Gaming vrs Toy Trains

[Desdichado]

I don't regret it at all; model railroading is cool! I wish I had the time, space and money to devote to it. It's a lot bigger investment than gaming in at least the first two and most likely all three.

 

[Scribble]

By the way I don't think model railroaders want their hobby to be called toy trains any more than we want our hobby to be called playing make-believe with action figures.

You know how in all the alien invasion movies the threat of annihilation from an outside race of non humans fores humanity to get over their petty differences and unite to fight the nigh unstoppable foe?

I think in order to overcome all the edition warring we should treat model railroaders as our alien species, and unite to combat the dark forces of ummm little plastic buildings that light up.

Who's with me?!?!?!

Ghost it's time for you to choose sides, are you with us, or are you anti gamerica????

(Don't you be tryin to pull any of that Benedict Arnold stuff on us either!)

 

[The Ghost]

Ghost it's time for you to choose sides, are you with us, or are you anti gamerica????

(Don't you be tryin to pull any of that Benedict Arnold stuff on us either!)

Ha! Maybe I'll run Masque of the Red Death and use my layout as the battle map? Then I get to do both!

 

[thalmin]

Where do you think the ideas for Eberron came from?

 

[Umbran]

There are many manufacturers of trains and train accessories and the products range in price from fairly inexpensive to "whoa nelly!"

Wikipedia probably isn't exhaustive, and they list something like 144 of them.

Imagine if our hobby had 144 RPG game companies. We'd never be able to wade through all the games and content!

 

[Jan van Leyden]

I'm pretty sure that the turnover of model train manufacturers is way above those of the roleplaying game publishers: Märklin, the largest German manufacturer, had a turnover of some 140 million US$ in 2008. That would be roughly 10 million D&D core rulebooks... The problem is the bottom line which is easily bloody red with this turnover.

Train may have a very similar problem compared to roleplaying games: the consumers get older and grow grey hair. The answer of the industry has been to produce more and more different models in low numbers, pushing the limits of detailing, thus increasing the prices of their products so far that only elder people with lots of disposable income can afford the hobby.

By the way: Märklin has been sold twice within the last 15 months to different investors.

So yes, the train hobby has a larger turnover, a dwindling customer base, and probably still more members.

All this of course IMHO and from a German perspective.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I have to give major props to the model railroaders. If it wasn't for them, I likely would not be a gamer. The hobby store where I first encountered D&D and a large group of us played each week as kids was called the Village Depot and was focused primarily on that hobby.

Of course just like gaming stores, the Village Depot is now a dry cleaners and the local model railroading club orders their stuff online.

 

[ggroy]

Wikipedia probably isn't exhaustive, and they list something like 144 of them.

Imagine if our hobby had 144 RPG game companies. We'd never be able to wade through all the games and content!

Looking through drivethrurpg, there must at least several hundred rpg publishers listed. Though many of them on that list look like small operations with less than 10 titles published. (Many are probably pdf-only with no print or pod).

 

[arscott]

Bicycles outnumber airplanes to an astronomical degree, but I'd bet that Boeing and Lockheed-Martin make more money than Schwinn and Huffy. Which would you consider bigger?

So it is with gaming and model trains. I think you'll find many more gamers than train hobbyists, but the train hobby industry likely has better sales, simply based on the cost of their products.

Then, of course, there are the rail boardgames...