The 5 'Tiers' of TTRPG Publishing

Cannibal Halfling Gaming published an interesting article recently in which they divided tabletop roleplaying game publishers into five tiers, based on annual revenue. Here were their categories, but you should check out the article for a deeper dive.

~$500 million annual: D&D
~$50 million annual: Paizo
~$5 million annual: Steve Jackson Games
~$500K annual: Evil Hat Productions
~Everyone else (up to $100K)

They chose one example publisher per tier; they didn't list every TTRPG publisher. That's why your favourite publisher is not on that list of 4 companies. But feel free to add to the list!

Also, we talked about it in last week's episode of Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk, for those who prefer to absorb their news in video format!

 

[Cergorach]

Is that still true over the past year?

According to this list: Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club

27 of 49 in the TTRPG million dollar crowdfunding club are made for D&D5e.
In the last year it's only 2 out of 8, with shortly the 'Dragonbane: Trudvang' joining the ranks as the next non-D&D million+ KS.

I'm a little curious how many companies there are that land in Tier 2 with Paizo there. I'm assuming Tier 1 is a group of one.

I assume Tier 2 is also a group on one, at least in the pnp RPG space.

 

[Morrus]

I'm a little curious how many companies there are that land in Tier 2 with Paizo there. I'm assuming Tier 1 is a group of one.

Just Paizo.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just Paizo.

I thought that might be the case.

 

[M.T. Black]

I'm a little curious how many companies there are that land in Tier 2 with Paizo there. I'm assuming Tier 1 is a group of one.

It depends on how you interpret the bands. If Tier 2 is $5m to $50m, then there are a few.