Running games for pay as another income stream for TTRPG companies

MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
There have been a number of threads over the past few years on paid GMing, renting versus buying TTRPG content (e.g. DDB and Demiplane), the move away from physical to digital content, decluttering, and avoiding impulse buying of material (digital or physical) you barely ever look at. All of my good personal-finance habits are not great for the creators I would like to support, but even if I have the money, I just have too much content already. It doesn't make sense to keep buying things that I look through once and never use or revisit.

But I LOVE to try different games as a player and I do pay for one-shots on Start Playing and the Roll20 find-a-game sites. I suppose I indirectly help the creators because the GMs are buying their material, but not much. So I've been thinking about how can creators find revenue streams beyond selling content in an increasingly glutted market? Not everyone wants to be, or can find success, as a streamer or video content creator. Patreon tends to focus on subscriptions for content and I've culled out most of my TTRPG content Patreon subs, because it was just more digital material that gets filed away in Google Drive and never used.

If I were a TTRPG company, I would consider running paid-for games and making that a revenue stream.

Also, I was thinking that Demiplane could differentiate itself from DDB by operating more like Netflix. Instead of me having to spend hundreds of dollars for access to the material for several games, what if I could pay X amount per month and have access to all of the content? Creators could get paid based on the amount of clicks into their content. If the right pricing balance could be found, perhaps that would financially incentive Demiplane (or a competitor) to help creators prep their game content for the platform.

In meat space, this is kinda already a thing. My favorite FLGS, which also seem to be doing well, have a business model where you pay, say $10 for day pass giving access to play space and their library of games. So if me and four friend decide to have a game day at the FLGS, the FLGS gets $40, and we get access to try any game in their library that we'd like to play. Also, GMs can run games. So me and my friends pay $10 each and the GM gets in for free. The amount we spend to "rent" the space and access to the game library can be used for store credit to buy those games we most like. Why couldn't an online platform like Demiplane operate in a similar manner?

I just think that the traditional retail model favors only a few top publishers and leads to a very thin long tail. I think a digital model similar to what a lot of FLGS are now doing, or a Netflix model for digital TTRPG content would be more financially beneficial to all but the largest publishers.

I know there are folks active in ENWorld who are much more keyed into the TTRPG industry and know better how the economics of TTRPG publishing works. Am I missing something obvious on why this kind of approach wouldn't work?
 

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MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I would agree with this. I’ve always been baffled why the bigger rpg companies don’t lean harder into online pay to play options.

I mean, how much would you pay for a four hour one shot with Mike Mearls?
Yeah, I've only seen this at game conventions or special charity fund-raising events. I expect for someone like Mearls or Perkins, it wouldn't be worth their time to regularly run games as a paid DM. But I could see publishers establishing programs for paid DMs. WotC is kind of doing this with Start Playing as a 50th Anniversary promotion. The last DM I played with for a one-shot had to clear her schedule for several weeks as she was chosen as one of the DMs to run D&D 50th Anniversary Event tournament games.
 



Reynard

Legend
Supporter
If a company were to try and do this as an actual revenue stream, they couldn't just rely on celebrity GMs (and they certainly would not want to tie up their designers running games for them). They would have to have a staff dedicated to not just running these games, but supporting those running these games. It feels like it would be a lot of overhead.

I think more likely would be a company forming specifically to run games (on Start Playing or their own platform), building a reputation for good games run by talented GMs. As opposed to the Start Playing model which seems to let just anyone offer their GMing services. Here I think a subscription model would work pretty well: different tiers get you different numbers of "credits" for sessions, and folks could always buy extra credits.
 

Theory of Games

Storied Gamist
People have been playing ttrpgs online for FREE for over twenty years. Yeah there's suckers eager gamers who will pay-to-play, but turning it into a thriving business?

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I used to scoff at the idea of paying to play but as a permanent GM I think given the right game that I know I’d never get to play in otherwise I’d seriously consider it.

I’ve just about talked myself into paying for a seat at an online WHFRP 4e game a number of time. If I had as sure the game would make for a campaign length period of time I probably would do it.

@Reynard ’s thought about a business venture or co-op of a paid stable of GMs is interesting. Especially if you had a tiered pricing structure for the experienced more highly rated games. Kinda like picking your favorite instructor for Soul Cycle. I think I’d definitely try that service for a flat rate subscription model where I got a certain number of credits or sessions based on the tier I was paying at.
 

If I were a TTRPG company, I would consider running paid-for games and making that a revenue stream.
Doing that at scale is hard. You need lots of GMs, and they need organising, paying and supporting with material.

Think about the availability of customers at different times of day, and the amount they'd be willing to pay, and full-time GMing starts to look like a low-paying gig economy job.

And anyone running the same adventure many times is likely to get bored with it, and not GM at their best.
 


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