Sean K. Reynolds talks RPG salaries, puts his on record.

[J.Quondam]

I'll give you an example: burglaries impact homeowners insurance rates, and developers' interest in given areas. Therefore, most, if not all, police departments in the USA are careful not to report burglaries at a rate which would disturb either insurance adjusters or developers. (Because that would upset the City Council).

But, having spent my entire working life literally working with, training in, and teaching about, evidence, I can assure you with complete confidence that there are literal mountains of purely objective evidence.

Admittedly, I have to wonder why anyone should trust "objective" evidence collected by the same law enforcement that also freely lies about crime statistics?

 

[Myrdin Potter]

Morrus already tried a Twitter poll on what (I answered it).

I can look at drivethru and dmsguild and get a quick sense of what creators think is the right price to sell their product. I guess it would not be a terrible task to compile price per page and color vs. B&W and see what it comes out to, if someone really cared.

I tend to be willing to pay more for quirky but interesting to me products and more for developers that I have a fair amount of respect for their skill (Kevin Crawford is the best example - I just spent $80 for an offset print version of Stars without Number).

Generally, $4.99 to $9.99 for PDF modules. $19.99 for a printed adventure and $30 to $50 for a book about the size of the standard WoTC ones. There are so many cheaper sources of PDF - Bundle of Holding and Humble Bundle - that it is easy to get a lot of material at a real cheap price.

I have more material than I could ever run at this point and have dramatically scaled back.

 

[TheSword]

Earlier in this thread you rejected any quantitative measure of urbanization, citing disbelief in any method of generating statistics. But now you're proposing trying to get complex numbers from an internet poll? I don't get it.



I get that this is a joke, but "Payments and Properties" is seriously a much better selling game than "Dungeons and Dragons". Did you know that Monopoly is a bigger division of Hasbro than WotC (including D&D and MtG combined)?

It may be a bigger division, but last I heard WOC alone makes 35% more profit than every other game and toy Hasbro makes combined. Maybe they should consider scaling down their monopoly division

 

[Jd Smith1]

Admittedly, I have to wonder why anyone should trust "objective" evidence collected by the same law enforcement that also freely lies about crime statistics?

Its not lying in any sense.

The beauty of the various database reporting systems in place, is that they are purely voluntary, and there is no penalty of any sort regarding the information provided or withheld, or even for refusing to participate. Each agency (of the 56,000-odd agencies involved) will choose its own interpretation of the parameters. There are, after all, 50 separate legal codes involved, each with wholly different terms and definitions for given crimes, so the data is going to be subjectively combined at the finished level in any case.

In court, on the other hand, criminal penalties abound for anything other than the facts. Of course, what facts are to be reported is the prerogative of the court, at the prompting of the prosecuting agency, not the police.

In short, it is an issue of venue. There are databases built for image, and there are databases for hard data. You'll find the same at every level of government and especially the military.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

I am not really sure why people are arguing about one person’s belief about data integrity.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I am not really sure why people are arguing about one person’s belief about data integrity.

I am endlessly fascinating.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

People might say the same about board games, but there is another high end luxury board game out every month charging £60+

Never underestimate humankind’s capacity to want things, and ingenuity in providing things for other people to want!

Board games are a different market, though, with different dynamics, for a lot of different reasons. They also have a larger customer base, and are stocked in more brick-and-mortar stores than non-D&D ttrpgs. Board games are things that you can play in a few hours (or a long evening) and finish, so it is easier to put together a group of friends and talk them into playing them. It is a much harder to convince a given group of people to try out a new rpg on a Friday night if the group isn't made up of rpg players. A lot of people can be talked into boardgames, though (even the complex ones) because that is something they grew up playing.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Board games are a different market, though, with different dynamics, for a lot of different reasons. They also have a larger customer base, and are stocked in more brick-and-mortar stores than non-D&D ttrpgs. Board games are things that you can play in a few hours (or a long evening) and finish, so it is easier to put together a group of friends and talk them into playing them. It is a much harder to convince a given group of people to try out a new rpg on a Friday night if the group isn't made up of rpg players. A lot of people can be talked into boardgames, though (even the complex ones) because that is something they grew up playing.

Good points.

 

[Gilladian]

Are you talking about dollar figures, or in real terms?

Dollar figures. In real terms, I would say I have gone from just paying my bills to comfortable for 2adults, no kids. We do have excellent benefits, but they are the same as they’ve been the whole of my career.

 

[aramis erak]

It does for a lot of people. It is hard to qualify data for a nation of 300 million. For example, in dense urban areas and states with a crippling tax burden, such as California, the cost of housing will erode salaries faster than inflation.

Elsewhere in the nation, salaries are doing well.

For example, I retired in my 50s, debt- and mortgage-free, and own a lake-front home on sizeable acreage, all from a job that only requires a high school diploma.

Pay is not the critical issue, but rather, the cost of living. I live in a state with no state income tax, a healthy economy, and decent (for the most part) leadership.

Thje census data implies quite strongly otherwise, on average and mean income. The CPI is raising faster than the mean and average income per the census' preferred "CPI-U-RS" - on both measures, the decrease is evident. Using other measures of the CPI, the mean is WELL below the CPI (~8%), while the median has gone up a a strong bit faster (~8% more) this tends to indicate losses at the upper end and/or gains at the low end; we know, however, that the wealthiest have had some pretty good gains in the last decade...

AEIR 2000-2020 CPI increase 150.3% {1}
BLS CPI increase Jan 2000 to Jan 2020 152.83% {2}
Mean Income 2000 2000US$57,045 {3} 2020 2020US$83,691 {4} 146.71%
Median income 2000 2000US$42,148, {3} 2020 2020US$67,521 {4} 160.2 %
2020 US Adjusted Dollars per Census {4} 2000 median 2020US$63292 2020 median 2020US$59640, 2000 mean 2020US$86120 2020 mean 2020US$83691


{1} Cost of Living Calculator: What is Your Dollar Worth Today?
{2} CPI Inflation Calculator
{3} https://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p60-213.pdf
{4} Income and Poverty in the United States: 2020