Decline of RPG sales

So I thought this may deserve its own thread rather than be lost in the file sharing argument. Here are my thoughts and opinions. Feel free to roast me...

I think you are ignoring one fact: The sheer volume of d20 garbage released.

If anything is causing the decline in RPG sales, it would be the large volume of material available. The variety of books and companies are killing sales. Other than WOTC, no other company can create a large enough fan base for d20 material. Non-d20 material can create a larger base because they are not competing with other companies plus the crazy PDF publishers in places like RPGnow.

Here are some of the reasons I see contributing to the decline of d20 and RPG sales:

1.) Market size vs. # of Producers: We have too many companies producing too many games for a limited audience.

2.) Older audience: No company, including WOTC, has found a way to market and sell to a younger audience. D&D is no longer in the public eye. It is more like the old anime of scifi clubs that you find on college campuses. People find the game by accident rather than design. Also, an older audience buys less books. They have limited time to play multiple games.

3.) New media: MMORPGs, CCGs, and PC games have eroded the existing audience and stolen the potential audience.

4.) Advertising: No one promotes the hobby. We promote it to ourselves.

5.) Shared experience: There is a lack of shared experience. Companies promote their IP, even WOTC. We see a lot of drive to pormote Eberron or FR, but very little to promote D&D.

6.) Standards or lack thereof: d20 publishers would have been wise to cooperate and create a list of standards for books such formats etc. I am surprised that we never saw a development company or editing company form. There is a need for such a centralized company that could promote standards or evaluate books.

7.) Development and release schedules: Too many companies announce books and then fail to release on schedule or in a timely manner. It sucks to wait a year for a book and a book is sometimes off your schedule by the time it is released.

8.) Know you audience: A lot of companies do not know their audience. They are run by gamers who produce what they think is cool rather than what people want. When I was working for a d20 company, this was a problem. We never attempted to ask what people wanted and then produce it. We kinda thought we knew and just wrote what we wanted to write.

All this is secondhand.

There are few companies doing well. Some even have sellouts of their print runs such as Castels & Crusades or the original Mutants and Masterminds which went through several printings.

Other companies aren't selling in a year what they used to sell in 90 days.

Some companies like Decipher and Guardians of Order, are having problems that have little to do with the RPGs themselves like exchange rates or internal issues.

D&D brand managers claim that they've had their biggest year.

Sounds like D&D is doing fine and many are suffering on the wayside.

BelenUmeria said:

6.) Standards or lack thereof: d20 publishers would have been wise to cooperate and create a list of standards for books such formats etc. I am surprised that we never saw a development company or editing company form. There is a need for such a centralized company that could promote standards or evaluate books.

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This sounds interesting to me, but I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at — you mention "formats," which leads me to believe you're talking about having standard organization and appearance in things like modules, which I wouldn't be a fan of, but then you talk about a development company or editing company, which I think could be great depending on execution. Coincidentally, this dovetails into my reading material right now: Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat.

If I'm reading you correctly, you're essentially talking about outsourcing the mechanical stuff (editing) so that the parent company could then focus itself on the higher level functions (such as creative work, marketing, and things), which is the same thing Reuters has accomplished, for example, by outsourcing some of its wire services to India (basically, they've moved the instantaneous news items reporting on things like quarterly earnings to India and left the analysis and what not to their offices in places like London). Interesting. On some level, this is done a bit with freelance editors, but having an actual company to outsource the editing to would be a drastically different and positive thing.

Nick

I agree with JoeG's post on general terms.

As a DM who runs a weekly game, I only need so much material. As it is, I think I purchase more than my fair share. I alternate regularly between two games, Mongoose's Conan and a standard d&d game (currently The Banewarrens). I also run a Savage Worlds game when I can squeeze it in (check out Rippers...it is a VERY cool setting). I've already pre-ordered Ptolus, and will be dropping another $50 so I can run it using the Arcana Evolved rules.

I'd say, using my case as ancedotal evidence, the D20 market is doing pretty well earning my dollar.

I have to disagree with point #3 though. I think just the opposite has happened. Those other forms of entertainment only open the door for the traditional RPG. In my experience, once people get a taste of a well-run game, they never look at computer game quite the same.

Speaking personally, my D&D purchases have gone WAY down. This is really more a fact that I just don't wany any more crunch and nobody is really producing fluff that draws my interests.

But as far as non-D&D, my purchases are going up. I just grabbed Mutants and Masterminds 2e and True20. A little while back I grabbed Grim Tales and Thieves' World Player's Manual. I'm eyeing Dawning Star: Operation Quick Start and if I get that I'm sure to pick up Helios Rising and Silver Eclipse when available.

But as far as D&D goes, I already have like ten books I have to reference to find all the feats, spells, PrCs, etc. for a single character. I refuse to add in any more crunch.

While I agree that there is a glut of poor d20 stuff out there, good product will always sell. I personally believe that the future of RPG publishing is in electronic PDFs. A DM can go to RPGNow, ENGS, DTRPG, etc. and cherry-pick exactly what he needs. The days of buying a $20-30 book just because you need a few pages inside of it are over.

As far as getting kids into it, I have seen more young kids start playing D&D in the last two years than the last 15. Games like heroclix, Yu-gi-oh, etc. are getting them into the game stores. Once there, they see games being played and try it. I wish WOTC would start a very frequent and agressive demo program for D&D/D&D minis all over the country, not just on world D&D day each November. On this year's day, I saw six young kids playing their first D&D game at our local venue. Also, as discussed in another thread, 3.5 is NOT a good gateway RPG. WOTC needs to expand on the basic D&D line to get the kids entrenched into the game before they have to shell out $100 for three core rulebooks. Bring on the Expert, Companion and Immortal sets...

FATDRAGONGAMES said:

As far as getting kids into it, I have seen more young kids start playing D&D in the last two years than the last 15. Games like heroclix, Yu-gi-oh, etc. are getting them into the game stores. Once there, they see games being played and try it. I wish WOTC would start a very frequent and agressive demo program for D&D/D&D minis all over the country, not just on world D&D day each November. On this year's day, I saw six young kids playing their first D&D game at our local venue. Also, as discussed in another thread, 3.5 is NOT a good gateway RPG. WOTC needs to expand on the basic D&D line to get the kids entrenched into the game before they have to shell out $100 for three core rulebooks. Bring on the Expert, Companion and Immortal sets...

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My experience as a WOTC delegate has fewer kids entering the hobby. It has been months since I introduced someone new.

My opinion, and this is strictly my opinion, is that there are two factors influencing rpg sales.
The basis for this opinion comes from a conversation I had with several longtime industry insider/distributor. The theory was that an rpg store needs to be in one of three areas. And in this day and age, rpg stores still account for a large percentage of sales.

1) population base of 50,000+
2) close proximity to a military base
3) close proximity to a college campus.

The first is fairly static, but the second two are not. With a large percentage of military personnel overseas and/or actively engaged in combat, rpg's are going to suffer. But I think that the competitor that's really hurting rpg's is online and casino poker. It sounds like the two aren't related, but here's the coorelation. College campuses were typically strongholds for rpg's but with so many college students playing poker rpg's have clearly suffered. College students playing poker a) no longer have time to play rpg's and b) no longer have the money to spend on them. I play on several of the online poker sites and they are crawling with college kids and I'm not talking about guys playing for nickels and dimes. So if they're spending $100+ per week playing poker, and in a lot of cases much more than that, guess what they're not spending their money on.

Other than the one company whose name I never can remember but is easily confused with a producer of quality games (FF....something), I don't know where you're seeing this tide of d20 garbage. Name companies, titles, etc. I know some people count things like Frostburn and Sandstorm as 'garbage' because they're such a niche publication or because it's perceived as 'Well, WoTC has run out of ideas and they have to produce X number of books this quarter, so they had to come up with something'. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about? Or is it something different? All the stuff I'm seeing in the game stores looks pretty cool to me, even though it might not be something I myself am in the mood to purchase right now.

Assuming I agree with the inference that RPG sales are declining (jury's still out I guess, we're getting conflicting reports all over the place), a few comments:

BelenUmeria said:

1.) Market size vs. # of Producers: We have too many companies producing too many games for a limited audience.

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And yet many of these products are smaller, more bite-sized, and cheaper. I don't think the number of producers is necessarily a factor other than potential purchasers are drowned in material as soon as they visit RPGNow. When that happens it's almost inevitable that they gravitate to someone already in the top-20 list.

2.) Older audience: No company, including WOTC, has found a way to market and sell to a younger audience. D&D is no longer in the public eye. It is more like the old anime of scifi clubs that you find on college campuses. People find the game by accident rather than design. Also, an older audience buys less books. They have limited time to play multiple games.

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And yet in theory they have more disposable income as they get older. I know that's true for me and most of my gaming friends, anyway. I buy things now that I wouldn't even consider buying when I was 15 and dreaded a new Monstrous Compendium Appendix because I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it.

3.) New media: MMORPGs, CCGs, and PC games have eroded the existing audience and stolen the potential audience.

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I would have to say I agree with this. CRPGS and MMORPG's offer a quite different gaming experience than a true RPG, but they're hugely addictive, limited-disposable-income-swallowing monsters, highly accessible, with a ready-made gaming group of hundreds of thousands always on-line. Compare this to the headache of building and maintaining a regular gaming group. As bandwidth and technology improve, these games will get closer to a tabletop experience, and the problem will only get worse.

Having said that, I successfully play both without much trouble, but only because I have enough money to support both hobbies, and because I was playing D&D long before Everquest or Baldur's Gate hit the scene. If I was a fresh-faced entertainment-seeking gaming virgin, and I was presented with both options, I fear the flash-and-grab of World of Warcraft would appeal to me more than the 1000+ pages of D&D rules. Even if I gave D&D a go, the (likely) poor level of gratification I would achieve from my first few sessions would be a turn off, unless I got lucky and found a good group with a patient, imaginative DM.

4.) Advertising: No one promotes the hobby. We promote it to ourselves.

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Too true. I'm not sure, even after years of thinking about it, how tabletop roleplaying can be effectively mass-advertised though. Only those who commit themselves to getting a good experience will get one - in other words, you get out what you put in. A movie, a book, a CD, a video game.. all of these media can value-add to the participant with words, sounds, a visuals.

6.) Standards or lack thereof: d20 publishers would have been wise to cooperate and create a list of standards for books such formats etc. I am surprised that we never saw a development company or editing company form. There is a need for such a centralized company that could promote standards or evaluate books.

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I agree and have thought this myself in the past. Some kind of industry-approved 'Certified By' sticker would certainly start to separate the wheat from the chaff, and I'm sure we can all think of a few people we'd like on the review board. Whether it would serve only to bolster the more cash-rich publishers and unfairly label the poorer ones as inferior is a problem, though.

7.) Development and release schedules: Too many companies announce books and then fail to release on schedule or in a timely manner. It sucks to wait a year for a book and a book is sometimes off your schedule by the time it is released.

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This is not endemic to the RPG industry (see: Diablo, Doom, Half-Life, and countless other absolutely massive computer games which have gone on to make shed-loads of cash). It may contribute to user dissatisfaction, though.