The 5 'Tiers' of TTRPG Publishing

Cannibal Halfling Gaming published an interesting article recently in which they divided tabletop roleplaying game publishers into five tiers, based on annual revenue. Here were their categories, but you should check out the article for a deeper dive.

~$500 million annual: D&D
~$50 million annual: Paizo
~$5 million annual: Steve Jackson Games
~$500K annual: Evil Hat Productions
~Everyone else (up to $100K)

They chose one example publisher per tier; they didn't list every TTRPG publisher. That's why your favourite publisher is not on that list of 4 companies. But feel free to add to the list!

Also, we talked about it in last week's episode of Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk, for those who prefer to absorb their news in video format!

 

[Thomas Shey]

I always want more content, but I simply have no faith that a publically-traded company is going to put enough effort and resources into making (not marketing, making) a great game over the long haul. They may keep making content as you say, but they're not making it for me. WotC's business and design choices have proven this to my personal satisfaction. Fortunately, I have no need for anything from them anymore.

I've argued there's an intrinsically perverse incentive when the priority is stockholder value rather than ongoing health of a company.

 

[LegendaryGames]

Thanks for replying; It was great to hear your publisher perspective. I backed your Black Flag Asian and Hispanic monsters a few years ago. Used them in a game - loved them. Loved that you had FoundryVTT support.

Glad you are loving Asian and Latin American Monsters! If you haven't yet, by all means do check out our new African Monsters bestiary book for Tales of the Valiant from last year too!

 

[LegendaryGames]

What do these tiers mean for the community? Sure, they matter to publishers in the business, but to gamers? Do I care? Is there a noticeable impact if I'm all in on a publisher that is tier 2 or tier 4?

Probably nothing other than maybe how robust of a product line you might expect from that publisher. Even that's not much, as smaller publishers can focus fire and produce a lot more product because their economies of scale are such that they don't need to hit the numbers that a bigger publisher does to make a product make sense. If Paizo publishes a book and it sells 1,000 copies, that's probably a disaster for them. If Legendary Games publishes a book and it sells 1,000 copies, that's a triumph. On a certain level, that implies that bigger companies have to cater to a broader audience whereas smaller publishers can (in theory) specialize in products and crank them out at a healthy rate as long as their critical mass of customers likes what they're doing.

Other than that, though? Nothing really leaps to mind.

 

[LegendaryGames]

...yeah, at this point i get the sense that you've just embraced crowdfunding as your distribution model, rather than as a development seed; some other publishers still frame their initiatives toward the latter despite actual revenues really supporting the former...

We do some of both. And we still have plenty of products that just come out in our normal production cycles and not through crowdfunding at all.

There are still some projects we approach more like the olden days where it's "here's an idea and a first piece of it and hey do you want to help us make it come true" with stretch goals and the whole nine yards. That's a necessity when you're building a company because you don't have the library of assets or reserves to invest in things ahead of time. You have to raise the money first or it just doesn't get made.

Once a company does have a stronger foundation, though, more often it makes better sense for both producer and consumer to focus on (to the extent possible) doing your projects more prospectively: get the writing done, get as much art as you can, get layout samples, and so on to get the book completely or nearly done before you launch the project. The logistical benefits for the customer are obvious: you get your stuff a lot sooner. Make your pledge, get your loot within days or weeks instead of months or years.

There's also an intangible benefit for the producer, though, because they're able to "close the book" on a project much more quickly, so that it's not hanging around waiting to get done. It cuts you loose from old projects and lets you pivot and focus on new ones, so your turnover cycle is quicker. Stuff happens, of course, and some projects just take longer than you thought they would, but if most of your projects are in a quick turnaround, that doesn't become an albatross around your neck the way longer-cycle projects can be. Some companies have gotten behind on one project and then another and another and soon it's a 20-car pileup that's all in arrears.

There's definitely room in the arsenal of any company to take both approaches, depending on the project, and that's how we've done it.

 

[Simon Miles]

Cannibal Halfling Gaming published an interesting article recently in which they divided tabletop roleplaying game publishers into five tiers, based on annual revenue. Here were their categories, but you should check out the article for a deeper dive.

~$500 million annual: D&D
~$50 million annual: Paizo
~$5 million annual: Steve Jackson Games
~$500K annual: Evil Hat Productions
~Everyone else (up to $100K)

They chose one example publisher per tier; they didn't list every TTRPG publisher. That's why your favourite publisher is not on that list of 4 companies. But feel free to add to the list!

Also, we talked about it in last week's episode of Morrus' Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk, for those who prefer to absorb their news in video format!

I propose a 6th level - the amateur who doesn't make enough to pay one salary, for example: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/14527/Dunromin-University-Press?affiliate_id=295776