Tabletopocalypse Now - GMS' thoughts about the decline in the hobby

[JohnRTroy]

I brought this up in another thread, but I do find it interesting to note that he brought up the same fact I did, that Dresden Files RPG is #5, and the numbers for that are pretty small.

I think it's total hubris to think that a hobby "will never die". Some do. It may not die as long as you are alive, but like any cultural elements, some do not survive, or transform into something else. There's a lot of people who want the industry to die so they can get back to "the pure hobby", but if you look at the real long picture...

...things change...

Study the history of retail, of culture (not just pop-culture), of media, and you can see how much things change. Just studying a historical hobby book can show you how some end up dying off. Don't assume what you love will survive. Enjoy things today because the seasons change and everything has an autumn and winter--with spring being something new to replace what has been lost.

 

[Mercurius]

Don't feel bad, Korgoth, I've never heard of him either, despite being in the hobby since '77 and playing in more than 100 rpg systems- including a couple of playtests- and still having 60+ on my shelf.

And I'm not surprised, since I checked out his contributions to the hobby here:

Gareth-Michael Skarka :: Pen & Paper RPG Database


and not a one of those is on my shelves or has ever been in my possession.

Mr. Skarka has been a somewhat notorious contributor at RPG.Net for years, mainly in the early 00s; I think he was banned for a year at some point, although why I don't know (reading through the comments of the linked blog you can see that his tone isn't always...friendly). Anyhow, he is probably known more in RPG.Net circles as a controversial figure than as a game designer; yet his "controversiality" is probably less for the content of his ideas and more for his interpersonal skills, or lack thereof.

I brought this up in another thread, but I do find it interesting to note that he brought up the same fact I did, that Dresden Files RPG is #5, and the numbers for that are pretty small.

I think it's total hubris to think that a hobby "will never die". Some do. It may not die as long as you are alive, but like any cultural elements, some do not survive, or transform into something else. There's a lot of people who want the industry to die so they can get back to "the pure hobby", but if you look at the real long picture...

...things change...

Study the history of retail, of culture (not just pop-culture), of media, and you can see how much things change. Just studying a historical hobby book can show you how some end up dying off. Don't assume what you love will survive. Enjoy things today because the seasons change and everything has an autumn and winter--with spring being something new to replace what has been lost.

Good point, with an emphasis on change. RPGs will change, D&D fandom will change, but that doesn't mean it won't achieve a kind of cult classic status, a perennial immortality like card or board games. Now I would gather that D&D will be a lot closer to Pente than to Monopoly in 50 years in terms of how many people know and play it, but I do think it has a good chance of achieving some degree of classic status.

This conversation and others has an idea bouncing around in my head for a thread topic - namely whether RPGs and MMORGs/computer games are on the same spectrum or lineage, or whether they are two distinctly different creatures. I would argue that they are the latter; that computer games are not a "newer version" of RPGs but something else entirely. In other words, I don't think the relationship of tabletop RPGs and computer games is analogous to, say, the relationship of vinyl records, CDs, and MP3s. I think they are two separate modalities or creative forms, like books and movies.

In other words, the relationship of TTRPGs to CRPGs is more akin to books and movies than it is to vinyl-cassette-CD-mp3. Books are classics; as long as human civilization retains a somewhat similar form, there will be paper-based books just as their will be wooden violins and fountain pens and crystal glasses. But cassette tapes have almost entirely gone the way of the dodo.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I've long thought that the heyday of tabletop was over... at least for me. Nearing 40 and working 50 hours a week or more, the spirit is willing but the body is damn tired.

the ability to get five or six adults together in person is a pretty big obsticale to overcome and I think it'll be one of the reasons why games either need to get smaller audiences or need to go online for that instant connection.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Don't feel bad, Korgoth, I've never heard of him either, despite being in the hobby since '77 and playing in more than 100 rpg systems- including a couple of playtests- and still having 60+ on my shelf.

And I'm not surprised, since I checked out his contributions to the hobby here: . . .

That's a bit incomplete considering he's the driving force behind Adamant Entertainment itself. A different scale to be sure, it is kind of like saying Chris Pramas's impact on RPGs goes no further than his own (substantial) authoring credits and excluding his founding Green Ronin and everything it published.

He'd been a more regular poster on ENWorld at one time as well.

 

[Glyfair]

Didn't look at AD&D on its own, but there also seemed to be a sense of 'cool' attached to more modern games, alongside a sense of 'uncool' attached to older, larger brands.

I can say with certainty that D&D was considered "uncool" among those with access and willingness to play other RPGs since at least '80. This is nothing new and the RPGs had their strong time during that period.

I've long thought that the heyday of tabletop was over... at least for me. Nearing 40 and working 50 hours a week or more, the spirit is willing but the body is damn tired.

the ability to get five or six adults together in person is a pretty big obsticale to overcome and I think it'll be one of the reasons why games either need to get smaller audiences or need to go online for that instant connection.

Or will it become like bridge where the bulk of the players are the elderly and retired who have a lot more time and less ability for physical hobbies? Maybe we'll have RPG cruises and RPGs will be a staple of every retirement community.

 

[Morrus]

I can't agree with him. I feel that there are four major flaws in his line of reasoning:

1) He's not mentioning the economy as a whole in his line of thought. Restaurants, pubs, business of all kinds are closing. This doesn't mean people aren't eating, or wearing clothes, or what-have-you. This is not a phenomenon particular to the gaming industry.

2) Small speciality shops are the hardest hit by the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world. I've lost count of the umber of small grocery stores, butchers, bakers, etc. near me which have closed down due to competition with the increasing dominance of supermarkets. Small businesses closing down isn't an indicator that a industry is shrinking, it means it's consolidating.

3) Just because #5 on a list sold 3000 units doesn't mean you can conclude that #1 sold 3005 units. #4 on the list may have sold 50,000 units. We don't know.

4) ICV2s figures are not reliable. They are based on a sample of interviews only, not an any actual sales figures.

In my opinion, GMS' conclusions aren't backed up by his evidence or reasoning. I'm not saying that the market isn't shrinking - frankly, I don't know - but GMS' evidence is shaky, and his reasoning unsound, in my opinion. Based solely on the evidence he cites, I can't reach the same conclusion as he does. If he has any further information, of course, I'd be happy to read it.

 

[Mercurius]

I've long thought that the heyday of tabletop was over... at least for me. Nearing 40 and working 50 hours a week or more, the spirit is willing but the body is damn tired.

the ability to get five or six adults together in person is a pretty big obsticale to overcome and I think it'll be one of the reasons why games either need to get smaller audiences or need to go online for that instant connection.

Yes, this is true for many of us. But let's look at it another way: Is there anything you would rather be doing when you do have "hobby time"? I'm not talking about work time, family time, or even personal passion/art time, but just plain fun time.

Speaking for myself, outside of work and family, there is still a period of time each day that I can devote to stuff that I want to do. As with many serious fans of RPGs, I spend way more time thinking, reading, and conversing about RPGs than I do playing them. My current game group meets every two weeks for about four hours; I would say that I spend a good 1-3 hours daily on RPG-related activities: websites and discussion boards, reading books, working on my campaign setting, etc.

During my 28-year RPG history my focus on RPGs has ebbed and flowed; I have experience a few multi-year hiatuses from the hobby in which I didn't play at all, rarely bought or read anything. In other words, I go through active and inactive phases, but I find myself always come back to active phases. At some point within the last couple years I came to a realization: I would almost certainly always love RPGs and be a fan of some degree, at least for the foreseeable future. I kept on thinking I would grow up and out of interest, but I always come back to it. So I surrendered, fleshed out my collection, and am now happily enjoying my status as a lifer!

My point being, even when life gets busy and one can't game for years on end, the serious fans of the hobby have a way of finding themselves back to it, at some point, at some point. There might be D&D players who dwindled away in the mid-00s, didn't get drawn back by 4E, but may get sparked by 5E in a few years (or Essentials, for that matter).

This doesn't mean that RPGers aren't dwindling; I would guess that they are, but that there is a rock-solid core that will now allow the hobby or industry to die for many decades. The industry may collapse in 5-10 years, but it will almost certainly be reborn, albeit in a newer, smaller form. As any D&D player knows, death isn't always permanent. Any "collapse" that the RPG industry goes through in the near future will almost certainly be followed by a rebirth and reconfiguration in a smaller--but maybe healthier?--context.

I can't agree with him. I feel that there are four major flaws in his line of reasoning:

1) He's not mentioning the economy as a whole in his line of thought. Restaurants, pubs, business of all kinds are closing. This doesn't mean people aren't eating, or wearing clothes, or what-have-you. This is not a phenomenon particular to the gaming industry.

True. However, it seems that the "escapist entertainment industry" usually thrives in periods of economic down-turn. I would guess that people aren't seeing less movies, for instance; they are renting less, and video stores are going out of business right and left, but that is not because people are watching less, but because they are getting their movies online or in the mail.

2) Small speciality shops are the hardest hit by the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world. I've lost count of the umber of small grocery stores, butchers, bakers, etc. near me which have closed down due to competition with the increasing dominance of supermarkets. Small businesses closing down isn't an indicator that a industry is shrinking, it means it's consolidating.

Yes, exactly. See my point about about video stores, which is an appropriate analogy, I think. The main reason game stores have been dwindling away is not because people are playing less, but because they are buying elsewhere, namely online. The economic climate only increases this tendency as it makes the difference between a $35 + tax price and a $23 price all that much larger.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

In my opinion, GMS' conclusions aren't backed up by his evidence or reasoning. I'm not saying that the market isn't shrinking - frankly, I don't know - but GMS' evidence is shaky, and his reasoning unsound, in my opinion. Based solely on the evidence he cites, I can't reach the same conclusion as he does. If he has any further information, of course, I'd be happy to read it.

The publisher itself makes those numbers public. His cited evidence is really only evidence that the #5 RPG in the ranking is deeply low numbers. It isn't evidence the market as a whole is shrinking necessarily, an alternative yet plausible explanation could be that the market is consolidating into becoming a duo-opoly. The numbers from the #5 publisher don't prove nor disprove such an explanation. But our evidence to a duo-opoly is only slightly more believable, IMO.

Maybe the #1/#2 duo-opoly is growing or maybe it is shrinking. Maybe it is hoovering up the customer base that would have been more friendly towards smaller publishers.

 

[Glyfair]

The publisher itself makes those numbers public. His cited evidence is really only evidence that the #5 RPG in the ranking is deeply low numbers.

The contested information isn't his sales though, it's that he is #5. He was only placed their by a survey that is certainly based on what is considered very unreliable and selective data.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The contested information isn't his sales though, it's that he is #5.

Would it make a difference to GMS's point if it surveyed that publisher at #6? I don't think so. Maybe if the reality instead had the Dresden Files at #15, then there would be error worth a distinction.

If the difference between #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, etc., is just a few hundred units either side of a few thousand, then we have a discussion point still.

If the actual Dresden numbers of a few thousand should have had the real world rank of deep double digits, and the survey had units left uncounted by the high few thousands other published products (seriously?!), then the survey has zero utility in the industry. But I don't think the flaws in the survey are of a magnitude approaching that.

I guess I think the greater point is that the results GMS point to are more evidence of what's going on at the fringe of the statistical bell curve of market data. Like the blind men touching the different parts of an elephant pronouncing to each other when they are touching, the ends of the bell curve don't tell us what's going on in the center, nor do the ends tell us what the shape of the bell curve has taken.