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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TrippyHippy" data-source="post: 6201914" data-attributes="member: 27252">Well, I'm not sure about this - and this was actually one of the things that inspired this thread. I've watched Will Wheaton's Tabletop pretty avidly since it came about, and also really like Felicia Day's channel as a great boost to the gaming hobby, generally. I've been a gamer pretty much all my adult and adolescent life but a lot of it has been overly focussed on rpgs in exclusion to other games. The thing is, rpgs are a relatively complex and highly specific form of gaming and there is a bridging point between more casual games and rpgs to bring people into the hobby. The variety of tabletop games on show in the series, reminded me of how diversity in products can actually create a broader appeal across the range of all of them.If we cite one of the more successful rpg companies in recent times, Fantasy Flight Games, their rpg division is only a small section of their overall catalogue. They sell board games and card games too. It's this diversity of gaming product that makes them successful I feel. I've seen similar things in retail shops. The number of specialist RPG shops are few and far between these days, but shops that diversify into family games or even low level sports gear have a greater chance of success. In the case of D&D, I honestly wonder how a big company like Wizards/Hasbro can sustain sales of a game like D&D to the level that they want. They tried the open license which was basically set up because the sales of supplements was considered negligible to the unit sales of the core rules, yet supplements were required to maintain interest and sales in the core rules. What better way to reduce costs, by effectively getting 3rd party companies to give you free advertising? Yet, lots of problems clearly arose from it (like for example Paizo producing a new game that outsold D&D!). They lost control of the OGL, because the business aspects grew beyond it. My feeling is that the best way to make the D&D brand popular and profitable, is to sell the core rules alone with few supplements (if any!). Then, give an open license for people to publish free supplementary material only. Beyond that, use the D&D brand to sell other stuff with a greater profit margin - board games, video games, miniature games, card games, movies, etc. As long as the brand remains popular, you are more likely to generate sales across all ranges of games.The other factor of note is that GW published research about 10 years ago about the lifespan of games (usually about three years) before their sales drop. Narrative based games (including rpgs) have a longer span, however. The reason for that is most likely because the games themselves are played over the long term. If the model can be used to tap into that phenomena, then there shouldn't be a reason why the RPG industry and hobby can't be successful in the long term.</blockquote>

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