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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chiaroscuro23" data-source="post: 3510716" data-attributes="member: 15371">Part of the problem with RPGs is that customer demand is so low--it takes forever to play a game and want a new one. Assuming you don't just start another campaign of the same RPG. As noted, video games don't have this problem.There seem to be two primary ways to deal with this issue and keeping selling more stuff: 1) sell rules-based supplements which can be slotted into existing games (a la D&D); and 2) sell short-run games and fluff-based supplements which are intended to be read. This latter approach is what White Wolf has been doing forever. Their games feature extensive metaplot, iconic NPCs, reams of fiction, and so on. Lots of customers buy Promethean, Scion, and the like to read the book, even if they never get worked into a specific campaign. There are a lot of gamers who spend much more time reading game books than playing with them. A company can tap into that market.Nor are these the only companies doing this. It seems to me that SR 3 and CP 2020 both took the crunch-heavy road while GURPS takes the other road--you can have a whole bookcase dedicated to GURPS books covering different topics. I'd bet that most of them are never played, because once you have GURPS Voodoo going on, GURPS Bunnies and Burrows is going to sit on the shelf for a good long time. And once you get to B&B, you won't be using your copy of GURPS cyberpunk.It seems to me that the new wave of gamery-boardgames is sort of the same. I own every supplement for Descent but have only played the game maybe 5 times. Same for Arkham Horror, which I've only played 3 or 4 times. Runebound I've played a bunch, but not even every supplement I own. My wife wants to buy Shadows Over Camelot, but I bet we'll rarely play it (especially as it requires 3+ players so we can't play it without guests.) By comparison, of course, that's a good deal, since I bought but haven't read M&M 2e and new Mage, based on liking the last editions of each. Not only am I not playing those even once, I haven't read them!This is because I have a bigger budget than gaming time, and I snatch up RPG books when I see them in used book stores. Of course, at this rate I would have been better off investing the money so the time value of money worked for me...</blockquote>

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