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
~$0.5 million 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!

 

[Dalekdad]

Very interesting. I'd be very curious where PEG, Chaosium, and Onyx Path land. Somewhere around or below Evil Hat, I'd bet.

 

[Cergorach]

Games Workshop is still significantly smaller then WotC, because WotC does both D&D and Magic, Magic is far bigger then D&D. According to the results of 2025 WotC did $1.7b in revenue, Magic did a bit more then that, but that might be due to Magic Arena that's in the digital gaming section, DNDB might also be in there...

GW on the other hand did £565 million (~$765 million) in financial year 2025 (ended 1st of June 2025), the last half year results show a 17% increase of revenue over the last half year or so... It wouldn't surprise me at all if in 2027 GW passes the $1 billion in revenue/year mark.

Asmodee did €1.369 billion (~$1.6 billion) in 24/25, the next financial year ends in March, but last quarter they saw an increase of 22% in revenue.

I do have some questions about the accuracy of the Canibal Halfling article, they already mention that D&D isn't actually $500 million revenue annually. I also see $2B for WotC while the end year report says WotC did $1.7B, but there's also a digital division separate from WotC...

Hasbro is making things very unclear when they mostly talk in percentages about revenue and dollars in profit... Looks like someone is trying to make their Sleight of Hand skill roll with advantage...

EDIT: fixed billion into million (need more sleep!)

 

[Dyson Logos]

As a one-man shop, year-by-year I slip over/under the "everyone else" line.

 

[djotaku]

I'm not surprised that, like many things, this follows a power law graph. Most things are niche and there are a very small number of juggernauts.

 

[Morrus]

As a one-man shop, year-by-year I slip over/under the "everyone else" line.

Yeah, $100K will pay one decent salary and cover development and overheads for a small book or something equivalent. It’s good benchmark for a small successful single-person businesses.

 

[Morrus]

I'm not surprised that, like many things, this follows a power law graph. Most things are niche and there are a very small number of juggernauts.

Well the tiers are arbitrarily chosen. They could have divided it in other ways. But it would be fascinating to compile a list of all companies and see how many are in each category.

 

[kronovan]

...GW on the other hand did £565 billion (~$765 billion) in financial year 2025 (ended 1st of June 2025), the last half year results show a 17% increase of revenue over the last half year or so... It wouldn't surprise me at all if in 2027 GW passes the $1 billion in revenue/year mark...

Isn't that supposed to be million. Personaly, I'd be very surprised - actually shocked- if a tabletop game company had annual revenue that was approaching a trillion $. Or is that also including all the revenue from the 3rd party companies that publish and develop games based upon their IPs ?

 

[Morrus]

Isn't that supposed to be million. Personaly, I'd be very surprised - actually shocked- if a tabletop game company had annual revenue that was approaching a trillion $. Or is that also including all the revenue from the 3rd party companies that publish and develop games based upon their IPs ?

Yes he meant million.

 

[Dire Bare]

As a one-man shop, year-by-year I slip over/under the "everyone else" line.

Perhaps your sales volume isn't up there with the big boys, but . . . your work is amazing and appreciated! Hopefully you're pulling in enough to keep the lights on! (and afford health insurance and retirement savings . . .)