can’t be identified by Roll20, as opposed to ‘other games,’ which Roll20 can identify, but their % are too low to bother listing individually.

 

[jsaving]

But why? Not why don't you consider it an RPG (I ain’t going there!), but why must people stop playing it because you don't consider it an RPG? How does D&D's popularity harm you?

Because it outshines other great games, hence people play with that and I don’t get to play the games I would.

I sympathize with the desire to play a variety of games but I'm not sure D&D's popularity is the reason why you haven't been able to do that. 5e has drawn a lot of people back into the hobby and even attracted some first-time players who were intrigued by 5e's growing presence in popular culture. That grows the overall player base and gives other smaller games the opportunity to "make their case" on virtual storefronts and local hobby stores to an audience that otherwise wouldn't even have known they existed. There's no way to prove this without seeing the actual numbers but my guess would be that 5e's success increases rather than decreases play of non-D&D/Pathfinder games.

 

[jinat]

This is a pretty sad statistic, either way.

Yeah after reading the rest of the conversation regarding this, i have to be in 100% agreement. Now that does not mean that D&D is a bad game, but in my personal preference its my absolute least fav game. And its a shame that so many other games are not even tried because people just get D&D first and foremost in terms of visibility. I also think all the youtube actual play channles which more or less mostly just express a certain style of play have new players coming to the table only expecting that style of play - which further lessens the appeals of other great games because those styles of play just dont work with every game. Just my opinion.

 

[Hussar]

Something that has always baffled me about the smaller game publishers is why they haven't been more proactive in getting onto VTT platforms. The biggest impediment to the growth of any RPG is geography. It doesn't really matter how many people like your game, if your fans all live so far apart that only a tiny slice actually get to PLAY your game, well, you might as well not even bother.

But, VTT's cut through that. If you can get about 200 active groups onto a VTT, playing your game, say, somewhere in the neighbourhood of a 1000 players, you have a game starting pretty much every hour 24/7. If someone, anyone, somewhere on the planet wants to play your game, they can. That 1000 players seems to be a critical mass for this sort of thing.

Smaller game companies don't seem to be doing it though. I know it's a lot of work, but, getting your system up and running on the bigger VTT platforms just skyrockets the available player base.

Sorry, this is a drum I've been banging for decades and it always seems to fall on deaf ears.

 

[Guest 7025638]

Something that has always baffled me about the smaller game publishers is why they haven't been more proactive in getting onto VTT platforms. The biggest impediment to the growth of any RPG is geography. It doesn't really matter how many people like your game, if your fans all live so far apart that only a tiny slice actually get to PLAY your game, well, you might as well not even bother.

But, VTT's cut through that. If you can get about 200 active groups onto a VTT, playing your game, say, somewhere in the neighbourhood of a 1000 players, you have a game starting pretty much every hour 24/7. If someone, anyone, somewhere on the planet wants to play your game, they can. That 1000 players seems to be a critical mass for this sort of thing.

Smaller game companies don't seem to be doing it though. I know it's a lot of work, but, getting your system up and running on the bigger VTT platforms just skyrockets the available player base.

Sorry, this is a drum I've been banging for decades and it always seems to fall on deaf ears.

I think this is only true if we say that most people would play with a VTT, anyway. But I, for one, really don't like and require them, we wouldn't use maps and such either way (we usually don't play published modules, and it's been tha case in the more than 20 years I've been playing), so basically all I need is a voice platform (and a big chunk of imagination, like when we started playing), which is usually Discord (no video). So for me, a VTT is rather a minus, an unnecessary overhead.