Growing an RPG?

[fireinthedust]

I've been wondering about how RPG companies go from being (hopefully) a bunch of GMs sitting around a table with houserules, to a mega-monster company like Paizo with legions of rabid fans.

What makes the leap?

1) Conventions: getting people to come out and play the game?

2) Internet ads: banners like ENworld?

3) Free material: get people started/hooked and go from there? Make a name for yourself?

4) (Other)

I'd really like to know what helps.

 

[Yora]

I think it really depends entirely on what you want to make, and where you want to get with it.

I assume lots of all those small "companies" are actually just people who do some homebrew work and stick "Rolling Dice Games" on the first page of the PDF they put online for 3$.
On the other hand, I assume many of the bigger companies started with "I want to start a business which will be my main source of income." That works entirely differently.

 

[Mark CMG]

I've been wondering about how RPG companies go from being (hopefully) a bunch of GMs sitting around a table with houserules, to a mega-monster company like Paizo with legions of rabid fans.

I'll let you know.

 

[fireinthedust]

On the other hand, I assume many of the bigger companies started with "I want to start a business which will be my main source of income." That works entirely differently.

How so? I'm all ears.

 

[Yora]

The legal part is really easy, at least for what I can say about Germany. And I assume that it's even a lot more simple almost anywhere else in the world, espcially under common law.

The greatest obstacle is to get funding. You will have lots of costs way before you get any income, so you can't just start at zero, but need to find a way to raise the monney. Bank may give you a loan, but they probably want some reassurance that they will ever get it back. So unless you want to be in permanent debt, you better have a really good product that you can sell in quantities great enough to get even and also make a profit.

Don't know about the number, but lots of small companies start as small businesses and then realize after two years that they don't make any profits are are closed again. If lots of money is involved, it is almost mandatory to make the business a seperate legal entiry. So if the business fails and is broke, they can't get to your private money to get their money back. However, I know of a lot of small to medium businesses here that don't. But if your business is successful, that isn't really a problem. Only when it doesn't work out you really have one.
Problem is, that many people won't be willing to deal with you if they are not sure they will ever get paid. So they will demand cash upfront before giving you anything. Which is why you need a considerable batch of money to start with.

 

[Nagol]

It seems to require some form of network externality.

Paizo was able to leverage their already in-place network from the magazines.

Early companies were able to quickly develop enough of a network from linkages to other fads/social movments (White Wolf with goth, Uni-system with zombies) or being first in an unexploited niche with a good-enough product.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've been wondering about how RPG companies go from being (hopefully) a bunch of GMs sitting around a table with houserules, to a mega-monster company like Paizo with legions of rabid fans.

What makes the leap?

1) Conventions: getting people to come out and play the game?

2) Internet ads: banners like ENworld?

3) Free material: get people started/hooked and go from there? Make a name for yourself?

4) (Other)

I'd really like to know what helps.

All of these things are essentially for any rpg company. S this is baseline stuff you have to do just to sell 100 books a year. I think what sets success stories apart from others is a combo of money, timing, luck, the right product, and money.

 

[Yora]

Remember the dotcom bubble. Not sure about the situation in other countries, but in Germany lots of small companies appeared out of nowhere, having recieved funds by investors just because they planned to do "something with the internet". Few years later it turned out that this isn't a sustainable business strategy and they didn't actually have anything that people would want to pay for, so pretty much all of those companies returned to where they had come from. With the entire money the investors had given them gone up in smoke for fancy office furniture.
I think it's the same with RPG companies. White Wolf and Green Ronin are just the googles and facebooks in this much smaller market.

 

[Niccodaemus]

1) Deep Pockets
2) Quality Product
3) Right Product for the Market
4) Broad marketing/distribution/presence

 

[kitsune9]

I've been wondering about how RPG companies go from being (hopefully) a bunch of GMs sitting around a table with houserules, to a mega-monster company like Paizo with legions of rabid fans.

Being properly capitalized is what makes a company, because it allows them to afford the necessary marketing and promotion of their products, create multiple products lines for multiple streams of revenue, weather bad product sales, and refine the business model.