Roll20's Latest Numbers: Cthulhu Holding Strong!

Roll20 has released its usage stats for Q4 2020, and D&D maintains its multi-year firm lead with over half the games being played, and Call of Cthulhu continues to cement itself in 2nd place. There was strong growth from Cyberpunk Red and the French game Chroniques Oubliées (Forgotten Chronicles).

The report also says that usage in general of the VTT increased by 5% in that quarter (following a 6% growth in the previous quarter), and that Roll20 has reached 8M users (that's users ever, not active users).

 

[Salicus]

These Stats show what I have been telling friends who play PnP online all the time. Roll20 is really great if you want to play DnD.
Everything else they just dont really care about too much. Starfinder on Roll20 for example still has the mention of an upcoming Charactermancer on the Store-page and Pathfinder 2 as well. But they are not developing it at the moment. I began playing PnP online on Roll20 but Foundry is much better imho. Also if you really want to play Pathfinder you could also just go over to Fantasy Grounds. It has high upfront cost but they are really fast in adopting adventure paths and so on. you can see that publishers also think that foundry is the way to go: Cubicle7 got a great guy working on implementing Modules into foundry, which you can buy in their webstore. Ulisses also got DSA5 implemented first into foundry purchaseable at the webstore with all the stuff you need to start an adventure.
As much as I like Roll20 I just dont think that it will hold against the selfhosted stuff like Foundry for Fantasy Grounds in the long run.

 

[TheSword]

With 4% they actually lost ground since the global growth is 6% (They are down to 52.9% of campaigns), but yes it is impressive.

What is even more impressive is D&D 3.5 that manages to gain some ground with its 6% growth! (They are up from 1.01% to 1.02%)

It’s an 2.4%!increase on their share since Q1 2020 when the pandemic hit.

Their share dropped by 0.3%, after gaining let’s not pretend this is a major shift.

They grew by 4.8% vs a 5% overall growth. Again hardly trend breaking.

 

[Nylanfs]

Smiteworks just released their stats since the last time also. Kinda hard to tell when the pandemic social distancing started. /s

Fantasy Grounds Game System Usage - 2020 Q4

www.fantasygrounds.com

 

[LordEntrails]

The most common answer to people looking for a VTT for PF2 by the community is Foundry. The level of integration of the PF2 ruleset is above anything else at this time. There is even a module that will import your official adventure path PDF in your world. Add to this all the generic Foundry add-ons and you have a Roll20 killer for a PF2 group.

Yeah, PF2 players are mostly on Foundry now and they haven't published these kinds of stats by game system (that I am aware of).

Maybe, but PF 1 & 2 grew by about 300% on FG last year.

It’s a pretty sad state of affairs if the PF2 team is choosing not to support the largest TTRPG company.

Largest? I assume you mean VTT? Depends on how you measure it. Orr Group is notorious for misleading stats that are not supported well. Since all the VTTs are privately held and those that do release numbers don't share numbers that are comparable, we really have no idea who is the largest.

Over 4% growth for 5E is incredibly impressive this late into its life cycle.

Except Roll20 is having it's lunch eaten by its competitors. For instance 5E grew by about 400% last year, and ~25% last quarter on FG.

 

[TheSword]

Maybe, but PF 1 & 2 grew by about 300% on FG last year.

Largest? I assume you mean VTT? Depends on how you measure it. Orr Group is notorious for misleading stats that are not supported well. Since all the VTTs are privately held and those that do release numbers don't share numbers that are comparable, we really have no idea who is the largest.

Except Roll20 is having it's lunch eaten by its competitors. For instance 5E grew by about 400% last year, and ~25% last quarter on FG.

Do you have numbers for FG. Even approximates. Otherwise what possible relevance is %growth. If they have 10,000 users then 300% is still a drop in the ocean compared to roll20

 

[Morrus]

Do you have numbers for FG. Even approximates. Otherwise what possible relevance is %growth. If they have 10,000 users then 300% is still a drop in the ocean compared to roll20

I do!

On Fantasy Grounds D&D Increases Dominance To 71%

If you thought Roll20's 52% was impressive, on Fantasy Grounds D&D is now 71% of games. Pathfinder (both editions) comes to 13% in second place. These figures are for Q4, 2020. So here's what D&D (the bright green line) has done since the beginning of 2019. There's am obvious pandemic boost...

www.enworld.org

 

[LordEntrails]

Do you have numbers for FG. Even approximates. Otherwise what possible relevance is %growth. If they have 10,000 users then 300% is still a drop in the ocean compared to roll20

Yes. And note, Roll20 doesn't actually give numbers, only percentages, so there is no way to know if there are 100 or 1 million PF games on Roll20.

Fantasy Grounds Usage Statistics 2020 Q4

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/reports/2020Q4/ Pretty amazing growth last year. And of course a continued dominance of 5E.

www.enworld.org

 

[TheSword]

Yes. And note, Roll20 doesn't actually give numbers, only percentages, so there is no way to know if there are 100 or 1 million PF games on Roll20.

Fantasy Grounds Usage Statistics 2020 Q4

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/reports/2020Q4/ Pretty amazing growth last year. And of course a continued dominance of 5E.

www.enworld.org

Thanks for the link.

So approx 330,000 sessions in that quarter. That’s good to put things in perspective. If each online session lasted an average of 3 hours that’s a 1,000,000 hours of game time in the quarter.

By contrast Roll20 saw 106,000,000 hours played across the same period. You can say they’re dishonest about what 8 million users means but you can’t deny they are specific about that statistic.

 

[LordEntrails]

So approx 330,000 sessions in that quarter. That’s good to put things in perspective. If each online session lasted an average of 3 hours that’s a 1,000,000 hours of game time in the quarter.

If. For me, 3 hours seems pretty short. But is that game hours or player/users hours?

By contrast Roll20 saw 106,000,000 hours played across the same period. You can say they’re dishonest about what 8 million users means but you can’t deny they are specific about that statistic.

If... But we don't know how they count those hours. If we divide 100 million by 5 players/users, that's 20 mil. Does it include prep time? We know the FG numbers do not. But we don't know the details.

I wish we had comparable numbers, but we don't. So any conclusions or comparisons are.. assumptions. I know folks love Roll20, and it's a good platform, for some use cases it is the best VTT. But I think it's hard to argue that the Orr group hasn't done questionable things. And for me, that will shadow all my future interactions with them and cast a shadow of doubt on any claims they make.

 

[TheSword]

If. For me, 3 hours seems pretty short. But is that game hours or player/users hours?

If... But we don't know how they count those hours. If we divide 100 million by 5 players/users, that's 20 mil. Does it include prep time? We know the FG numbers do not. But we don't know the details.

I wish we had comparable numbers, but we don't. So any conclusions or comparisons are.. assumptions. I know folks love Roll20, and it's a good platform, for some use cases it is the best VTT. But I think it's hard to argue that the Orr group hasn't done questionable things. And for me, that will shadow all my future interactions with them and cast a shadow of doubt on any claims they make.

Sure fair. Play it’s all extrapolation.

I’m not sure what you mean by questionable things.