kitsune9
Adventurer
Thanks for the article. I think with the rpg industry, we'll always be reading that the barbarians are at the gates, but whether this is the year that they storm the city is always up in the air.
another rpg industry doomsday article (merged: all 3 "Mishler Rant" threads)
Thanks for the article. I think with the rpg industry, we'll always be reading that the barbarians are at the gates, but whether this is the year that they storm the city is always up in the air.
Fifth Element
Legend
Good lord, yes. For the most part the article is interesting and well-written, if not particularly innovative. But smack in the middle is an absolutely ridiculous "kids these days" screed. I only skimmed the remainder of the article after that part, because I couldn't take anything he said seriously after that.
OchreJelly
First Post
It was an interesting read but I had to disregard some of the ramblings on current youth culture, and recession-era spending.
I don't think his argument on recession-era spending has enough data to back it. He simply says people are saving and not negative spending and leaves it at that. There have been studies, for example, that while it's true that big-purchase sales are down, some smaller-ticket luxury markets are actually seeing a bit of a boom. The psychology goes that as you have to cut back more on big ticket items, like a new car or a vacation, there is a tendency to make up for it by investing in "smaller luxuries". Imported beer was one example.
Also it's a bit of a stretch to say that there will never be another golden age of sales. His example of 3E hitting right when young adults who grew up with DND were starting families suggest to me that maybe the children of those families may grow up to play the game their dad taught them. I can certainly buy that it's a cyclical market, but to say it could never happen again seems a little severe.
I don't think his argument on recession-era spending has enough data to back it. He simply says people are saving and not negative spending and leaves it at that. There have been studies, for example, that while it's true that big-purchase sales are down, some smaller-ticket luxury markets are actually seeing a bit of a boom. The psychology goes that as you have to cut back more on big ticket items, like a new car or a vacation, there is a tendency to make up for it by investing in "smaller luxuries". Imported beer was one example.
Also it's a bit of a stretch to say that there will never be another golden age of sales. His example of 3E hitting right when young adults who grew up with DND were starting families suggest to me that maybe the children of those families may grow up to play the game their dad taught them. I can certainly buy that it's a cyclical market, but to say it could never happen again seems a little severe.
stuart
First Post
Interesting article!
It's worth contrasting with this piece from CNN Money:
Board games are back - Jul. 10, 2009
It was the worst of times... it was the best of times.
It's worth contrasting with this piece from CNN Money:
Board games are back - Jul. 10, 2009
It was the worst of times... it was the best of times.
Might as well crosspost my blog comment here...
----
There's a lot of good stuff here, but also a lot of bold assertions and back of the envelope nonsense, in my opinion.
Part of the problem, here, is that you're assuming that anyone can make any kind of money at all selling 1000 units of just about anything. I'm not sure that's ever been true at any time in the history of the tabletop gaming industry, and it's certainly not true now.
You've got to find a way to develop and audience for your product that is larger than 1000 potential sales. Every product Paizo produces, for example, must endure a rigorous cost/profit analysis before it gets the green light. Everything we do has realistic break-evens in the sub-2000 units category, and only extremely rarely does a product in our lineup not sell significantly more copies than that.
If your potential audience is fewer than 1000, you probably are better off either throwing in the towel and finding more lucrative business opportunities, or going for some sort of "deluxe" high-end approach that more reasonably charges gamers for the time, effort, and resources put into your product.
Ptolus is a good example of this. Yes, it was outrageously expensive both to produce and to buy, but Monte Cook (who, despite the drawing power of his name, is really just a guy working with his wife to create cool games) found a way to build the book affordably (mostly by writing it himself and offloading production costs on a better-capitalized print partner with strong distribution). As you say, there are only a limited number of gamers willing to fork out $100+ for a book like Ptolus, but Monte had them lining up at its release, and the book is now completely sold out and almost impossible to find. Oh, and I'm confident Monte made a ton of money on it.
No one in this business, from the smallest one-man publishing operation to the biggest wholly owned subsidiary of a multinational corporation, is entitled to a successful career in gaming.
People producing niche products for a niche market (which is what producing material for Judge's Guild is) are never going to make much money at it, and success is going to come (if it comes at all) from spending more time building the audience than writing the products. Or from realizing that the older market you serve is probably willing to pay more for a product (PDF or otherwise) that caters directly to their interests. The good news is that fans who are familiar with Judge's Guild and want to see it continue probably have a lot more disposable income than fans interested in, say, an anime game or something, so the potential for a supporting cadre of essentially patrons is much more likely in your case than in most.
And as far as the "Pathfinder Effect," I find your statement on PDF pricing regressive and myopic. If Paizo is not worried about the effect our subsidized Core Rules PDF pricing will have on even our other non-deep-discounted PDFs, why is it that other publishers are so convinced it will affect their business?
Lastly, if you're in the business of selling core rules, getting those rules as widely distributed as possible and then making money off of the support products sold to that audience is, I think (and hope!) a very viable business strategy.
You've got to have an audience if you want to make any money, in this business or anywhere.
--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing
----
There's a lot of good stuff here, but also a lot of bold assertions and back of the envelope nonsense, in my opinion.
Part of the problem, here, is that you're assuming that anyone can make any kind of money at all selling 1000 units of just about anything. I'm not sure that's ever been true at any time in the history of the tabletop gaming industry, and it's certainly not true now.
You've got to find a way to develop and audience for your product that is larger than 1000 potential sales. Every product Paizo produces, for example, must endure a rigorous cost/profit analysis before it gets the green light. Everything we do has realistic break-evens in the sub-2000 units category, and only extremely rarely does a product in our lineup not sell significantly more copies than that.
If your potential audience is fewer than 1000, you probably are better off either throwing in the towel and finding more lucrative business opportunities, or going for some sort of "deluxe" high-end approach that more reasonably charges gamers for the time, effort, and resources put into your product.
Ptolus is a good example of this. Yes, it was outrageously expensive both to produce and to buy, but Monte Cook (who, despite the drawing power of his name, is really just a guy working with his wife to create cool games) found a way to build the book affordably (mostly by writing it himself and offloading production costs on a better-capitalized print partner with strong distribution). As you say, there are only a limited number of gamers willing to fork out $100+ for a book like Ptolus, but Monte had them lining up at its release, and the book is now completely sold out and almost impossible to find. Oh, and I'm confident Monte made a ton of money on it.
No one in this business, from the smallest one-man publishing operation to the biggest wholly owned subsidiary of a multinational corporation, is entitled to a successful career in gaming.
People producing niche products for a niche market (which is what producing material for Judge's Guild is) are never going to make much money at it, and success is going to come (if it comes at all) from spending more time building the audience than writing the products. Or from realizing that the older market you serve is probably willing to pay more for a product (PDF or otherwise) that caters directly to their interests. The good news is that fans who are familiar with Judge's Guild and want to see it continue probably have a lot more disposable income than fans interested in, say, an anime game or something, so the potential for a supporting cadre of essentially patrons is much more likely in your case than in most.
And as far as the "Pathfinder Effect," I find your statement on PDF pricing regressive and myopic. If Paizo is not worried about the effect our subsidized Core Rules PDF pricing will have on even our other non-deep-discounted PDFs, why is it that other publishers are so convinced it will affect their business?
Lastly, if you're in the business of selling core rules, getting those rules as widely distributed as possible and then making money off of the support products sold to that audience is, I think (and hope!) a very viable business strategy.
You've got to have an audience if you want to make any money, in this business or anywhere.
--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
There is a fair bit of insight in this article, but it's mixed in with a "here's what's wrong with kids these days," screed that dilutes the good stuff.
I'm an old fart, but I still volunteer and work with college students and even high school students. From that I can tell you that the kids are doing just fine. There are a lot of them who are into gaming, or could be marketed to by gaming companies. Really.
I don't believe the sky is falling yet...things are just changing, as they always do. The companies that adapt will be still around, the ones that don't will be gone. It's as simple as that, and it has been as simple as that since gaming first gained any real acceptance in the marketplace.
--Steve
I'm an old fart, but I still volunteer and work with college students and even high school students. From that I can tell you that the kids are doing just fine. There are a lot of them who are into gaming, or could be marketed to by gaming companies. Really.
I don't believe the sky is falling yet...things are just changing, as they always do. The companies that adapt will be still around, the ones that don't will be gone. It's as simple as that, and it has been as simple as that since gaming first gained any real acceptance in the marketplace.
--Steve
The "get off my lawn" stuff about Britney Spears and recession/depression economics, seemed kind of naive and silly.
Though with that being said and digging deeper into the article, I wonder how exactly he got that "Rule of 5" figure of pricing an rpg product's MSRP = 5 times the unit print costs (ie. cost to print + ship the books back to your own warehouse or garage).
This is in contrast to the older alleged "Rule of 10" figure from back in the day.
If these two "rules" have any validity, they assert that something like a Pathfinder AP or Chronicles book would have a unit print cost of $2 to $4. For the 4E D&D core books, these two rules assert that they have a unit print cost of $3.50 to $7.
Though with that being said and digging deeper into the article, I wonder how exactly he got that "Rule of 5" figure of pricing an rpg product's MSRP = 5 times the unit print costs (ie. cost to print + ship the books back to your own warehouse or garage).
This is in contrast to the older alleged "Rule of 10" figure from back in the day.
If these two "rules" have any validity, they assert that something like a Pathfinder AP or Chronicles book would have a unit print cost of $2 to $4. For the 4E D&D core books, these two rules assert that they have a unit print cost of $3.50 to $7.
Scott_Rouse
Explorer
If this is true we all get to play D&D (or Gamma World) for real wielding swords made from old car parts and in a world where treasure = food/water.
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