March 19, 2009

Using Google to Measure Interest in Dungeons & Dragons

Posted by Tagged with
Ever wondered what's "popular" among us D&D geeks? How about what was popular? Using Google's new Google Insights Tool, you can mine all kinds of Web 2.0 goodness from their databases. For instance, the above graph shows the "interest level" by netizens over the last five years for 4E D&D (in blue), 3E D&D (in red), 2E D&D (orange), and 1E D&D (in green, absent becuase it's below Google's threshold level). The fully interactive chart is available here. Notice the HUGE spike last summer when 4E was released, and the precipitous drop. Also notice the the trough for 4E interest is about at the same level as 3E was back in 2004. I wonder how well this data tracks with sales of D&D products? I would venture fairly well.
The downside to this data is that, overall, there's a declining interest in D&D in general, across all editions (barring the spike last summer). The upside is that, if you look at the last 60 days, interest in 4E D&D seems to be trending a bit higher which might be promising. OK, so how does interest in D&D track with RPGs in general?

From the looks of it, interest in RPG's in general is remaining steady -- but interest in D&D is fading. What I want to know is what the heck cuased the 42% spike in general RPG interest back in April of 2006?

13 comments:

  1. I found it interesting that the region with the highest interest in D&D (according to the second graph) was Iraq. Those soldier boys (and girls) sure do love their rpgs.
    ReplyDelete
  2. I might have to play with the Insights Tool when I get the time. It would be interesting to map some MMORPG interest beside RPG interest to see if anything like that caused a spike (or even console releases).
    ReplyDelete
  3. "What I want to know is what the heck cuased the 42% spike in general RPG interest back in April of 2006?"

    Plug in "Vampire" and you'll have your answer.
    ReplyDelete
  4. @Kameron : Haha! I hadn't thought of that... maybe Mad Brew (who's an ex-marine, if I'm not mistaken) can add something to that?

    @Madbrew : The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was released around that time..

    http://www.google.com/insights/search/#cat=622&q=D%26D%2Coblivion&date=1%2F2006%206m&cmpt=q Interesting correlation...
    ReplyDelete
  5. @szlizard : welcome back! nice.. "oblivion" works too.

    this tool is soo cool!
    ReplyDelete
  6. What do these numbers track? Is this number of searches for "D&D 4e"? Where do they put people who search for "D&D", "Eladrin", "Warlock powers", "Feats" and so on, without specifying the edition?

    The graphs are cool to look at, but I'm not sure what we can take from them. It may well be that the initial spike represents people searching for "D&D 4e" when it's new, who are now, months later, just searching for "D&D", or who have all the information and sources of information bookmarked and thus don't need to use google as a source anymore. I know that as a 4e player and buyer I was personally looking for a lot of D&D 4e info around the release date, but haven't really searched since. I'm not really sure where someone like me would show up on google's tracking.
    ReplyDelete
  7. I think you missed some common terms for previous editions. I'm intrigued by this search. I think there's some non-RPG noise in the "AD&D" search, because just "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" doesn't do quite the same thing, but adding that and OD&D (just for a start) change the numbers a bit. Once you add "AD&D 1st edition" and "AD&D 2nd edition" the orange line ends up pretty similar to the red line since 2004, which I wouldn't have expected.
    ReplyDelete
  8. That is awesome... seems this tool might take some playing around with. I wonder if you can use google search term modifiers like "related:" or "link:" or "site:"... this tool rocks! what a great tool for marketing people...
    ReplyDelete
  9. Just a side note, Google searches correlate very well to site traffic and site traffic correlates very well to sales in other industries, so I'd bet it holds true here as well.
    ReplyDelete
  10. @Kameron & Jonathan: It's "former Marine" ("ex" always sounds like you did something bad and got kicked out ;)

    Anyways, I wouldn't know too much as when I was in the infantry, the internet wasn't common place (gettting it while I was deployed was a pip-dream). However, RPGs, wargames, and video games ARE very popular. Of course, Warhammer 40k Space & Chaos Marines were a fave in my battalion.

    @szilard: Are we talking about Vampire: the Reqiuem? If so it came out two years earlier in 2004.
    ReplyDelete
  11. Spike in April of 06?

    Death of Usenet?
    ReplyDelete
  12. june 2006... use the tool and type "oblivion vampire walkthrough".. that's it.
    ReplyDelete
  13. I for one don't search for Dungeons and Dragons info on Google. I either go to Wikipedia, Penny Arcade's Critical Failures forum, ENWorld, or one of several blogs (including this one).
    ReplyDelete

By submitting your comment below, you agree to the blog's Terms of Service.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)