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<blockquote data-quote="AriochQ" data-source="post: 7709020" data-attributes="member: 6793324">RPG concepts rely on some amount of shared cultural knowledge.&nbsp; Western culture has a great degree of shared fantasy knowledge, making it easy to popularize a game in that area.&nbsp; Other areas, such as Sci-Fi, wild west, or horror, also have a pretty good shared knowledge base.&nbsp; When you start to get to the more esoteric game concepts, you draw from a smaller market.It does tend to be a Catch-22 in that to popularize a new concept there needs to be material produced and consumed by the culture, but production of new material is restricted by the limited audience.&nbsp; The development of steampunk is a good example of this.&nbsp; There was a hint of steampunk in the early writing authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, but it wasn't really a genre at that point.&nbsp; GDW's Space 1889, published in 1988, was the first real attempt to turn the concepts into a game but met with a lukewarm reception. I would posit because we did not have a sufficient cultural base in 1988.Around that time Gibson and Sterling started to popularize the developing genre in literature and by the early 2000's Hollywood had latched on with The League or Extraordinary Gentlemen, Wild Wild West, and various other movies and TV shows.&nbsp; From that point on, you see steampunk elements in multiple mediums as the shared cultural knowledge had hit critical mass and it now appealed to a broader audience, making games using the steampunk concept economically viable.So what does this have to do with game design?&nbsp; While a game drawing from Aztec mythology and pre-Columbian culture may be new, different, and exciting, the market is fairly limited since there is very little shared cultural knowledge.&nbsp; Everyone knows what you mean when you say 'longsword', very few know when you say 'macuahuitl'.&nbsp; Unless your game design is a labor of love, creativity is limited by economic/business forces relating to shared cultural knowledge.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AriochQ, post: 7709020, member: 6793324"] RPG concepts rely on some amount of shared cultural knowledge. Western culture has a great degree of shared fantasy knowledge, making it easy to popularize a game in that area. Other areas, such as Sci-Fi, wild west, or horror, also have a pretty good shared knowledge base. When you start to get to the more esoteric game concepts, you draw from a smaller market. It does tend to be a Catch-22 in that to popularize a new concept there needs to be material produced and consumed by the culture, but production of new material is restricted by the limited audience. The development of steampunk is a good example of this. There was a hint of steampunk in the early writing authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, but it wasn't really a genre at that point. GDW's Space 1889, published in 1988, was the first real attempt to turn the concepts into a game but met with a lukewarm reception. I would posit because we did not have a sufficient cultural base in 1988. Around that time Gibson and Sterling started to popularize the developing genre in literature and by the early 2000's Hollywood had latched on with The League or Extraordinary Gentlemen, Wild Wild West, and various other movies and TV shows. From that point on, you see steampunk elements in multiple mediums as the shared cultural knowledge had hit critical mass and it now appealed to a broader audience, making games using the steampunk concept economically viable. So what does this have to do with game design? While a game drawing from Aztec mythology and pre-Columbian culture may be new, different, and exciting, the market is fairly limited since there is very little shared cultural knowledge. Everyone knows what you mean when you say 'longsword', very few know when you say 'macuahuitl'. Unless your game design is a labor of love, creativity is limited by economic/business forces relating to shared cultural knowledge. [/QUOTE]

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