Back to the op, creatives often make very poor money versus the few who make a lot. This is where public policy is better than individual initiative, things like a functioning NHS in the US, and either higher minimum wage or expanded public assistance would help people, creatives in particular.
Given that a lot of writers are contract workers, a higher minimum wage wouldn't really help them very much. Now if organizations like the National Endowment of the Arts was better funded and willing to give money to manufacturers of RPGs that might be something.
I think the fact that you were willing to put in thee year's of unpaid labor into television is indicative of why artists are often paid very little. Many of you are willing to do the work for peanuts because you love doing it. I suspect many game designers either do it as a side job or they move into other more lucrative industries once they get tired of scraping together the rent money month after month.
True on all points. Alas as a young and naïve hopeful you allow yourself to be taken advantage of. This is a major problem with internships and similar things. They are a broken system that cannot be dismantled or even avoided by a mere individual. You can do what I (and most TV wannabe's do) and get taken advantage of and thereby undercut the value of the labour your are performing. Or you can give up and naff off. <sigh>
Given that a lot of writers are contract workers, a higher minimum wage wouldn't really help them very much. Now if organizations like the National Endowment of the Arts was better funded and willing to give money to manufacturers of RPGs that might be something.
It all comes down to a question of priorities, I read today where the US adopting a copy of the UK's NHS would save us 200 billion, then of course whoever is making that 200 billion extra will fight to save it. So it is not like the resources are not there, and investment in the NEA is good, though that might not help RPG writers either, rent control might be more directly.
There is little to no barriers of entry to write an RPG product. You can charge whatever you want, but if no one buys it you are not making any money.
There are lots of people that treat this as a hobby (I am one of them). I did a fair amount of conversion work for one of the larger 5e 3PP and I was happy to just have my name in the credits. I was offered the standard rate, but compared to my day job, having fun working on it was more important to me.
I honestly do not think that is solvable.
Please do not tell me about Hollywood writer unions when there is YouTube and TikTok and others that have so much unpaid or barely paid labor put into them.
As a side note to these discussions, there is a very simple thing we can each do to make a difference: Financially support your hobby. Buy games. Pay artists. Contribute to Patreons for projects you follow. I buy multiple books a year knowing I will never run the game in question, just to read it and to support the hobby. There are many free options, both legit ones and shady. (Hello The Trove). If you love this hobby, spend your money on it. We all have our budgets, but working retail taught me that people with means are the cheapest people on the planet.
There is little to no barriers of entry to write an RPG product. You can charge whatever you want, but if no one buys it you are not making any money.
There are lots of people that treat this as a hobby (I am one of them). I did a fair amount of conversion work for one of the larger 5e 3PP and I was happy to just have my name in the credits. I was offered the standard rate, but compared to my day job, having fun working on it was more important to me.
I honestly do not think that is solvable.
Please do not tell me about Hollywood writer unions when there is YouTube and TikTok and others that have so much unpaid or barely paid labor put into them.
Saying that you think a problem is not solvable ... means you don't want to solve the problem. All problems that aren't impossible to solve (because, you know, SCIENCE) can be solved; some people just find it more convenient not to.
In the instant example, we can look at solutions alluded to in the OP (and I apologize, but I will be addressing this from a US-centric point of view given that I am most familiar with that):
1.
Obviously, a sweeping change that provides for reasonable security (health care, direct payments, etc.) and allows people to "do what they want" to supplement this would suffice, but is not particular to RPGs.
2.
Changing the law (FLSA, for example) to prevent abuse of independent contractor status would also work. There is currently a push-pull regarding this, and related issues (use of unpaid intern work, being an example). This is an easy one- the retort that there are always people willing to work for free has been used to prevent all positive changes in the past that you currently take for granted, from the FLSA (minimum wage, overtime), to the FMLA (leave), to the standardized work week, to child labor laws.
3.
Agitating for the big players to make changes. You are correct- TikTok doesn't necessarily have writer's unions, but Hollywood does. The Avengers? Unionized. But not just the movies. Your TV shows too. There is an entire well-paid industry (not just the writers, but the entire industry ... ) based on this creative enterprise. Yeah, RPGs are not blockbuster movies. But D&D? D&D is owned by Hasbro. D&D is incredibly successful.
Why don't we spend a little time demanding that Hasbro employ great writers and great artists, and pay them? Not just keep a skeletal staff and pay some independent contractors a desultory rate per word? Hasbro is profiting immensely from us, the consumers, on this product. We should demand that the company put some of those profits into the labor pool.
And if Hasbro ups their game, other players will too. That won't stop the "tiktoks" of the world (people publishing independently) but it will provide creatives (writers and artists) a stable income, and will provide a guidepost for the industry.
(EDIT- I should add this- none of these proposed solutions, and these are not the only possible ones, are "costless." Changing things ... changes things. There are always tradeoffs, and, for example, increased costs for labor means either decreased profits for the company/shareholders or increased costs to the consumer.)
The same reason any company makes changes - because of consumer pressure.
It's relatively costless for Hasbro to make Tasha's "responsive" to consumer demands, while this would not be relatively costless. So yes, it would require consumers to actually care about the way that creatives are treated, as opposed to just how much the books cost.
I believe there is an OP about this ... somewhere.
Revolutions are always verbose, and the Bolsheviks did not escape from this law. But whereas the agitation of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries was scattered, self-contradictory and oftenest of all evasive, the agitation of the Bolsheviks was distinguished by its concentrated and well thought-out character. The Compromisers talked themselves out of difficulties; the Bolsheviks went to meet them. A continual analysis of the objective situation, a testing of slogans upon facts, a serious attitude to the enemy even when he was none too serious, gave special strength and power of conviction to the Bolshevik agitation.
-History of the Russian Revolution, Vol 2., Chapter 36.
