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Is Tabletop Gaming D&D's "Sideshow"?
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<blockquote data-quote="GrahamWills" data-source="post: 7718361" data-attributes="member: 75787"><p>The question was meant to stimulate thought -- yeah, I was actually aware of the order of publication. The point was that D&D has added NOTHING to Lord of the Rings; that was the major point of my argument -- D&D brings nothing to the table that will help sell a fantasy work. I've yet to hear in this thread a single concrete thing that is associated with D&D that would make people buy a fantasy work.</p><p></p><p>Maybe I should have phrased the question this way: "Why didn't the makers of LOTR use more D&D tropes and license D&D to improve their film's appeal?", expecting the answer "because it wouldn't improve anything".</p><p></p><p>I don't want to sound like I dislike D&D -- far from it. I'd even argue that its generic fantasy nature is a strong reason for its success as a roleplaying game. But the same thing that makes it a success as a game makes it hard to use as a brand. RPGs as a total were a US market of about $40m in 2016. Assume D&D is a full quarter of that (yeah, a bit high) that makes it $10m. Assuming about $10 per person spent yearly on average, that fits in with other estimates of about a million regular players.</p><p></p><p>So, doing the math:</p><p></p><p>If I make a generic fantasy film, what fraction of D&D players will come to it who would not otherwise have come? Well, for a start probably only 10% of those people will see any given movie in their genre, so w're talking a max of 100,000 people. I'll be generous and say 50,000 extra people might go and see a movie because it's branded D&D. The incremental profit brought into a movie studio per ticket isn't high -- maybe $3? </p><p></p><p>So, it's not worth paying more than $150K to add D&D branding to your movie. Or, short answer -- don't bother. Which is why people aren't bothering.</p><p></p><p>Disclaimer: There are not solid figures on many of the percentages (especially movie profits!) but I think that if you plug in your own favorites data sources, you'll find the same sort of conclusion. D&D is great for roleplaying fantasy, but as a brand, it's appeal is limited to a tiny audience that's not worth pursuing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GrahamWills, post: 7718361, member: 75787"] The question was meant to stimulate thought -- yeah, I was actually aware of the order of publication. The point was that D&D has added NOTHING to Lord of the Rings; that was the major point of my argument -- D&D brings nothing to the table that will help sell a fantasy work. I've yet to hear in this thread a single concrete thing that is associated with D&D that would make people buy a fantasy work. Maybe I should have phrased the question this way: "Why didn't the makers of LOTR use more D&D tropes and license D&D to improve their film's appeal?", expecting the answer "because it wouldn't improve anything". I don't want to sound like I dislike D&D -- far from it. I'd even argue that its generic fantasy nature is a strong reason for its success as a roleplaying game. But the same thing that makes it a success as a game makes it hard to use as a brand. RPGs as a total were a US market of about $40m in 2016. Assume D&D is a full quarter of that (yeah, a bit high) that makes it $10m. Assuming about $10 per person spent yearly on average, that fits in with other estimates of about a million regular players. So, doing the math: If I make a generic fantasy film, what fraction of D&D players will come to it who would not otherwise have come? Well, for a start probably only 10% of those people will see any given movie in their genre, so w're talking a max of 100,000 people. I'll be generous and say 50,000 extra people might go and see a movie because it's branded D&D. The incremental profit brought into a movie studio per ticket isn't high -- maybe $3? So, it's not worth paying more than $150K to add D&D branding to your movie. Or, short answer -- don't bother. Which is why people aren't bothering. Disclaimer: There are not solid figures on many of the percentages (especially movie profits!) but I think that if you plug in your own favorites data sources, you'll find the same sort of conclusion. D&D is great for roleplaying fantasy, but as a brand, it's appeal is limited to a tiny audience that's not worth pursuing. [/QUOTE]
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