"How many historical gamers?" Topic

Is there any "hard" data on just how many historical gamers there are? As in primary focus on historical miniatures? Someone who dabbles really wouldn't count. I realize no one can pin down an exact number, I'm just curious what "hard" data does exist on this topic.

No ax to grind, no rant to raise, just a question of interest.

There are 14 historical gamers in my club in Dexter Michigan. About another 10 in the general Ann Arbor area.

Make an educated guess. The real number is either higher or lower.

WS&S run surveys, but don't have a link. It won't give a total number but is good for breakdown by interest.

Make an educated guess. The real number is either higher or lower.

or, conceivably, EXACTLY the same.

Nobody knows.

The only thing I can say for certain is that is a number larger than 26.

Out of about 90 members (at any given time) the Warlords probably has:

10 members who will play historical and nothing else.

10 members who will play historical or non historical but won't play any GW products (or "GW Light": ie Kings of War etc)

20 members who will play historical or non historical but DO play any GW products (or "GW Light")

20 members who will play primarily non historical GW products (or "GW Light") but will occasionally play historical

30 members who ONLY play GW products (or "GW Light") mostly 40k.

On any given club night somewhere around half of those members will be in attendance.

Jusging from my experience of other local clubs I've visited, the mix at the Warlords is quite typical.

John T

I doubt there is any one place that draws together that information and even harder if your are going to set the guideline as to how to define a historical gamer.

For example, I am quite happy to think of people playing Call of Duty on their X-box at 2 in the morning as war gamers, even though they are not!

You can probably gauge numbers my magazine circulations, blog visits by unique visits, boardgame print runs, and even sales figures from prime producers, but I am guessing that you will only ever get a very rough ball park figure that will likely be out by up to a third.

there are plenty of gamers that also have enough collections that they no longer buy – so are invisible.

Perhaps take a figure like the attendance figure at Salute and multiply by 10 or 15 for the UK.

To screw in a lightbulb? :)

The Society of Ancients has had membership levels in the 1,000 to 1,500 region for decades … it can't be more than 10% of ancients enthusiasts – and ancients can't be more than, what?, 20% of the whole historical wargaming sector?

So does that mean a quarter of a million enthusiasts as a likely guess?

But that could just be an English speaking guess, and that could just be wargaming with figures and similar … add a wider brief and include non-English (which is most of the world), the global enthusiast figure might be much larger.

Phil

John Curry of the History of Wargaming Project had a go at trying to calculate the number of wargamers a few years back. That was hard enough, based on all sorts of different data, but teasing out historical from total wargamers was well nigh impossible.

I'm not sure anyone was totally convinced by his numbers, but no one had any better ideas.

In our group 100% are historical gamers, so that's…5 of us.

Out of the 10 gamers in the group, I think there is only 1 die hard historical player. The rest of us will play any game.

42

many

Not so many.

Probably about 10% of our club members play historical on a regular basis.

Twenty years ago it was roughly 80%. The grim reaper has a lot to answer for along with the "I want it now" generation.

Almost all our club do Historical.

not enough to make any difference.
ymmv,

All I know for sure is that one lives at my house – but
he'll also play other genres.

If you are not counting people who "dabble" how many games over what period make it count? Are players who do modern games counting as historical?

I can not see how you can get a meaningful answer to your question. Even if did a survey here all you would find is a rough idea on this site.

I think more people are willing to play historical games than most believe. I teach at a small liberal arts college (we have about 900 students and 70 faculty members). Over the past eight years I have hosted game nights twice each semester. Most of the games that we play are historical games. We will have upwards of 60 students and 6 faculty members participate. That is quite a few people who are willing to give up their Friday evenings to play war games. I should also mention that our game nights usually last from about 7:00 pm to 2:30 AM, so these people are pretty committed. Nor do those in attendance fit the negative stereotypes that some have of wargamers. Of the students that participate many are leaders in student government, athletic stars, those active in student clubs and sorority and fraternity leaders. Similarly, among the faculty that come are members of the senior faculty including those who have served as faculty association president. We have even had prominent members of the administration to attend.

Outside of my life at the university and my family life, I am active in two other circles: politics and church. I know that these are the two areas which we are supposed to avoid speaking about on this sight so I will keep my comments here limited to the topic at hand. I am very active in politics and in 2014 ran for state-wide office. In the last few years, I have encountered a number of politicians in this state (from both major parties) who dabble to various degrees in historical games or other closely related hobbies (model building, etc.). As for church, when I lived in Kentucky I attended one congregation that included its own circle of Advanced Squad Leader gamers. Among the most active players was the preacher.

I know that all of my evidence is based off of my own observations and not any "scientific" study, but as an historian I can assure you that such evidence is sometimes the best that is available or possible.

Kevin

Our club is a historical group of 40+/-, only historical games are played at club meetings but I suspect there are members who play non-historical games on their own.

Some years back, I used to hear the number 40,000 thrown about, based on the sales of Napoleon's Battles, I believe. I always suspected that the number was way low, as my own gaming group had 12 members through most of a decade that were all historical gamers, and none of them purchased a copy of the game.

At work, I am aware that about 4 percent of the employees are historical gamers, playing boardgames and/or miniatures. Over the last 29 years, that number has ranged from 4-10%. The current group are people who didn't know each other prior to being hired, and none of them game with each other. I am not including myself (or others like me at work), as I also play sci-fi games(per the OP). Anyway, the consistency of that percentage (or at least the minimum percentage) of random hires that game is curious if nothing else.

I am a little confused on what you mean by dabbling in historical war games. If I, play both historical and non-historical miniatures games getting in somewhere around 20 historical games a year but also have about 30 non-historical games in that same year do I not count? Because I imagine there are only historical war gamers that only get in a dozen games if that every year mostly at conventions.

The line gets even more fuzzy with some of my friends who wouldn't even consider themselves war gamers. They don't own any miniatures (or tabletop games for that matter) and just use mine. A couple of them only like the historical war games since they have a reference point with history over some random fluff of a sci-fi or fantasy game. They might also play more games per year compared to the convention only crowd though mostly just because of me.

<7 billion but, >100

C. a score of players each Thursday night when I am there, in the local game shop. Other than our usual four, playing WW1 air combat, nobody else plays historicals at all that I have seen. Only one of us is a historical-only player. I'm the next most historical gaming oriented.

And the resurrected gaming at my house this past year has all been fantasy RPG. So even I am not a diehard historical player.

Well in TMP's poll (of over 200) primarily historical TMP link won by an absolute mile so I still guess them to be the majority (not forgetting that this is The Miniatures Page not a historical site so even this is a watered down community …) …

Phil

I am one and my friends are more.

Trying to answer this question seriously I am making the following assumptions.

1. By Historical gamers I am making the definition as those who when they conceive of the war game it is primarily and overwhelmingly games on the REAL past on planet earth, or games based on the real past of planet earth. An example would be the real Wars of Alexander the Great, and the wars reflecting, or in the style of Alexander the Great, or of imagi-nations based on the wars of Alexander the Great.

2. Planet Earth is part of the definition and means "in accordign to the rules of nature and physics on planet Earth. (No magic), and within reason, no mythical races , or at least any that do not obey most of the pertinent rules of human biology.

3. NOTE that I mean what a gamer first images or thinks of when the term is used.

Therefore assuming that within a given demographic a certain percentage of gamers will go to a convention conveniently (within 400 miles) matched against the total population in an area, would be about right provided allowance was made for those prevented temporarily or for some unforseen circumstance,

so assuming the population of the States around the HMGS conventions, in millions in 2010

New York, 19
New Jersey 8
Pennsylvania 11
Maryland 5
Virginia 7
North Carlina 8
Ohio 11
Indiana 6
West Virginia 2
D Kentucky 4

(rounded numbers from the 2015 World Almanac and book of facts, that's 81 million, cut that by half as the population of war game conventions is almost totally male, yields 41 million (rounding up for the few women who come) .
Now as the largest figures for Historicon convention attendance is close to 4,000 (we'll round way up, and assuming only 1/4 of the gamers have the time, inclination and opportunity to go to a convention catering primarily to the criteria first established that means a factor of 4,000 divided by 41 million or a factor of .0000975

So applying that to the United States you should be able to get a number of 27,438

My own by guess and by goly impression doesn't go much above 15,000 in the whole country but again, the whole thing depends on the percentage of people who would define themselves as "historical gamers."

Of course by those figures, Otto, you are suggesting that the entire U.S. historical wargaming demographic isn't much more than 10x the size of the Society of Ancients and that a quarter of them read my blog. Seriously? I can't imagine even ancients hits that factor of society membership figures or blog readerships (and I can't see ancients as more than a quarter of wargaming … ) ..

Phil

Talk about trying to hit a moving target…. In the US, England, All of Europe? The World?

Look on the Face book site

Wargame Commanders [There is a TMP thread on historical wargames] 1,000 members attracted in a short time.

Look online for all the businesses that sell to miniature wargamers. Figure that for anyone one of them to stay in business they would need at least 1,000 return customers, not one time buyers, even as a part-time business.

Obviously, there would be those customers that would buy from a large number of those sellers, but just as obviously, a large number of gamers would only buy from a few sellers with any frequency.

Bottom line for just numbers: You would need a miniature wargamer base of at least 50,000 in the US and England to support the businesses that continue in those countries. This is particularly true for primarily miniature game companies like Warlord and Flames of War, [add your own companies here.]

My point was that it's the problem not just of deciding who are HISTORICAL gamers, but who are miniature gamers at all. There's so much we don't know, and it's a simple stab at it.

It is, indeed, a challenging question I asked with no easy answers. And following McLaddie's logic, how do you accommodate the difference between someone like me with 30 thousand plus miniatures and the man with never more than 500?

I don't know that the Wargame Commanders site is a reliable indicator because many of us automatically gravitate to checking such things out (though I haven't yet) so it duplicates the other big sites most likely but it does add some information to the topic.

Otto at least brought some intelligent logic to the question and his answer is as good as anyone's. Not that most of the rest were illogical though some certainly might have been – perfectly fine especially if humorous internet behind it.

I suspect historical miniatures gamers within the US number between is Otto's 27,000 and McLaddie's 50,000 and go a a little over double that for the rest of the world, I'd say maybe 125,000 – out of 7.3 billion humans (or 3.7 to use the male half plus the 'better sort' of the distaff side).

If it weren't rightly guarded proprietary information, it'd be great to hear from the business side of the hobby. And if you knock of my limits to historical and add in sci-fi and fantasy the numbers would go up quite a bit but I still think it stays well below 500,000 (lots of cross over).

Now, how to we measure up against other tactile hobbies? I'd say about on a par with model railroading. Probably a lot bigger than the doll house market (lot's of grandpas and grandmas in that field).

And dwarfed to insignificance against things like gardening and cycling.

But what the heck, its fun for me and fun for you.

It is, indeed, a challenging question I asked with no easy answers. And following McLaddie's logic, how do you accommodate the difference between someone like me with 30 thousand plus miniatures and the man with never more than 500?

First, that isn't the question you asked. Second, as long as they are both historical wargamers, does it really matter how many figures they have? It shouldn't anymore than whether they prefer skirmish games [with few figures] and large scale games.

I don't know that the Wargame Commanders site is a reliable indicator…

No, it isn't 'reliable', but still indicative of committed gamers… and how quickly numbers add up. And yeah, there are a number of similar pages. I'm not a member of that facebook page… and I doubt that a majority of those 1000 are members of the 20,000 TMP members. Neither good or bad, just again, suggestive of numbers.

Now, how to we measure up against other tactile hobbies? I'd say about on a par with model railroading. Probably a lot bigger than the doll house market (lot's of grandpas and grandmas in that field).

On the other hand, why is the question at all that important to us, let alone RR modeling? I doubt that RC airplane modelers boast much greater numbers.

Dear Early Morning Writer

Thanks, I realize my method can only be a pure stab at it, but to me the 27,000 figures seems the top end.

To illustrate the problem one might just as well ask how many "quilters" there are in any given population.
The reason I chose quilting is because while the Cold Wars Convention was going on across the street at the Lancaster Host, there was a quilting convention that was taking place in the Continental.

I was astounded! The place was packed, and every spare inch of the lobby, foyer, large hall (where "The Weekend" our war game convention is held) the Card room and any others space was packed with booths for the quilters and exhibits of their wares. Everything from Singer sewing machines (classic 19th century models to modern) quilting material, bolts of cloth, needles, patterns. books on quilts, appliques, and so forth were on sale and eagerly snapped up. My wife said when she saw Historicon for the first time, "I've never seen so many fat, bald sweaty white men in one place at one time." When I went to a Model Railroad Convention it was the same and I said "I know these people" and indeed it turned out I did , I found three guys I had seen at Historicon the previous week! Two were model railroaders and one was like me a gamer rooting around for terrain materials and modeling stuff. Well, here at the quilters convention I never saw so many middle aged, pudgy, short white women in my life. To be fair though there were a fair sprinkling of younger ones to put the lie to oft heard moan of "the graying of quilting" .

As for the quilts I saw the most astounding works of handicraft and art, whole quilts made up of teeny triangles stiched together and one of elaborately detailed floral designs, not printed on material, but actually composed petal by petal of hand stitching.

Ten minutes in I "had gotten" this hobby and I knew all about it. It is the same as miniatures, and when I was looking at that quilt with the floral designs I realized that the guy who lines the crossbelts on his 6mm figures has NOTHING on quilting.

To top it off the convention had bus tours to the local quilting shops in Intercourse PA and the Amish outletteries and the various quilging museums and Amish farms, which are exactly the same as us all piling on a bus and going out to a battlefield tour of Gettysburg. Another tactile, obsessive hobby.

By the way model railroaders outnumber us by an exponential number. My wife used to work for Model Railroad Craftsman, one of the two big model railroad magazines in the world, and their records indicate over a million model railroaders in the United States alone.

Always a fun question. What amazes me is how many wargamers I know who are not on TMP. So it will always be a challenge to get even close to the answer.

Salute draws in 7,000 people I understand – and I don't always go, so I imagine there is a high proportion of people in the UK (and that is just my gut feel – no science) that are wargamers who also don't go.

What I do know is that whenever a shop sells wargames mags, they sell out reasonably well from my observation, and yet most people who express a view on TMP say they don't buy them. But what factor you have to gross up circulation numbers to get a guesstimate I cannot imagine.

And because so many of us are insular, then no real answer will ever be found. Which is a shame.

Let's see, current and emeritus members of the Corlears Hook Fencibles would be 8, and one RIP. Does that help?

Salute draws in 7,000 people I understand

However, do they all play historical games? My impression is that Salute also has certain amount of fantasy and SF games.

By the way model railroaders outnumber us by an exponential number. My wife used to work for Model Railroad Craftsman, one of the two big model railroad magazines in the world, and their records indicate over a million model railroaders in the United States alone.

Well, the businesses would know… It's their livelihood. Which is why I mentioned the hobby businesses and the numbers I did. If 27,000 is the top number for…? US, Worldwide?, then it makes a very small base for any business.

On the other hand, does buying a RR magazine make them a RR modeler?

I am not sure that quilting is a fair comparison. Quilting has been around for centuries as a 'useful' craft and making quilts is also a business--not a pastime. Also women approach a primarily woman-attended conventions in different ways than men do men-attended conventions, which might also help explain the differences in attendance and convention atmosphere.

I suspect the million model railroaders number might be either an old number or an inflated one (not by Otto, though). The highest number for US I've ever seen before was only half a million, still a lot more than the core of historical miniatures gamers. However, when you measure model railroaders with functioning layouts rather than a bunch of stuff in the closet with perhaps a few models on the shelves, the numbers go down --- way, way, way down.

I flit between the two, my military miniatures and my model railroading. Keeps me from making as much progress as I'd like in either but having both keeps me from getting bored with one or the other.

You would think someone or some company in the business of selling historical gaming products would have surveyed this. Perhaps GAMA or HMGS?

gama.org