You'll usually hear DnD is like Marvel movies in terms of scope--but that's not quite right. In terms of number of games run on Roll20, from the 2021 Q3 ORR Report 50% of the games run on Roll20 is DnD 5e. Not even other DnD games or DnD like games (such as pathfinder) 5E alone is 50% of games played online1. Not even all of the Disney Films released in 2019 (which had Avengers Endgame) had 50% of box office shares.
So just this one version of this one kind of system is closer to the equivalent of if people considered Avengers Endgame literally the only movie to exist, and the only way movies and anything movie like should be made.
Also if Avengers Endgame was literally half of all box office sales of now until forever.
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This is about the only reliable data I can find (without a business account and paying) for RPG sales and numbers. No idea what it looks like in sales and money earned but I can't imagine its much different.
For another comparison, I am a recovering Warhammer 40K player, one of my stints working in games retail was running a GW store. During that time, I got some very mind-boggling information.
During the years that I worked directly for the company, 70% of company income was Space Marines (and a significant chunk of that was the Space Marine Tactical Squadron box, I think something like 25% of Space Marine sales were that box).
Not "70% of the income was Warhammer 40K" or "70% of the income was Imperium Forces" or even "70% of the company's income was among the various Space Marine chapters combined", no. This doesn't even include Space Wolf or Blood Angel or Dark Angel branded kits. This is "SPACE MARINES outsold everything else in the store by TWO TO ONE COMBINED".
The entire profit of
- Eldar
- Dark Eldar
- Imperial Guard
- Tau
- Necrons
- Tyranids
- Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Grey Knights
- Sisters of Battle
- All the little one-offs and Inquisition forces, etc
- Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
- Blood Bowl, Battlefleet Gothic, every boxed game
- The books, paints, audio dramas, and tools
- THE ENTIRE WARHAMMER FANTASY LINE
...was less than HALF of what Space Marines made for the company.
And so knowing that, all of my ammunition for trying to defend "well, why haven't they updated faction X or unit Y" and "why haven't they made a new edition of Game Z" just kind of lost all steam. Because how do you balance a faction that the vast majority of players are never even going to see on the table, by volume? Why do you update a model that the vast majority of customers will never know exists?
Why would you ever update the High Elf Spearmen plastics box from 1995 when it's earning a fraction of a percent of what "literally any random space marine box" is?
There's imbalance, and then there's staggering, "no, seriously" imbalance.
