Sean K. Reynolds talks RPG salaries, puts his on record.

[Jd Smith1]

Even pretty good increases in the number of new players only affects total sales to a certain degree. If you want to play a new sport, you usually have to buy some equipment. If you want to learn a new craft, you usually have to buy supplies and tools. If you want to play a new video game, you usually have to purchase a copy of it (or some other form of access). Not all players have to buy ttrpg books to get into the hobby, though. In fact, an awful lot of them don't, or only make one or two purchases (ex. a player's handbook). Most ttrpg books sell to GMs, who only make up a certain percentage of the total hobbyists.

That is an excellent point. My last F2F campaign ran for 19 years, and generated very few sales from the group; nearly all the purchases were by me, and I am not an avid collector in any sense of the word.

Since shifting online, I now have two campaigns, each of five players. None of those ten have made any RPG purchases for the campaign they are in. I purchased two books through Roll20. That's it. All the adventures are from free sources o the Net (not piracy). Likewise, the maps are drawn from Pinterest.

 

[Myrdin Potter]

If it takes UBI to support RPG development (which I hate to discuss more as it is very political), then the industry is in a very sorry state.

The core audience being the GM with players only buying the core rules (and a splat book or two) makes it harder as most newer developers write adventures or GM facing materials. Each player does not need the module, so in a group of 5 players and 1 GM you only make one sale.

And there are so many adventures published now that the market is really saturated.

 

[Deset Gled]

You know, a positive step in this entire process would be a serious attempt to poll RPG buyers to ascertain both financial resources and ROG hobby budgets. If you had an idea of the depths of the 'cash lake', it would shed a lot of light on the viability of options.

Earlier in this thread you rejected any quantitative measure of urbanization, citing disbelief in any method of generating statistics. But now you're proposing trying to get complex numbers from an internet poll? I don't get it.

I look forward to your collective Kickstarter of "Payments & Properties"

I get that this is a joke, but "Payments and Properties" is seriously a much better selling game than "Dungeons and Dragons". Did you know that Monopoly is a bigger division of Hasbro than WotC (including D&D and MtG combined)?

 

[Jd Smith1]

Earlier in this thread you rejected any quantitative measure of urbanization, citing disbelief in any method of generating statistics. But now you're proposing trying to get complex numbers from an internet poll? I don't get it.

I did not reject any quantitative measure of urbanization. I simply pointed out that there were no unbiased sources known to me.

Direct-use statistical analysis is fine, because the collectors have a viable interest in accuracy.

I'll give you an example: burglaries impact homeowners insurance rates, and developers' interest in given areas. Therefore, most, if not all, police departments in the USA are careful not to report burglaries at a rate which would disturb either insurance adjusters or developers. (Because that would upset the City Council).

However, for the department's own database, every burglary would be accurately accounted for, as that is essential to operations.

Before you trust a database, you must first ascertain who built it, and why.

So a industry member attempting to ascertain their given market will strive for accuracy.

An agency compiling data to justify their existence, promote their agenda, or to campaign for an expanded budget will make the numbers dance, sing, and posture.

Rare is the agency, private or government, which reports a diminished need for their services or funding. Unless it is part of a quid pro arrangement with higher-higher.

 

[Jd Smith1]

The core audience being the GM with players only buying the core rules (and a splat book or two) makes it harder as most newer developers write adventures or GM facing materials. Each player does not need the module, so in a group of 5 players and 1 GM you only make one sale.

And there are so many adventures published now that the market is really saturated.

And a lot of those adventures are free, or pay-what-you-want. And with pdfs, there's no reduction of inventory through sales.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Yes, but you're not typical. Most career fields are very 'mediocre' by your x10 standard.

Hell, I work as an inhouse IT-technician. For the past 3 years at a large consulting-company (in IT, in Gothenburg), and before that 11 years for a small municipality (and they paid more than the city I live in does). Let's put it this way, my salary (before taxes) has since I started as a technician gone up with a bit more than 1/3rd.. That is over 14 years. By the time I retire in another 15+ years it might have gone to x2 of what I started with. That x10 does not really exist here. A miniscule few overpaid managerial person at big companies or severly overpaid football-players might rake in that kind of cash. but we are talking about such small amount of persons that it statistically is 0.

 

[Morrus]

I did not reject any quantitative measure of urbanization. I simply pointed out that there were no unbiased sources known to me.

No evidence in existence can provide can meet the "nothing in the universe is purely objective" standard you hold it to.

 

[Jd Smith1]

No evidence in existence can provide can meet the "nothing in the universe is purely objective" standard you hold it to.

I never said that.

But, having spent my entire working life literally working with, training in, and teaching about, evidence, I can assure you with complete confidence that there are literal mountains of purely objective evidence.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

No evidence in existence can provide can meet the "nothing in the universe is purely objective" standard you hold it to.

Objective evidence is the stuff that tells me what I know to be true.

Subjective evidence is the stuff that tells you what you want to be true.

Q.E. .....D?

 

[TheSword]

When it comes to tabletop rpgs, at least, I'm not sure that the potential customer base is really that much larger than we are already seeing. No matter how many different types of rpgs you are able to put in front of potential customers, and how closely you can match that with some of their existing interests, in the end the very nature of playing tttrpgs will most likely keep it a niche hobby.

People might say the same about board games, but there is another high end luxury board game out every month charging £60+

Never underestimate humankind’s capacity to want things, and ingenuity in providing things for other people to want!