Mainstream Appeal

Critical Role: Starting in March 2015, Critical Role is a actual play web show on YouTube and the streaming platform Twitch. Essentially some of the most popular and talented voice actors record themselves playing D&D for entertainment. They quickly grew in popularity and became one of the highest earning channels on Twitch with millions of fans and hundreds of millions of views. Notably their success has brought many more eyes to the game, especially when they launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $750,000 for a 22-minute animated special based on their D&D campaign for their fans. This became one of the most quickly funded projects in Kickstarter history, meeting it's goal in just 40 minutes. On top of that, it's also the most funded Kickstarter for TV and film projects having raised $11.3M in just 45 days. Amazon later acquired the streaming rights, turning it into a full fledged animated TV show that is currently airing it's 3rd season with a 4th on the way, as well as an additional show based on another D&D campaign of theirs having been greenlit and on the way. Each player voices their own character with the DM voicing various roles across the show, translating the improvised nature of the game to a well written and focused narrative.

Stranger Things: Stranger Things has been breaking records since it's release on Netlfix in 2016 and it broke out as a huge hit. It's most recent season 4 release has a total of 52 billion minutes of viewing time. With D&D being so integral to the show's plot, themes, symbolism etc. it's not difficult to imagine viewers being interested in the game after seeing the show and watching the kids in the show playing it with such fervor. Netflix even published tutorials to the game and sold Strangers Things editions of the basic D&D rules. It is undeniable that this pop culture phenomena had an amazing impact on spreading the popularity of the game to further heights than before.

Baldur's Gate 3: With reportedly over 20 million copies sold and 41 awards and counting, Baldur's Gate 3 is a 2023 smash hit. It's a video game using the D&D 5e system with award winning voice acting, writing, game design and multiple game of the year awards. It's a video game that brings D&D even further into the mainstream and it popularizes the game in the field of video games, exposing a whole new market to D&D. The masterful integration of game mechanics, writing, voice acting and AAA graphics brings together a wonderful love letter to D&D that adpats the game wonderfully while staying faithful to the source material.