The evolution of video games, movies and how it might relate to RPGs

[Derren]

Pretext: This is no "D&D is like WoW"

ENWorld ate my last post, so you get a slightly shorter version.

Especially video games started out similar to PnP rpgs as nerd hobby, but, because of faster product cycles, evolved much faster. The question is, can you take the situation VGs are now in and apply it to PnP Rpgs?

I recognize 3 different markets for Video games (Imo of course with some overlap).

1. The mass market
Very good graphics, always using tried and tested formulas companies know will work, easy entry with no manual required, rather easy. Loosing it pretty much impossible. Very often a shallow story. Made to be accessible to as many people as possible. High marketing budgets.
Examples: Doom, EA sport games, Call of Duty

2. The fringe market
Graphics are not as good or even rather ugly/not existing. Cater to the original nerd players from the beginning of the industry. Manuals are very often required and the games are generally more difficult.
Examples: Hearts of Iron, Baldur's Gate

3. Experimental market
Completely untested concept. Success is a "hit or miss" like in the beginning of the video game industry. Successful games here will become mass market titles.
Examples: Guitar Hero. Elektroplankton

Movies are similar.
Mass market: Lots of action and explosions, not much story. Accessible for nearly everyone. Example: Transformers, Independence Day

Fringe market: Less focus on effects, more story. Examples: Syriana. Brokeback Mountain

Experimentals: Low budget movies. Examples: Blair Witch Project.

How can this be applied to PnP RPGs and will PnP RPGs even follow this pattern? Both D&D and Warhammer Fantasy are pushing into the boardgame/miniature direction (imo mass market).

And how will the current video game trends affect the PnP market.
With DDi, WotC is already going close to the DLC (Downloadable Contend) hype currently going on in the Video Game industry.

Will a eventual VTT be more multiplayer/mmo like where it is not (only) for already existing groups, but will have a lobby where people can meet, spontaneously decide to start a game and select a DM who can load a preexisting module (paid contend) or one he designed beforehand for a quick RPG game?
How will microtransaction figure into that? Will you pay for every contend extra instead paying for a big book of content? E.g. "Want to use the Stormbringer Orc? Pay $1 to unlock. Notice out limited offer. The whole Orc package for just $14.99".

 

[Hussar]

Will a eventual VTT be more multiplayer/mmo like where it is not (only) for already existing groups, but will have a lobby where people can meet, spontaneously decide to start a game and select a DM who can load a preexisting module (paid contend) or one he designed beforehand for a quick RPG game?

Eventual?

We've been able to do this in at least two VTT's - OpenRPG and Maptool - for the past five years or so.

What blows my mind, and continues to do so, is why games designers are not wedding their games to existing VTT's in order to reach a much larger market. I see that Savage Worlds has a number of micropayment options for use with Battlegrounds for example.

 

[Derren]

Eventual?

We've been able to do this in at least two VTT's - OpenRPG and Maptool - for the past five years or so.

What blows my mind, and continues to do so, is why games designers are not wedding their games to existing VTT's in order to reach a much larger market. I see that Savage Worlds has a number of micropayment options for use with Battlegrounds for example.

Probably because non of the existing VTTs is owned by a RPG company and its market share is not very big.
That also means such VTTs could be used for any kind of RPG. It likely that when WotC finally publishes its VTT that it will be very hard to play something else than D&D on it.
Or maybe the companies simply overlook the possibilities of VTTs.

 

[Wik]

Gah. the way you oversimplify movies bugs me. I really don't see "Brokeback Mountain" as, say, "Fringe" (compare it to The Brown Bunny, which is what I'd say is a much more "fringe" film).

And there are plenty of low budget movies that are not experimental. Juno, for example, was relatively cheap to make, and yet I'd call it a major release. And there are plenty of high budget movies that were also experimental (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, Memento, Fight Club).

also, comparing RPGs to movies is an exercise in futililty. A movie is passive entertainment - the viewer has no influence over the events on screen. Games, of course, are the exact opposite. I'd say the act of MAKING a movie can be compared to an RPG, but that's not really the point. (for what it's worth, I always thought a campaign based around being a war correspondence team in a modern day war zone would be a great mini campaign).

 

[Mercurius]

Gah. the way you oversimplify movies bugs me. I really don't see "Brokeback Mountain" as, say, "Fringe" (compare it to The Brown Bunny, which is what I'd say is a much more "fringe" film).

In terms of movie-making and the industry itself, you're right. But if we're talking about mainstream American culture as a barometer, I'd say Brokeback Mountain is pretty fringe. Homosexuality is still quite fringe; two cowboys going at it on the bigscreen is very fringe. I'd go so far as to say that about half of America tolerates homosexuality, with a small portion of that number being truly open, while the other half is intolerant, with an equally small--but still very significant--portion being outright hostile. So in terms of open/tolerant/intolerant/hostile we've got something like 10/40/40/10 percentiles.

 

[Wik]

Merc - But take a look at the commercial sales of Brokeback Mountain. I don't have the numbers, but the thing made money. A lot of money. It helped solidify careers. What that means is, people watched it. Compare that, as I said, to The Brown Bunny, which was also a movie about sex (though hetero, and in a completely different sense).

Actually, that comparison is kind of unfair. So, I'll change it. Compare Brokeback to, say, Shortbus. Shortbus being a better choice because it has large homosexual parts, was critically well received, and.... was still very much "fringe". I'd be willing to bet that a lot more people were offended by Shortbus over Brokeback.

Really though, my point is that trying to talk about movies in only three categories is very simplistic, and kind of futile. Especially with those descriptors - I wouldn't be surprised to see Brokeback Mountain described as Mass Market, Fringe, and Experimental, all at once, for example. Especially these days, where a lot of films are released as "Indy" films by major production companies to appeal to the growing fringe market while still being worthy of a "major motion picture release" (Juno being the most obvious).

 

[delericho]

To hit a "mass market", an RPG would need to cut the buy-in right down - the rules would need to be massively simplified, the emphasis would need to be on pre-gen adventures, and those would almost need to be written so that the DM can run them without having read them beforehand. It's also likely that most games would use pre-gen characters, and the whole thing would have to be set up to run from start to finish in an evening (~3 hours).

Problem is, once you do all of that, you have probably generated a game that is of little interest to the existing core of gamers. And if they desert the game en masse, the game is dead in the water.

(And, besides, once you do that you've probably reached a point where there's very little to recommend tabletop RPGs over boardgames or WoW. The latter already does an adequate job of simulating the 'important bits' of D&D for a great many people.)

I'm inclined to think RPGs will always remain a minority hobby, and that RPG companies would be wise to accept that and work accordingly. (Arguably, WotC already do.) What they probably could do is work to "expand the minority", by highlighting the things that D&D does do better than other games (ongoing freeform play), but also be working to reduce the minimum 'buy in' that is required of new players.

 

[Derren]

To hit a "mass market", an RPG would need to cut the buy-in right down - the rules would need to be massively simplified, the emphasis would need to be on pre-gen adventures, and those would almost need to be written so that the DM can run them without having read them beforehand. It's also likely that most games would use pre-gen characters, and the whole thing would have to be set up to run from start to finish in an evening (~3 hours).

That would fit exactly in my categories in the first post. Also, this would make game easy to play online. See my paragraph about the VTT online lobby. People who can spontaneously meet, load an adventure and play it without much preparation. Maybe people will have personal characters which grow and can be used in adventures, but it is possible to scale them down to run lower level ones. And, as it is a random group one evening must be enough to play it.
Living setting online.

Problem is, once you do all of that, you have probably generated a game that is of little interest to the existing core of gamers. And if they desert the game en masse, the game is dead in the water.

Only if you can't attract more mass market gamers than what you loose with the fringe population. And mass market products are geared towards attracting as many people as possible.
The only thing which is likely preventing that is that the mass market is too occupied with video games, so that they don't need mainstream RPGs for it.

(And, besides, once you do that you've probably reached a point where there's very little to recommend tabletop RPGs over boardgames or WoW. The latter already does an adequate job of simulating the 'important bits' of D&D for a great many people.)

See the newest Warhammer Fantasy edition. Tokens, special dices, etc.

I'm inclined to think RPGs will always remain a minority hobby, and that RPG companies would be wise to accept that and work accordingly. (Arguably, WotC already do.) What they probably could do is work to "expand the minority", by highlighting the things that D&D does do better than other games (ongoing freeform play), but also be working to reduce the minimum 'buy in' that is required of new players.

Such things can change very fast when people realize how much more money they can make with the mass market. With the 3E-4E shift WotC wasn't afraid to drive away a lot of people as long as they can attract an equal number or more.
And when Hasbro smells money there is nothing WotC can do anyway.

About Brokeback Mountain, the Oscar it got and the nomination for the best film and the media hype about gay cowboys certainly helped the box office results (32% according to the website).
And even with that, its "just" rank 22 of the charts for that year, close to other fringe films like March of the Penguins and way behind those mass produced animation movies (Robots, Chicken Little, Madagascar) or the generic action movies (War of Worlds, King Kong).

 

[delericho]

Only if you can't attract more mass market gamers than what you loose with the fringe population. And mass market products are geared towards attracting as many people as possible.

It depends. I wonder about the distribution of new 4e players - how many of them are "a new player in an existing group" vs "new players in a new group"? If, as I suspect, the new players are heavily weighted towards the former, then WotC would have to be careful - if you drive away 90% of the existing player base then the game is dead, even if it would otherwise bring in twice that number of "new players to an existing group" - if there are no existing groups then they don't start the game.

See the newest Warhammer Fantasy edition. Tokens, special dices, etc.

I'm aware of it. I pretty much hate everything I've heard about it. If this is the future of RPGs, then I'm out.

Such things can change very fast when people realize how much more money they can make with the mass market. With the 3E-4E shift WotC wasn't afraid to drive away a lot of people as long as they can attract an equal number or more.
And when Hasbro smells money there is nothing WotC can do anyway.

True. What worries me is the possibility that they think they smell money of the order of WoW, they go chasing it, find it's not there, and have destroyed the game in the process.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Baldur's Gate is fringe?

Really?

Really?



When Baldur's Gate came out, it was praised lavishly for it's beautifully hand-painted scenary and the ability of the Infinity Engine to create weird and wonderful backdrops. As for it being fringe, it's one of the games that helped prevent the total extinction of the cRPG, and is still praised as being one of the best RPG series made.