Dancey resigns as GAMA Treasurer

[barsoomcore]

Came a little late to the "Awards Should Be Based On Sales" party, but here's my three cents:

Industry awards are marketing tools. They're intended to either market the products and companies receiving the awards, or they're intended to market some other set of products by trading on the popularity of the products being awarded. The Oscars are meant to market movies. The People's Choice Awards are meant to market the advertiser's products through association with the movies getting nominated.

As such, using sales figures as a formal criteria for nomination is just kind of dumb. You want some big sellers in there, otherwise nobody will pay attention to your awards, but you also need to have small sellers, too, otherwise there's very little advantage to the awards in the first place.

People tune in to the Oscars because they want to see the stars from the year's big blockbuster, but the real marketing advantage is to the smaller films that get to share the spotlight with those big boys. The big boys have already made their money, but just getting nominated can have a big impact on a small film's income.

You need some sort of association, reasonably broad, to examine the year's products and select a bunch of nominees, and then some winners from among them. Assuming you have a reasonable mix of brains and common sense you'll GET lots of the big sellers -- because they're probably pretty good books, if they sold so well. Hopefully you'll also get a few quirky things from small publishers, too, because they could really use the lift from a win. But ultimately you want a mix -- enough big boys to attract public interest, and enough small fry to make the awards worthwhile to the industry as a whole.

But it's not rocket science. And there's not some magic formula that will guarantee meaningful awards. To heck with the Origins Awards -- it's the ENNies that actually mean something.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Just want to throw in a comment on awards. Well, more like just add an additional comment to barsoomcore's comments.

I would agree that awards tend to have very little impact on the sales of whatever it is that's winning the award. In some cases it will bring a dark horse to light, and something will gain popularity after the fact.

However, that argument is incomplete because it doesn't take into account future sales of a product. Being able to say that your company/actor/director/designer/what-have-you has won an award, let alone a number of awards, gives you a good degree of credibility which will drive sales of future products. That's why on TV there's all those commercials about how X person won or was even nominated for Y awards.

So in the end awards shows are quite important, especially to the lesser known companies in the business. Discounting them because of their short-term use is vastly short-changing them... even something as big as the Oscars.

 

[eyebeams]

Actually, I think you were on to the problem, but then took a wrong turn.

The key to the casual gamers is the book trade. The book trade is where WotC sells lots of D&D books. My theory right now is that the problem with the book trade lies in re-orders. I'd be surprised in any d20 book receives orders beyond the initial allotment from Borders. OTOH, the core D&D books remain in stock.

The book trade is too difficult for d20 publishers to really break into, plus you need to have a really sharp product because of returns.

However, if D&D was to suddenly disappear from shelves, in time something would take its place. Remember, in 1974 the D&D basic set sold all of 1,000 copies. It takes time to build up a player network, and it takes just as long for it to die off due to attrition and turn over. The key is, you want those kids who would be into RPGs to pick up your game.

Name recongition isn't what sells D&D to new players. Other players are what sells D&D to new players. The gaming market isn't shrinking. It's pretty much been in stasis since 1989. The key is, the number of people who buy games tends to fluctuate based on what the market has to offer.

I think that without a rallying point, current gamers are not really going to push a single new game or even push a new game at all. If D&D tanked, you'd have a lot of people who'll play with their 3.0/3.5 books. I think the demographic of folks playing alternatives is not going to be in their early teens, and that's the group that starts D&D. Hitting the book trade isn't necessarily even going to be a question until, as you say, that fanbase builds up. I'm just not sure we can bank on the kind of growth we saw when D&D was brand new. Reorders are definitely a problem for booksellers, I think, given that my experience with shopping in book chains confirms the idea.

I do think the number of people both buying and playing games is shrinking, but not necessarily in direct proportion to each other.

 

[Desdichado]

I'm sorry, Umbran, but your argument seems full of unprovable (and unlikely) assumptions that ultimately sinks it. You hold out late era TSR as a company that wasn't sunk by poor sales, yet offer no concrete example of why it did sink. You also state that the products were indeed poor, and it's common knowledge (although also an assumption, at the end of the day) that TSR's market share was being rabidly eaten away by the likes of White Wolf and others in the early/mid 90s. You also ignore the statements made by WotC personnel about the demise of TSR based on their due dilligence done when they bought them.

Granted, that analysis was mostly done by Dancey, and given the original topic of the thread, you may have reason to doubt his credibility. But then, in place of his evidence, you quote Gary Gygax, who was not involved in TSR management at the time and has no reason to know if they were making golden parachute strategies, or if their product was what sank them. In addition, as the ousted former head guy, he certainly has questionable credibility when expressing his opinion on the management strategies at TSR.

I think it a fair assumption, based on industry professionals who were involved in the sale of TSR at the time, that TSR indeed sank itself due to product that was either poor in quality or at least poor in terms of meeting customer needs.

And ultimately, that's what this whole discussion, tangents aside, has been about for the last several pages. The Origins Awards have been notorious amongst those who pay attention to them as being a bit of a fake award in a way; it doesn't mean anything other than you were able to play the GAMA politics games very well.

I've already stated my doubts about using sales as a substitute, but certainly GAMA could do worse than to start with the big sellers when nominating games for awards; usually there's a reason they're big sellers, and despite the many claims to the contrary here, the external factors do not completely wash out the correllation between high sales and a good product.

Also, you state (correctly) that free market economic theory doesn't play out in reality, citing a number of short term examples. However, in the long run, typically free market economic theory does show itself. Gamers may buy poor product not really knowing what it is, but after a while they won't continue to do so. In the long run, market inefficiencies correct themselves.

 

[mearls]

Awards are tricky. For them to have any value, they have to have value with the fans. The absolute worst thing that an award can hear from the public is "I don't recognize many of these games."

The problem is that all of the industry awards are Internet based. The 'net has a tremendous leveling effect. It tends to draw out extreme opinions and muffle common ones. It also doesn't take much for a meme to catch hold and roll through a forum, particular since most online RPG discussion boards are dominated by a hardcore of 50 or so users. So, by using the Internet to conduct voting you have a skewed image of what gamers actually use and buy.

On top of this, RPG awards have no effect on sales for large or small companies. The typical RPG book sees most of its sales on the first 2 or 3 months. A publisher should expect to move about 75% of his print run in the first month and the rest in the next few months. A few exceptional products continue to sell well over the course of the long term.

By the time the award comes out, it's too late. On top of that, chances are that anyone who pays attention to the awards has already been exposed to the product. There's not much of a sales bounce to be found there. For years, the Origins Awards have recognized plenty of small press games. The ENnies have done the same. Yet, those nominees and winners are still decidedly small press or fringe.

What RPG awards really come down to is this - they're a chance for creators to feel good about themselves. The small companies with poor sales need them to justify their continued effort with little monetary gain. The big companies have nothing but trouble to gain from taking part in the process. They either win, which is what everyone expected so it doesn't mean anything, or they lose, which makes them look bad.

I'm not surprised that WotC didn't take part in the ENnies. I'm curious to see if they enter next year, and I'm very curious to see how this hurts the awards. It's very odd to note that ENnie related threads have drawn more interest on RPG.net than here on EN World. If you compare it to other threads on this site in terms of views and unique users taking part in the discussion, it's very interesting.

I am willing to bet, though, that when the average D&D gamer looks at that list of nominees and sees very little that they recognize and nothing from WotC, that they're far more likely to write off the awards than to start hunting down the nominees.

 

[Desdichado]

Yes, but that interest at rpg.net is either nominated authors/publishers "thanking the Academy" so to speak, or ENWorld regulars, including the judges, chiming in on the choices. I'm not sure that interest at rpg.net is all that relevent, as I haven't seen how it affects folks other than those two groups really.

 

[mearls]

I do think the number of people both buying and playing games is shrinking, but not necessarily in direct proportion to each other.

This is the key - in it's first year, AU has sold as many copies, if not more, than Twilight 2000 and Paranoia in their first years. There are plenty of people willing to buy games, but few games they want to buy.

This is the key to understanding the d20 market - Atlas and Green Ronin had d20 modules available the day D&D 3e entered the market. Green Ronin is still in the d20 business. Atlas got out. Finding the line that separates those two is the key to finding the foundation of what makes d20 tick. And after that, you need to look at Mongoose and Malhavoc, the two big d20 companies that got into the game relatively late, yet surged past everyone else. Those are your other two big d20 companies. Again, you have to ask yourself what separates them. The answers are all out there. It's just a matter of finding the data and slicing it up the right way.

The key to any game that would arise after D&D lies in the player networks. Right now amongst d20 companies, I'd say that Sword & Sorcery, including Malhavoc and Necromancer, is probably in the best position to step into that hole. They key would be finding designers who understand what makes D&D tick.

The really funny thing is, when you look at what's out there, AU is really the only popular non-D&D fantasy game. Every other big d20 company either has a non-fantasy game or a setting for D&D. Nobody else has a complete fantasy game that's been a breakout hit.

What surprises me is that more people don't think that's really weird. Then again, I thought it was really strange that nobody did class books until Mongoose released them in 2002.

 

[MerricB]

Then again, I thought it was really strange that nobody did class books until Mongoose released them in 2002.

Q.Fighter was released in 2001, I think.

Cheers!

 

[Umbran]

I'm sorry, Umbran, but your argument seems full of unprovable (and unlikely) assumptions that ultimately sinks it.

At that, I must shrug. Believe Dancey, believe Gygax, believe who you wish. As far as I've seen, everyone who has written on the subject has a reason for doing so, and therefore the testimony is suspect. Only their barbers know for sure.

I think it a fair assumption, based on industry professionals who were involved in the sale of TSR at the time, that TSR indeed sank itself due to product that was either poor in quality or at least poor in terms of meeting customer needs.

The point was that the poor product was actually not the root issue. Gygax's testimony about events before he left the company strongly suggests that the folks who wound up in charge didn't have the company's long-term best interests as their primary motivation, and the mediocre product was merely one resulting symptom. And that's all my argument really requires - the occasional company that doesn't act in it's own best interests.

Also, you state (correctly) that free market economic theory doesn't play out in reality, citing a number of short term examples. However, in the long run, typically free market economic theory does show itself.

In the long run, meaning multiple years. In larger industires it can be a decade or more. For purposes of discussing yearly awards, this is not meaningful or useful. On the short term, economic advantage from being big can and does swamp the signal.

 

[eyebeams]

This is the key to understanding the d20 market - Atlas and Green Ronin had d20 modules available the day D&D 3e entered the market. Green Ronin is still in the d20 business. Atlas got out. Finding the line that separates those two is the key to finding the foundation of what makes d20 tick.

There will always some saleable things that are going to be less saleable than other saleable things. Dynasties and Demagogues just isn't going to seel as well as a book about a PC race. Sometimes, taking thid direction can reap a reward. Sometimes it can't. I'd Say GR had a commitment to serving D&D's conventions on their own terms. Naturally, this would be a prerequisite for any D&D successor.

And after that, you need to look at Mongoose and Malhavoc, the two big d20 companies that got into the game relatively late, yet surged past everyone else. Those are your other two big d20 companies. Again, you have to ask yourself what separates them.

Malhavoc had name recognition and built a reputation with smaller, solid products before putting AU out. I'll be polite about Mongoose for now.

The key to any game that would arise after D&D lies in the player networks. Right now amongst d20 companies, I'd say that Sword & Sorcery, including Malhavoc and Necromancer, is probably in the best position to step into that hole. They key would be finding designers who understand what makes D&D tick.

Sure.

The really funny thing is, when you look at what's out there, AU is really the only popular non-D&D fantasy game. Every other big d20 company either has a non-fantasy game or a setting for D&D. Nobody else has a complete fantasy game that's been a breakout hit.

Exalted sells quite nicely, but I don't think any other company could pull that off.

What surprises me is that more people don't think that's really weird. Then again, I thought it was really strange that nobody did class books until Mongoose released them in 2002.

I think the assumption was that WotC's thin classbooks would be the go-to for that kind of niche. WotC has beeen quite good about not trumping these specialized class books and such; even the new hardcovers seem to be sufficiently different to allow the niche products to survive.