companies staying away from rpg gamers

D'karr said:

Interestingly enough, almost any movie recommended by Ebert, I skip at the theater. The ones he calls clunkers are the ones that I go see. I've been disappointed with this system less than a dozen times.

Knowing your tastes is usually important when you decided to "take" recommendations from others, whether professional "critics" or angry interweb fans.

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[further threadjack]That is interesting, because I'm usually in sync with him. I really liked it when At the Movies was Ebert and Roeper.[/further threadjack]

The blog reads pretty true to me. There's a large segment of gamers, at least on the internet, that are total jerks and drive people away.

Did anyone see the recent writeup up DnD Encounters at ArsTechnica? It was a pretty light piece. The author played some DnD and had fun. He even suggested that this 4th edition thing might be fun for other people.

As soon as I read the headline I knew there was an edition war waiting for me in the comments. I was not disappointed.

I could also cite the Amazon reviews of the 4e PHB that appeared even before the book was released. Hordes of angry fanboys had to go crap all over something they had no intention of buying.

I'm sure there was a similar war on the PvP forums when the authors started doing podcasts and enjoying 4e.

As has been stated, this stuff shows up really easily on Google these days, unlike the 3e edition wars that were mostly confined to usenet.

Every hobby has factions and vocal fans. I've just never seen more bile and entitlement than that of the RPG people. Sure it's not all of them, but the reasonable people have their voices drown out.

For anyone who thinks gamers are somehow special in their internet rudeness, snark, and general idiocy, go check some political discussions on the online newspapers or political blogs, the talk-back comments for any political story. Heck, go check places like Yahoo Answers for any political questions. You'll find that gamers are not the most unhinged people on the internet.

It may be possible that, in a certain limited case, tabletop gamers happened to behave boorishly. Change that case to be something political-oriented, I'm guessing it'll be the political activists behaving boorishly. Taking a limited case like this and inferring that tabletop gamers aren't like everyone else on the internet, that's quite a leap.

Erik Mona said:

Out of curiosity, do BioWare (Dragon Age RPG) and DC Comics (DC Adventures) not count as companies looking to extend their "transmedia" brands with RPG expressions?

If we're not talking about companies like that, what exactly are we discussing?

--Erik

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Did Green Ronin approach BioWare and DC Comics asking for a license, or did BioWare and/or DC come looking for someone to do an RPG on their properties to expand their brand?

RPG companies have, of course, been doing licensed properties for practically the entire existence of the hobby (fond memories of Lankmar modules), but that doesn't mean that the IP holders are terribly interested in targeting the RPG tabletop market. It doesn't mean they aren't either, but . . .

If DC execs were thinking, "Hey, to expand our business and customer base, we should see if we can get a quality company to do an RPG based on our comics!" Well, that would be very different, IMO.

I'm just speculating of course, and would defer to your experience (you worked with the Star Wars license, right?). Or maybe somebody from GR might dare step into this thread . . .

billd91 said:

For anyone who thinks gamers are somehow special in their internet rudeness, snark, and general idiocy, go check some political discussions on the online newspapers or political blogs, the talk-back comments for any political story. Heck, go check places like Yahoo Answers for any political questions. You'll find that gamers are not the most unhinged people on the internet.

It may be possible that, in a certain limited case, tabletop gamers happened to behave boorishly. Change that case to be something political-oriented, I'm guessing it'll be the political activists behaving boorishly. Taking a limited case like this and inferring that tabletop gamers aren't like everyone else on the internet, that's quite a leap.

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You know, I'm beginning to think both ideas are true. That tabletop RPG fans are more jerky in general than the populace at large, and that they aren't. What?

It may be that tabletop RPG fans do not have a statistically higher percentage of "toxic jerkwads" (I love that phrase) than any other segment of society . . . . but there remains a perception among those outside of the hobby that we do have more jerkwads than any other segment of society. And a simple Google search will give plenty of jerkwad examples to reinforce this perception, whether it is true or not.

So the trick for the guy trying to sell something to Men in Suits that targets the tabletop RPG crowd . . . . is to understand this, find ways to mitigate the perception or reverse it . . . which is probably a tall order . . .

I just wish there were less toxic jerkwads in our hobby for my own personal, selfish reasons (regardless of actual numbers or percentages). Nothing can poison a day at the gamestore or a game with a new group (or new players) than somebody acting in a toxic manner. I've had my fair share of both.

To reiterate what several people on page 7 are saying, I think that eyebeams' is directing his criticism on gamers when it is more apt to people on the internet. Look on the comments of any video on Youtube and you'll find toxic jerkwads. When News agencies discovered the internet and started allowing comments on their stories, they had to soon stop or monitor them because of all the toxic jerkwads commenting on the news stories/news anchors/news blogs.

A few pages ago Eyebeams mentioned someoen who said "I haven't reade this book but it sucks and you should steal it", honestly I'd expect that attitude from video gamers to movie goers who pirate media.

I mean eyebeams point about gamers being cynical? Talk to comic book nerds, movie nerds or video gamer nerds. They are quite cynical about "The man" and the industry of their choice's decisions. The amount of Hatred that EA is gettign now for Downloadable Content (DLC) is monumental in the circles that I go around. The internet runs on cynicism and flaming.

It just takes a few toxic jerkwads to really sink any sort of discussion/comments/etc. And a company who experiences this jerkwadiness in a target demographic is likely just going to ignore that demographic because they don't want to deal with it.

It may be that tabletop RPG fans do not have a statistically higher percentage of "toxic jerkwads" (I love that phrase) than any other segment of society . . . . but there remains a perception among those outside of the hobby that we do have more jerkwads than any other segment of society.

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I'm suspicious that it's not only that, but more that the Gamer demographic is a small community, compared to other demographics. And even if we have the same proportion of toxic jerkwads as other demographics, the small size makes the jerkwads seem more significant.

So I don't think there is anything particularly unique about the Gaming community, despite eyebeams framing it that way. It's just that eyebeams happened to experience it from this community and not another.

So, as others have pointed out, it's not eyebeams just taking shots at the community as an outsider who hates gamers. He is a gamer. He is taking shots as someone who is seeing how Outsiders respond to the jerkwads in this community, and assume that the jerkwads make up the community, thus writing the community off.

Mouseferatu said:

*raises hand*

I realize I'm the only one in the world, but the second Matrix--minus the rave/orgy scene--is still my favorite of the three.

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I, too, liked Matrix Reloaded a lot.

(I commented because I can't give Mouse any more xp).

I think there is a lot of confusion about what the original blog post was talking about. I think I understand it, so here is my take on it.

Lets imagine that fictional game developer X is creating a fantasy MMO, and decides that they like Pathfinder, and want to make their game Pathfinder Online. So, the people at X talk to Paizo and pay money for the license to make a Pathfinder MMORPG and start marketing the game to people who play Pathfinder in order to get a starting population. Of course, the subset of Pathfinder players who will want to play Pathfinder Online will not be enough to support an MMO in of themselves, they are just being targeted as early adopters to give the new MMO's community a kick-start.

Unfortunately, attracting Pathfinder players means drawing in all of their baggage as well. The Pathfinder Online messageboards begin to swell up with D&D vs Pathfinder vitriol, and the players in the game endlessly complain about the slightest difference between the Online game and the RPG books. Based on the blog post, the tabletop roleplayers are pretty bad at casual social interaction as well, a big part of the MMO experience. All told, the Pathfinder players put off everyone else from the game. Without a healthy, fun community, Pathfinder Online is doomed in today's MMO market. The game ends up struggling more than if it had used an original IP and marketed towards a different audience.

I am actually willing to bet that eyebeams' client is one of the various game companies that made an MMO or other game based on a table RPG franchise. D&D Online, Champions Online, Warhammer Online, that Shadowrun FPS, take your pick. They all have probably suffered from this situation, where the very fans targeted by their choice of IP doom their product. When was the last time anyone advertised D&D Online here at ENWorld, or even at WotC's site for that matter? I have to admit that I haven't seen it in a long time.

How do companies respond to this problem? They don't license tabletop RPG IP anymore. It is the cheapest solution for them. So we probably won't get a Pathfinder Online, or a new Baldur's Gate or Planescape Torment, unless the RPG community gets its act together. This is why RPG enthusiasts don't get nice things.

I also doubt eyebeams is talking about perceptions or opinions. He probably has access to market data and internal tracking, making his statements based on empirical data and concrete facts. His claims also don't have to be true of the entire RPG community in order to be valid. If the RPG community does produce a statistically higher than average number of jerks or annoying customers, than companies have better markets elsewhere and won't market to RPG enthusiasts.

This definitely hurts RPG companies as well, since they won't be able to sell licenses to their IP, which cuts off revenue and slows their ability to reach out to new gamers.

Dire Bare said:

Did Green Ronin approach BioWare and DC Comics asking for a license, or did BioWare and/or DC come looking for someone to do an RPG on their properties to expand their brand?

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I can't speak for Chris, but that seems pretty meta. If the end result is the same licensed game, is the strategy behind it really that important? Especially if it is totally inscrutable to the customer?

I know that Paizo has never approached another company (other than Malhavoc) to license their stuff, but plenty of companies (including comic companies and computer gaming companies) have contacted us. I'm pretty sure this stuff happens in both directions fairly frequently.

--Erik

Some person or other from some company nobody knew existed, whining that it's all the customers' fault he hasn't got anywhere much.

Well, at least his name is known now. A bit. For a short while, perhaps.