Ryan Dancey, Wotc VP provides detailed marketing info prior to 3E Release

[Lich-Loved]

This article is from almost exactly 8 years ago and breaks down D&D and other game players a number of ways. I found it fascinating and eerily useful in helping wade through the morass of the 4E announcement and changes.

Some notable quotes:

WotC Marketing Report wrote:

This data seems to validate the theory that young gamers, while very active,don't spend a lot of money. (The following data is reported by for RPG expenditures) The big dollars come from adults...

WotC Marketing Report wrote:

Getting back to the people still playing the games, when asked what games
TRPG players play monthly, the answers (multiple choices allowed) were:

D&D: 66%
Vampire: The Masquerade: 25%
Star Wars: 21%
Palladium: 16%
Werewolf: The Apocalypse: 15%
Shadowrun: 15%
Star Trek: 12%
Call of Cthulu: 8%
Legend of the Five Rings: 8%
Deadlands: 5%
Alternity: 4%
GURPS: 3%

WotC Marketing Report wrote:

(*) For my own purposes, I choose to use the term "Tabletop RPGs" in this document; the term "paper RPGs" was used in the study. The terms are synonyms; my choice is simply personal. I believe that in the fairly near future "paper" RPGs will hybridize with computer assistance, not becoming "computer RPGs" as that term is commonly understood, but not being games played simply with paper anymore either. Consider this a "forward looking" terminology.

Now what I would --desperately-- like to see is an update to this report for 2007.

[rclifton]

Wouldn't that be interesting, to see that breakdown updated?

[Set]

rclifton wrote:

Wouldn't that be interesting, to see that breakdown updated?

Very. I would strongly suspect that a lot of these other games are farther down the list (with some obviously being gone altogether), and some new stuff like Exalted, Hackmaster and Savage Worlds perhaps having snuck on.

[alleynbard]

I'd like to know this sort of thing too. Unfortunately I don't think we would ever see something like this released by Wizards as it exists today. Wizards of the Coast was a very different company back then.

[Vic Wertz]

Wizards is almost certainly the only company who could afford to a study on that scale again.

[alleynbard]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Wizards is almost certainly the only company who could afford to a study on that scale again.

I'm sure they have done such a study recently, or at least they should have. I just don't think they would release it again. This isn't necessarily a dig against them. I just don't think they would be so free with that information anymore.