Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present

This is a compilation of the icv2.com retailer surveys of Top Five Roleplaying Games. They are generally compiled quarterly (with some exceptions). ICv2 notes that "the chart [are] based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers." Thanks to jodyjohnson for sterling compilation work and to ZsuEtAm over on WotC's D&D forums for finding the pre-2008 entries.

• These are not based on actual sales figures. With very few exceptions, sales figures are not available for any of these products.
• These do not take into account online sales, direct sales, Amazon, or anything other than hobby retail sales (although they do include Kickstarter).
• These are based on interviews with hobby game retailers and distributors.
• The RPG industry is tiny. ICv2 estimates its total size (US) as only $65M; see the table below.
• Note the addition of Kickstarter sales included in the 2015 figures onwards.

US Hobby Game Market ($ millions); based on figures from ICv2​

Category	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Collectible games	$450​	$550​	$625 (+14%)​	$750 (+12%)​	$725 (-3%)​	$625 (-14%)​
Miniatures	$125​	$125​	$175 (+40%)​	$205 (+17%)​	$270 (+32%)​	$285 (+7%)​
Boardgames	$75​	$125 ($160)​	$250 (+56%)​	$305 (+22%)​	$345 (+13%)​	$370 (+7%)​
Card & dice games	$35​	$55 ($60)​	$105 (+75%)​	$130 (+24%)​	$150 (+15%)​	$150​
Roleplaying games	$15​	$25​	$35 (+40%)​	$45 (+28%)​	$55 (+22%)​	$65 (+18%)​
Total​	$700​	$880 ($920)​	$1,190 (+29%)​	$1,435 (+21%)​	$1,545 (+8%)​	$1,495 (-3%)​

For timescale context, I highly encourage you compare chart changes with events listed in my chart TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History.



In the below chart, I've listed games only for space reasons, unless more than one company produced games with the same or similar names (e.g. multiple Star Wars games), in which case I noted the company in parenthesis. Where ties exist, I put the incumbent first.

For a color-coded (by company) version from Summer 2008 up until Spring 2014 (sorry, I made it before finding out about the 2004-2007 data!), click here.

Period	#5	#4	#3	#2	#1	Events (click for more)
Q3 2004	-	-	GURPS	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons	WoW and Facebook both launched this year.
Q4 2004	Mutants & Masterminds	Mongoose*	GURPS	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons
Q1 2005	Green Ronin**	Mongoose*	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E (Black Industries/Green Ronin)	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons
Q2 2005	Green Ronin**	Mongoose*	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E (Black Industries/Green Ronin)	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons
Q4 2005	Mongoose*	Green Ronin**	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E (Black Industries/Green Ronin)	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons
Q1 2006	Exalted	Mutants & Masterminds	World of Darkness	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E (Black Industries/Green Ronin)	Dungeons & Dragons
Q2 2006	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E (Black Industries/Green Ronin)	Mutants & Masterminds	Exalted	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons
Q3 2006	GURPS	Exalted	Mutants & Masterminds	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons	White Wolf merges with Eve Online publisher CCP.
Q4 2006	BESM	Mutants & Masterminds	Exalted	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons
Q1 2007	Scion	Exalted	World of Darkness	Mutants & Masterminds	Dungeons & Dragons
Q2 2007	Scion	World of Darkness	Warhammer Fantasy 2E (Black Industries/Green Ronin)	Star Wars (WotC)	Dungeons & Dragons
Q3 2007	Exalted	Battlestar Galactica	Scion	World of Darkness	Dungeons & Dragons
Q4 2007	Shadowrun	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E (Black Industries/Green Ronin)	World of Darkness	Warhammer 40k Roleplay	Dungeons & Dragons
Q1 2008	Mutants & Masterminds	World of Darkness	Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy	Exalted	Dungeons & Dragons
Summer 2008	Exalted	Shadowrun	World of Darkness	Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy	Dungeons & Dragons
Fall 2008	Pathfinder	Shadowrun	World of Darkness	Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy	Dungeons and Dragons	Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition released.
Winter 2008-2009	Shadowrun	Star Wars (WotC)	World of Darkness	Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy	Dungeons and Dragons
Q2 2009	Shadowrun	Song of Ice and Fire	World of Darkness	Warhammer 40k: Dark Heresy	Dungeons and Dragons	Kickstarter launched.
Q3 2009	Shadowrun	Song of Ice and Fire	World of Darkness	Pathfinder	Dungeons and Dragons	Pathfinder RPG launched.
Q4 2009	World of Darkness	Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy	Warhammer Fantasy RPG 3E (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons and Dragons
Q1 2010	Dragon Age	Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Q2 2010	Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy	ShadowRun	Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Q3 2010	Dresden Files	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader	Warhammer Fantasy 3E (FFG)	(Tie) Pathfinder	(Tie) Dungeons & Dragons	Dungeons & Dragons Essentials launched.
Q4 2010	Mutants and Masterminds, inc. DC	Dragon Age	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Q1 2011	Mutants and Masterminds, inc. DC	Dragon Age	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Q2 2011	Shadowrun	Dragon Age	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder	For the first time, D&D is not the top-selling RPG.
Summer 2011	Shadowrun	Dragon Age	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder
Q4 2011	The One Ring	Dragon Age	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder
Spring 2012	Marvel Heroic Roleplaying	Dragon Age	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder	D&D 5th Edition announced and public playtest begins.
Summer 2012	Dungeon Crawl Classics	Dragon Age	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder
Fall 2012	Iron Kingdoms	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Dungeons & Dragons	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder
Spring 2013	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Iron Kingdoms	Star Wars (FFG)	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder
Summer 2013	Fate Core System	Iron Kingdoms	Dungeons & Dragons	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder
Fall 2013	Iron Kingdoms	Dungeons & Dragons	Fate Core System	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder
Spring 2014	Numenera	Fate Core System	Shadowrun	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder
Summer 2014	Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/Deathwatch	Shadowrun	Star Wars (FFG)	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder	D&D 5E launched.
Fall/Holiday 2014	Fate	Numenera	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Spring 2015	Iron Kingdoms	Shadowrun	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Fall 2015	Fantasy Age	Dragon Age	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Spring 2016	Fantasy/Dragon Age	Shadowrun	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Fall 2016	Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition	Shadowrun	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Spring 2017	Shadowrun	Adventures in Middle Earth	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Fall 2017	Star Trek Adventures	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Starfinder	Dungeons & Dragons	Starfinder released.
Spring 2018	Genesys (FFG)	Star Wars (FFG)	Pathfinder	Starfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Fall 2018	Vampire (White Wolf)	Starfinder (Paizo)	Star Wars (FFG)	Legend of the Five Rings (FFG)	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder 2E announced.
Spring 2019	Pathfinder	Vampire 5th Edition	Star Wars (FFG)	Starfinder	Dungeons & Dragons
Summer 2019	Star Wars (FFG)	Vampire 5th Edition	Shadowrun 6E	Pathfinder	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder 2E released.

*Mongoose Publishing is a company name rather than a game, but this is what ICv2 reported.


**Green Ronin is a company name rather than a game, but this is what ICv2 reported.

Below may not be the clearest of graphs, but it maps the positions of games with 3 or more entries in the ICv2 charts over time.

​

 

[Morrus]

I dunno. Pathfinder had a spike right as Essentials was released, tying for the top spot briefly, and then D&D started dropping very soon after the Essentials launch.

 

[WackyAnne]

As much as I am enjoying 5th Edition, I think D&D will have a hard time regaining first place for the foreseeable future. None of this speaks to quality of either game, or its players. Unless/until WotC ramps up to full production, especially on the adventure side, they don't have the lineup. Pathfinder also sells quarterly or more modules, the monthly APs, at least a new core book a year, and tons of splatbooks; even assuming that the maps & cards Paizo also publishes aren't counted, they still vastly outproduce WotC's D&D output.

D&D5E only has 5 products out now (Starter Set, PHB, HotDQ, MM for Q3) and two more due before the end of the year (RoT & DMG for Q4).
Pathfinder will have 22 books out in the same time frame: 2 hardcovers, 2 double-length modules, and 6 volumes each of the Adventure Path (Iron Gods), campaign setting, and player companions.

 

[WackyAnne]

(deleted duplicate post)

 

[dream66_]

Wow, I new Essentials was bad but I didn't realize how much it hurt the game's sales.

 

[Morrus]

Updated with Summer 2014!

 

[MartyW]

Unless/until WotC ramps up to full production, especially on the adventure side, they don't have the lineup. Pathfinder also sells quarterly or more modules, the monthly APs, at least a new core book a year, and tons of splatbooks;

I agree only partially with your conclusions. Because the AP subscriptions and other direct sales from Paizo will not be counted in the ICv2 numbers, Pathfinder will need to sell a lot of splat books through the retail channels to keep up.

Splat books don't sell as well as core books. This is true industry-wide (there have been many posts from people in the know on this one). WotC has 3 core books out between August and November and this will give their product line a huge spike. Given that, it would be near impossible for Pathfinder to stay on top for Q4 2014.

Now, I do agree that WotC needs to put more product in their pipeline for the New Year or they may not be able to hold that spot for more than a quarter or two... but in the near term, I think WotC will be back on top for at least this particular industry report.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Missing game on the chart: Fate Core. (Summer 2013-Spring 2014)

Interesting reading.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Double

 

[Neonchameleon]

While I'm at it, Evil Hat make their sales figures public knowledge. So we can do some baselining of absolute numbers.

Fate core position: Summer 2013 - 5, Autumn 2013 - 3, Spring 2014 - 4, Summer 2014 - 6 or lower.

Fate Core Direct sales (not counting the 10,000 Kickstarter sales or One Bookshelf):
Q2 2013 - 0 (they sold PDFs but hadn't yet hit the retailers)
Q3 2013 - 1675
Q4 2013 - 1330
Q1 2014 - 1392
Q2 2014 - 2062
Q3 2014 - 2301

(And yes, I've drilled down - direct Fate sales are actually increasing but they aren't selling new PDFs.) Numbers only apply to the corebook.

Which is very interesting. It means Numenera has been a bit of a damp squib but everyone's sales have increased recently. I'm not surprised ICV2 are happy with the recent trend.

 

[MartyW]

Missing game on the chart: Fate Core. (Summer 2013-Spring 2014)

Interesting reading.

FATE isn't likely to show up because it has less retail channel sales. Most of the FATE sales came through its Kickstarter, or direct sales from Evil Hat or POD. None of that will show up in ICv2 reports. The ICv2 reports have limited utility on reporting larger trends in RPGs because it covers only a very specific distribution channel.