Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The 20 Most Popular RPGs

I guess my metrics-mania is getting out of control here... Out of curiosity I ranked "role playing games" at amazon.com by sales numbers. The vast majority of individual items on the list were Dungeons & Dragons 4e products. This is hands down the biggest RPG out there - a fact that is supported by what I've seen at local game stores and cons. For example, the the top 5 individual items on the RPG bestseller list were:
1. D&D 4e: Rules Compendium
2. D&D 4e: Heroes of the Fallen Lands Supplement
3. D&D 4e: Essentials Starter Kit ("The Red Box")
4. Warhammer 40K RPG: Deathwatch Core Rulebook
5. D&D 4e: Dungeon Tiles Master Set - The Dungeon

This is pretty much what most of the bestseller list looks like - D&D 4e products interspersed with a few other things. Well, I was less interested in individual items as I was in game systems so I ranked in print systems by each system's single bestselling product on the list:
1. D&D 4e
2. Warhammer 40K RPG
3. Pathfinder
4. Gamma World (the new 4e version)
5. DC Adventures: Super-Hero Roleplaying
6. Field of Glory Renaissance (a minis game)
7. Shadowrun
8. Rogue Trader
9. Savage Worlds
10. World of Darkness
11. GURPS
12. Call of Cthulhu
13. Changeling: The Lost
14. Mage: The Awakening
15. Star Wars: Saga Edition
16. Vampire: The Requiem
17. Dark Heresy
18. Hunter: The Vigil
19. Werewolf: The Forsaken
20. Promethean: The Created

A few thoughts:

- D&D 4e holds a virtual monopoly over the roleplaying market. I've heard some blog and forum people call 4e a commercial failure. Well, these people clearly have no idea what they're talking about. The gaming public loves 4e and buys a lot of it.

- D&D 4e and Pathfinder are pretty much the only fantasy roleplaying games in town. If you're a lonely fantasy gamer you should play one of these titles!

- It's cool that a DC superhero roleplaying game is so popular. I never would have guessed this! I'm shocked there's no Marvel RPG on the list.

- Sci-fi is a very popular roleplaying genre: W40K RPG, Shadowrun, Rogue Trader, Star Wars, Dark Heresy, etc.

- Only two "generic games" made the list - GURPS and Savage Worlds. People like settings built into their games it seems.

- The universe of White Wolf titles (the ones with colonic titles like "Roleplaying: The Game") really fills out the bottom of the list in an interesting way.

29 comments:

  1. One potential issue with this breakdown: WH40K has several "games" within it, namely Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch. Kind of like the relationship between World of Darkness and its constituent games. This might skew things a bit - they're all basically different parts of one RPG.

    The DC game is highly ranked because it's brand new. Currently, there is no Marvel RPG in print.

    Also, while I'm sure 4e would still be tops, this doesn't take Pathfinder's subscription model into account. A lot of people don't buy their Pathfinder books on Amazon, but direct from Paizo.

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  2. Of course don't forget that some people (i.e. us) play OOP games more regularly than in print ones.

    Just sayin'

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  3. Not that we're a majority, I'll note, but we exist in enough quantities that people seem to be able to find gamers to play with them.

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  4. One potential issue with this breakdown: WH40K has several "games" within it, namely Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, and Deathwatch.

    Yes, there are actually three situations like this on the list. The WotC games (4e and Gamma World), the Warhammer games, and the WoD games. I decided to leave the various games separate because, well, they are all independently playable games. Also, I think it reveals an interesting trend in the game market.

    Currently, there is no Marvel RPG in print.

    Yes, this is what amazes me. I'd guess there would be a huge market for a Marvel game.

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  5. Hell, Marvel should just re-issue the FASERIP system.

    I think an interesting (but impossible) measure would be total units sold of various RPGs for all time. I think AD&D would probably dominate that list, and in fact 4E, which is selling well now, might fall behind 3E and maybe the World of Darkness products.

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  6. well I've not bought as much 4e stuff as I bought 3.5e stuff.. But I'm certainly getting close to it.

    4e was also the first time that my entire crew all actually bought the players guide.. normally they just mooch off me. that sale with players guide 1&2 they did back around the holidays last year was a big hit with us.

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  7. Of course don't forget that some people (i.e. us) play OOP games more regularly than in print ones.

    Definitely, but it's hard to think of a metric for this. I was thinking you could crunch program schedules for conventions. I ain't got the time for that, though. Also, in my experience, the schedules at our local L.A. cons roughly mirror this bestseller list, except GURPS and CoC might move up and Warhammer RPGs might move down. There's relatively little OOP action at our regular local cons. I think it's a characteristic of mainstream roleplayers to follow the trends to the latest games.

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  8. The most recent Marvel game was published by Marvel themselves, and was a mess. It didn't sell well (probably because the rules weren't ready for prime time). Since the sales were so poor, Marvel's apparently of the opinion that the RPG market isn't worth their time.

    Even the DC RPG license is a limited kind of thing - I think there are only going to be 5 books or so.

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  9. I think an interesting (but impossible) measure would be total units sold of various RPGs for all time.

    I think a lot of people would be interested in this. These are pretty closely guarded secrets, though.

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  10. Holy shit! I'm SHOCKED that Gamma World is #4! Glad to see that sci-fi broke the top 5 (that and DC).

    I'm even more shocked that Star Wars is so far down the list. Yeah, WotC stopped publishing, but there's tons of product out there. And yet, while bestseller lists are a good indicator of what people are playing, it's not quite the whole picture. So maybe more people are playing it than are buying it only because there's nothing new out there.

    And I whole-heartedly endorse a Marvel FASERIP revival!

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  11. @Jay, yeah, but its the new Gamma World...which is not likely to look all that much like the old Gamma World. I have not played it...I am not sure that I can get past the whole random card-pack mutation thing.

    I dunno

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  12. @Jay, yeah, but its the new Gamma World...which is not likely to look all that much like the old Gamma World. I have not played it...I am not sure that I can get past the whole random card-pack mutation thing.

    Not only is it a collectible card game hybrid, the box DOES NOT include the dice - you are supposed to log onto the WotC website to find out how to buy a set! JB at B/X Blackrazor gave a scathing review of GW4 here.

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  13. I wonder what the list would look like if you could actually do a "games really being played" top X. Most of us, I guess, aren't necessarily playing what we're buying. Instead we could be playing what we bought long ago, home brewed, or got for free - like an OD&D clone. In my groups we've played our own Dark Dungeon system now for twenty years. My recent buys tell nothing about that. Any thoughts?

    darkdungeon2.blogspot.com

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  14. I think the figures you gather from Amazon might be somewhat deceptive because the period of sales is undefined.
    Is the list based on "best sellers ranked since Amazon started selling books" or "Best sellers in the last week, month or year?" The two figures might be very different.

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  15. Wow. I currently play exactly one of the those games. I have played exactly one of those games in the past two years. I have also played over a dozen different RPGs in the past two years.

    I was never one of the popular kids.

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  16. Pretty interesting. I am happy to see Savage Worlds among the top 10. I am also surprised to see Shadowrun that high up on the list. Its a cool game, but I had no idea it had that many supporters anymore...

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  17. I think you have drawn the wrong conclusion with the Gurps/Savage Worlds comparision. People do like open world game designs, it's just currently, no one is making any. I don't think we'll see another great generic RPG set for at least another two years, either. Generic/Multiverse titles tend to be periodic things, and pop up every five years or so. What is funny, is depending on what happens, that next great Multiverse RPG just might be 4E... o.O

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  18. I work at Barnes & Noble. The 4e books DO sell. They don't fly out of here, but they do sell. But for every guy that buys a book, two more just come in and use our stock like we were a reference library. Note to Hasbro: If you want to sell more books, lower your prices.

    Full confession: At the end of the day, I have no philosophical problems with 4E. If someone handed me a prerolled character and asked me to sit in I'd probably enjoy myself.

    The rules just don't describe a world I'm interested in creating myself, is all.

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  19. cyclo, I meant to ask--do you know what time period this report was for? Is it since Jan. 1 or just his last qtr?

    Just wondered if results flux between quarters.

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  20. @limpey and Jay - I did a bit of snooping to figure out how amazon determines sales ranks. Apparently the sales rank reflects all-time sales with more recent sales being more heavily weighted. The concept is that the rank should therefore reflect both longevity and "hotness" in an abstract way. The ranks are updated every hour. The specific weighting algorithm is top secret, of course.

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  21. I guess that means WFRP 3e didn't have that much longevity.

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  22. I'm a little surprised as well that Marvel didn't have anything on this list. The Marvel Superheroes system from the '80s was great. Simple, to-the-point, and expansive to boot. Had some fun sessions with it. Does Marvel even have their system remade for this millennium? My ignorance is showing.

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  23. [remembers to read comments next time, re: Marvel FASERIP]

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  24. - Sci-fi is a very popular roleplaying genre: W40K RPG, Shadowrun, Rogue Trader, Star Wars, Dark Heresy, etc.

    - Sci-fi is a very...
    + Space opera/sci-fi with elves is a very...

    The power of the brand name arguably has a lot to do with the relative success of the sci-fi games in this list. WH40K + SW especially are 800lb gorilla IPs.

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  25. Keep in mind that your survey's not really comprehensive in any stretch. Quite a few of us still prefer the FLGS to the West Amazon Trade Company. :)

    That said, it doesn't surprise me that the WoTC Fantasy MMOffRPG (and it's not D&D... its something else with the brand name slapped on it 8D) would be in the top. Hasbro is one of the largest toy companies internationally. They're minimum required orders to distributors are probably larger than some prints runs of other games and it has an advertising budget that most other RPG companies would dare dream of.

    And, there's the branding, which proves that sometimes, just a name is enough.

    (Oh... and the New Gamma World is uch the same. It bares little resemblance to the classic RPG, with the exception of the Branding)

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  26. Um...remember also that there is more WotC PRODUCT available than anything else. My book sold out its first print run in a month...but I'm not in game shops and book stores all across the country/world.

    If I throw 10 million copies of something to the wind, and sell 1 million copies, I will "out-sell" a person with a 200 copy (or 2000 copy) print run. But that a lot of money spent on marketing, advertising, posters, shipping, blah-blah-blah. 4E may very well be a "commercial failure" AND out-sell everyone else.

    ; )

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  27. I'm pretty sure that I read on Newsarama or CBR that Marvel was discussing their plans for the build up to the Avengers film and the words roleplaying and Hasbro were brought up in the same sentence. I can't remember the details but that's what I remember.

    As for 4e & Pathfinder sales, I think they are closer to being neck & neck that most people think. Since Essentials was released I have started playing 4e Essentials, even though Pathfinder is my default/preferred system.

    I doubt that I will continue buying 4e once the Essentials line ends, and I imagine there are a lot people that abandoned 4e that are doing the same. Since there are no FLGS in my area, I am one of many Amazon shoppers, so naturally 4e is going strong right now. With no local shop and the big discount @ amazon, especially if you have a student or Prime account, how can you pass up a new, $12 D&D book with 2 day shipping? Of course we are going to buy it.

    On the other hand Pathfinder likely sees a lot less product move on Amazon and since there is no FLGS in my area I can't speak regarding sales in the shops. However, I think it would be safe to say that they have enough subscribers(like me) and people who buy directly from the Paizo site(pdf and print products) to put them right up there with WotC in terms of total books sold. Which if this is true, it is pretty impressive considering the incredible amount of books that WotC puts out each year.

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  28. "- The universe of White Wolf titles (the ones with colonic titles like "Roleplaying: The Game") really fills out the bottom of the list in an interesting way."

    Colonic titles, that's a pretty funny turn of the word.

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  29. It's interesting that the 40K properties are so popular on Amazon - I run both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader games in SoCal, and it's a rare person i meet who knows about these games. That news makes me happy, though. I have the original Black Library version of Dark Heresy, but Fantasy Flight has done a great job (IMO) of extending the setting without getting away from GW's closely-monitored IP. I haven't tried Deathwatch yet, as I don't have much interest in Space Marines as player characters, but I may end up purchasing it if demand suggests it.
    Come to think of it, there are a lot of great systems on that list. I'm glad to see that 4E's success hasn't turned the RPG scene into a pony show with only one breed.

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