What Game or Publisher Would You Have Be Market leader

[Reynard]

Just as a hypothetical exercise, if you could wave your magic wand and determine what the market leader in the TTRPG industry should be -- company, game, or both -- what would it be?

FYI "WotC" and/or "D&D" is a perfectly viable answer if you like the status quo.

For my part, as far as "market leader game" goes I would pull some timey-wimey stuff and have had circa 2000 WotC make Alternity THE game system instead of d20. there would be a D&D Alternity game, but also a modern and space opera and horror and post apocalyptic etc... I really love the original Alternity, especially Star*Drive.

Failing that, Savage Worlds and Pinnacle deserve a much bigger piece of the pie than they are allotted and wouldn't mind seeing that game lead the industry.

 

[Umbran]

I'm going to say WotC and D&D, but not because they are "deserving" or something.

Being market leader has implications and impacts on business practices and game design. I can't think of another company or game that would be improved by those implications.

 

[Parmandur]

Traveller and a resurrected GDW, if we are going full magic wand. Though the current real world status quo works well.

 

[Reynard]

Traveller and a resurrected GDW, if we are going dull magic wand. Though the current real world status quo works well.

I suspect you meant "full magic wand."

 

[Parmandur]

I suspect you meant "full magic wand."

Pew pew, he who controls the past, controls the present.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Wait...hasn't Shadowdark already won that war? Are other RPGs still publishing? What did I miss?

 

[Reynard]

Wait...hasn't Shadowdark already won that war? Are other RPGs still publishing? What did I miss?

Haven't you heard? Shadowdark is already passe and has been replaced by kaiju anime pokebending.

 

[Maggan]

It's an interesting question, and I can't for my life come to a conclusion as to what I think.

But if I look back at the games that dominated my early gaming life, I'd go for Drakar och Demoner version 2 as the dominant game, and Target Games consquently as the market leader.

If we look at what I play today, Free League could become the market leader, if we look at our table and the games we play.*

* Disclaimer: I and two one of my players do freelance work for Free League, so the bias might be strong with us.

EDIT: Or what the heck. Stockholm Kartell as the dominant player, Pirate Borg (by Limithron) as the dominant game. That'd be sweet.

 

[reelo]

Chaosium.

 

[Lanefan]

How about none?

No single market dominator; instead, a number of large-ish companies each have a significant share (and, perhaps, each their own niche within the hobby e.g. one generally focuses on OSR, one on story-now games, one on modern-trad a la 4e, etc.) meaning there's more likely to be something for everyone that's widely available and easy to find.