The new Orr Group report for Q2 2021 has dropped and I chucked the numbers into my big sheet and saw some interesting trends. Note, the numbers quoted on the blog post that accompanies the report do not match the numbers in the report itself. For the purposes of this exercise I am going to compare just the numbers in the report to the numbers in previous reports and not try to figure out why their own article is different. Given that and looking at all the reports since 2019 we see what is beginning to look like a sustained fade in D&D 5e share of campaigns.
Of course this is coupled with a ramp up in players from ~ 5 million to more than 8 million over the same time.
More actual players were playing D&D 5e - but it does show that more systems are getting their chance and the feared '5e devours everything' scenario is perhaps a little overblown. EnWorld is reporting it as 'D&D share climbs again' based on a graphic accompanying the report. I am not sure this is correct, just looking at the report data to be comparable to previous reports and there the campaigns share is dropping.
I have been tracking the various editions of D&D over time on Roll20 - initially tracking the shift of players between Pathfinder and D&D - and it seems to suggest that other systems are winning an increasing share of players. Understanding that Pathfinder has a stronghold on Foundry rather than Roll20, we can still try and read the trends just as they apply for Roll20. The columns before 2020 must be taken with a shaker of salt - these have been adjusted to try and compensate for the change of methodologies from 2019 to 2020.
Prior to 2019 "collection method was solely based on user selection data. [Roll20] added a new process that also looks at character sheet usage from all 4 million+ Roll20 accounts." I scaled the pre-2020 data by 80% so there was not a huge skip in time, so take the absolute values as low confidence and the shares of systems within as medium confidence. Accepting all this, it does not look like the share lost from D&D 5e is going to another D&D type system - the main contenders being Pathfinder 1e & 2e or perhaps 3.5e or some of the older editions.
I have noted before when discussing popularity of editions that shortly after launch, D&D 5e consolidated D&D from other editions, reducing three comparable communities of players (4e, 3.5e, Pathfinder) to effectively one (5e). This was mirrored in the change in survey responses from other contemporary sources at the time. At this time there does not appear to be another D&D-style challenger that is diverting away D&D players.
Call of Cthulhu share of campaigns is up ~4% while most of the other systems are flat or slightly fading - the balance of growth is in the 'others' column suggesting new systems coming in and people venturing off to try other stuff. I am definitely interested to see how these trends continue - particularly following the Avatar Kickstarter shone a big light on Powered by the Apocalypse.
For reference the unadjusted, directly transcribed from the Orr reports, the data looks like this.
Source:
The Orr Reports on Roll20 blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment