The market dying?

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

I just passed on what anyone involved in the business of the game industry would tell you right now: the hobby is going through a rough period. This is not to say there are not individual success stories, there are, but in general sales across all categories are down. I hear the same thing from every retailer and every distributor I talk to and those are the guys on the ground level selling this stuff.

Thanks for the clarification. Note that nothing you say contradicts what Mike Mearls said earlier. I suspect the local gaming retailer is not going to stock much except the best-selling RPGs in the near future. As Mearls points out, the big chain bookstores and Amazon.com are set up much better to deal with RPGs than your local hobby game retailer. And to be honest, if my local hobby retailer went out of business altogether I wouldn't notice. They've not provided any service of value to me for the last 4 years, and are unlikely to do so better than Amazon.com and its ilk in the future.

 

[philreed]

Yes, actually, they are. Each week in our department meeting, the brand team gives us an overview of the last week of sales.

That doesn't sound very useful. I could see how monthly reports might be interesting but devoting attention each week to the previous week's sales seems like a waste of valuable time. It sounds like the company is far too focused on the short-term health of the brand -- especially if they're bothering everyone in the department with sales numbers on a weekly basis.

 

[TwistedBishop]

There's just no right answer, is there?

"You don't know the sales numbers."

"We have a report every meeting."

"That doesn't sound useful, and proves WotC is shortsighted and greedy!"

 

[Akrasia]

... But I also expect people to extend the same skepticism to employees of other companies....

Then why not come straight out and explain where Chris Pramas is wrong and you're right? :\

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Then why not come straight out and explain where Chris Pramas is wrong and you're right? :\

But why should he have to prove Pramas wrong? Gods, why does anyone have to be proving anyone else wrong?

Am I the only one confused by all of this? No matter what anyone says, you can't believe them. Its just not possible. You can't trust Mearls because he works for WotC...okay...then why do you trust any other publishers? Because they say its bad, so obviously they're speaking the truth?

Maybe, as Pramas has said, the hobby IS going through a rough period(hell, I won't even argue that one way or another). But what IS a rough period? Is a rough period when 3rd party publishers just aren't selling as much as they have before? If that's it, then how does that count for a rough period when we all know just how little effect the 3rd party publishers(no matter how much we love them) really have on things when compared to WotC and WW?

And then again...what is 'the hobby'? Are we talking about just RPGs? Or all of gaming? There doesn't seem to be any consensus on what's actually being discussed here...just a lot of "the market is shrinking."/"No it isn't." No side has any evidence one way or another, for whatever reason.

So...IS the market dying? From this thread, you can't even tell what the market is, not to mention who we're actually going to accept it telling the truth on whether or not its even shrinking.

 

[eyebeams]

Indeed. Every year the first portion of "Year's Best Science Fiction" is spent debunking the "SF is dying" theory that propagates itself despite the fact that more SF books are published every year than the previous.

This is the kind of content-free thinking that's a persistent problem in SF circles and in this thread, too. Debunking the idea that SF is declining with licensed novel sales doesn't answer the concerns SF fans actually have.

 

[Akrasia]

...
So...IS the market dying? ...

Relative to 1982? It's in a coma. Relative to 2000? It's in a 'rough patch'.

Whether the market is 'in decline' depends on the time scale involved.

 

[eyebeams]

Yes, actually, they are. Each week in our department meeting, the brand team gives us an overview of the last week of sales.

Net or gross? You can't effectively link sales to returns in such a short period of time.

 

[Akrasia]

I have a theory that every geek pastime has a sort of apocalyptic death cult attached to it. Just as there's religious cults utterly convinced that the end of the world is just around the corner, in RPGs, SF, TCGs, whatever, there's always going to be a hard core that almost seems like they *need* their hobby to be in dire straits.
...

What a load of crap. :\

I'm very impressed with IH, Mike, but this is just complete rubbish. Stick to the games.

 

[eyebeams]

I have a theory that every geek pastime has a sort of apocalyptic death cult attached to it. Just as there's religious cults utterly convinced that the end of the world is just around the corner, in RPGs, SF, TCGs, whatever, there's always going to be a hard core that almost seems like they *need* their hobby to be in dire straits.

Not really. RPGs probably have at least a good century in them. The commercial print RPG industry? Not so much. Board wargaming and comics are probably instructional about where things are headed -- and why, too. They aren't dead (and Marvel makes a lot of money --2% of it even comes from comic books), but you'd be hard-pressed to call them anywhere near as thriving as they were a decade ago.

I remember threads about this stuff since I was first online, back in 1993. I'm sure you'd find similar threads on Google's Usenet archive back in the '80s.

Given that the first major drop in sales I can remember was '93-'95, you arrived at the right time at the right place. In any event, though, what's more salient are period bit about how marketing to a narrow target with MacFarlane foil covers and how computers would never replace boardgames mean that their related markets were going to do well for a while, yet, and pointing out otherwise is disloyal to the scene and a "death cult" of some kind.

Same one true-wayisms about the centrality of existing fandom and marketing schemes. Same denail when things don't work as plan. Same results.