The End of the Gaming Renaissance

[TerraDave]

Originally Posted by Hussar

But, what characterizes the historical Renaissance? Yes, if you want to get pedantic, it's rebirth, but, what elements do we generally (and I'm using a pretty broad brush here) in art from this period?

Is it characterized by highly trained, professional artists who go to schools in order to learn their craft after years of training under a teacher? Or is it characterized by highly talented individuals banging out loads and loads of material, the vast majority of which is forgotten (or only remembered by very small numbers of art experts) and a small number of talents rising to the top above the crowd?

I'd say it was the latter.

SNIP

I am not sure I agree with anything in this post, and it remains a strange and confusing analogy.

I expressed my thoughts on the gaming bit above. And seriously, the term is literally being used in the wrong way. (Birth is not re-birth).

But thats not the weakest part of the analogy. You portray renaissance art as somehow being primitive in a way that is essentially the complete opposite of what is true.

Renaissance artists had teachers and did apprenticeships that lasted many years. Being an artist was already an established profession (as it had been for centuries). The only reason art from that period does not sell for as much as the impressionists at auction is that it is in museums and never comes up for sale. Only a hard-core of pretentious critics and academics would say that contemporary art is as good.

Da Vinci, the quintessential gifted amateur (in fields other then painting) did a ten year apprenticeship starting at the age of 14 in a highly organized workshop that was typical for the time.

[Dausuul]

Originally Posted by SSquirrel

I tend not to take the Forge into account, but that's b/c I think the entire Forge theory system is stupid.

The pdf system doesn't need to be taken into account in this discussions context b/c the specific point made originally was that _distributors_ will not pick you up. Print media. Not drivethrurpg or whatever. Yes there are other viable routes and with the pdf market there is another possible market there.

This strikes me as a bit of "no true Scotsman" - when reality refutes your hypothesis, rewrite the dictionary until your hypothesis is valid again. The original point was that there was an era when talented amateurs had a place in the market, and that era is now over, because the big distributors won't pick up talented amateurs.

The existence of a thriving PDF market refutes this claim; talented amateurs can continue to succeed by circumventing traditional distribution.

I do agree that the market has changed. The "technology" (in the sense of system mechanics) of RPG design has advanced considerably, as has the design theory underlying that technology. Games that made a splash in the '80s and '90s would sink without a ripple if introduced today. But that's true of any evolving industry.

[Mark]

Mind you that all of this is in retrospect, as only can be done, but I think I would equate the early TSR days as Roman Empire, end of Antiquity times, with one main power. Then put the GURPS/WW/RIFTS period up as the Dark Ages, still no Internet (low communications) and just some brights spots of civilization in a sea of chaos. I think the early d20 era, up through about 2006/2007 was the true Renaissance of RPGs, lots of experimenting and many gentlepersons who had the wherewithal to dabble or strike out on new paths of exploration and discovery doing so. We're sort of in an Industrial Revolution of RPGs now, bigger companies belching out goods with bleak prospects for the consumers, huddled in soot covered row homes, rolling their lump-of-coal dice. Well, maybe not that bad.


There are a few bright spots with benevolent company owners, custodians of game design liberty like GR and Paizo and a few others still producing games the way things were during the Renaissance and encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit in up-and-coming game designers by keeping the Open Game Movement alive. One can only hope their light shines brightest when all is dark and the land is covered in . . .

Did I do it again? Sorry.


Oh, and btw, the RPG distribution system is a dinosaur run by just a couple/few companies. Smaller distributors like Blackhawk going under just this last year are a sure sign that the model is foundering. Advances in POD are nearly to the point where a new model will supplant the old, where smaller companies will be able to once again break into the field, communicate more readily and directly with retailers, and allow retailers to order more reasonable quantities so they do not get left holding the bag. High quality PDFs will be the key, and something that wasn't utilized during the d20 glut that could have allowed retailers to avoid ordering too much, sight unseen, and winding up with heavily-laden discount bins.

[rogueattorney]

I find this thread to be weird. The "talented amateurs" that apparently don't count are the only rpg products that I pay attention to anymore (apart from some of Goodman Games' products, assuming they don't count as talented amateurs). The "talented amateurs" are what got me to be a regular consumer of new rpg products again after buying nothing but resale products for about 10 years.

While a lot of things have gone poorly for the industry over the last 10 years or so, I see nothing but positive things for the hobby during that time, driven primarily by the ability of fellow hobbyists to present their ideas in high quality, attractive ways, and then distribute those ideas in a variety of interesting ways.

It's cheaper and easier to get "cool stuff" now than it has been at any time since the early 80's. The mid-80's to late 90's period that's being discussed was hardly a renaissance period... it was a period of professional decadence, the "Guilded Age" of rpgs. On the contrary, we're seeing the renaissance right now with the hobbyists. It's a great time to be a rpg enthusiast. It might be a horrible time to be a lurching dinosaur of an rpg company. I don't care, though. Not my problem.

[Hussar]

/oops double post.

[Hussar]

Cam Banks, it's kinda funny that Aus Snow would complain about me dismissing a point, when the first product in your sig is full color. While it's PDF, it does kinda show what I'm talking about. Or, would you disagree that production values have increased dramatically between the periods I'm talking about?

Rogueattorney - I'm discounting the pdf market because it's so bloody small. A GOOD run of sales for pdf is a couple of thousand copies. That's it. Even if every copy is in play RIGHT NOW, that's only a couple of thousand people world wide who are playing this game. That's TINY. BTW, I would totally agree with pdf and smaller games being better for me as well. I'll guarantee you that the game I'm playing right now is more obscure than yours.

Ok, people don't like that analogy. How about this one then?

Compare SF and fantasy movies pre and post Star Wars (1976). Pre-1976, SF and fantasy movies were lower budget, and probably on the more amateur end of the scale. Some fantastic stuff mind you. Ray Harryhausen is one of my personal favorites.

Then comes George Lucas and Star Wars. Things shift. An SF or fantasy movie isn't a labour of love anymore. It's a huge production. The movie is almost secondary as marketing vets the movie for toys, games, novels, video games etc.

RPG's, IMO, mirror this shift. Compare something like Planet of the Apes to the new Transformers movie. Both were pretty popular, but the Transformers movie also ties into a bajillion other things. The movie is now just the beginning of the product line.

[Hussar]

Perhaps a more concrete example might show what I'm talking about.

Compare the FASA release of the Battletech boxed set to the Catalyst Games Classic Battletech Starter set.

In the FASA box, you had black and white books, chits and plastic bases. In the Catalyst Games box, you have full color books and plastic minis.

Plus, in keeping with the current vogue of game design, they are releasing beta versions to the public of their newer books, in order to get feedback and whatnot to make a better game.

How many beta releases did you ever see pre 1995?

[Aus_Snow]

(sigh) OK, somehow I just knew it would be like this. Again. So I'll name a few high-profile-ish (hm, and recent-ish) ones that I'm at least somewhat familiar with, just so you get the idea. If you feel so inclined, then by all means, seek more out, because yeah, they *are* out there. Oh, and for the record, PDFs are a *very* different beast, when it comes to the costs of getting them out there. For instance, releasing a colour PDF costs no more than releasing a B&W PDF. Anyway. . .

Apart from White Wolf (a notable example indeed!) -

Call of Cthulhu - B&W and softcover.
Traveller - B&W; also, there's the pocket edition which is, as stated, softcover as well.
Dragon Warriors - B&W; *all* supplements (IIRC) also softcover.
True20 - B&W and softcover, along with all the supplements Green Ronin has released for it, again IIRC.
Earthdawn - B&W; all or most supplements (and supps-to-be) also softcover, as far as I'm aware.
Spirit of the Century - B&W and softcover.
HERO 6th ed. - pretty sure that'll be B&W (coming out very soon); correct me if I'm wrong though!
Burning Wheel - B&W and softcover; same with its supps, I believe.
HeroQuest v2 - B&W and softcover; Amazon doesn't seem to carry this one.
Hackmaster Basic - B&W and softcover.
RuneQuest [Deluxe] - B&W and softcover.

Well, you get the idea. Like I said, there are plenty more as well. Current and in print, I mean.

edit --- Oops, I forgot some retroclones I was going to name. Ah well. . .

[Hussar]

Oh for ...

Would you say that the production values of the books you just listed are the same, worse or better than books that were published prior to about 1990?

Talk about pedantic. My point was that if you tried to publish something with a 1985 production value today, you likely couldn't get it into distribution. Yes, I'm SOOOOO sorry I used b&W and softcover as examples.

Can we move on now?

Compare say, Burning Wheel to Mouse Guard.

Are there B&W softcover games out there? Yup. Never said there wasn't. My WHOLE POINT was that the production values of those games has increased a huge amount between what jim pinto is calling Renaissance era and Post Modern.

[Aus_Snow]

Heh, that was good for a laugh. Again.

'Oh for ...' indeed!

Originally Posted by Hussar

Your game might be the greatest thing in the world, but, if it's soft cover, black and white, you might as well not even bother.

If it's 'pedantry' to call you on something you've outright stated (yet again) well, dayumn, got me there!

And no, that really wouldn't bother me, if that's *your* extra-special personal definition.

[Mark]

Was jim saying it was hard to find a distributor for his $50 400 page softcover b&w book earlier this year?

Ultimate Toolbox

I thought it did well?

[SSquirrel]

Originally Posted by Dausuul

This strikes me as a bit of "no true Scotsman" - when reality refutes your hypothesis, rewrite the dictionary until your hypothesis is valid again. The original point was that there was an era when talented amateurs had a place in the market, and that era is now over, because the big distributors won't pick up talented amateurs.

The existence of a thriving PDF market refutes this claim; talented amateurs can continue to succeed by circumventing traditional distribution.

The pdf market is not the big distributors tho and a great chunk of the stuff available in pdf only isn't touched by them for various reasons.

[Dausuul]

Originally Posted by SSquirrel

The pdf market is not the big distributors tho and a great chunk of the stuff available in pdf only isn't touched by them for various reasons.

This is true, but I don't see why it matters. If talented amateurs can succeed without big distributors, then big distributors are not the be-all and end-all of RPG publishing.

Originally Posted by Hussar

Talk about pedantic. My point was that if you tried to publish something with a 1985 production value today, you likely couldn't get it into distribution. Yes, I'm SOOOOO sorry I used b&W and softcover as examples.

Do you need a hand with those goalposts, or can you move them yourself?

[Cam Banks]

There's definitely an improvement in production values since the first ten or twenty years of RPG publishing. Even small press books released in the past couple of years are much better looking than the early production house games, like those from TSR or Chaosium. I wasn't aware that was the argument. Rather, I thought there was some claim that nobody puts out B&W softcover books any more or that those are in the minority, when in fact it's the opposite.

Back when we were doing Dragonlance books, some people thought we were crazy to keep putting them out in full color inside. Some of our books (adventures, specifically) were B&W softcovers, but we were definitely riding hard against the norm to put out color hardbound supplements. 90% or more of d20 products in the OGL period were B&W interior.

Cheers,
Cam

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Cam Banks

Back when we were doing Dragonlance books, some people thought we were crazy to keep putting them out in full color inside. Some of our books (adventures, specifically) were B&W softcovers, but we were definitely riding hard against the norm to put out color hardbound supplements.

When you have a slew of color Elmore artwork (and others), going b&w would be nigh unthinkable, I am sure.

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by Dausuul

This is true, but I don't see why it matters. If talented amateurs can succeed without big distributors, then big distributors are not the be-all and end-all of RPG publishing.

Well, consider for a moment what you mean when you say, "succeed". If your definition of success is, "Sell a few copies," then you are golden. If success is, "be as big as Shadowrun," you might find that pdf doesn't lead to success. At least not yet.

[maddman75]

Originally Posted by SSquirrel

I tend not to take the Forge into account, but that's b/c I think the entire Forge theory system is stupid.

There is a huge gulf between the forge theory and the games produced. I have issues with the theory myself and don't much like discussion of it. But the actual games are really fun, some interesting stuff out there.

The Indie press I feel represent a different strategy toward gaming completely. Some of the guys I game with lament the old days, when you'd start level 1 and work up to Immortal over a couple of years of gaming, and they just can't seem to get that to work like they did in high school. I don't share in their lament, because I stopped trying to do that.

Its an unspoken assumption in most traditional games - the PCs will start out weak and small in scope, eventually becoming tougher and more powerful. In the real world, more likely the game fizzles out leaving everyone dissatisfied. The solution is to run a game for a single story arc, then move onto something else. Maybe you come back to an old favorite, but you don't play the same game forever.

The point of this? That is what the Indie games are suited to. They are focused. I don't get an general 'roleplaying in the old west' game, I get Dogs in the Vineyard, where the PCs are God's Watchdogs in a fictional west, leading the Faithful away from Sin and Demons. There aren't rules for mining gold or surviving in the desert or even shootouts, apart from in the context of a moral dilemma. That's what its about, and when we're done we'll move on.

They also frequently give the players more narrative control, with the goal of getting players invested in the game more quickly and making things easier on the GM prep-wise.

I like both the new 'indie-style' and Traditional games, though to be honest more and more the Indie ones are suiting my gaming style better.

[resistor]

Originally Posted by Umbran

Well, consider for a moment what you mean when you say, "succeed". If your definition of success is, "Sell a few copies," then you are golden. If success is, "be as big as Shadowrun," you might find that pdf doesn't lead to success. At least not yet.

How about we define success as "able to make a viable living off of it." Back in the day, that generally meant that you had to be a big name like Shadowrun, because printing and distribution costs cut into the percentage of the sale price that ended up back in the hands of the authors. Today, a much larger percentage of the sale price of a PDF (essentially all of it) goes into the pockets of the authors so, even if they charge less, I suspect the successful ones, at least, are earning more per copy that traditional authors did back in the day.

Overall, I don't think the situation has really changed that much. The market is still dominated by one lead company and a handful of second tier companies, and there's still a small but viable subset of talented amateurs who are able to eke a living out of it.

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by resistor

How about we define success as "able to make a viable living off of it."

Then, I think you need to go to print.

Folks on EN World have, imho, an overly optimistic view of the pdf market. Yes, lots of folks here, on EN World, like pdfs. However, I have seen no credible evidence that the bulk of RPG players make use of them. I think the market for them is much smaller than many might expect.

Back in the day, that generally meant that you had to be a big name like Shadowrun, because printing and distribution costs cut into the percentage of the sale price that ended up back in the hands of the authors. Today, a much larger percentage of the sale price of a PDF (essentially all of it) goes into the pockets of the authors...

Folks have done breakdowns of the costs of producing works - while you get rid of the cost of printing and most of the distribution costs, your artists, editors, and writers still need to be paid. So, it isn't 100% profit, by any means.

In addition, have you noticed that folks tend to gripe when you try to sell a pdf for as much as you'd ask for a print copy? It seems to me only WotC has the clout to ask that - so while you aren't paying printing and distribution, you also aren't able to ask as much per copy.

I am not sure that this comes out positively for the pdf publishers.

In addition, pdfs have a major marketing disadvantage when compared to print. For a print work, people can see it on a shelf in a store or a friend's house. They can take it off the shelf and browse through it, or borrow it from the friend. The physical object helps get the product into people's minds.

Meanwhile, for a pdf, the people really have to come looking for it before they ever see it. If I am not specifically searching for your pdf product, I am unlikely to ever encounter it. It is may be sitting on my friend's hard drive, but I don't peruse his electronic library. I don't see the thing on the gaming table. I don't see it on the shelf when walking through a book store. Banner ads on websites are cheap, but they are horribly ineffective. Getting the market to even know your product exists is difficult for a pdf.

[Grimstaff]

Originally Posted by Erik Mona

Also, the rise in popularity of trade paperback collections--and especially the ability to sell these books through the book chain--has been a real boon to publishers and retailers alike (though I know the specialty shops are not thrilled with competing with the likes of B&N and Amazon).

I'm enjoying these compilations, its pretty cool to be able to get whole collections of comics from the "good 'ol days" without having to pay inflated "collector's" prices. <Goes back to reading his Savage Sword of Conan compilation>