How does the TTRPG industry works?

[Marc_C]

You don't need to collect and build armies of Player's Handbooks!

Indeed.

RPGs is probably one of the most inexpensive forms of group entertainment. Some old gamers didn't buy anything after the Basic and Expert set boxes.

Not good for the industry tho. That is why we are seing a 'boardification' of some RPGs with icon dice, cards and other stuff.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You don't need to collect and build armies of Player's Handbooks!

But I DO have an army of them!

 

[happyhermit]

...
RPGs is probably one of the most inexpensive forms of group entertainment. Some old gamers didn't buy anything after the Basic and Expert set boxes.

Not good for the industry tho. That is why we are seing a 'boardification' of some RPGs with icon dice, cards and other stuff.

Yeah, I spend a fair bit on ttrpgs, most of it not at all necessary to actual play but I have GM'ed for MANY people who never bought anything. A lot of people assume that everyone will think "It's the right thing to do" but IME very few people see it that way.

I know I would never feel guilty about not buying a copy of a boardgame for myself after I sat down and played it at a friend's house.

Somewhat more to the topic, I have personally found that with new players, especially those with very little "nerdy" experience (for example I have ran games for 5 different generations of my family) simplicity of the rules is not as important for ease of play as the GM-player relationship. Some games that are relatively straightforward mechanically have actually proved less successful with new players than D&D 5e IME due to several factors but one of the biggest has been how the game runs when a players simply wants to describe their actions and the GM interprets it mechanically.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

TTRPG industry is a "little fish" but I guess the complete entertaiment industry, comics, Hollywood and videogames are going to change radically in a comingsoon future. Japanese manga is sold better than Marvel and DC. Videogame studios start to show signals to be "burnt". The gamers don't want to spend a lot of money in a new AAA title every year. Cinemas theatres are being replaced with the streaming services, even before the pandemic, and the saturation will cause satiety.

The IPs of the TTRPG have got a great potential in the digital market. Maybe some videogame studios or movie producers will buy TTRPG publishers to be "laboratories of ideas". Some parents will buy TTRPGs for their children to stop always playing videogames and promoting creativity.

 

[aramis erak]

TTRPG industry is a "little fish" but I guess the complete entertaiment industry, comics, Hollywood and videogames are going to change radically in a comingsoon future. Japanese manga is sold better than Marvel and DC.

Manga covers a dozen different genres... Marvel and DC barely step outside the Supers Genre. (not that they don't have any. Marvel has Star Wars again.
Meanwhile, Manga (and it's video partner, Anime) is a medium label, not a genre. It's the same type of term as "Four-Color Comics" or "Black and White Comics".
I've seen manga that are romances (including straight, homosexual, and even pushing into porn), that are non-supers action-adventure, non-supers modern comedies, limited supers in a normals setting (Oh My Goddess, Urusei Yatsura), Several flavors of Sci-Fi (including some of the best Star Trek comics).

The Comics Code being truly dead now, more and more manga are becoming available.

The IPs of the TTRPG have got a great potential in the digital market. Maybe some videogame studios or movie producers will buy TTRPG publishers to be "laboratories of ideas". Some parents will buy TTRPGs for their children to stop always playing videogames and promoting creativity.

Which is, at least in the US, not nearly as common as gamers would like to think. There is a significant minority of the religious/political right wing in the US that's still anti-game. Some of the kids locally in college mention that their parents not only don't know, but would shun them if they found out about their playing D&D. And their parents are members of large sects in the US. Several sects still preach against games of all kinds, save those specific few that help with learning scripture or specific life skills.

Some of the folk who moved to Oregon for or just after college have done so to escape religious social oppression in small towns in the "Deep South" (Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Alabama), including anti-gaming sentiments and anti-gamer violence. I've met kids who were exposed to anti-gamer violence in Alaska as recently as 2014. Mostly at home.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Not all the American comic is superheroes, a good example is Sin City by Mark Miller but Marvel and DC are the biggest fishes. And manga is becoming very popular. How many numbers of Demon Slayer/Kimetsu no Yaiba are sold if we compare the chipres?

I am Spanish, and here the image from USA through the main media is practically only New York and California.

The RPGs don't promote the ocultism, but it caues the opposite effect. When the players want to be magic supeheroes throwing fireballs and lighting bolts the real esoterism becomes boring like the classic mythology. I can understand the campain against the ultraviolence in the videogames, but here the key should be to promote the respect for the human dignity. Then the publishers will notice the audence would rather "family-friendly" titles where parents can play with their children.

My opinion is the TTRPGs will become a great influence in the videogame industry because lots of players don't want more "martian-killers" or "space invaders" but games about creating, building, or with your own tools to create a new story. The subgenre of virtual tabletop will increase the presence. And the studios will be for the "metaverse", linked titles. If a title fails the bought cosmetic will can be used in other titles of the same metaverse.

We will see more streaming game-live shows as Critical Role. They are relatively easy and cheap to be produced. Even some of these will be a mixture of virtual avatars with some machinima scenes (for example when the final boss appears). Other mode will be like a virtual tabletop with a special editor quests in the way "choose your own adventure". Here youtube could launch interactive videos.