The future of tabletop games is digital?

“As we enter the end of 2022, game shop tournaments, in-person events, and local groups have begun again, yet many players remain content playing on their computers. Looking at the player counts in Tabletop Simulator today, as players’ lives began to regain some normalcy, the swell of users that the service saw during the start of the pandemic subsided and stabilized, but the numbers remain nearly double the average and peak user counts of those in December 2019, before the pandemic shutdowns. The fact that there has been retention shows that people have found value in this method of play. With such a jump in popularity, it isn’t hard to see that the big players in the tabletop world would take notice.“

“Many fan communities were in a good spot to jump into the digital space when shutdowns began, with established day one and tools and services. However, some of the bigger publishers and companies were caught unprepared for the sudden necessity of a digital option for their games. While Wizards of the Coast had an answer for Magic players during this time, it didn’t have an in-house option for Dungeons & Dragons players. The explosion in popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, and the increase in new users utilizing the services of D&D Beyond, made the prospect of bringing it under Wizards’ wing too alluring to pass up, and $146.3 million later, Wizards acquired the companion website.”