companies staying away from rpg gamers

Lolth said:

I bothered to log in to say that this just cost a sale of dead tree version of ICONS, as a final nail to the coffin after the whole thread.

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I'm sorry to hear that in your world, it's OK for someone to tell creators/publishers that they're "whiny obsolete middlemen" who should "die in a fire" and "good riddance" -- yet when I point out that as exactly the sort of negative behavior we're talking about, it costs me a sale.

Good to know.

Corinth said:

Gareth, what you want to do with your business is--at this time--not a good fit for the tabletop RPG medium or hobby. You have two useful options. One of them is to adjust your plan to conform to the reality of this niche. The other is to shift the emphasis of your business away from tabletop RPGs

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You seem to be missing the point. None of the people involved in the original blog post were creating an RPG book or even necessarily something directly related to the RPG industry. They created a product, then successfully sold it to RPG fans. The RPG fans did buy the product. They then ruined the product for everyone else. At this point, the creator of the product shifted his focus away from RPG fans and became more successful by drawing in non-RPG fans.

GMSharka and eyebeams have made it abundantly clear that they don't consider marketing to RPG fans to be all that difficult. Marketers have no problem getting RPG fans to buy stuff. The problem is that they instead are in the business of actively dissuading RPG fans from buying their products, because RPG fans would only damage their long-term success.

Honestly, I really can believe the claim that RPG fans are more prone to being toxic and off-putting than the average customer. There is no RPG community as a whole, only a heavily Balkanized collection of fanbases for various games and settings that all seem to hate each other. Not only that, but, as someone in this very thread mentioned, RPG fans generally consider themselves to be smarter than the average person and tend to look down on people outside the general community as well as those who disagree with them. I honestly believe that the CBG isn't an unfounded stereotype, but a regular product of the culture of tabletop gaming. I am not saying that everyone who plays tabletop RPGs is a jerk. Rather, the culture of the hobby as a whole encourages everyone to occasionally act like one.

ggroy said:

Lemme guess.

1 - WotC
2 - Games Workshop
3 - White Wolf (?)

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I know WotC has (way) more. I didn't think of GW. Both are good examples of companies with multi-million-dollar brands likely to attract outside interest.

Fantasy Flight probably has more total employees, but many work on board games and non-RPG stuff. That's true of some of our employees as well, so it's an imperfect comparison.

I have no idea how many full-time White Wolf employees still work actively on tabletop RPGS. And I have no idea how many employees they have total. I think possibly "a lot".

--Erik

SKyOdin said:

Rather, the culture of the hobby as a whole encourages everyone to occasionally act like one.

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How so, specifically?

Raven Crowking said:

Then, if the goal is to have "more awareness of the game, especially in a positive light", wouldn't that be better served by better product, rather than mere uncritical acceptance of whatever is produced?

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No one's advocating 'uncritical acceptance' of product, RC. They're suggesting a slightly higher civility quotient, which, after wincing my way through the comments on the CNN D&D puff-piece, is kinda hard to argue against, even if you don't accept eyebeam's position.

Also, how would we agree on what constitutes 'better product'?

That dilutes the D&D logo, and is ultimately damaging to awareness of the game in a positive light.

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I don't brand dilution has anything to do with it. The trouble might be the completely undiluted, in fact rather concentrated, if unfair, public perception of non-electronic role-playing game players. A perception not helped by squabbles on CNN -- then again, they're ratings are pretty low these days, so perhaps it didn't do too much harm...

Erik Mona said:

And yet, in this business, there are perhaps one to three companies with a larger full-time staff than Paizo. Most companies "smaller" than us consist of a married couple and maybe some contracted freelancers. A lot more are just one dude cranking out PDFs.
--Erik

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Most definitely. It's a niche market in a niche market, and one I'm very thankful exists, even the ones I don't actually purchase from because it gives others a measure of the pleasure I get. There really is no great need for even a Medium-sized business in the RPG indutry, regardless of my wish to the contrary.

SKyOdin said:

YThe problem is that they instead are in the business of actively dissuading RPG fans from buying their products, because RPG fans would only damage their long-term success.

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You were spot-on in your analysis, except for this. I need to correct this, because it seems to be a common misunderstanding.

Neither of us are "in the business of actively dissuading RPG fans" -- in the original blog post, Malcolm was talking about the decision of ONE OF HIS CONSULTATION CLIENTS -- Not him, and not me. I echoed his experience, because I've heard the same thing from other outside-the-game-industry folks I've spoken to and done consulting for.

I'm perfectly happy to sell to RPG fans -- that doesn't change the fact that I agree with Malcolm's post, because I've seen the same things: namely that the worst elements of the RPG community (which you and others have termed the CBG element) often actively dissuade others from engaging with the community.

I honestly don't see how that's so damned controversial, but there ya go.

GMSkarka said:

I'm sorry to hear that in your world, it's OK for someone to tell creators/publishers that they're "whiny obsolete middlemen" who should "die in a fire" and "good riddance" -- yet when I point out that as exactly the sort of negative behavior we're talking about, it costs me a sale.

Good to know.

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Well here's the thing -- you argue with the same toxic attitude. Why should I put my money into something which will support it? I, as a consumer unit, can only vote quietly with my wallet and take my business elsewhere, because if I open my mouth to point out what I see as a problem, I will suddenly be "toxic influence" in the hobby, a whiner, a loser, despite years of luring people into the hobby (I've corrupted my cousin into RPGs and miniatures, have DM'ed games in the local hobby store for female gaming crowd or total newbies, handled GM desk in a RPG con and so on; in other words, been like a gaming nerd and done my best to see that everyone is having good time, no matter what form that good time takes).

That post you made was the final straw, the final nail, a result of toxic accumulation.

And I'm going to note that you guys have no idea how vicious flamewars quilters can have. Jeeze, you support one technique in stiching, and suddenly 4e/non-4e edition flame wars look tame.

GMSkarka said:

You were spot-on in your analysis, except for this. I need to correct this, because it seems to be a common misunderstanding.

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Oops, sorry about that.

Hobo said:

ENWorld is no such thing. There are tons of such posters on ENWorld. ENWorld is usually pretty good about jumping on the overtly aggressive ones, but it doesn't do anything whatsoever to keep them out. And it doesn't do anything at all about the passive aggressive ones either.

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Must...spread....xp. You, Obryn, Nifft and a few others are getting jobbed.