State of the RPG Industry

[DanMcS]

Nevertheless, the d20 market is clogged with product, so an individual product nowadays will sell a fraction of what it would have two years ago. It makes it hard for the non-diversified companies to compete, and even they are having profitability problems unless they watch costs closely. I'd like to say that quality is winning out, and darwinian theory is always favoring the best products. I'm just not sure it's true.

Not just the d20 market is clogged with product. There are probably more games than ever available now. But I think you're wrong about one thing- diversity isn't being driven out. Price is. That's what I kinda wonder about.

Software is about 10 years ahead of the RPG industry, I think. Used to be, you could sell basic software and make a good living off of it. Web browsers sold so well that Netscape produced quite a few wealthy employees from stock options, and eventually got bought out for a huge amount of money by AOL. Can anyone picture paying for your basic web browser now? Software is so cheap to distribute, once produced, that it's hard to give it away now. What people will generally buy, software-wise, is high-performance stuff, server software, databases, things like that. Software companies make their money off of support contracts now. There's not much software margin built into the dirt-cheap desktops people buy now, for instance. Most of the price for a home user is hardware.

What's the analogy for RPGs? High end products continue to sell. Wizards, for instance, has gone completely to hardback, full-color, big sourcebooks, because those are the most profitable. White Wolf seems to be doing OK, and they've been doing big hardback core books for years. Whether those are the equivalent of "hardware" or "performance-critical software" is up in the air, don't take my metaphor completely literally

Adventures may be starting to have trouble competing with the free alternatives, though. And there's not as much profit margin in paperbacks, so we've been told.

There's no RPG-equivalent of software support contracts, so that cash cow doesn't exist to keep companies afloat.

What I worry about in the industry is that smaller for-profit products/producers may be eventually completely driven out. Nobody buys text editors any more, and in 10 years, nobody will buy adventures or small sourcebooks. Small RPG designers may have to get day jobs, because all the slightly-lower quality but free material that's starting to be available will force them to go to either high-priced hardbacks, or out of business.

There won't be a lack of diversity, because once you stop worrying about making a product with mass sales appeal, you can put your wildest ideas on a page and someone will download it. But there will be a dearth of small, for-profit publishers.

 

[francisca]

Note that Mongoose has done something exceptionally clever: they've used cash flow from cheaper projects like the Slayers and Quintessential guides to create high-profile and high quality projects like Slaine. In addition, they have so many products out there that they maintain a high consumer profile, they command attention in the distribution channels, and they probably maintain a relatively even cash flow. Say what you want about their products, I think the company is cleverly and competently run.

And that is a pretty successful business model. Witness Japanese manufacturers of cars and electronics, and microsoft, for example.

 

[Erik Mona]

The industry is in crappy shape right now. WotC is doing well. Honestly, Paizo is doing pretty well with the magazines. I have every reason to believe White Wolf is doing well, too, and there have been "major" releases like Mutants & Masterminds and I'd guess Midnight that do quite well relative to the "average" d20 product.

Lots and lots of companies can't for the life of them break 5,000 copies per release with any kind of regularity. Three years ago, those numbers were common.

Products that you guys think of as "high profile" are often printed in the 4,000-5,000 copies range, and are never reprinted. It's becoming increasingly more and more difficult for publishers to make money on products. Not all of them are feeling it, but I'd say most of them probably are.

The market is choked. The people who order products--game store managers--don't seem to pay much attention to good or bad, and order roughly 1-2 copies of everything, constantly rewarding "good" and "bad" companies alike. Instead of restocking after that initial order sells through, they just spend the profits on whatever's new next month.

It's become an almost completely frontlist-driven industry. I'd hazard to guess that most d20 products from most publishers either just break even or lose money. No one is reliably making a ton of money off of d20 products anymore, and if they tell you otherwise, my first inclination is to assume they're lying.

--Erik Mona

 

[jmucchiello]

Small RPG designers may have to get day jobs

I'd bet the 90% of all RPG designers have day jobs. And I'd bet that a similar number of RPG designers have always had day jobs. The RPG business is tiny.

The reason companies try to do multigenre systems is to get you to buy books in more than one line. If you buy D&D books, perhaps you will look at d20 Modern because you don't have to learn a new system to try it out. There are far more gamers who say "I don't want to learn something new" then there are gamers who complain about the system being the same.

 

[DanMcS]

I'd bet the 90% of all RPG designers have day jobs. And I'd bet that a similar number of RPG designers have always had day jobs. The RPG business is tiny.

Sorry, I meant small but full-time.

 

[2d6]

What's the analogy for RPGs? High end products continue to sell. Wizards, for instance, has gone completely to hardback, full-color, big sourcebooks, because those are the most profitable. White Wolf seems to be doing OK, and they've been doing big hardback core books for years. Whether those are the equivalent of "hardware" or "performance-critical software" is up in the air, don't take my metaphor completely literally

I have to wonder about that. Have you looked at the current prices of DnD books? take a gander at amazon, the least expensive current book is $29.95 with many in the $35-$40 range. The days of $15-$20 books seem to be over and I know I for one am alot more picky about what I'm willing to pay; and the state of the economy has no influence on that decision. @ $40/book, how long do you think the high-end buyers are going to last?

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I'd bet the 90% of all RPG designers have day jobs. And I'd bet that a similar number of RPG designers have always had day jobs. The RPG business is tiny.

Even Sean K Reynolds has a dayjob. I think Monte does too.

 

[WayneLigon]

Some somewhat connected thoughts.

Huh. Really, I see the RPG situtation as the best it's been in a a long long time since d20 came onto the scene. I see more and better product coming into the stores than I have in several years (esp. since the days when the CCG phenomenon was riding high). It reminds me of the way the hobby was years and years ago, when you could go into the store and find something new almost every week.

Hoghead and FASA are gone. Eh. Just off the top of my head, I don't even know who Hogshead is; all of FASA's major lines have been picked up by other people. Most games are not so lucky. Many, many other companies, new companies, are out there now. New companies and new writers and new artists that without d20 might never have gotten off the ground.

These new companies have a foot in the door, now. They might be the one to produce the 'Next D&D'.

Sure, d20 will level off. Everything does and everyone knows this; a good thing cannot last forever. That kind of thinking brought us to systems analysts working for 25K. But unless it's spectacularly mismanaged (and it might be; it has been before, remember?) D&D will stay the top dog. Before d20, before the Card Boom, before TSR went toes up, D&D was king. Yes, there were a lot of other games out there, vital innovative and very cool games. I've certainly played most of them. And all taken together, I'm willing to bet they didn't fill half of TSR's footprint, for all the shouting and arm-waving.

Multi-Genre systems were gaming's 'holy grail' for a long time, and it's still a desirable thing. The ease and convenience of a rules set that at least bears a passing resemblance to other incarnations of itself is great. It reduces a GM's workload by a great deal. Sure a good GM can pull ideas from any published source and convert but it's scads easier when you don't have to convert that much.

I've seen people leave the hobby forever. The single most common complaint? It takes too much time. Maybe if they had not had to do so much work, they'd still be gamers today.

Players don't have to switch gears that much. It lets people explore different genres easily, something they are loath to do when they also have to learn a new system.

 

[mearls]

It's worth pointing out that the US economy as a whole isn't doing very well, though it supposedly shows signs of growth. That has to color everything we discuss concerning the RPG business.

I think there are a lot of problems facing all RPG publishers, particularly those who produce d20 material. First and foremost, there is no established study of RPGs or really any form of game. Design and production are all based on guesswork and conventional wisdom. IME, 99% of the RPG business' conventional "wisdom" is based on how people wished things worked, rather than how they actually functioned. d20 threw a bucket of cold water on the business's face and forced a lot of people to wake up to some harsh realities. There still a lot of legacy thinking behind RPG design, namely that RPGs should mimic fiction as closely as possible, but those misguided ideals are slowly falling by the wayside.

In a way, I think it's a natural progression that we'd go from strong sales to weak sales over time. Without an established body of knowledge, game companies are literally shooting in the dark. After a while, customers are going to get fed up with products they don't like. I think there were a lot of people jazzed up about RPGs when 3e came out, and they bought tons of stuff. Now, they look at that stuff and don't like a lot of it and rarely use the rest of it. A few books really stand out as cool products they use again and again, but not enough to get them to buy as often as they used to.

It's also worth noting that the average gamer doesn't have much in common with people who read these forums or write reviews for the various web sites. What people here see as quality doesn't necessarily equal what the average game buying person sees as quality. I don't think the two are so far apart at EN World than at other sites, but that divide is still there. People who read message boards are usually veterans, yet companies rely on the Internet for a lot of feedback and ego stoking. What people say on line does matter to companies.

So, we have a situation in which the available feedback is not always good feedback.

I think these factors combine to put us where we are. I wouldn't be surprised at all if WotC's sales have remained strong. The D&D minis seem to have taken off very well, while their customer support cards (y'all do fill those out, right?) give them a very useful measure of what the customer base likes and dislikes.

FWIW, I think that the total number of gamers has grown. RPGs seem smaller only because they're lumped in with hobbies that produce more money in a steadier stream: CCGs and collectible minis games. The key lies in publishers' making stuff that gamers want to buy, rather than making stuff that they (the publishers) want to produce.

 

[WizarDru]

"the Abe Vigoda of Gaming"? When'd you get that distinction? If it has something to do with how many kids are living in your household, you have my pity.

Anyhow, how wide do you see the divide between the average ENWorld poster and the standard gamer, Mike? I'm not disagreeing, necessarily, I'm just curious what your take is.

I see the RPG market at being weak right now, but as you rightfully mention, the whole US economy is weak. I know that in 2000, I was buying RPG products like I hadn't bought for over a decade...then I got laid off for a year, and those purchases dwindled to 'starving college student' levels. The industry could be putting out the finest materials ever seen, and I still wasn't buying them in any real quantities.

These days, money is not nearly the problem that free time is. I don't have time to learn several new systems, and I don't have time to run games in mutliple existing systems, either. Working 60 hour weeks, it's all I can manage sometimes to pull together the weekly game. My purchases reflect what I think I can use or enjoy. I don't know if I'll ever run a d20 Modern game, but I purchased the book to read, in case I find that I do. However, by that same token, I didn't purchase Urban Arcana, since I knew the chances of running a game in d20 modern were slim, at best.

To Kevin: I agree that Mongoose has a good business acumen running. The biggest difference between how Mongoose succeeds where TSR failed is in understanding how to use that money to support other projects, not 'prop them up', as TSR did. Using the profits from Quintessential Druid, say, to print the Babylon 5 sourcebook is smart. Taking the profits from a FR book to put out a Birthright box set at cost to a few hundred readers, is not.

For me, the cost is less of an issue than the quality. I have no problem paying $40 for a hardbound book with color that I'll use. While I was disappointed with Arms & Equipment Guide being black and white, for example, I still consider it a worthwhile purchase.