Should companies bother with RPGs?
- Thread starter JoeGKushner
- Start date
Threedub
First Post
JoeGKushner said:
If they create good fiction, console games, computer games, and board games and keep up high quality in the RPG field; and make money doing it then of course they should.
But what they SHOULD do isn't what I WANT them to do. I want them to be profitable and stay in business, but I could give a rip about fiction (if it is high fantasy or licensed type fiction--I don't like romance novels or pulp westerns and I see D&D type fiction as the same stuff). I could give a rip about console games, unless they are sports games which are much better with an opponent on the console. Board games are another matter--get cracking on them; study German design, Fantasy Flight/Avalon Hill for bits, and hire a technical writer for the rules.
Ghostwind said:Why does the Alan Jackson song, "It just takes money" keeping playing through my mind everytime I read this thread?
May have something to do with an old saying; the fastest way to make a small fortune in games is to start with a large fortune. Look at what happened to ICE, TSR, and Avalon Hill when the money bags dried up.
To be successful a game publisher needs to know how to run a business, and how the games he publishes work. Board games have one dynamic, real time computer strategy games another. Then you have RPGs, with a dynamic all their own.
You play boardgames to test yourself against others. Whether it be Settlers of Cataan or Risk. You play RPGs to test yourself against a situation set up and controlled by a GM. A GM you hope is honest with you. In an RPG you are not trying to win, but to succeed in achieving a goal. Which may sound like winning, but has important differences once you think about it. As a matter of fact, events in a session may change things so dramatically that the old goal becomes at best irrelevant, or at worst the worst thing that could possibly happen.
You get right down to it, knowing how board games, card games, or miniatures games work may work against you where RPGs are concerned. For the tendency is to view RPGs as like other games, when really, they are not. RPGs, for all they have tradtional game elements in them, are on the whole a whole different kettle of fish.
If you're a small company stick with traditional games or RPGs, don't try and mix the two. If you're a big company have separate divisions for the two, and try not to mix them up. Your business will be healthier in the long run.
Angel Tarragon
Dawn Dragon
I'm with Croth on this one.Crothian said:
Hussar
Legend
mythusmage said:
Quoted for truth.
However, it usually doesn't hurt for a company to at least entertain the idea of branching out into other goodies - be it swag like t-shirts or cups or other games or whatnot. One thing that would trouble me though is that computer game design and RPG design have amazingly little to do with eachother. There's a reason that WOTC doesn't make computer games and computer game companies do. Computer game design is a very costly business from what I've read and requires a pretty large investment beforehand. I'm not really sure if many rpg publishers have that kind of cash on hand to do it.
With few exceptions, fiction is, at best, self-financed advertisement for a compeny's intellectual property.
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.
If you want a minis game to succeed to need to find a niche that hasn't been exploited. Even WotC couldn't come up with a miniatures wargame to unhinge GW from its spot, but its prepainted, multiple use minis did what nobody else could.
Licensing? Well, you need to attract people with a proof of concept. Marvel makes a minute slice of its money from comics now, but the comics demonstrate the virtues of the property, from adaptability to built in followings. RPGs could very well do the same.
I'd say that for *new* ventures, things are much more even than choosing between which established product lines a company should focus on.
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.
If you want a minis game to succeed to need to find a niche that hasn't been exploited. Even WotC couldn't come up with a miniatures wargame to unhinge GW from its spot, but its prepainted, multiple use minis did what nobody else could.
Licensing? Well, you need to attract people with a proof of concept. Marvel makes a minute slice of its money from comics now, but the comics demonstrate the virtues of the property, from adaptability to built in followings. RPGs could very well do the same.
I'd say that for *new* ventures, things are much more even than choosing between which established product lines a company should focus on.
tetsujin28
First Post
In general, card games bore the bejeezus out of me. If I want to play cards, I'll play poker, thanks. As far as minis games go, I play historicals almost exclusively (other than Confrontation), so a fantasy game isn't going to interest me. Novels? No way. I'm extraordinarily picky about fiction, and game fiction tends to be real dreck. So rpgs are really the only thing they'll be able to sell to me.
