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Game Fundamentals - The Illusion of Accomplishment
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5158412" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I would generally agree with the thrust of this argument, but I think it misses one very fundamental aspect of what drives the sales of your game that, when included in your analysis, I think totally reverses the conclusion you reach.</p><p></p><p>And that missing point is that virtually all game masters are 'lifestyle gamers', and by the very nature of game mastery, virtually all good game masters are 'lifestyle gamers'. The success of your PnP game depends on something which has no real parallel in other types of gaming. It doesn't really matter at all how many players you have; it only matters how many game masters you have. Your goal as a game creator isn't to get players. The base of players is comparitively infinite. The limited resources you are try to compete for and expand is game masters, because if you have GM's, then you'll have players.</p><p></p><p>I believe based on my recent experience that the reason that there are 24 million lapsed players and only 1.5 million current D&D players, is that there are a couple of million missing good DM's out there. If your sales are lagging, its because you either lost or didn't create game masters, and the reason D&D historically dominated the industry for most of the industries existance is that it did the best job of creating game masters.</p><p></p><p>Looking at just my own situation, when D&D chased me from there game by abandoning me, they lost (already) about $400 dollars in sales. I just hauled in 7 players that either have never played or haven't played since 2nd so far as I can tell primarily for lack of a DM. If the game proceeds like games in the past, all those players would end up going out and buying supplements at some point. But since I've economically become my own game publishing company for the moment, WotC is locked out of my local market. I'm the 'retailer' in this equation, not even the esteemed but humble LFGS. I'm the one determining whether the product gets sold. If I don't play, they don't reach my market. If I don't buy, they don't reach my market.</p><p></p><p>The fundamental problem is that on the 'doggie treats' front, not only can PnP systems not compete as an affirmation delivery system with the direct mechanical stimulus injection you can get from a computer game, but a system geared to doing that offers nothing to the game master - or if it did, it would create dysfunctional ego driven DMs. And while a game can endure a ego driven player, an ego driven game master kills the game in very short order and all those new players at best go back to their WoW. In actuality, they probably never leave it, because nothing in this model creates a game master.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5158412, member: 4937"] I would generally agree with the thrust of this argument, but I think it misses one very fundamental aspect of what drives the sales of your game that, when included in your analysis, I think totally reverses the conclusion you reach. And that missing point is that virtually all game masters are 'lifestyle gamers', and by the very nature of game mastery, virtually all good game masters are 'lifestyle gamers'. The success of your PnP game depends on something which has no real parallel in other types of gaming. It doesn't really matter at all how many players you have; it only matters how many game masters you have. Your goal as a game creator isn't to get players. The base of players is comparitively infinite. The limited resources you are try to compete for and expand is game masters, because if you have GM's, then you'll have players. I believe based on my recent experience that the reason that there are 24 million lapsed players and only 1.5 million current D&D players, is that there are a couple of million missing good DM's out there. If your sales are lagging, its because you either lost or didn't create game masters, and the reason D&D historically dominated the industry for most of the industries existance is that it did the best job of creating game masters. Looking at just my own situation, when D&D chased me from there game by abandoning me, they lost (already) about $400 dollars in sales. I just hauled in 7 players that either have never played or haven't played since 2nd so far as I can tell primarily for lack of a DM. If the game proceeds like games in the past, all those players would end up going out and buying supplements at some point. But since I've economically become my own game publishing company for the moment, WotC is locked out of my local market. I'm the 'retailer' in this equation, not even the esteemed but humble LFGS. I'm the one determining whether the product gets sold. If I don't play, they don't reach my market. If I don't buy, they don't reach my market. The fundamental problem is that on the 'doggie treats' front, not only can PnP systems not compete as an affirmation delivery system with the direct mechanical stimulus injection you can get from a computer game, but a system geared to doing that offers nothing to the game master - or if it did, it would create dysfunctional ego driven DMs. And while a game can endure a ego driven player, an ego driven game master kills the game in very short order and all those new players at best go back to their WoW. In actuality, they probably never leave it, because nothing in this model creates a game master. [/QUOTE]
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