Running games for pay as another income stream for TTRPG companies

[Distracted DM]

Curious, now that you've been running games as a job/side job for some time, do you still play TTRPGs for fun on a regular basis or do find yourself now wanting to do something else with friends other than TTRPGs?

I've never had a job that involved what others would considered "fun", much less a hobby. The best analogous example I can think of is friends who are musicians. Most musicians I know DO like to hang out and play with other musicians, jamming with other musicians or just hanging out and playing at a party is different than performing for an audience. The main thing I've seen that annoys musicians is people who expect them to perform for free. Like, inviting a musician to a party and asking them to play for people.

But I don't think that translates well to paid GMing. I guess the closest would be if I were running games all week and some friends inviting me to a game night and asked me to GM, I expect my attitude would be "I run games all week, I would love to have an opportunity to join as a players, but I'm not interested in running another game, especially for free."

It's been my main source of income for 2 years, my seats are $39, about double the average SPG cost.

I do still run and play TTRPGs with friends- the biggest impact that running games has had is that most of my nights are unavailable, since I run 3-5 nights/week and Sunday mornings.

Like I said earlier, the nice thing is that because I primarily run D&D, and some of my old friend-players are now a couple of my paying-players, everyone's pretty cool playing NOT D&D. Whether I'm running, or someone else is, we do some kind of ttrpg like DCC or OSE or WHF- or occasionally we do a paint night for minis etc.

For me I think that musician analogy you gave is pretty accurate- I'd be happy to run something off the cuff, not serious for friends; but the heavy mental load stuff that year(s)-long campaigns require, that's not something I'm eager to add to my plate now that I run multiple campaigns every week for a living.
I can't speak for others obviously

 

[HaydenHo]

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.

That said, I do allow myself to indulge in entertainment outside of TTRPGs. For example, I occasionally play on spinambakasyno.com where I enjoy testing different strategies and taking advantage of bonuses. It’s just a fun way to unwind, and while I never go overboard, the thrill of a good win keeps things interesting.
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?

I think there are these places called anti cafes. I've been to one, it was called "Montreal". Overall i would like to see more places like this