Player Demographic Trends Update

We got a few insights into player demographics through Geekwire reporting from the WotC Media summit and I wanted to run through these few numbers from Wizards to see how they compare to what we get when the community surveys itself (are we completely off or broadly in-line). Short answer - it appears we are broadly the same.

The key points I pulled from the end of the Geekwire article:
- 60% of D&D players are male, 39% are female, and 1% identify otherwise;
- 60% are “hybrid” players, playing online & in person
- 58% play D&D on a weekly basis.
- Most respondents (48%) identify as millennials, vs. 19% from Generation X and 33% from Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012).
- The player population recently crossed a point where the majority of current D&D plans are those who started playing the game with the fifth edition.

So lets drop all these onto what other data we have and see how it compares.

First off - we get a player population breakdown of 60% male, 39% female, 1% of other identity. Plotting this on our long run chart it falls right on the trend.

Reports that "58% play D&D on a weekly basis" fits on the trend of other surveys.

Not so many surveys have the fine-grain to allow generational thresholds to be checked (most block out age ranges that might allow one generation boundary to be spotted but straddles another). What we do see from the few that let us check is that multiple generations are playing, as WotC says.

Looking at what were the most popular editions from the point of view of getting people into the game, 5e becoming the most popular lines up with what we see elsewhere.

The other points - on % playing hybrid and how many people joined through 2nd Edition, I have not got to hand. I guess we can take them as broadly correct since most of the other points line up with what we see elsewhere. I did my best to pull apart the editions question in What edition did you start with?

Overall I think this is interesting because it says that the intel that WotC is getting from its surveys and sharing only sparingly can be replicated from openly available community surveys, at least in the broad directions. We can figure out what we all think is going on - figuring out what WotC may decide to do about it is another matter.

Sources
The many, many sources to the gender evolution chart are in Examining change in player demographics

Play frequency is mostly pulled from these:
D&D 5e Facebook group, 2020 (actual)
D&D 5e Facebook group, 2020 (ideal)
Reddit Subclasses survey, 2019
D&DBeyond forum, 2018
MegaDM survey, 2017
Dragonsfoot forum, 2011
Enworld, 2004

Some age data from these: Who introduced you to DnD? from the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition facebook group in 2020.
"How were you introduced to Roleplaying" from RPG.net in 2019.
Replica of 1985 Dragon Magazine survey from Kirith blog - taking just 2017 data as other years less than 50 data points.
A friends/not friends break-down from RPG.net in 2011 - cannot break out the not-friends data by what inspired people to teach themselves.
How were you introduced to RPGs? from Enworld in 2009.
What was your gaming "gateway"? from Enworld in 2006.

Some edition data from these:
RPGNet 2009 - "What was your first edition of D&D?"
r/DnD 2014 - "What edition of D&D did you first start playing?"
OSR Gateway 2018 - "Which edition of D&D did you begin with?"
FB5e 2018 - "Which edition of D&D did you start playing D&D with?"
MCDM 2021 - "Which was the first edition of D&D you played?"

More sources can be found on the Big List of TTRPG surveys post