companies staying away from rpg gamers

MrMyth said:

Which is a tricky thing to do - even if it is one we should do. I don't like how some people might act online, but I don't really have the right to drive someone from the hobby.

I think there have been improvements in some areas, in the form of better standards for behavior at cons and such, and places online like Enworld where the mods actively work to make it a welcoming environment.

But I think the real answer - and the one being proposed in the article - is to just make the heart of the gaming community more visible. Because the bulk of the community isn't the handful of jerks who draw attention - they just make themselves more obvious. Enough positive feedback can overcome the perception they offer.

In theory.

In practice, I don't know precisely how one would work to go about such things, on an industry wide level. On a personal level, I think it just means paying attention to what you say and how you say it, and try to focus on the elements that matter. When something comes along like the article on D&D Encounters, regardless of what edition you prefer, offer comments welcoming newcomers and emphasizing the best parts of the hobby, rather than drag things down into petty rivalries that will only drive away the outside world.

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A lot of people don't want the hobby to grow if that growth is in a direction they don't approve of. RPGs have a lot of "scorched earth" style fandom.

Man in the Funny Hat said:

I would actually assume that Comic Book Guy behavior TENDS to chase itself out of the hobby. Nobody LIKES CBG behavior. Nobody wants to game with CBG, talk to him, hang around him, etc. He ends up ostracized and isolated by his own actions. But until then he draws unwanted attention and exerts unwanted (by ANYONE) influence.

But gamer/geek/nerd culture is reluctant and slow to police its own by its very nature. It's heavily built around acceptance or at least tolerance of eccentricity, even obnoxiousness in favor of the comfort provided by even slim common ground.

If I understand correctly the article from the OP is only decrying the damage CBG does while he's around, and lamenting that the "silent majority" isn't more assertive. Or something like that.

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Something I have seen is that Comic Book Guy behavior is just the tip of the iceberg, and the appearance of CBG behavior can often be contagious, drawing otherwise sane people into bad behavior.

IronWolf said:

His post comes out shooting and lumping all gamers in one pot.

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No, he really doesn't. He says that a subset of gamers has worse qualities than comparable subsets of other hobbiest populations.

That's the part that I can't accept based on the, "Because I said so. Trust me, I'm a consultant." I need to see something much more compelling than that before I can take that assertion seriously.

thecasualoblivion said:

A lot of people don't want the hobby to grow if that growth is in a direction they don't approve of. RPGs have a lot of "scorched earth" style fandom.

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RPGs are not the only niche which is like this.

For example, some really extreme niches of heavy metal music are like this too.

MrMyth said:

I've seen people talk about how they'd be interested in a new D&D cartoon show. I'd be eager to see another D&D movie, well-done. Some CRPGs for 4E.

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Hrm. I, personally, don't believe that D&D is a good medium for adapting into cartoons or movies. What I've seen of said attempts, thus far, have been dismal. FWIW, I'm happy with any well-done fantasy that can be used to inspire D&D, rather than hoping the D&D will produce well-crafted fantasy films.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.

of course we should care! Our hobby could have more cool stuff - I like cool stuff!

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Specifically, what "cool stuff" are we talking about?

ggroy said:

The only scenario where I probably wouldn't care much at all, is if I was a hardcore 1E AD&D grognard whom has zero interest in expanding the hobby.

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I don't know about you, but all I need to "expand my hobby" is paper, pens, and dice. Everything else is peripheral. And, as there are constantly people willing to play -- often more than I have space & time for -- that seems like a good strategy to me. And I am not a 1e grognard.

I also define "expanding my hobby" in terms of actual play. New rules and systems? Great expansion! New players? Great expansion! New GMs? Best possible expansion! I imagine that hardcore 1e AD&D grognards view expansion of the hobby in the same way -- willing to welcome new players, encouraging to new DMs, and interested in new subsystems that they believe are valuable to their games.

I am not at all certain how another D&D movie would "expand the hobby". Certainly, the first two didn't do much. AFAICT, it was being concerned about this sort of expansion that allowed Gary Gygax to be manouvered out of TSR.

No, I am pretty sure what we are discussing here is not expansion of the hobby, but rather the expansion of someone's profits. And, to be blunt, expanding someone's profits is something I do tangentially with my hobby (I have expanded the profits of Cubicle 7, MonkeyGod, WotC, and Paizo in the last few months, for example), but my actually hobby isn't expanding someone's profits. It's designing/playing rpgs.

It is of great benefit to the bottom line if a company can convince you that shelling out money to them expands your hobby. Even more benefit if they can convince you to do so uncritically.

It is not necessarily of any benefit to you, and may well be to your detriment, and to the detriment of your hobby.

So, again, "Why should we care?"



RC

thecasualoblivion said:

Wow, people just don't read.
If the Edition Wars raged on Facebook at large, among the larger community, most regular people would bail because they don't need that crap.

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Seriously? Facebook has thousands of people of varying degrees of idiocy and irrationality idiots arguing about anything all the time.

The trouble with the original article, in my opinion, is that it's saying several different things, and both the author and people responding are treating it as saying one thing:

• My friend's business died because of RPG players (impossible to assess given the information provided)
• RPG players are under-served compared to other hobbies (pretty obviously false in my opinion)
• There are a lot of fatbeards out there...
• but you're not one of them (implicitly)
• It'd be better if we were nicer to new players

and so on.

thecasualoblivion said:

A lot of people don't want the hobby to grow if that growth is in a direction they don't approve of.

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Sorry, but I am getting a bit confused here. Exactly what is "the hobby" we are talking about here?

Playing any role-playing games?

Playing specific role-playing games?

Watching movies?

Watching cartoons?

Playing role-playing games based on movies or cartoons?

Watching movies or cartoons based on role-playing games?

Something else?



RC

Another thought:

Let us say for the sake of discussion that gamers in general are bad juju and should not be catered to in marketing.

What then?

Products being what they are, they will either interest gamers or they will not regardless of marketing. Since when does someone have to be a part of a target audience in order to complain about it in a very obnoxious manner?

I guess my question is really how much trash talk can be mitigated by targeted marketing?

Lets look at World of Warcraft. Here is a product that slammed by many vocal gamers who have never tried it (and some that have). The game has also come under fire by those with no direct interest in it. Your SO never wants to spend time together instead plugging into that damn videogame? Time to scream about it on the internet. Let the entire world know just how awful that game is.

Lets say that WOW marketing did a great job of not catering to that irritated spouse. Does it matter?

The Raw truth is that loudmouths on the web or anywhere else WILL exist whether you market to them or not. If your product pleases more people than it turns off then you will enjoy some measure of success.

pawsplay said:

I suggest you challenge those inaccuracies directly, if you feel the article has been misrepresented. Complaining about the responses in general just looks, to me, like an unsubstantiated attack on several people.

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In the post I was responding to, Shazman said, "No. His advice is 'You gamers should shut up and drink the corporate kool-aid like everyone else.'"

I felt that was a vast mischaracterization of the article, and I was responding to it. I'm not sure what the issue is here. As I said - and as Shazman's edit seems to indicate - I don't think he was deliberately distorting the blog post... I think he was offended by part of it, and acted on that offense rather than what it actually said.

Some people seem to be saying that it doesn't matter what the rest of the article says - that if even part of it is offensive, of course he should be responded to in kind!

But my point wasn't that he is mean in one part and nice in another. My point is that considering any part of it as an attack on gamers is a misreading.

Look, at no point is the author actually saying that all gamers are bad people, or that they have to 'drink the cool-aid' or that companies will embrace them only if they avoid criticism.

What he does is share a true story (unless you think he is lying.) The experience of someone he knows - a client. And that man ran into a bunch of gamers and felt that they were jerks.

I could understand if some people felt like the problem was that they weren't getting both sides of the story. Do we actually know if those gamers behaved badly enough to merit such condemnation? Well, no, we don't.

But I think we do all know that some people, especially on the internet, do indeed act like that. I think there is little reason not to take him at his word.

If someone came to Enworld and shared a story about going into his local shop, and running into some gamers who wouldn't let him play, and made fun of him for wearing a WoW shirt, or acted like jerks to him for whatever reason...

...would we really respond by castigating this poster for 'attacking the gaming community'?

I don't think so. The man ran into some gamers who didn't play well with others. He has the right to consider them jerks. Doing so isn't a condemnation of gamers as a whole, as the author of the blog post made very clear a single paragraph after sharing that story.

Yes, we want to stick up for our hobby. This isn't a bad thing, by its own nature. But by placing jerks within the hobby ahead of good people outside of it - especially good people trying to connect to the game - we only become more insular and unwelcoming.

All I'm saying, for those who really are upset by his article, is to try and get what he is actually saying. Which is four things:

1) Here is a story of something that happened to a client of his. He had a bad experience trying to attract gamers. He remembers the gamers he used to play with and had fun with, but those he ran into among the online crowd were hostile and difficult to handle, it was a better direction for the company to try and move entirely away from them.

2) His experience is not unique. There is a perception from the outside that the RPG demographic is, in many ways, toxic.

3) Those who have caused these perceptions are not the majority of gamers, but they are the most visible, and their behavior undermines the appeal of the gaming community to the outside world.

4) It would be really cool if we could change this. How can gamers be nicer people? Here are some ideas.

What part of this is an attack? The actual experience of a man he knows? The recognition that certain gamers have created a bad perception for the community through their behavior online? The ideas on how to act to avoid contributing to this perception?

There are certainly elements to disagree with. Whether this behavior really is abnormally worse amongst gamers than other demographics. Whether the elements pinpointed as bad behavior are universally unacceptable ways to act. Whether the presence of these gamers is really the biggest factor in keeping us disconnected from other media.

But those other complaints - those who feel this is an attack on gamers, or is telling gamers to just shut up and stop offering criticism, or that he is trying to tell companies already within the industry how to do their jobs - they all seem to be responses to a completely different article, and ones I simply can't agree with.