Owen Stephens Continues 'Real Game Industry' Posts

I've been collecting together the Real Game Industry posts that game designer Owen KC Stephens has been posting on social media. You can see Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

• Full-time writing, developing, or producing in the TTRPG field means regularly having to create great, creative ideas, that fit specific pre-determined parameters, on command, whether you feel like it or not. This can be awesome and fulfilling... or awful.
• The board of GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association, (the big non-profit trade organization for the hobby games industry) are unpaid volunteers with what time they can spare from trying to survive the harsh industry itself.
• Most TTrpg professionals get a lot more hate mail than praise or notes that their work is appreciated. BUT Those few notes hold a LOT more weight, per-word, than the ranting and whining. One person letting me they enjoyed a thing gets through 2-3 weeks of bile.
• No one, not any analyst, not any company, knows how many total copies of ttRPGs are actually selling in a given week, month, or year. Some big companies don't know the numbers for their OWN ttRPGs. Popular "rankings" are a compilation of unverified impressions.
• Even when I just had a couple of Dragon credits and no one knew me; at game pro gatherings I was NEVER asked if my girlfriend got me into gaming. Or if I was just there with a date. Which has repeatedly happened to women colleagues with decades of experience.
• When ttRPG professionals get to play RPGs together entirely for fun, the level of Ghostbusters and LotR quotes, bad puns, digressions to discuss recent movies and look at pet pictures, and fart jokes... is EXACTLY the same as when it's just fans playing.
• When a ttRPG professional makes a statement that is unpopular with a segment of fans there is always a group who, with no evidence, begin discussions to claim A: The pro is incompetent, B: the pro is lying to gain attention or sympathy, or C: all of the above.
• It is not unusual for ttRPG professional who like each other, and enjoy hanging out together, and live no more than 20 miles apart, to only see each other 1-2 times a year and only at after-hours gatherings during major conventions.
• The most common retirement plan among full-time ttRPG professionals, freelance and on-staff both, is "Work until you die."
• People who constantly struggle to have enough money to cover basic needs, with no job security, while being bombarded with community demands to do more, be better, and make games just for love and not money... are generally too stressed to make their best games.
• In ttRPG industry, you will find both employees who think the very games that cover their paycheck are "dumb," and CEOs who will move a meeting out of the executive boardroom so you can play a game there. But I've met many more of the latter than the former.
• Amazon sometimes sells ttRPG items cheaper than retailers can get from distributors. No one admits to selling them to Amazon at this price. Either Amazon is taking a loss (perfectly possible), or there's a hole in a distribution tier. This pisses off retailers.
• When a ttRPG pro makes a change or comment regarding the real-world impact of game themes or ideas, people come out of the woodwork to strongly present their view (in the real world) that real-world concerns (presumably like theirs) should not impact the game.
• Some ttRPG storylines, setting, themes, & even rules concepts are so tainted by racism, bigotry, and sexism that they cannot be redeemed. Even revised versions serve as a dogwhistle to toxic fans. There's no broad agreement about for which concepts this is true.
• Much less professional material from the big and well-known ttRPG companies is playtested than you thought, and playtesting takes more time and effort than you thought. Much more material from tiny 3pp- and Indy ttRPG companies is playtested than you thought.
• One advantage of being an established ttRPG freelancer is you can get as much work as you want. Of course most of it doesn't pay enough, so you now have the option of working 60-70-80 hour weeks to make ends meet. But unlike some folks, you DO have that option.
• You don't HAVE to have a spouse with good benefits and insurance to be a full-time freelancer in the ttRPG industry. But it's the most common answer on how to survive doing so.
• If you write work-for-hire on a ttRPG in the US, you can expected your work to be edited. Usually with no consultation or warning. You'll find out when the book is published. That's normal. For everyone.
• The more mainstream a ttRPG is, the more competition there is for jobs to design for it. For staff jobs, you're often one of several hundred applicants. Sometimes one of thousands. Of course, this also means you seem easily replaceable, even if it's not true.
• While doing contract work for a ttRPG company occasionally leads to a staff position, this is very much the exception rather than the norm. Especially if you don't already have many years of experience. It's normally a stepping stone, not a quick route in.

 

[dragoner]

Wages are stagnant across all industries, if game designers are in a vulnerable group previously, then the economic downturn will exacerbate that trend. For example theaters were under fierce competition from streaming services, the pandemic has devastated their business. As previously posted, the RPG market is relatively small, without the ability to support too many full time designers, so any losses will seem large.

The real solution is to grow the total market value, thus enabling designers to increase their revenue stream without changing the competitive mechanisms.

 

[Dire Bare]

Wages are stagnant across all industries, if game designers are in a vulnerable group previously, then the economic downturn will exacerbate that trend. For example theaters were under fierce competition from streaming services, the pandemic has devastated their business. As previously posted, the RPG market is relatively small, without the ability to support too many full time designers, so any losses will seem large.

The real solution is to grow the total market value, thus enabling designers to increase their revenue stream without changing the competitive mechanisms.

Wages are stagnant across MOST industries, but not all. There are pockets of the economy that are doing better than ever.

Not really sure how the pandemic and economic turmoil is affecting the RPG industry overall . . . but we are seeing a surge in online play and interest in D&D and other RPGs. I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.

 

[Morrus]

Wages are stagnant across MOST industries, but not all. There are pockets of the economy that are doing better than ever.

Not really sure how the pandemic and economic turmoil is affecting the RPG industry overall . . . but we are seeing a surge in online play and interest in D&D and other RPGs. I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.

Well, the pandemic closed down game stores, and that in turn closed down some distributors, who in turn delayed paying publishers, who had to find the money elsewhere to pay staff and freelancers. So there's that!

 

[Zardnaar]

Wages are stagnant across MOST industries, but not all. There are pockets of the economy that are doing better than ever.

Not really sure how the pandemic and economic turmoil is affecting the RPG industry overall . . . but we are seeing a surge in online play and interest in D&D and other RPGs. I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.

It's still too early really.

Online play is booming compared to what it was but you can see how many games are being run.

Gamestores are closed, there's Amazon but how many people are gaming in person?

I've got that luxury, the movie industry I suspect will be hit hard even if they do figure out how to film stuff. Even if theaters can open who's gonna go in similar numbers.

 

[Owen K.C. Stephens]

I would be curious to hear from industry professionals how they feel the pandemic is affecting their company and the industry at large.

I gave my US-focused thoughts on that at my blog last month.

The Game Industry “In These Uncertain Times”

(Photo by Tab10) I’m interrupting this week’s at-your-table game content to discuss the state of the industry. We’ll get back to fund stuff, but this is important. I’ll star…

owenkcstephens.com

 

[macd21]

Well, the pandemic closed down game stores, and that in turn closed down some distributors, who in turn delayed paying publishers, who had to find the money elsewhere to pay staff and freelancers. So there's that!

There’s also supply chain issues. Books that were meant to be on shelves were trapped in warehouses, or not printed at all, because staff were in lockdown.

 

[Zardnaar]

I gave my US-focused thoughts on that at my blog last month.

The Game Industry “In These Uncertain Times”

(Photo by Tab10) I’m interrupting this week’s at-your-table game content to discuss the state of the industry. We’ll get back to fund stuff, but this is important. I’ll star…

owenkcstephens.com

I liked you toss a coin to your writer line.

 

[jasper]

Please allow me to sell you a $50 book culled together from random blog posts and see if you can discern the difference from the "unskilled" folks WotC put together. I'll bet you can.

I am currently reading a gaming book which was blog posts. I glad I paid under $4 for the kindle version.

 

[Windjammer]

So this is probably going to sound like I'm trying to be insulting, but I truly don't mean it that way. Is this really surprising to most folks?

Designing RPGs requires no special skills...at least none which I can discern. No manual skills, no technical knowledge, not even mathematical proficiency (thought it really, really should require math, given the probability work -- remember 4E skill challenges?), etc. At most it requires somewhat above average writing ability. Further, there are no educational, certification, or entry requirements. A "fun" job with low barriers to entry leads to a high supply.

Meanwhile, the market for RPGs seems quite small compared to, well, pretty much any other sort of creative endeavor.

High supply + low (and highly elastic) demand = low equilibrium price. It seems rather obvious that the pay would be bad, no? I always just figured most RPG designers do it as a hobby or as a labor of love.

This is obviously and unarguably true. Especially because you wrote, "Designing RPGs" and not "Designing RPGs that sell well" or "Designig RPGs that win awards like the Ennies." You didn't, and yet that's the goal posts people moved to, to more easily dismiss your post.

The other point you made is "requires." You didn't say "RPG designers don't have skills" or "Published designers don't have skills." Yet that's the opinion you got attacked for. Very typical for this forum where people become extremely defensive when they smell an affront to their beloved hobby.

It's a fact that there's no quality control inherent in the RPG industry. None whatsoever. It's worse than journalism or academic publishing which have internal quality control (like peer review) or writing standards (like the Chicago Manual) in place; or require writers to get certified, join a professional association, or what have you. Still a far cry from how lawyers and doctors get certified, etc., but it's there. Not so in RPGs.

RPGs are a "free for all." There's a reason we talk about the d20 glut. And that was 2001! Talk about 2020. With self-publishing PDFs, the RPG "industry" has become a quagmire as rudderless and unmoderated as Facebook. Ironically, this means we have greater diversity of content, but it's also completely out of control. My favorite recent work is Gene Weigel's self-published book on Amazon which you can buy for $40. Go ahead, click on Preview, and you'll see that the author is illiterate of even the most basic Word formatting functions. Even using bold font is too much. That's cool. It's still a better dungeon than a lot of other stuff people put up for sale.

None of that is a knock against authors like Owen. Quality in this hobby obviously does exist, but it fights an uphill battle against every last person who thinks they can publish their home brew and charge money out there.

The final ingredient is sheer quantity overload. Someone once analyzed how long it must have taken Hogsmead Publishing (?) to put together Warhammer 1st RPG. I think it took years. And they were shy putting out supplements, which were equally labor-intense. These days, the recipe is: throw as much sh_t on the wall and see if any of it sells. Of course there's not much time that way to get playtested. That, I think, was one of Owen's points here too. And he makes the great point that often 3PP publishers playtest MORE than the big publishing houses. I think FFG gave up playtesting and proof reading (I'm serious) for their product in 2008 or so. It just wasn't worth their dime.

In short, the industry's lack of internal and external regulation is hurting the very people who want to make a living in it. That's not a knock against the people who try to enter the industry; perhaps the only mistake in your post was to not make that clear from the get go. Other than that, I find it hard to argue with your point.

 

[Morrus]

Very typical for this forum where people become extremely defensive when they smell an affront to their beloved hobby.

We can't all be as clever as you. Also, please don't insult other users, even en-masse. Thanks.