The market dying?

[MoogleEmpMog]

I can't speak for any other part of the country, but in Denver, the hobby is (proportionately) very successful and growing. Denver has nine FLGSes with in-store gaming, and only two of those don't host RPG sessions at least twice a month. At least two routinely host more than four RPG sessions per month. The player base is very young; more than 50% of the players I've met are under 21. And contra the early-90s hysteria, collectible games have demonstrated again and again that, at least in this area, they serve as a sort of "entry drug" to either wargames or RPGs.

 

[BryonD]

How about going back to his original post in this thread, rather than a smart-alecky response that he made to somebody outside the industry (who has no idea what they are talking about) telling him that he has no idea what he is talking about.

If you go back to his original post, he basically said that he agreed that the industry was shrinking, not dying. End of story.

Shrug. I'm not even going to bother trying to acount for everything that may have been said 400 posts back.

The clear tone has been established that this is a big deal. I reject that claim and haven't seen any data posted yet that makes me re-visit that. This is nothing more than the latest pass through a cyclic thing. And if that's what he is trying to say then he needs to find a job that doesn't involve the written word.

I've seen statements (from others) claiming steady yearly declines and a total absence of data that actually supports that. Then I've seen people show data that refutes it and the people with "secret" data basically say to ignore the man behind the curtain.

GMSkarka put up data that was supposed to support a drop and pretty well proved the absence of any real trend at all. And that was before the data was accused of being skewed. I haven't seen any good rebuttal of that accusation. At the end of the first data post, GMSkarka said "things are hurting". The context of this thread is the market as a whole. In that context, things are not hurting. There may be some vendors that are hurting. The difference between a vendor and the market is a point I've been making over and over.

So you can call one statement the "end of story", but that doesn't make it so. Other things have been said that are well worth closer scrutiny and critic.

 

[Fate Lawson]

As I said before, I'll chip in where I can.

As a percentage, you are looking at something like 0.0002% However, that is no slight on PDFs, as far as they go - we have just never really attacked that market in any meaningful form. The problem, you see, is that we have to make a conscious decision to make something a PDF as, up until it goes to print, much of the design process is the same - with the same attendant costs. Once you have a final product ready to go, it is all too easy to acknowledge that a paper product will sell more units for more revenue.

That said, we have been fairly astonished with sales via Drivethru - they do not seem to eat our existing paper sales and they amount to thousands of Dollars every month.

So much so that you obviously feel it has enough potential to warrant your own full-scale entry into the distribution end.

www.wargamingonline.com

Edit: Ooops, my bad. That link doesn't seem to work yet. Instead see this thread on MGP's own boards:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=10011

 

[MongooseMatt]

So much so that you obviously feel it has enough potential to warrant your own full-scale entry into the distribution end.

Umm. . .

What do you mean by 'so much so'? It sounds as though you think I was talking PDFs down.

Not in the least. They have a very definite market. What I said was that you have to make a conscious choice to make something as a PDF - for 99% of everything Mongoose does, Mongoose is better off with a paper release.

However, RPGNow was a _fantastic_ idea. As good an idea (if not as profitable ) as eBay. As we move into the miniatures market, it makes sense to bring the ideas we learned in the RPG market with us. To a degree, at least, PDFs seem to make more sense in miniatures games than they do in RPGs. . .

 

[Fate Lawson]

What do you mean by 'so much so'? It sounds as though you think I was talking PDFs down.

Ooops, sorry...bad phraseology on my part. I didn't mean it to sound snarky or confrontational. Just thought I'd point it out as a display of how the industries distribution channels are (or should be) changing/expanding. The old content delivery methods aren't enough.

 

[Solauren]

Maybe I should wade in a little here.

My RPG purchases have gone way down in the last year - year and a half.

Why?

Well, partially because, there is nothing new coming out to interest me or grab my attention.

And I mean this as in 'new concept', as well as 'new content'.

Sci-Fi and 'Modern' RPG stuff? Doesn't interest me, so there goes alot of RPG content right there and there.

So, staying in fantasy

What could interest me?

New Classes?
Probably not. I own enough books that my 'class count' is at least 2,469 (i'm still putting stuff into my inventory list/database)

New Feats?
1,537 in my list and still putting them in.

New Monsters?
5,055 in the list/database, and I still have to put in the contents of at least 5 monster books (the 2 Mongoose Encyclopedia's, my everquest monster books, and I think there's another one.)

New Races?
NO idea how many i have. Most of my players run elves or half-elves

New Magic Items?
2135 and climbing, and I still haven't begun converting the old 2e Encyclopedia Magica

New Spells?
7787 D20 (there may be more, as this is just going by unique names. You'd be amazed how many spells have close to the same name but do different things). Probably 200 homebrew, and at least 9843 spells from pre-d20 Dungeons and Dragons (both old TSR spells, and stuff from long gone Internet sources like the Great Net Book of Spells), and both of those lists are still growin!
I'm even working on converting stuff from Everquest's mana system, and Guardian's of Orders magic system for Slayers. (Surprisingly easy actually)

You really, really, really have to come up with something new to get my attention and want to buy it (on that note, I still grab up new Forgotten Realms supplements, and any new book that has more spells in it that gets my attention. I'm practically the Order of the Book without any help....)

With me, it's just, when my RPG collection is totally taken into account, about everything's been covered.

Gothic Horror? Ravenloft
Oriental? Rokugan, Kara-tur
Alternate Worlds: Pick one! I have like 10 of them (Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Scarred Lands, Mystara/Known World, Rokugan, Spelljammer, the Realms, and various one shots from Dragon Magazine)
Cyberpunkish? Steampunk? Got those covered.

In the end, I don't need anymore.

I also bough a house last year, so money's been tight

 

[jcfiala]

I can't speak for any other part of the country, but in Denver, the hobby is (proportionately) very successful and growing.

Denver also just had one of it's gaming conventions - Tacticon. And even with some people not showing up (generally one-day people, probably because they were coming from far away and didn't want to deal with the higher costs of gas), we still did a bang-up business in sitting gamers in seats and having a good time.

 

[William Ronald]

I am uncertain of the market's current health and the long term prospects, although I do appreciate the insights provided by people in this thread. Despite the differences in opinions and data, I believe that the posters in this thread are passionate about our hobby.


I think one thing that both industry professionals as well as gamers in general can focus on is recruiting new people to gaming. As that is a different topic from the health of the market, I started a new thread called Attracting new people to gaming -- ideas and strategies .

 

[eyebeams]

Well, after being called a liar outright, I can be somewhat less polite. This is coming from a guy who was never particularly successful while involved with a print company, who likes to pick fights on forums, who was forced out of his last print business by his own partners and who has busted every deadline he ever accepted while trying to freelance for Mongoose (we told him not to bother in the end). He is also persisting in the use of C&GR figures after I pointed out that more solid information is waiting for anyone in the industry with the nous to find it.

Well, some prefer discretion. They are not as cavalier about things that might be variously defined as breaches of trust or petty industrial espionage. Of course, people have been known to be cavalier about just such things, haven't they?

On to his particular point about comments from people let go from Mongoose - remember, that is an enjoyable euphemism for being fired. We have no gag orders on such people and we know they have portrayed us in a less than nice light. Probably something to do with having being fired.

One's politeness tends to fray when they work for a penny a word long enough, I hear (be it by contract or by the terms of employment with expected by word rates). Or when they're sacked for the incompetence of their editor because it would be cheaper to sack them -- general incompetence that would lead to the grossest example of plaigiarism ever seen in the industry, in fact. Me, I don't like it when some weasel implies others are to blame for their legal woes just because they chose a stupidly actionable title for their RPG.

One thing to consider. Suppose, just for a moment, I was indeed lying about how Mongoose is doing. How would we have been able to release plastic miniatures, open a seperate miniatures production facility in Ohio, move into not-exactly-small offices (you can see the pictures of the place in our magazine, even if you cannot attend our regular Open Days), and still pay the salaries of over 20 staff members?

It would just not make sense. . .

Well, that's like 5 staff members in decent-pay-ese, Matt.

As long as you want to be frank and all.

 

[Hussar]

*sniff sniff*

I smell something burning.



((Anyone else want some popcorn?))