Improving the gaming industry

[Belen]

BelenUmeria, I believe that EN World could help organize a gaming society as well and perhaps reach out to a few other interested people and organizations. However, your sig is not showing up on my browser. My sig also has vanished. So, can you post the link.

What do you think a summary mission statement for an independent gaming society, and what issues besides gamer recruitment and retaining gamers do you think it should address?

Here is the link: http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=89411

Crothian: We would need to start with a stable community though. And you have to admit, d20/ DND is the largest and ENWorld is the closest.

 

[Wombat]

I dunno. Maybe I'm in a minority (...I usually am...), but I don't really feel there is a great need for a group like GAMA. Such groups tend to feel pretty artificial and also tend to reinforce the games that are already selling well, rather than inspiring innovation.

I feel very little "draw" to such organizations. When I swim with my friend, we all just swim; the highest organization we belong to or are interested in is the local pool, where if you pay a very nominal fee you can swim during "off" times, thus being able to actually do laps rather than bob up and down in place. When I read, I feel no need to belong to a book club, a reading circle or a group that promotes reading in America. When I play a video game, I feel no draw to go to E-cubed, to be part of a larger network promoting computer games, and suchlike. When I game, I feel no real draw to conventions, to GAMA-sponsored events, or even in getting a newsletter from a higher organization -- I just want to game, to make sure that my particular group is happy.

In the end, I suppose I am just not a joiner.

As for "promoting" gaming, well, I do it on a small, local, one-on-one basis.

Is there a real need for GAMA (or other such organizations)? If so, what is it's real function? Does it truly do much for gaming in general? Does it do much in the way of advertising outside of the very few gaming journals? In other words, is it only preaching to the choir and, if so, does it have any real point to promoting gaming?

 

[William Ronald]

BelenUmeria: Interesting ideas, but it might be better to create different levels of membership to supplement the one you proposed.

Wombat: I think individual efforts ARE important. However, I would argue that organized efforts can be very effective in achieving a goal. In this case, I would argue that organized efforts to promote our hobby and help address issues of concern to gamers might be more effective as a group than individual efforts. Not to turn this into a political thread, but large organizations often have much more influence on policy than individuals.

 

[DaveStebbins]

However, your sig is not showing up on my browser. My sig also has vanished.

Recent coding update to EN World. Each person's sig appears only in their first post on each page. The link BelenUmeria later posted is shown in his sig in post #4.

-Dave

 

[Crothian]

Crothian: We would need to start with a stable community though. And you have to admit, d20/ DND is the largest and ENWorld is the closest.

And its also the most hated. To really make this work not only do we need a large stable community, we need it to be diverse. And if in the planning stages people look at it and are tuned off by what they percieve as a huge d20 bias and concentration, then its not going to be truely representive.

But I think the biggest point that needs to be addressed is the educating of the average gamer. This is a word of mouth industry. If you don't hear about it from friends, you more then likely are not hearing about it. Even people who goto message boards and participate in different areas of the community and industry are not as up to speed on the industry as equivelant people in different fields. I'll use myself as an example. While I've heard of GAMA I really can't think of a single thing good or bad they are responsible for.

 

[wizardoftheplains]

(As an aside, the notion that the RPG market has shrunk is not one I buy into. My research shows that a successful, non-D&D title from the 1980s sells about the same number of copies as one today. I think there are just as many gamers out there as ever. They just don't buy anything, because they don't see much worth investing in.)

EDIT: Turned a nonsensical sentence into a more coherent one, or at least as coherent as I can get.

Hi Mike,

Really like your writing and agree with most of what you say. Especially when it comes to quality. But I'd question the above statement about the rpg market. When a successful book from today sells as many copies as a successful book in the '80's, I'd call that shrinkage. (This would be bad for any industry.) Look at it this way. Population has not held study, but has continued to grow. Since your reseach says the sales numbers have stayed the same then I'd offer up that the it the rpg industry is shrinking. If it was growing your "success" numbers would show a moderate increase, one that tracked along with population growth in rpg-playing countries. (Now, the (all-inclusive) gamer base as a whole is growing, but not the rpg base. Many are chosing to put their dollars toward (video and computer games, clicks, ccgs, etc.)

Just my two cents. And if I misunderstood your positioning, forgive me

Gary

 

[Umbran]

If WotC were to release a new edition of the game, I would expect TV spots, print ads and perhaps some sort of bookstore promotions.

TV advertising is expensive. Hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars expensive. It is simply too expensive for gaming products at this time.As it is now, you generaly cannot expect the income form a product to cover the cost of a national network TV ad. When the price of advertising is relatively small compared ot the overall gross sales, then TV ads would be worth the risk.

 

[d4]

I think there are just as many gamers out there as ever. They just don't buy anything, because they don't see much worth investing in.

i know a lot of gamers who hardly, if ever, buy anything gaming-related. it's hard to get some of them to buy their own dice.

i think this is an important difference between gaming and some other hobby activities -- it's perfectly possible to play in a role-playing campaign for years and years and never need to buy additional books. i, like probably many people here, have played in extended campaigns using systems that are long out of print.

this is different from many other leisure activities. if i want to see a (live in-person) sports game, i've got to buy a ticket. if i want to go see another one, i have to go buy another ticket. same thing with movies. i can purchase the DVD or VHS when it comes out and watch it as many times as i want, though -- but it gets boring watching the same movie over and over every day. the movie companies know i'm going to go back to the theatre or buy another DVD pretty soon.

even the same thing with computer games. most computer games (even CRPGs) don't have a lot of replayability. after playing through the game once, i probably won't bother doing it again unless i buy an expansion pack or the sequel. again, the company knows they can eventually get more money out of me.

it doesn't necessarily work that way with role-playing games. firstly, one can game with the same book for 20 years and never run out of things to do with it. this hurts sales. secondly, you don't even really need your own copy of the book -- i'm sure we've all been in groups where only the GM or a fraction of the players actually owned the rulebook. this also hurts sales.

in order for game publishers to stay alive, gamers have to be constant consumers, continually buying new books. RPGs as they currently exist don't always fit that model.

(on the other hand, i have heard a lot of gamers who won't play a game if new stuff isn't coming out for it and/or complain when new material is slow in reaching the market. so i guess the publishers should take heart in that.)

 

[schnee]

There's also a LOT more competition for people's free time nowadays. The internet, video games, card games, sports... it's all better than it used to be and there's a lot more of it. Heck, I wonder how many ENWorlders would be gaming more if it weren't for the time they spent on the boards.

 

[Dwarven Godfather]

To promote the Hobby of Gaming

Back in to 1988, we organized an Association called "SAGA" St. Louis Area Gaming Association. the main thing about it was promoting RPG/Gaming in general, we promoted the industry from war games to Role-playing and was successful until the late 1990s. At the start we worked out of a gaming store until the store closed down. We hit the Shopping malls since at that time everyone went to the Malls to spend money and we also started promoting local conventions in places that would have alot of people interested in gaming ( like a military installation that had a Rec Center for a day). Back in those days I was heavy into Micro-armor which we did alot of WWII recreations, Oh the good ol' days. We also went to big Conventions together like Gen Con as a group. This is just my 2 sense.