GURPS Market share

[Son of Dave]

Recently, one of my players asked me how 'big' GURPS was, and I responded saying that GURPS didnt have a particuarly big market share, but had a goodly history and a small but determined number dedicated players and GM's. Is this true?

I realise that I have been judging these things on the forum; which is predisposed to bring the most dedicated of GURPS players/GMs, and is artificially small in comparison to the full player-base, and not really comparable.

Cheers,

[talonthehand]

Well, compared to D&D, it certainly has a small market share. As does everything else in the market.

[Son of Dave]

Well, yes, I suppose that goes with out question.

If we ignore DnD, where does GURPS stand, relative to other popular tabletop rpg's? I've certainly been offered many WoD games, and played in quite a few, but I am the only 1 of 2 GURPS GM's that I know of in my area, and ive never played in the other fellows games, nor him in mine.

[Dragondog]

I've seen a similar thread in these forums somewhere, listing GURPS as among the top five, including DnD.

[Bruno]

The usual breakdown I see has D&D in whatever incarnation at #1, World of Darkness a distant but still notable #2, and then three or four other systems fighting tooth and nail for the tiny share of #3, including GURPS.

However, the only really general population survey was done by IIRC Hasburo back in the early part of the 2000s, and was done before The Big Market Downturn and the Big RPG Shakeup.

So I think the only accurate answer is "nobody really knows right now". I suspect the general shape of the marketplace is still the same - D&D a gigantic red dragon crouching on top of #1, WoD much smaller and #2, some other guys clustered close together behind WoD, and then a bunch of more ""niche", or just "neglected" games trailing behind. Somewhere far down in the distance are the "indy" games and one-book-wonders.

Even if you could get the distributors to all pool their numbers together it wouldn't be accurate - with the move to online publishing and the ability to sell PDFs anywhichway (including through large brokerages like RPGNow and E23, but also through your own websites) it's gotten much more fragmented.

Sales aren't even a good measuring stick of what people are playing. Just what they own.

I don't think anyone could get a good grasp on the situation without another gigantic survey effort by Hasburo - and even then, they only survey Americans, and they only survey scattered households in IIRC the midwest anyways.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Son of Dave

Recently, one of my players asked me how 'big' GURPS was, and I responded saying that GURPS didnt have a particuarly big market share, but had a goodly history and a small but determined number dedicated players and GM's. Is this true?

I realise that I have been judging these things on the forum; which is predisposed to bring the most dedicated of GURPS players/GMs, and is artificially small in comparison to the full player-base, and not really comparable.

Cheers,

Well you could always look at this:

http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=rpgmap

And draw unjustified conclusions about market share from the size of the relevant forums. But note that most of those "nations" are of course D&D or d20 forums.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well you could always look at this:

http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=rpgmap

And draw unjustified conclusions about market share from the size of the relevant forums. But note that most of those "nations" are of course D&D or d20 forums.

Well we are about the same size as White Wolf and Paizo forums there; I don't know if that actually means anything relative to how many players there are.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well you could always look at this:

http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=rpgmap

And draw unjustified conclusions about market share from the size of the relevant forums. But note that most of those "nations" are of course D&D or d20 forums.

And the SJGames fora has a lot of non-GURPS stuff in it.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by lexington

And the SJGames fora has a lot of non-GURPS stuff in it.

The Wizards forum has a bunch of non-D&D stuff, too.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Bruno

So I think the only accurate answer is "nobody really knows right now". I suspect the general shape of the marketplace is still the same - D&D a gigantic red dragon crouching on top of #1, WoD much smaller and #2, some other guys clustered close together behind WoD, and then a bunch of more ""niche", or just "neglected" games trailing behind. Somewhere far down in the distance are the "indy" games and one-book-wonders.

Some people would argue for D&D, Pathfinder, varying monthly winners in slot #3 on sales data. Honestly I don't think you could obtain decent data for what people actually play. Any kind of sampling poll would be sure to miss a bunch of niche systems, and even if you asked *everybody* you'd have the problem of house systems, systems they really liked but haven't played in a while, or "the last game I played?, well last week we started a one shot adventure with SPI's Dragonquest, first time in 15 years...."