In his blog post GMSkarka criticises this view, of RPGers as artists, as "delusional garbage". I think maybe his language is a little too strong, but I find it hard to reconcile the notion of RPGers as artists with the really obvious evidence of consumerist culture in the RPG hobby - completist purchasers, for example, and the hype that surrounds every release of a new book or set of minis, or the ongoing complaints about the crappiness of WotC modules. If we really are all painters looking for some paints and canvasses, why do we care about the quality of WotC's modules? Or what WotC has done to the 4e Realms?rpg companies are trying to sell a bunch of finished paintings to a bunch of painters instead of trying to sell brushes and paints.
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The truth is, there is a much more blurry line between rpg game makers and rpg game consumers than between, say comic book makers and readers, or video game makers and players, or movie producers and watchers. Failure to admit so puts the producer at risk of alienating one's customers, while admitting so underlines the producers' own lack of importance to the hobby.
It seems to me that D&D players, at least - or the online ones, anyway - are actually pretty big consumers of (i) story elements written and marketed by commercial publishers, and (ii) of more-or-less useless junk that is marketed by those same publishers simply on the basis that it carries a certain logo or references a certain story element.
It would be different if RPGers were mostly interested in buying system material to support their own story-telling - Ron Edwards's high-octane premises and system ideas - but that doesn't seem to be the case. WotC has just restructure its D&D Worlds team to give them more prominence in the organisation. And as far as I can see, Paizo and White Wolf make their money almost exclusively by selling stories.