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

[Dannyalcatraz]

AFAIK, it is either impossible or incredibly expensive for the VTT experience to include sharing a bottle of wine and a 7lb rib-roast with my fellow players, playing the gaming equivalent of "slugbug", or torturing your buddies with the aftereffects of your meal of a burger with onions, southern-style cabbage, and some beers...*fweeeetshhhhhh*

FTF beats VTT, 2 to 1.

 

[Hungry Like The Wolf]

The moral equivalent of all music being produced by garage bands?

A great deal of the creative strength and passion in gaming is found on the level of home craft, not in mass production. But part of the reason you have that strength is that folks were drawn in by the retail market. If you cease to have that market, you may find the home strength dissolving away.

There's an ecology to all healthy things. Every element plays a part.

I disagree, I would say that a huge percentage of gamers were brought in by somebody who already played the game.

 

[Hussar]

Why superior BryonD?

I'd totally agree that there are differences. No question there. But better? Meh. I wouldn't say that bad luck has been greater or less in FtF or online. I've seen more than my share of unfortunate experiences in both mediums.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Are we at the height of the 1980s? Probably not.

The glory days of D+D were in the late 70's-early '80's -

• The "D&D Boom": The second wave that came in during the early-to-mid 80s and numbered in the tens of millions, most of whom dwindled away in the late 80s to early 90s as they graduated high school and "grew up."

• Obviously to spur a new RPG boom, we need to bring back the most recognizable thing from the 80's: the Mullet!

 

[Beginning of the End]

Couple quick notes:

(1) The revelation that it only takes 3,000 sales of an entire product line to break the Top 5 of the RPG industry is a chilling number.

(2) Gareth, however, is being a little shifty with his numbers. Dresden Files was released at the end of June. While they've only sold 3,000 copies in Q3, note that the book only went on sale a couple of weeks before the beginning of Q3.

So what?

Well, the Top 5 list Gareth cites is based on retailer sales. Evil Hat's sales numbers for DFRPG are based on sales to distributors and directly to customers. Which means that the bulk of the 5,300 copies shipped to distributors at the end of Q2 were probably still being sold be retailers in Q3.

Admittedly, in similar fashion, books shipped to distributors at the end of Q3 would not be getting sold by retailers until Q4 or later. But Gareth also neglects to mention that the figures "omit a big hunk of September’s sales", which probably negates some of that.

In short, the numbers are probably larger than Gareth is suggesting.

But Gareth is also, IMO, pulling another fast one. He wants to condemn the entire industry to the dustbin, but he's limiting his figures to distributor sales. And while the DFRPG line has sold 8,300 copies to distributors, its actually sold a total of 15,000 copies through all sales channels.

The only message these figures really seem to convey, to my eyes at least, is that hobby stores are now making up a minority portion of the RPG industry.

 

[eyebeams]

My reply is at:

The Zombie RPG Industry | Mob | United | Malcolm | Sheppard

Basically, "death" is harped on to shift goalposts when we're talking about "descent into an irrelevant degree of attenuation" and anyone with common sense knows it, and industry activity is in no way responsible for the observable decline of broad-based interest.

Sites like this select for the hardcore. By and large hobbyists, not companies, are losing interest in tabletop RPGs.

I think many of you sense that there's something hollow about the creative direction of RPGs. The top games are all derivative and the spinoff movements are all examples of dogmatic schools of design. We're currently at the tail end of a economic meltdown compounded by an unprecedented intrusion of the values of marketing and commerce into interpersonal relationships via the Internet. Gamers are among the segment that I have observed uncritically absorbing these values and reproducing them.

The natural results: derivative games (they have a history with known quantitative metrics -- sales and hits), an obsession with system over complex player/game relationships (they can be modelled in the absence of players to make qualitative statements) and other problems. Ironically, even while gamers say they want quantitative solutions, they don't vote for them with dollars or even page views.

It's supposed to be all about the numbers, but the numbers say you don't care about the industry *or* hobby -- or anything in between.

 

[eyebeams]

But Gareth is also, IMO, pulling another fast one. He wants to condemn the entire industry to the dustbin, but he's limiting his figures to distributor sales. And while the DFRPG line has sold 8,300 copies to distributors, its actually sold a total of 15,000 copies through all sales channels.

There is a reason why book trade sales aren't counted.

 

[Hussar]

I think many of you sense that there's something hollow about the creative direction of RPGs. The top games are all derivative and the spinoff movements are all examples of dogmatic schools of design. We're currently at the tail end of a economic meltdown compounded by an unprecedented intrusion of the values of marketing and commerce into interpersonal relationships via the Internet. Gamers are among the segment that I have observed uncritically absorbing these values and reproducing them.

The natural results: derivative games (they have a history with known quantitative metrics -- sales and hits), an obsession with system over complex player/game relationships (they can be modelled in the absence of players to make qualitative statements) and other problems. Ironically, even while gamers say they want quantitative solutions, they don't vote for them with dollars or even page views.

Hang on a tick here. Derivitive games are something new to the hobby? Since when? I mean it how many D&D look alikes were there out during the 1980's? And many, many RPG's have their basics grounded in the same place as D&D. While there has certainly been innovation within RPG's, there's been precious little invention.

Trying to claim that games now are any more derivative (something I completely reject with the whole Indie movement alive and strong) now than they were thirty years ago as some sort of sign that the hobby is dying is not something I'd agree with.

If anything, I'd say that creativity today is equal to any other time in the hobby. Gamers have thousands of games to choose from, ranging from old standbye's to way out there, pass the story stick style games.

What I would say has changed is the amount of information freely available and being passed around through the hobby. Once upon a time, you only saw a tiny fraction of what was out there and you couldn't really discuss anything with anyone beyond your small circle of friends. Today, games come out and are held up to a level of scrutiny that pre-Internet never existed. And, those doing the scrutiny are educated enough in the nuts and bolts of game design to make informed criticisms of what's being looked at.

Beyond the very beginning in the 1970's, when were the top games in RPG's NOT "examples of dogmatic schools of design"? Isn't "dogmatic schools of design" just another way to spin the movement from amateur "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" approaches to the professional "We know X and Y don't work because it's been done (possibly many times) before, so, we're going to go with Z"?

 

[eyebeams]

Hang on a tick here. Derivitive games are something new to the hobby? Since when?

The top 5 are 2 versions of D&D and 3 licensed IP games. That represents basic creative failure.

Isn't "dogmatic schools of design" just another way to spin the movement from amateur "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" approaches to the professional "We know X and Y don't work because it's been done (possibly many times) before, so, we're going to go with Z"?

No, it's the other way around. Dogma is very much an amateur thing. Ask yourself who produces the screeds. Basically, community movements ask permission and fulfill expectations. That's a creative failure mode but it plays online because it satisfies the social network. But it will not break out as much as something that adds something new.

 

[Beginning of the End]

There is a reason why book trade sales aren't counted.

Would you care to unpack this? I'm pretty sure you're spouting nonsense, but I'd like you to confirm exactly what sort of nonsense it is before I dismantle it.