The Monetization of D&D Play

[Hussar]

If Monopoly can survive without monetization then so can table top gaming

Slight difference though. It doesn't take dozens and dozens of hours to prepare a game of Monopoly, nor is any one person at the table responsible for routinely providing the game and without whom the game (i.e. campaign) cannot be played.

Good grief, we pay little league coaches. Even ref's and umpires at many children's sporting events get paid. Why is the idea of paying a DM such a bizarre notion?

 

[Celebrim]

If Monopoly can survive without monetization then so can table top gaming

If Monopoly hadn't been monetized, you wouldn't remember it. Indeed, you don't remember it. You only remember the monetized Parker Brothers version that popularized it, and which has been licensed out into every imaginable variation. Go to any college campus in the United States, and you'll find the logo'd version of 'Monopoly' complete with the streets and landmarks of that college. Tell me again how Monopoly survived without monetization?

 

[FrogReaver]

If Monopoly hadn't been monetized, you wouldn't remember it. Indeed, you don't remember it. You only remember the monetized Parker Brothers version that popularized it, and which has been licensed out into every imaginable variation. Go to any college campus in the United States, and you'll find the logo'd version of 'Monopoly' complete with the streets and landmarks of that college. Tell me again how Monopoly survived without monetization?

You buy the monopoly game one time and play it. There is no extra monetization to be found there outside the initial sale and replacement sales.

That's even worse than the monetization D&D has with releasing new supplementary books etc. Monopoly is just fine with the sale and be done with it model. No reason D&D won't be just fine with that same model.

Speaking of. You are fairly smart. Surely you didn't think I meant that Monopoly isn't monetized at all, because that would mean it was never sold (that would be an awfully idiotic thing to suggest). No this discussion was not about the initial sales of products like D&D 5e and Monopoly. It was about monetizing the playing of the game after the initial sales which Monopoly most assuredly does not do and it does just fine.

 

[FrogReaver]

Slight difference though. It doesn't take dozens and dozens of hours to prepare a game of Monopoly, nor is any one person at the table responsible for routinely providing the game and without whom the game (i.e. campaign) cannot be played.

Good grief, we pay little league coaches. Even ref's and umpires at many children's sporting events get paid. Why is the idea of paying a DM such a bizarre notion?

Because D&D is a game amongst friends and any friend at any time can pick up some slack and DM if needed. We don't monetize our friendships. We do sometimes offer tokens of gratitude though.

 

[Celebrim]

You buy the monopoly game one time and play it. There is no extra monetization to be found there outside the initial sale and replacement sales.

That's even worse than the monetization D&D has with releasing new supplementary books etc. Monopoly is just fine with the sale and be done with it model. No reason D&D won't be just fine with that same model.

Speaking of. You are fairly smart. Surely you didn't think I meant that Monopoly isn't monetized at all, because that would mean it was never sold (that would be an awfully idiotic thing to suggest). No this discussion was not about the initial sales of products like D&D 5e and Monopoly. It was about monetizing the playing of the game after the initial sales which Monopoly most assuredly does not do and it does just fine.

Sure. And if the experience of playing D&D and the experience of playing monopoly where one and the same, then you'd be absolutely right.

Analogies are always suspect, but you do realize that D&D is played on a different hand crafted board each and every single time it is played for each and every group that ever played it? And you do realize that the game can require hundreds or thousands of hours to play, such that it is an achievement to get the same people together week after week, year after week, to keep the game going on?

And so successful RPGs monetize tools to help people make those boards, not because they are greedy SOBs tricking people into buying supplements and modules and setting guides, but because people want those things. Because there is demand for those things. And the people that make those things are laboring to make themselves useful to their community. And we reimburse them for those things not because they cruelly demand payment from them, but because we are grateful and we want them to be able to keep doing it.

 

[Sunseeker]

Slight difference though. It doesn't take dozens and dozens of hours to prepare a game of Monopoly, nor is any one person at the table responsible for routinely providing the game and without whom the game (i.e. campaign) cannot be played.

Good grief, we pay little league coaches. Even ref's and umpires at many children's sporting events get paid. Why is the idea of paying a DM such a bizarre notion?

Not to mention, there's a bazillion forms of Monopoly and it also includes micro-transactions (buying new pieces).

 

[FrogReaver]

Sure. And if the experience of playing D&D and the experience of playing monopoly where one and the same, then you'd be absolutely right.

Analogies are always suspect, but you do realize that D&D is played on a different hand crafted board each and every single time it is played for each and every group that ever played it? And you do realize that the game can require hundreds or thousands of hours to play, such that it is an achievement to get the same people together week after week, year after week, to keep the game going on?

And so successful RPGs monetize tools to help people make those boards, not because they are greedy SOBs tricking people into buying supplements and modules and setting guides, but because people want those things. Because there is demand for those things. And the people that make those things are laboring to make themselves useful to their community. And we reimburse them for those things not because they cruelly demand payment from them, but because we are grateful and we want them to be able to keep doing it.

I can't tell if you are talking about supplementary material or paying DM's. Maybe you can clarify?

 

[Hussar]

Because D&D is a game amongst friends and any friend at any time can pick up some slack and DM if needed. We don't monetize our friendships. We do sometimes offer tokens of gratitude though.

That might be true for you but is far from universal. AL for example is not gaming with friends. Putting up an ad and building a group from strangers is not gaming with friends. Building a group from strangers over Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20 isn’t gaming with friends.

Considering the widespread use of all these options, gaming with friends is very much not the only gaming going on.

I see zero problem with the notion of paying someone to provide weekly entertainment.

 

[FrogReaver]

That might be true for you but is far from universal. AL for example is not gaming with friends. Putting up an ad and building a group from strangers is not gaming with friends. Building a group from strangers over Fantasy Grounds or Roll 20 isn’t gaming with friends.

Considering the widespread use of all these options, gaming with friends is very much not the only gaming going on.

I see zero problem with the notion of paying someone to provide weekly entertainment.

If you want to draw a distinction between gaming with friends and not gaming with friends and still maintain that friends shouldn't pay each other then I'm a lot more interested. It's just that some on this thread have pushed for even Dm's that are friends to be paid. I and others are wholeheartedly against that.

 

[Iry]

It's just that some on this thread have pushed for even Dm's that are friends to be paid.

I might have missed it, but after poking through the thread again I don't think anyone has advocated that DM's should charge money even if they want to continue offering their services for free.