The Orr Group shares data on the tabletop games we’re all playing. They’re the company that operates Roll20 and have their virtual tabletop stats to analyse and study.
More than half of all campaigns played on Roll20 are D&D 5e. The 5th most popular game is also D&D, not D&D 4 (which is 18th) but D&D 3.5.
Interestingly, the next most popular game is “Uncategorised”. This category is new. “Uncategorised” is how Roll20 accounts for homebrew and heavily customised games. Nearly 15% of all games played on Roll20 are homebrew.
The Orr Group’s report goes back to 2014, but we can see changes to the RPG landscape just by comparing 2019 to the July 2018 report.
At this time last year, D&D 5 had a greater market share; more than 60% of games played on Roll20 were D&D. That’s a drop of 10% year on year.
Pathfinder has suffered about the same; going from 9% to just below 8%. That’s also about a 10% drop.
Of course, given that the “Uncategorised” section is now we’re not exactly comparing like for like.
Paizo Publishing may well be pleased with this report, I would have thought the Pathfinder drop would have been larger as Pathfinder 2e is on the way. This suggests that there are plenty of Pathfinder players still out there and if Pathfinder 2e lives up to expectations then it’ll have some traction.
Chaosium should also be pleased. In the Orr Group’s report it is noted that Call of Cthulhu is second place. However, Call of Cthulhu games tends to be much shorter than most others. Deadly one-offs, perhaps?
Cubicle 7 might also be interested in the post. At UK Games Expo this year, they admitted they’ve been slow to support virtual tabletops but had started to look into it. Warhammer is 5th on the most popular list; providing you add together Warhammer Fantasy RPG and Wrath and Glory.
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