Should companies bother with RPGs?

I don't know-- I look at my bookshelf, and see that I've got a pile of game fiction novels blocking my access to my game books. (I really ought to fix that.) I know people who read Forgotten Realms novels that have never picked up a d20-- never played, much less DMed.

I know that I enjoy fiction from worlds I can't stand playing in-- Star Wars and Dragonlance come to mind-- and people are more likely to want their own copy of a novel than a game book.

Surely, this could be a powerful market.

If you want to look at another angle of game fiction, look at sales figures for Devil's Due Publishing's D&D comics lines. Other companies might not have such readily exploitable properties, but it's an angle worth exploring. Even Spelljammer had its own comic for awhile, but with its short run, I don't imagine it did too well. (On the other hand, it lasted longer than the first arc.)

I don't know how well miniatures sell, though obviously Wizards is making their nut on both of their minis lines. GW is still in business, and they don't even have collectible pre-painted minis. There's a half-dozen other companies in the field; whether this means it's viable or means it's too crowded for newcomers, I do not know.

One thing I suspect is that "prestige books", while viable in and of themselves, probably couldn't sustain the market-- I know I'd never drop $80 or $100 on a game book. I'll drop $30 or $40 a month on one or two new books, though, pretty easily. I prefer more of a variety, and I'm sure there are others who do as well.

I think expanding into fiction is probably a good idea for any company whose properties can support it; whether comics or novels, there's fertile ground there, and any successful game line has to have a number of talented fiction authors working on it.

Other merchandise-- T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and things like that-- is probably solid. With the kind of devotion some of the niche-within-a-niche products generate, you could probably make as much money off of these things as off the original lines themselves. For more established lines, this would be (I'm guessing) a small, but steady side business that requires a relatively small investment to get into; look at Cafepress and similar sites where people sell merchandise to support their websites.

Other branching opportunities I've seen, I'm rather unsure of. Not sure it'd be a good move for any of the smaller players, and the larger players... well, they can take care of themselves.
 

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Except for maybe non-collectible card games, products in most of those other mediums cost quite a bit more to produce than RPGs and thus require a lot of capital/cash to get into.

CCGs require artworks. Lots of really good artwork (probably $500 a card just for the artist fees). Console games cost millions to make. (And frankly, no company really wants the rights to any game other than D&D or Vampire). Computer games can be cheaper, but also sell much worse (unless you are Blizzard). Board games have various pieces which aren't cheap to make (at least unless you want to use off the shelf generic tokens and such).

In some cases, like AEG & FFG, they probably do make the bulk of their money off of none-RPG stuff (or a lot of it). AEG with the Spycraft CCG and FFG with various boardgames. But they were pretty big companies before d20 hit. Smaller companies couldn't do it. Of the post d20 ones, someone like Mongoose, yeah. Maybe Green Ronin (before their troubles with their distributor), but that's about it.

Sure a company might try to use their credit to get into one of those, but that's apparently what crippled Chaoisum - they spent way too much on their Cthulhu CCG and dug themselves a huge hole.


And fiction? Mwhahahahahah. Unless you have a huge name like D&D or maybe Vampire, it's not going to sell enough to sustain a company, or even be profitable. Many fairly big name authors in the SF/Fantasy/Horror genre can't make a living writing and have to take second jobs outside the field. Heck, some fairly well known authors can't even get their stuff published except through speciality companies like what, Wild Side Press? Like Nick Pollota. Not a household name, but a good author. Or say, Lawrence Watt-Evans. He can get some stuff published, but not his established series which has 1000s of fans. Selling 1-2 thousands copies of a novel just isn't enough.


Metal minis probably can be profitable. No one will displace GW, but they could probably make money off of them as long as you are careful you don't go overboard in expenses. Plastic ones are apparently expensive to make, unless you do them in bulk. Wiz Kids is pulling the plug on Mage Knight apparently because they can't compete with D&D Minis. So that's probably out.


I don't think the hat/t-shirt/cafe press stuff will be much. But I am surprised more RPG companies haven't gotten into comics. I would think that there is some decent profit there, if done right.
 
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adwyn said:
All of this discussion makes me wonder if the business models for RPGs isn't bass ackwards.

Much as the D&D computer and book sales have exceeded the actual game's, I have begun to suspect that the key to making money might be developing the intellectual properties related to RPGs. After all only the DM is likely to buy a setting while several more players are then exposed to it.

Novels are one way to tap into the players, poorly conceived player option manuals another, but overall it seems like their should be more that a company could do to reach the non DM dollars.

All of this is speculation by an industry outsider of course, but as a businessman were I to look at an RPG company the lack of "synergy" in the intellectual properties is amazing. A good example is a microbrewery I own a share of has "paraphanlia" (shirts, hats, etc) sales that account for 15-20% of the gross annual sales, and those are things the big guys give away.

The same can be said for the comic book industry. Marvel puts out loads of comics every month. However, that pales in comparrison to the movie deals they have going on. I think I saw somewhere that Marvel's movies comprise 80% of their income, toys and games do 15% and comics do 5% (or similar numbers). Now you might say 'comics are a waste iof their time' but this is a unique business model where the 5% literally drives the others. You could look at the actual comics as an accecptable loss, financially, so long as their movies and toys continue to sell.

The difference between this and RPGs is that there is not much of an iconic appeal in the mainstream to RPGs as there is, say, X-Men, Batman, Spiderman, etc.
 

JoeGKushner said:
While I'll probably wind up getting it.....

I think this phrase is key.
A lot of gamers I know buy next to nothing.
But the ones I know who generally buy stuff, often buy a fair fraction of it never expecting to use it in game. They either want to own it for collections sake, want to raid it for ideas, or want to just enjoy reading, or who knows whatever other reason.

There certainly seems to be a "get your fix" element of the gaming market that plays a role in fueling things.
 

Paradigm said:
Joe,

Do you enjoy doing the message board version of lighting a bag of dog s**t on fire and ringing the doorbell?


What makes you think that? Many companies have limited edition products at say, conventions, and some sell hats and shirts and other goods. While some companies branch out occassionally, like Green Ronin's team up with Human Head Studios for the various boardgames they've done, it seems that most of the creative resources wind up doing RPG material, which from other sources, doesn't seem to be on the rise. (Unless it's PDF.)
 

eyebeams said:
Card games? It depends. The days where games that could support a pro-circuit were coming up all over the place are long gone. Small NCCGS probably aren't much more successful than RPGS. Board games? I'm not even sure the truly worthwhile ones are even a part of the "adventure games" hobby.

In terms of card games, I doubt few would argue that Munchkin and man, I can't believe I don't remember the name of SJG other card game and I even have a few sets. Anyway, those are proven sellers with numerous break outs and expansions. Others like Z-Man games seem more devoted to games than actual RPG products with their various b-list movie card games like Bad Ass Mothers on the Mean Streets of Funk or Giant Robots on Kung Fu Samurai Island. (Probably butchered both those names...)
 


I'm surprised no 3rd party companies have jumped on the pre-painted plastic miniatures yet, it seems like it would be profitable, especially if someone offered a packaging method that was a bit less random. Maybe the initial investment to get this started is just too big for most small companies to afford? I'm also surprised established miniatures companies like Reaper havn't expanded into plastic pre-paints as well. Picking up one metal ogre for $8.99 or 8-10 different mini's in a box from WotC for 11.99? Lets just says that as a working 30-something with kids, its a no-brainer, unless i'm in a rare painting mood.

I also think cr@ppy distribution is really holding RPGs back. Book stores almost never have any kind of selection, usually only 10-15 WotC titles with the odd Everquest book mixed in. Even game stores seem to have a hard time knowing what to order, unless you are there on whatever "mystery" day a product arrives, you are unlikely to get one of the 2 or so copies they actually got in. Those of us who shop online are limited by what we see on websites like ENworld or word of mouth, there seems to be no other marketing methods out there.

Until RPGs figure out a way to get on the shelves at WalMart (or Kmart, or Target, etc), sales will be a constant battle. RPGs will never enjoy the added impact of the "impulse buy" that CCGs get when a kid spots something while mommy is shopping and yells "I want that!", like they do with Pokemon or Beyblades, etc.

I bought my first "red box" at Maas Brothers, my first box of miniatures at JC penny's, and my first campaign setting (City State of the IO) at my local hardware store. It was a year or two after that before I realized there was such a thing as "game stores"!
 

Grimstaff said:
... my first campaign setting (City State of the IO) at my local hardware store.

I'd love to know what they thought they were ordering, or why they ordered it at all... I've never seen a hardware store with a book or toy section.
 

That's one thing I've wondered about, why aren't RPG's in mainstream distribution channels other than bookstores anymore? Twenty years ago you could buy your gaming materials at a department store, now, not really.

What's keeping RPG's (presumably the biggest first, like D&D & WW, maybe a few well-known licenses too) from being on the shelf at Target, KMart, Mal-Wart, Meijers and other big store chains. They've often got large book sections, and even a small display of RPG materials (D&D core 3, WW's Core and 3 setting books, maybe one or two top-selling suppliments for each) wouldn't take up much space, but it would increase vastly.

Do they not want to carry RPG's? Are RPG companies and distributors afraid of how they'll act (I've heard many horror stories about how Wal-Mart treats it's suppliers). I found it surprising when I realized I could'nt even buy the collectable minis at Wal-Mart. I received a gift card as a door prize at a company christmas party once, and thought I'd cash it in on something gaming related (if possible), I figured books were right out, but I was really surprised when I found they didn't even have D&D or Star Wars collectable minis (or Mage Knight, or Heroclix). The only time I've ever seen any collectable minis at Wal-Mart (or any big chain store) was some of the Revenge of the Sith Star Wars mins right when the Episode III merchandise came out, and then only a very small amount (probably 1 case), which was not restocked.

I'd imagine that collectable minis are the industry's best bet to get real penetration into the mass market, they have the collectable and "toy" factors, and can serve as a gateway product to the RPG later on, and when they do, they've already got plenty of minis to use.
 

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