Wizards of the Coast are recovering, or trying to, from an Open Gaming License drama, in which they tried to change the rules to how third parties use bits of D&D’s 5e and then backed off in the face of a backlash. Some D&D fans said they were quitting their D&D Beyond accounts.
Earlier, Geek Native had a sliver of stats from VPN Overview about D&D-themed downloads to AppStores. It’s not a whole or robust story, and it’s not a deep dive into D&D Beyond’s app, but it’s a glimpse.
Some commentators rightly pointed out that changes in installs at Roll20 would be telling, the popular third-party VTT which sells official D&D modules for Wizards of the Coast.
Roll20 have informed Geek Native that they will no longer be releasing detailed stats on which campaigns are being created on their platform. Sorry.
However, I did get some insight. Before the OGL drama, the top three character sheets from October to January remained stable, and I think character sheets are a good proxy for people shifting games.
Roll20’s top three character sheets remain;
- D&D 5e
- Pathfinder 2e
- Call of Cthulhu
So, no change at all? No. The biggest rising star during the period was the character sheet for RTG’s Cyberpunk RED RPG.
After the Netflix anime, players for Cyberpunk RED tripled on Roll20, and the platform made significant changes to the character sheet ahead of the Tales from the RED module release.
If Cyberpunk RED’s character sheet boom is due to the anime then we might conclude, with sketchy but some evidence, that Roll20 didn’t see a dramatic surge in CoC or P2e installs.
If so, that lines up with Hasbro’s CEO Chris Cock’s remarks on the controversial earnings call in which he seemed to downplay D&D Beyond unsubs. It was a controversial call as the former WotC boss also seemed to say that the team had been in touch with people who had unsubscribed and no one has yet been able to confirm such an outreach.
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