What can Google Insight tell us about RPGs?

[Jürgen Hubert]

I just found out about Google Insight, which tracks the number of searches for specific terms over time. This might help us track the general state of various RPG lines.

Here are various trends I found for the period on display (starting with 2004):

Call of Cthulhu: About the same, with the exception of a peak in April 2006 (coinciding with the "Dark Corners of the Earth" computer game). The search term is also very popular in Russia, for some reason.
D&D: Down by half
Exalted: Up by 25%
GURPS: Down to a third
RIFTS: Down by half
Savage Worlds: Up by 50%
Shadowrun: Down by half
World of Darkness: Slightly lower than it started, but now about constant

So it does seem that the gaming industry and community is no longer as large as it used to be. But what else can be learned from this tool?

This tool also allows comparisons by country, as well as some other nifty options. So make your own armchair analysis of gaming trends!

 

[Wombat]

Interesting. Now I wonder what would happen with either more generic (roleplaying, rpg, etc.) or more specific (4e, Pathfinder, Changeling) terms?

I will have to play around with this a bit.

 

[Morrus]

Well, that's not the whole story. Taking the D&D example, I'm sure plenty of people search for "D&D 4E" or "Dnd", or "Dungeons and Dragons", or "Dungeons & Dragons", or specific D&D-related terms such as "Forgotten Realms" or "Arcane Power".

I'm sure the same is true for the other games, but I'm not familiar enough with them to suggest alternate search terms.

 

[Filcher]

Interesting. I wonder if there is a notable drop when the DDI went live. Speaking only for myself, I don't Google D&D ever --- I just go straight to Wizards. I probably use the DDI at least 4 hours a week.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Interesting. Now I wonder what would happen with either more generic (roleplaying, rpg, etc.) or more specific (4e, Pathfinder, Changeling) terms?

I tried "roleplaying" and there was a pretty significant drop from 2004 to today. Probably half or so. Searching "4E" proved pretty pointless - the graph trended upwards, but the suggested links on the side suggested that it was pulling a lot of stuff non-D&D related. For example, it reminded me the "4e" is how the French write "quatrieme" or "4th" so anything from some one being in 4th place in a race to a location in the 4th arrondisement of Paris would show up in those numbers. "4th edition D&D" might be a more informative search term.

 

[Moon_Goddess]

put in Enworld see what you get, we're declining.

 

[Umbran]

So it does seem that the gaming industry and community is no longer as large as it used to be. But what else can be learned from this tool?

You have to be very careful when you attribute causes to trends. Remember that your cause is speculation, not necessarily truth.

What you know is that the number of searches dropped. That the gaming population dropped is one possible explanation, but not the only one.

For example: Consider that most of us who are well-entrenched in the online gaming community don't do Google searches on our games often. We tend to have our sources bookmarked! Searching is for those who don't yet have sources they like.

Ergo, we could instead interpret the drop to mean not that the community is smaller, but that the community is growing more slowly, or has fewer new people, which is not the same thing as being smaller.

 

[Filcher]

Inputting "D&D torrent" shows a spike in 2008 (core books, I assume), but with a general continuing rise.

More and more of us are stealing, it seems.

 

[Shemeska]

Interesting. I wonder if there is a notable drop when the DDI went live. Speaking only for myself, I don't Google D&D ever --- I just go straight to Wizards. I probably use the DDI at least 4 hours a week.

*shrug* Not sure, though I've heard from someone with access to the stats, that WotC's traffic was in pretty good decline following the Gleemax fiasco, saw a slight spike when 4e was announced, and then went back to decline. It matched the Alexa trends more or less. I don't have a clue about the past year however since I haven't spoken with them for a while, they no longer work for WotC, and I don't know if the DDI has impacted the trend prior to that point (and the color scheme for Gleemax no longer drives people away).

That said, lots of room for interpretation using the Google data in absence of having access to WotC's own website traffic data, or anyone else's data for that matter.

 

[Filcher]

Oh. God. Gleemax. I had forgotten all about that. Thanks, Shem.

Other random surprise: in the search for "D&D torrent" USA ranks 4th behind Canada, Italy and Greece.

Huh?