What's the best part of an RPG to sell?

[Foxwarrior]

In my experience, it's better if every player has free and open access to the rulebook. Things get very awkward if people are passing a singular copy of the book around the table, especially but not only during character creation. Do people really shell out hard cash for copies of the book when they can access all of the content online for free?

 

[delericho]

The best way to make a small fortune in RPGs is to start with a large fortune.

Beyond that...

Traditionally, the biggest selling item in an RPG line (by a long way) was the Core Rulebook (for D&D, the PHB specifically - even the DMG and MM were secondary). So your strategy should really be built to maximise sales of that - indeed, everything else could be a loss leader, provided they led to more sales of that Core Rulebook.

However, that orthodoxy has been challenged recently due to two recent developments, one used by the 'big' companies (WotC and Paizo) and one used by 'little' companies (almost everyone else). (The 'medium' companies still mostly use the traditional model, but a new RPG company should probably avoid this.)

For the 'big' companies, the key is subscriptions, whether those are subscriptions to the DDI (WotC) or subscriptions to physical products (Paizo). The short version is this: if you have 1,000 subscribers, you know ahead of time that you can safely print your next AP volume safe in the knowledge that it will sell enough to be worthwhile. You also know how many copies to print, which again is a huge boon (since printing more is much more efficient, but only if you can be sure to sell them - you don't want to be stuck with masses of unsold books).

For the 'little' companies, the key is Kickstarter. Define your pitch such that you want to fund your Core Rulebook as your main deliverable, have some enhancements to that as your first stretch goals (that is, things like "hardback" and "colour art"), and have the rest of your product line as further stretch goals. Run your project, produce the products you've funded with those stretch goals, and then stop. (Kickstarter probably won't be good for "a second batch of supplements for "Game X" - I doubt such a project would fund, or fund well. So, if you really want to do a full Adventure Path, make sure it's one of the stretch goals for your first Kickstarter.)

Edit: One more thing about KS: Kickstarter appears to have moved from Phase 1 (fad) to Phase 3 (maturity) since last I looked. (Phase 2 is "backlash". I'm not sure if it just skipped that, or if it was just very, very short.) What that means is that while there is still money out there, people are now no longer just throwing their money at anything even vaguely interesting. It also means that you'll find it much easier to fund if you have a 'name' (Monte Cook, Morrus) or you have a track record of success (or, better, both). It's not impossible for someone new to break in, but it's much harder than it was. And if you are doing KS for the first time, and you're lucky enough to fund, then make damn sure you deliver, because if you don't then you won't get a second chance.

 

[Ahnehnois]

To me, it's fine if companies restrict the art/fluff elements, the things that aren't game mechanics and aren't essential to playing. All the rules should be up there for free. This seems to be basically the PF approach.

The entire entertainment industry, not just gaming, has to deal with the idea that anyone can acquire anything with relative ease, without paying. To me, a smart business strategy is to offer enough stuff for free to discourage pirating, and then offer a variety of tiered and customizable ways for an interested party to buy in (of which a subscription model is only one).

For example, it's entirely possible to look up a musical artist and find their best songs available for free on their own website, right next to links to download albums and buy associated merchandise. Many TV shows are free to watch online legally for a time, but if you're willing to pay, you can get rid of ads or gain permanent ownership of the content. It's a bit harder for games, because everything is so interconnected and the need for full rules access is ongoing, but I think it's clear that modern consumers are willing to pirate, but they're also willing to pay if you go about it the right way.

 

[Morrus]

Your poll doesn't match your post. You've asked what's the most profitable, and then posted about how it's easier for you to not pass a book around a table. Which question is the one you're after?

Mos profitable is, of course, whatever strategy sells the most units (well, that's not strictly accurate, but it'll do for these purposes - by that we should include all revenue-generating elements, including services and subscriptions). Whether open content does that or doesn't differs based on the agenda of whoever's answering the question, but if there's been any solid research into it I'm not personally familiar with it. You'd likely have to track sales patterns over a multi-year period with a variety of open and closed games. Certainly many non-open games have sold extremely well, as have many open games.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I have no real idea, but I highly doubt it's "Releasing the core books for free" since those are always the best sellers in a system.

Honestly, I suspect that the above options are rather minor in terms of how profitable a game is. The more important questions are:

Is it well written?
Does it have high production values?
Does it offer something that other RPGs don't?
And other questions about quality of the product, not which parts are available free.

 

[herrozerro]

I think having a stripped down core system available for free isn't the worst thing. With out the srd I would really have never looked at pa or 13th age.

 

[Foxwarrior]

Your poll doesn't match your post. You've asked what's the most profitable, and then posted about how it's easier for you to not pass a book around a table. Which question is the one you're after?

The poll is the question, the post just serves to explain which option I hope it isn't.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Engagement. A subscription is best of all - but advertising and keen fans count for more than anything else.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Many modern MMORPGs have started to instead of selling a subscription that enables you to play that month, the subscription gives you access to new content. In other words, content bought stays bought after your subscription.

I really don't like the current DDI model as a player/DM and I don't think it's the most profitable in the long run. This is because the model is quite greedy. If you have stopped subscribing, you loose all access to the game and there is little chance of you ever subscribing again.

The problem with it is that you get less subscribers in the long run than you would for a similar service where you buy a subscription for new content, not access to content.

Paizo uses this model (subscription to get content) for their system, and I think WotC should use the same sales model.

Regarding the tools, I think it would be very good for them to give access to them even if you don't subscribe, but only for content you have bought. You can the use it as a channel to push your new items, run sales and so on. Much like Steam does for PC games.

I think subscriptions really only makes sense for stuff like movies, tv-shows and so on, like Netflix does. (And water, electricity, etc). Stuff that you consume once and then don't care about anymore.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

As others have said, core rulebooks sell more than anything else. I believe that modules/adventures sell the least, but someone will correct me if I'm wrong about that. Splatbooks, modules, and other things that aren't system agnostic depend upon people first owning the core rulebook, so that's where you want to maximize sales.

The problem is that systems are a dime a dozen. A few hit is big (within rpg industry terms), but most fade away as soon as they are introduced. I have hundreds of rpg books, going back into the 70s (when I started playing), and they represent almost a hundred distinct systems. Think about that for a moment - I'm counting all the D&D versions as one system when I talk about "distinct systems." Most of them are things that your average player has never even heard about, much less seen, because they were tiny flash-in-the-pans. Some of them even had high production values and fairly innovative ideas.

D&D retains a certain level of success because it's the first successful rpg. Pathfinder is successful because it took advantage of some poor decisions by WotC and managed to lay claim to a large existing client base. Call of Cthulhu has name recognition (due to it's association with Lovecraft) and a solid system behind it. A couple of "rules light" games have pulled ahead of the pack (Savage Worlds and Fate, for example) for various reasons. In the past, Hero Systems and White Wolf were popular, and there is always GURPS.

Most people who play rpgs regularly stick to one or two of the above systems. There are some who play a wide variety of games, but I would be that 90% of the players and GMs out there focus on one of the games in the paragraph above. Compare that to the hundreds of systems that have come out over the decades, and you can see what you're facing. That's why so many rpg companies primarily stick to putting out third-party support materials for one of the popular games.

The sad thing is that there are some very good, innovative rpgs out there, but they will always have a tiny player base.

Getting back to the main question, though...

If you're going to launch a new system, you need to focus on selling the core rulebook. I don't think anyone has a good idea of how to balance out free materials (such as the basic SRD for the game) versus the retail version because only a few of the major systems have been designed that way, and the two that are the most extensively used are D&D and Pathfinder (which is basically a souped up version of D&D 3.5).