D&D Tops The Charts, But Alien & Fate Aren’t Far Behind
The numbers are in for the Fall, and while Dungeons & Dragons rules the roost, it looks like the Alien RPG, Cyberpunk, and Fate are growing strong.
Every quarter, ICv2 conducts a survey of the best selling tabletop roleplaying games, giving us all a sort of measure of the wind as to how the industry is performing. They do this by aggregating data based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. Over the last five years, the one constant has been Dungeons & Dragons in the top spot–and as D&D continues to enjoy year-for-year growth making it the best its ever been, that’s not likely to change.
But what does shift are the four beneath it. Let’s take a look.
These are the numbers for Fall 2020, and as you can see, during that quarter, Pathfinder (the traditional other side of D&D) was solid in spot number 2. Unsurprising, considering that after D&D, Pathfinder is the go-to game, and is built upon much of the same audience. Mirroring some of the growth we saw in Roll20’s Orr Industry Report, we’re seeing some familiar names, though interestingly enough, Cyberpunk Red seems to be strongest, and alongside that popular horror sci-fi title Alien, the rpg and Fate come in.
It’s especially interesting to see how these games track up compared to overall usage, because if you look at active campaigns, it seems like Call of Cthulhu had been poised to take over the 2nd place slot, accounting for a full ten percent of online games.
But perhaps that’s a status we’ll see change with the next set of numbers from ICv2. At any rate, whatever the others are, there’s no questioning D&D’s dominance in terms of both sales and games played. And as more people release big 5th Edition offerings, like Chris Metzen’s new studio with Coils of the Auroboros, that number seems like it can only grow.
What are your top five games?
