companies staying away from rpg gamers

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Corinth

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Ladies and Gentlemen: EXHIBIT A.
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. Do whatever your judgment deems best in light of your desires and objectives, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. I've pointed out that you're trying to compete with Free here, and that means that you have to change things to deal with that; if Jeff Jarvis can successfully adapt, so can you. You're a smart guy, you can do this.
 

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Shazman

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Anybody know how many full-time employees on salary, are working in the D&D division of WotC?

Probably not much more than Paizo. I don't think it was big to begin with, and it would seem that it has shrunk a lot from layoffs that seem to have started 8 years ago and never really stopped. The RPG department is a very small part of WotC which is a very small part of Hasbro.
 

IronWolf

blank
Agreed.

Take the article as an example. The author and his client had what for lack of better term I'll call a pilot group that was apparently filled with jerks. How'd they come by this pilot group? Who vetted their participation?

A client worth his salt would not blame the market for poor pilot group selection.

I found myself wondering just how the group in question was selected as well.
 

Shazman

Banned
Banned
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It seems clear to me that every product along this line to date, with the exception of the novel lines, has been based on the hope for mere uncritical acceptance of whatever is produced, because of the D&D logo.

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

You are so right, so much of 4E and some of the later stuff of the 3.5 era definitely seems to have been put out with the belief that people will buy it just because it has the D&D logo on the cover.
 

Erik Mona

Adventurer
26 full-time employees? That's not just small, that's tiny. That's an employment non-blip by any measure. 26 people making something I like (or dislike, or heck, don't even know about) is most definitely a small business. That isn't a put down, that's a simple fact.

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.

I think _that_ tells you more about why big companies aren't scratching at our doors than the blog post that kicked off this whole thread.


--Erik
 


Lolth

First Post
Ladies and Gentlemen: EXHIBIT A.

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. And I don't buy PDFs, if I can avoid it. But, I guess that one sale is just one sale and hey, maybe I wasn't planning to use it to pull in new players in order to churn out more people who might buy stuff and spread the gamer gene.

Just maybe some creators and companies are toxic too. Where do they come from? What spawns them!?

Oh, ****. They're gamers, aren't they? Run for the hills! ZOMG! :hmm:

Do I at least get awesome Toxic Avenger powers? :(
 

GMSkarka

Explorer
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. Do whatever your judgment deems best in light of your desires and objectives, and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. I've pointed out that you're trying to compete with Free here, and that means that you have to change things to deal with that; if Jeff Jarvis can successfully adapt, so can you. You're a smart guy, you can do this.


Again, if people were actually reading what others have said, rather than what they think has been said, we'd be much better off.

For example, lecturing me on adapting my business model to compete with Free is amusing as hell, considering that in my transmedia posts ---linked earlier this thread, and written almost two months ago --- I advocate that RPGs should be *given away* as one platform of your property.
 

Raven Crowking

First Post
You're trying to connect two parts of my argument together that don't obviously go hand in hand.

Yeah, that's the point.

You can say "Us being perceived as toxic =/= everyone else drinking the kool-aid".

I say, "Both are examples of segregating us and them, and either there is a valid segregation or there is not. If there is, then suggesting that we are more critical (and thus less likely to just drink the kool-aid) is valid. If not, then suggesting that we are more critical (and hence more toxic) is not."

I don't believe that "everyone else" consumes silently. Some do, some critique constructively, and some rave like lunatics. The assertion of the blog was that TTRPGers have a larger number of ravers than other groups that producers can market to.

Is it? People can rave about tuna being from Mars all they want, and it has no effect on consumer behaviour. However, the critique about dolphins did, indeed, make the tuna fishery change. I assume that the blog is talking about criticism that is actually listened to. Criticism that is ignored, presumably, is ignored.

YMMV.

Certainly, the CNN comments were not "raving", yet they were pointed out as an example in this trend.

Again, YMMV. Quite a bit farther from mine in this case, I expect.

The status quo is that we are nothing but geeks and losers, living in our mothers basements, pretending to be elves and that we should be marginalized in all areas of society except our own little niche.

Really? Not my experience at all. :)

I agree with you. No one is obligated to go say good things about the article. But why do so many people feel the need to go out of their way to bash something every chance they get?

I am quite certain that they have far more chances than you imagine, and are far more restrained than you imagine.

Every time you mention RCFRP I don't spew bile against it because it's not my game of choice.

Please do. Controversy fuels interest.

And to ignore the fact that comments like these could drive a potential new gamer away is sticking your head in the sand. And you said up thread that new players helps grow the hobby. So is driving a potential new player away damaging the hobby or not. You can't have it both ways.

Ah, well then. First you need to define what hobby you are talking about, as I suggested upthread. I feel quite certain that there are a number of people who feel 4e actually drains gamers from thier hobby.

Again, YMMV.

So you believe the gaming community as a whole is better suited by driving off potential new gamers, rather than risk them sitting down to play 4E?

I very specifically said that I was not going to enter my views on that, so I don't know why you would assume that they are as you say. Do I believe some people feel that this is true? Yes. I am certain that there are some people who don't know exactly what you mean by "the gaming community as a whole" and whose idea of their hobby doesn't include all games.

And, please note, I am not saying that they are correct. What I am saying is that, as with most people, they are behaving in a manner consistent with what they believe to be in their best interests.

Their base assumptions are different than yours.

No amount of crying about it is going to change it.

Do we know if the example in the article was crap? After the change in strategy, was it successful?

That's a good question.

Sometimes, it's easier to change your target market.

And that's a fact.


RC
 
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I just don't understand how you can deny the presence of a subset of gamers who really are vocally unpleasant online. Enworld certainly is good at keeping them out, but they do crop up online, among gamers and others. In every group of people, there will be a portion that are simply jerks.
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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