The market dying?

[Umbran]

Weekly? Once, I worked for an internet startup. We used to get monthly updates and such just as described above. Then there was a smaller group who got weekly updates. They got these weekly updates because the management thought that there were problems and was trying to find solutions for those problems.

I have heard it said that for many RPG products, the majority of the sales happen in the first 90 days after release, and they drop to a low level following that. If you want to investigate that behavior, or the behavior of your RPG sales when someone else releases a product, or to see the effects of advertising, you'd need sales data with finer resolution than by month.

 

[eyebeams]

I think the above sums it up pretty well.

1) Few, if any, are saying the RPG hobby is in its final death throws. They are rather noting a significant down turn and a pattern of down turns.

2) Such a down turn, and pattern of such, is quite noticeable if one looks at long term trends. 3E created a dot.com like RPG bubble that has now largely burst. The return is not to a healthy status quo but to a declining hobby.

The decline is gradual over time, and may be momentarily abated by the likes of a 3E, but it is a decline. Mearls "death-cults" are, in fact, noting a historic trend. For the pollyannas, that the hobby hasn't died completely is "proof" that it is not and never has been in trouble but that is flawed, zero-sum thinking. A slow decline is still a decline and over the long term is troublesome, even while there will be bright spots now and again.

While the decline may find D&D last, it will eventually find it. Wotc will then need to "reinvent" the hobby to buck the declining trend line, 3E being the perhaps perfect example of a temporary propping up.

The model appears to be - decline, decline, decline, decline, PROPUP EVENT, decline, decline, decline, decline, PROPUP EVENT, decline, decline, decline, decline, PROPUP EVENT etc.

As Akrasia has noted, D&D is far from its glory days, even while it is not yet taken to its sick bed. This distinction seems to escape the "doing fine" set, who want instead to focus on "dead or not dead" black or white. It is rather a darkening shade of gray, IMO.

Excellent summary.

 

[Umbran]

Now, imagine (10-15 years hence) if you could don a pair a VR glasses and "enter" such a world.

Yes, but back in the 80s they were saying, "imagine that in 10 or 15 years you could put on some special glasses...". Computing power is growing, yes. But I think those who are making projections don't usually have a solid handle on what computing power is really required to make this vision come true.

 

[cleaverthepit]

contracting

and

purchasers re-aligning buying habits

nothing more

davis

 

[Paradigm]

(In response to "I like Palladium. The books are large, informative and affordable.")



There's probably a number of exceptions. I can't really point to any Palladium book (that I own) and say 'This book was a waste of my money'. They are packed with interesting ideas, and they're written for a system that is fairly understandable. They may act wierdly in play, but as references for other systems you get a big chunk of interesting ideas.

I am hardly the exception, at most, I am the exception on this board. I am also the manager of a FLGS and if the belle's of this forum sold like Palladium, they'd be too damn busy to post here.

 

[Akrasia]

...
The big "secret" of RPG publishing is that gamers don't need us. At all. ....

For many people this is not a secret. There are large numbers of people who play OOP RPGs -- they never bothered to 'upgrade' out of AD&D 1e, RC D&D, Runequest 2e, or whatever. For every new edition 'upgrade', many players are lost (i.e. the ones who are happy with the games they already play, or who end up leaving altogether). The hope for a company is that the new edition will attract more new players (or bring back more old players) than it loses. This didn't seem to work for AD&D 2e, but did work for 3e. Whether it will work for 4e remains to be seen, but I am sure that thousands of players will simply stick with 3e.

The fact that gamers don't need to buy new rules or editions must be a factor contributing to the long-term decline in the market. (I don't know how large a factor it is, of course.)

 

[tonym]

...One thing I will tell you is that all of us have sources above and beyond what we're mentioning here...

Sources?

Who is this eyebeams person? He said that he is the coauthor of two of the top 10 selling games over the past few years, but he neglected to identify himself.

Tony M

 

[eyebeams]

Well, that's the point. My "sentimental arguements" do have as much merit as your limited sampling projections for the entire industry. You close yourself off to any debate, and repeat your mantra. You've probably got 1/4 of the posts on this 7 page thread, and have not acknowledged any diversion from your starting point.

That's because I haven't heard compelling arguments that I'm wrong. If you believe that failing to capitulate to arguments you don't think hold water is "closing myself off to debate," then you and I are not on a common footing where discussion is possible.

Realistically though, how many RPG companies have you worked for? Do you think the companies you've worked for have also ingrained their corporate environment into your responses?

Of the four, White Wolf would be the only company with anything resembling that, unless you count (the now deceased) Andromeda Distributing, where I worked the floor in the early 90s, but that's hardly relevant now. Oh yeah -- and unless you count the guys who pretended they had a hard-to-reaching accounts dept. to avoid paying me promptly. Most companies *cannot* have a corporate culture because they're too small.

 

[Turjan]

The fact that gamers don't need to buy new rules or editions must be a factor contributing to the long-term decline in the market. (I don't know how large a factor it is, of course.)

That's a problem inherent to RPGs. The core rulebooks are products that have only to be bought once. They usually stay intact for many years and can also be used indefinitely. I know that the largest producer of white goods in Germany went belly-up, because their products never ceased to work (I had a 27 years old automatic washing machine in a summer house that trodded on nicely ).

Basically, this means you can sell a large part of your product only to new customers. That's much more difficult than replacing broken down parts with something new.

 

[eyebeams]

Sources?

Who is this eyebeams person? He said that he is the coauthor of two of the top 10 selling games over the past few years, but he neglected to identify himself.

Tony M

No, I said that I've written for them as a freelancer. The difference is subtle. My real name is Malcolm Sheppard, and the games in question are Exalted and Mage: The Ascension (do I count Mage: The Awakening, too? It'll probably be the second or third selling game this year, but it just came out. I suppose I'd be a defacto "coauthor" on M:tAw).

I've benefitted from contacts such as employees of Best Books (printers for White Wolf, Necromancer, Malhavoc, GoO and others), which have, among other things, given me a sense of relative and fluctuating print order sizes for the past few years (and in some cases, insight into their problems -- Best Books printed an overdark run of Silver Age Sentinels, causing GoO much consternation and giving those who wish to check a factiod, as Jeff Mackintosh should be able to confirm that this happen and I sold the overdark copy I had to John Snead). I can talk about them now because Best Books has been downsized by their parent.

Others? I don't feel comfortable talking about them so much.