Revolutions are Always Verbose: Effecting Change in the TTRPG Industry

[pemerton]

Assuming that we're treating labour as a market, then the most obvious way to raise wages is to restrict supply, or at least restrict the terms on which that supply is available. That's unionisation (if done via "private" means) or minimum wage and conditions laws (if done via "public" means).

I guess there's also the possibility of consumer pressure reducing demand for goods produced except on decent terms, but that seems less likely to be effective than some more direct way of tackling the problem as far as wages are concerned. But it probably can be effective for ensuring direct support of self-employed producers. This means RPGers paying good prices for small games. Which probably does collide with some other features of the world of RPGing (ie most people play a big game whose creators are employees or contractors).

The other solution, as has been mentioned, is to bypass the labour market altogether in ensuring minimum standards of living. But that's not a distinctively RPG-oriented approach!

 

[Jd Smith1]

600k COVID deaths in the USA. Over 30 million cases, many with long-term aftereffects. Who do you think formed the largest portion of that number? Who was most affected by COVID? The people who got to stay home with a cushy office job and a decent health insurance plan, or the people working their ass off daily and have to keep working despite dangerous conditions, who are barely making a living wage with horrible health coverage (or no health coverage!), and who are probably already neck deep in personal, medical, and familial debt? Service-oriented businesses are throwing a hissy fit over people not wanting to come back to work and no new workers to fill the gap, not seeming to realize that the workers they are looking for don't feel safe working for a boss that couldn't give two rat's asses about their well-being, nor do they feel serving a clientele that doesn't respect them and in some cases actively endangers them with their ignorance. And that's not counting all the ones that are six feet under.

Angst, not facts.

Moving's expensive, people aren't just willing to drop all their social and business connections at the drop of a hat, and the ass-ends of nowhere were rent is the lowest also tend to be lacking in local services and resources. Would you want to live in a town where there's only one grocery store?

If you think the number of grocery stores is the criteria for choosing a place to live, I can't argue with it.

For a lot of people, "long-term career planning" isn't a realistic thing. It's work or starve. Or they can't work due to circumstances outside of their control and have to survive off of measly unemployment or disability benefits with no certainty as to waht the future holds. Maybe we could be campaigning for rent control, or for higher wages for workers, or for better benefits and protections for workers so that people don't have to make these hard decisions. Something, anything at all to decrease the cost of living! But no, the corporate lobby has captured all the regulatory agencies, and won't ever give an inch.

Long-term career planning is the only hope people have. Artificially raising wages is a well-proven device to decrease the number of available jobs while the inevitable inflation strips away any benefit.

We are, like it or not, in a global economy. US workers and companies have to compete. That is 'have to' in bold letters and underlined. Rent control, benefits, etc, all cost money, which comes back around immediately to the taxpayer, which destroys any real benefit.

If you want to affect the cost of living, there are two simple steps:
1) convince local governments to adopt sensible population -density zoning. Sure, that means of elitist types might end up having to live in a town with only one grocery store, but sacrifices have to be made. Lower population density will translate into lower real estate prices, and thus into the cost of housing.

2) The Federal government has to begin working with US businesses to increase competitively. Reduce excessive regulations, cut business taxes, back off the 'green' initiatives that our competitors are not following, and the like. Otherwise, jobs will continue to flow overseas while automation ramps up at home.

There's also one complex step: the US education system has to accept it is badly broken, and be revamped in order to prepare young people for the workforce as it it exists, not as it was in the 1950s or as it exists in theory.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I mean, the amount you have to tip is nothing. But, 10% as "correct?" I'd really like to see your source on that.

The same source as any other number, I guess: what the person leaving the tip wants to leave.

Its correct IMO. YRMV.

Personally, I would prefer that wait staff be paid a suitable wage and the entire matter dropped.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Insofar as anyone who is putting in a full day's work ought to be able to earn a living wage, yeah, it is a problem.

The market bears what the market bears. That's as true for wait staff as it is for RPG writers. It boils down to one thing: how valuable is an hour of your labor in the current market.

That is the entire issue: what is one hour of your applied skills, training, and experience worth to an employer or customer?

'Ought' and 'living wage' are artificial constructs which will never have a meaningful impact on the math.

As noted elsewhere, the production of RPG products is labor-intensive, but only moderately skilled (in that a huge number of people can do an average job of it), it has, thanks to pdfs, an infinite shelf-life, and there are both decades of back inventory available, and the work of countless free-lancers who give up their material for literally little or nothing.

Taking those facts into consideration, it is surprising that anyone makes a living producing RPG material, much less a comfortable one.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Insofar as anyone who is putting in a full day's work ought to be able to earn a living wage, yeah, it is a problem.

Which was the original intent of the minimum wage laws.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Which was the original intent of the minimum wage laws.
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Well, FDR's many failings aside, he made that remark in an era before a global economy.

Today, businesses can send jobs overseas, where there are employees who will work for a fraction of what US workers demand, in environments free of US regulations, health codes, and environmental concerns.

Tyson is even shipping chickens outside the USA to be processed and the results shipped back, for one example. Everything from call centers to security system monitoring centers have gone overseas. Nearly the entire clothing industry in the USA has shifted overseas since the 1970s (old enough to remember the commercial 'look for the union label'?).

Whether they realize it or not, US workers are competing to keep their jobs, and the people they're competing with are very serious about winning. And their concept of a living wage is a lot less than an American's.

When the work force grows faster than the job pool, the market value of labor declines. That is a law of economics as immutable as gravity.

RPG creation fits that model exactly. A few truly gifted individuals may do well, but the rest will not see significant rewards. All the more so because those RPG writers who are looking for a career are competing with writers who produce material as a hobby, and are under no financial constraints when marketing their goods.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, FDR's many failings aside, he made that remark in an era before a global economy.

Among other factors besides those you mention, he also said that before executive compensation in the USA- on average- started to trend upward so sharply in comparison to compensation in foreign nations as to have a negative effect on ther ability to compete in said global economy.

You can see examples of it across all kinds of markets from fast food to automobile manufacturing.

 

[pemerton]

The notion of "inevitable economic laws of the labour market" is not plausible. The US is an amazingly wealthy country. There are policy configurations that can increase the welfare of underpaid workers. There are macroeconomic settings that reserve banks and governments can adopt to reduce the rate of unemployment. There are poorer countries than the US that adopt configurations that remove some of the pressures (eg heath care costs) that routinely arise in the US.

But none of that is particular to the pay of RPG designers, illustrators etc.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Among other factors besides those you mention, he also said that before executive compensation in the USA- on average- started to trend upward so sharply in comparison to compensation in foreign nations as to have a negative effect on ther ability to compete in said global economy.

You can see examples of it across all kinds of markets from fast food to automobile manufacturing.

Actually, you can't. A multi-billion-dollar corporation isn't affected by the pay of the CEO, no matter how much jealousy it raises.

If you want change, either increase the number of jobs, or decrease the work force. Those are the sole options available. Nothing else works, as the last hundred+ years has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt..

So in the specific case of the RPG industry, the only possible source of relief for those who want to make writing RPGs a career, is that sales will increase to such a point that the revenue flow justifies higher wages.

You will notice that the video game industry doesn't have the same issues, because you need skills and infrastructure to create and market such products. Even so, competition is fierce and there are plenty of examples of bitter failure.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Has somebody checked Thatcher's grave to make sure she hasn't been raised from the dead and decided to make her big comeback by flaming on the Internet? I would have guessed Reagan, but there's not enough of that cowboy aura.