Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 2883509" data-attributes="member: 29746">I think RPG industry troubles are merely symptoms of a larger issue- the entire entertainment industry is shifting. It's not just games, it's also movies, music, and books in general. The Internet has made it so anything that can be expressed purely as information no longer needs traditional distribution channels or retail to reach customers, and as a result the distributors and retailers are slowly but surely dying out.The whole flap by the record companies over MP3s was just a case of distributors realizing that they weren't needed anymore and trying to stop the world from leaving them behind, but of course it's doing so anyway. These days, with iTunes and other online stores like them, an artist doesn't have to go to a record company/label to get music or films sold anymore- he/she can just put something up, and people who are interested can buy it. The problem is now getting people interested in the first place, the old "browsability" factor that howandwhy99 and Glyfair pointed out.Bookstores are already feeling the pinch of online retailers like Amazon, and that's only going to get worse for them as time goes by. It's not just game stores that are closing, from what I've seen- small, independent bookstores and record stores are going the way of the dodo too. The only survivors are the big chains which can actually compete with online retailers price-wise, but I predict that in a few decades even they won't be able to exist in their current form.I also predict that when somebody makes relatively cheap machines capable of creating more solid items like tools or machine parts, you'll start to see the same thing happen to the auto-parts and machine-parts industries. Their product will suddenly be available to anybody who can get the necessary information to cause the "parts printer" to spit out a copy of the desired item- and as a result the Internet will make the old model of crafter/designer -> distributor -> retailer -> customer unnecessary. After that point your big industries in the traditional sense will be food and drink, and makers of raw materials that the 3-D printers can use to make other stuff.And lest you think that a machine like that won't happen, I invite you to read <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7165" target="_blank">this article</a>  and see how well you can maintain your skepticism. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> This is only one article I found after an off-the-cuff Google search- the rapid prototyping and 3-D printing devices have been available since the late 90s, they've just been too expensive for ordinary people to get their hands on. The invention of a "parts printer" without regard to price has already happened.As I see it, even food and drink industries will undergo a shift like this once somebody invents a "food printer" of some sort. Even restaurants will no longer be needed once that device is ubiquitous.</blockquote>

Verification