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Originally posted by sleyvas

Still doesn't tell us much. If they'd cut down to a skeleton crew and are regrowing it. Again, not pushing for one way or another, its just I hear things like "the game is more popular than ever" and I truly wonder if there's more people playing than there were in say the 90's and 2000's. That's how I judge popularity. Not monetary income.

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Originally posted by keftiu

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Originally posted by Diffan

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Originally posted by keftiu

the 4e faithful like me and Zeromaru resent the Second Sundering

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.....ahem...

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There are dozens of us!

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Originally posted by Lord Karsus

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Still doesn't tell us much. If they'd cut down to a skeleton crew and are regrowing it. Again, not pushing for one way or another, its just I hear things like "the game is more popular than ever" and I truly wonder if there's more people playing than there were in say the 90's and 2000's. That's how I judge popularity. Not monetary income.

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-Agreed. I don't honestly believe that D&D (or tabletop role-playing games in general) is more popular now than it was in the 70s/80s/90s heyday, but I think that the perception of it (along with other nerdy things, like comic books especially) has radically changed since then and it's okay to admit that you play. Even as recent as like in the early 2000s, in my experience, saying you played D&D would get side-eye, not so much maybe something negative as much as something weird and extremely geeky. Now, apparently, not so much.

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Originally posted by Lord Karsus

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Still doesn't tell us much. If they'd cut down to a skeleton crew and are regrowing it. Again, not pushing for one way or another, its just I hear things like "the game is more popular than ever" and I truly wonder if there's more people playing than there were in say the 90's and 2000's. That's how I judge popularity. Not monetary income.

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-Agreed. I don't honestly believe that D&D (or tabletop role-playing games in general) is more popular now than it was in the 70s/80s/90s heyday, but I think that the perception of it (along with other nerdy things, like comic books especially) has radically changed since then and it's okay to admit that you play. Even as recent as like in the early 2000s, in my experience, saying you played D&D would get side-eye, not so much maybe something negative as much as something weird and extremely geeky. Now, apparently, not so much.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

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Originally posted by Lord Karsus

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Still doesn't tell us much. If they'd cut down to a skeleton crew and are regrowing it. Again, not pushing for one way or another, its just I hear things like "the game is more popular than ever" and I truly wonder if there's more people playing than there were in say the 90's and 2000's. That's how I judge popularity. Not monetary income.

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-Agreed. I don't honestly believe that D&D (or tabletop role-playing games in general) is more popular now than it was in the 70s/80s/90s heyday, but I think that the perception of it (along with other nerdy things, like comic books especially) has radically changed since then and it's okay to admit that you play. Even as recent as like in the early 2000s, in my experience, saying you played D&D would get side-eye, not so much maybe something negative as much as something weird and extremely geeky. Now, apparently, not so much.

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I am inclined to think D&D and RPGs are more popular than ever. We've got celebrities who say they've played, it's popped up in popular TV shows, there are multiple successful D&D podcasts out there... The success of things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones has gone a long way towards making D&D more popular.

The biggest indicator for me is where we can buy D&D stuff now. When I first got into D&D, you had to look for hobby shops that catered to modelers and RC people, and then find that one shelf all the way in the back, for any D&D stuff, or you had to find the gaming section of a comic book store. If neither of those places had what you needed, you had to find an ad in Dragon and then send a check or money order to someone to get your material.

I spent years trying to find FR4 The Magister, before discovering eBay.

Now, though? Gaming stores are a thing, there's a gazillion websites serving gaming needs, there's new RPG stuff on Kickstarter every day, Amazon will deliver gaming material to your door, and even places like Target and Wal-Mart carry gaming material. Granted, Target and Wal-Mart generally only have the basic boxed sets and some dice, but still, that's a far cry from what it was during my entry into the gaming world back around 1987.

I'll not say that D&D is mainstream or anything, but it's come a long way since 2000 or so.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I am inclined to think D&D and RPGs are more popular than ever. We've got celebrities who say they've played, it's popped up in popular TV shows, there are multiple successful D&D podcasts out there... The success of things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones has gone a long way towards making D&D more popular.

The biggest indicator for me is where we can buy D&D stuff now. When I first got into D&D, you had to look for hobby shops that catered to modelers and RC people, and then find that one shelf all the way in the back, for any D&D stuff, or you had to find the gaming section of a comic book store. If neither of those places had what you needed, you had to find an ad in Dragon and then send a check or money order to someone to get your material.

I spent years trying to find FR4 The Magister, before discovering eBay.

Now, though? Gaming stores are a thing, there's a gazillion websites serving gaming needs, there's new RPG stuff on Kickstarter every day, Amazon will deliver gaming material to your door, and even places like Target and Wal-Mart carry gaming material. Granted, Target and Wal-Mart generally only have the basic boxed sets and some dice, but still, that's a far cry from what it was during my entry into the gaming world back around 1987.

I'll not say that D&D is mainstream or anything, but it's come a long way since 2000 or so.

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Originally posted by Gyor

Its way more popular then it used to be,they are making alot of money to the point where WotC is now more profitable then Hasbro's other divisions,not just because of MtG either, D&D's growth rate out did MtG.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47698/wotc-makes-more-money-hasbros-toy-business

Its absolutely more popular then 3e now, never mind 4e,possibly even AD&D even.

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Originally posted by Wendolyn

Isn't D&D obviously more popular than it ever was? I've been playing since the 1990s and I've never encountered so much interest and widespread appeal in D&D as I have these days. I'm sure Wizards and Hasbro are doing incredibly, from a financial point of view. 5e is a great edition and very popular. Not saying that earlier editions weren't also great, or that I like everything that's been done, but I think it is beyond debate whether or not 5e and Hasbro have been successful.

Part of the reason for D&D's recent and incredible success is likely due to factors beyond Hasbro's control. The rise of podcasts have allowed people who didn't know about D&D to experience what it is like to play, for the first time. Critical Role is huge, as well as twitch streaming of games. The TV show Stranger Things also brought D&D to a wide audience. And I think following Game of Thrones and the rise of high budget genre fiction TV has also benefited D&D's appeal to mainstream audiences. 5e has benefited from these trends. I also think that D&D promises a social experience that doesn't necessarily involve staring at screens, which I think appeals to lots of people, even parents. I'm seeing more and more after-school programs highlighting D&D. What a wonderful time for the hobby! And it is also becoming more diverse, as scribe Keftiu says, which is sorely needed.

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Originally posted by Gyor
People keep forgetting so did Big Bang Theory.

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Originally posted by John Daker

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Originally posted by Gyor
People keep forgetting so did Big Bang Theory.

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True, but Big Bang Theory was very much a show about "nerds" despite humanizing those nerds and making them relatable to normies, and that fit with preexisting stereotypes about D&D (which is why the show's writers used D&D to begin with). The current phenomenon, with Stranger Things, streams, etc., isn't just about destigmatizing nerds and their love of D&D; for the most part, "nerdiness" isn't part of the equation in these new series at all.

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Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

I would say that D&D has become less "niche" than it used to be, thanks to streams like Critical Role.

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Originally posted by Azar

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Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

I would say that D&D has become less "niche" than it used to be, thanks to streams like Critical Role.

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For better and for worse.

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Originally posted by keftiu

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Originally posted by Azar

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Originally posted by CorellonsDevout

I would say that D&D has become less "niche" than it used to be, thanks to streams like Critical Role.

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For better and for worse.

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What does this mean? I’ve got my own complaints with that crew, but the massive influx of new players it’s brought is a positive for the hobby as a whole.

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• Good on Critical Role's DM for channeling his passion into the creation of so many visual aids, but most people play with books, paper, pencil, and dice (with the occasional handful of miniatures to help make sense of combat). Time and money are greater luxuries for the rest of us.
• Most people aren't as photogenic/telegenic, vocally talented and/or classically/industry trained as the primary cast; there's an obvious performative element to the show absent from a typical session of D&D.
• Campaign tempos tend to fluctuate despite our best efforts and interests wax and wane. Generally speaking, you're not going to witness the same level of engagement from session to session...for the players and certainly to any outside observers.
• Then, there's the issue of long-term campaign stability being far from a universal guarantee. The cast members of Critical Role are financially stable, romantically stable and they have a rather large incentive to stay on in the form of an audience one million plus strong.
• Finally, I'd wager that the majority of DMs don't have a production team that works to maximize their appeal.

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Originally posted by sleyvas
Still doesn't tell us much. If they'd cut down to a skeleton crew and are regrowing it. Again, not pushing for one way or another, its just I hear things like "the game is more popular than ever" and I truly wonder if there's more people playing than there were in say the 90's and 2000's. That's how I judge popularity. Not monetary income.

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Originally posted by see

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Originally posted by sleyvas
Still doesn't tell us much. If they'd cut down to a skeleton crew and are regrowing it. Again, not pushing for one way or another, its just I hear things like "the game is more popular than ever" and I truly wonder if there's more people playing than there were in say the 90's and 2000's. That's how I judge popularity. Not monetary income.

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Data direct from Hasbro/WotC was all in dollar terms. In those terms, D&D's biggest year ever was 2018, until it was 2019, until it was 2020.

As far as unit sales, there isn't an available source, but we can compare sales to those of the book industry as a whole with the USA Today archive of top-150 weekly bestsellers, and Amazon's archive of top-100 annual sellers in books. I went through and did that a few months back.

In the USA Today list, 5e products have vastly outperformed 3e, 3.5, and 4e products, on the level of Tasha's being as big a bestseller as those editions' PHBs, while the 5e PHB had more bestseller weeks than all those editions' books combined.

On the Amazon list, the only D&D products that have ever made the whole-year top 100 sellers in book lists were 5e products, with the 5e PHB doing so in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. Rather few books of any kind ever manage the sales to achieve the Amazon whole-year top 100 for four years in a row, being major cultural phenomena (Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games), established perennial standards ("Goodnight, Moon", "What to Expect When You're Expecting"), or classics that have made school curricula ("1984", "To Kill a Mockingbird").

Now, of course, it's hard to determine if sales are matched by actual play, but it seems unlikely that people are buying PHBs in huge numbers to not play, you know?

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Originally posted by George Krashos

I criticise my kids for watching YouTube videos of people playing games that they can play themselves. I tried to watch Critical Roll once. Lasted 2 minutes. I then went to watch some paint dry. Did I mention I found it ever so boring ...?

-- George Krashos

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Originally posted by George Krashos

I criticise my kids for watching YouTube videos of people playing games that they can play themselves. I tried to watch Critical Roll once. Lasted 2 minutes. I then went to watch some paint dry. Did I mention I found it ever so boring ...?

-- George Krashos

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Originally posted by Gyor

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Originally posted by Lord Karsus

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Originally posted by sleyvas

Still doesn't tell us much. If they'd cut down to a skeleton crew and are regrowing it. Again, not pushing for one way or another, its just I hear things like "the game is more popular than ever" and I truly wonder if there's more people playing than there were in say the 90's and 2000's. That's how I judge popularity. Not monetary income.

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-Agreed. I don't honestly believe that D&D (or tabletop role-playing games in general) is more popular now than it was in the 70s/80s/90s heyday, but I think that the perception of it (along with other nerdy things, like comic books especially) has radically changed since then and it's okay to admit that you play. Even as recent as like in the early 2000s, in my experience, saying you played D&D would get side-eye, not so much maybe something negative as much as something weird and extremely geeky. Now, apparently, not so much.

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Its way more popular then it used to be,they are making alot of money to the point where WotC is now more profitable then Hasbro's other divisions,not just because of MtG either, D&D's growth rate out did MtG.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/47698/wotc-makes-more-money-hasbros-toy-business

Its absolutely more popular then 3e now, never mind 4e,possibly even AD&D even.

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Originally posted by George Krashos

I criticise my kids for watching YouTube videos of people playing games that they can play themselves. I tried to watch Critical Roll once. Lasted 2 minutes. I then went to watch some paint dry. Did I mention I found it ever so boring ...?

-- George Krashos

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Originally posted by sleyvas

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Originally posted by George Krashos

I criticise my kids for watching YouTube videos of people playing games that they can play themselves. I tried to watch Critical Roll once. Lasted 2 minutes. I then went to watch some paint dry. Did I mention I found it ever so boring ...?

-- George Krashos

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Yeah, I tried to do this once too. I couldn't stand it. Critical roll and other shows of people playing roleplaying games are not fun to me. But then again, neither is watching someone else play a shooting game. Yet young kids do it. I also don't get the fascination of young kids (and by young, I mean ten and up) with games like roblox in which they play games where you take orders and make pizzas or ice cream or whatever for people, and I hope they get the realization that if they don't do something more challenging with their brains that that may be what they're doing in a more messy way for the rest of their lives.

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Originally posted by Wendolyn

I'm glad Matt Mercer and crew are doing what they're doing and bringing so many into our wonderful hobby.

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