What Would Happen If (Almost) Nobody Paid for RPGs?

[Solodan]

Getting back to point:

If games were free, where would I play? Local Game Stores need to sell so that they can host gaming events.

Sure, one can always play at home, but home games only go so far. They are great for a group of people for a long duration. Horrid for a more casual play environment. WotC, for all its faults(which are many), does a GREAT job for casual, store play. LFR, Delves, RPGA events, etc, all are really geared to sit down, have fun with new people, and enjoy gaming for what it's worth. Again, WotC is a hot topic, so I'll move away from that.

I want to pay money for things I enjoy. That means I'll always buy my gaming books at my local game stores.

And the free market is a beautiful thing in action. Just by paying for books, over time I know that good games will make it and bad games won't in general. Good game producers will continue to make games, and bad ones will stop.

 

[cdrcjsn]

Interestingly enough, this discussion very much parallels the newspaper comic industry and the webcomic industry.

One relies on the tradional publishing means of monetizing and the other relies on a freemium model, where you give away the primary content for free and make money off fan support by selling ancillary products (including print editions of material fans have access to for free). Not everyone will pay, but you reach a wider audience so you can make a living off a much smaller proportion of your fans who do.

A small RPG publishing house can survive and thrive, there is no question of that in my mind.

But will the RPG industry exist as we know it? Hard to say. I would say WotC could survive on a freemium economy, but it's such a new business model (relatively speaking) that most corporations would be very reluctant to give it a try. It really wasn't until the last decade or so where we've had such a widespread online network that is pervasive at all levels of society that you can really attempt something like a freemium model.

 

[DracoSuave]

The bottom line is this.

The world is awesome when someone with enough vision and drive can make a living making role playing games and role playing game worlds.

By removing the money from the hobby, you remove the 'make a living' from the people with vision and drive, thereby removing awesomeness from the world. It's a damn luxury, and somebody worked hard on whatever it is you have. And you only buy it once, and can use it the rest of your life for free.

Frankly, you're getting a damn good deal as it is.

 

[Piratecat]

Don't turn this discussion towards politics, please. Thanks.

 

[Shadowsong666]

This discussion, unsurprisingly, is turning political.

But on what basis are you basing your supposition that The Beatles or Carl Sagan don't deserve more money than a typical teacher or a garbage collector? Clearly society at large disagrees with you, so why should society listen to you in re-organizing its priorities?

I think we should not get into that debate, as there are clearly a trillion social reasons to disagree and we don't want to alienate the thread, right?

I think that the industry would adapt to the changing market and try to make the best out of it.

I think we would suffer a loss in quantity of products and in overall quality, right, but i don't think that there wouldn't be any quality products in the future. the open source community is putting many things out here that are really great. Why shouldn't there evolve more communities about the creation of TTRPGs? I have no reason to doubt that and am willing to give it a try as soon as the market dies. As long as the market provides me with great products to use i can spend more time DMing and not creating new stuff. Thats great. Thats what i pay for.

The future in TTRPG delivery is imho in subscription based delivery. Every month i pay 20$ and i get a source book each month (with a special extra book each 6 months). Want an adventure each month? Go buy the adventure subscription extra for 10$ and get that too. Also, as a service, you can use our "super subscription only pc software" which allows you to use all our products on your pc, create characters and manage your DM needs. You missed a month? No problem, just pay the missing months -here- and get the stuff delivered on the next selling run. Also, as a bonus, you can download the computer updates now.

But as long as companies stick to models that are old and not part of the actual generation... well, we all lose.

 

[Wombat]

In general I have seen two trends with gamers.

1) Gamers want more material for their games, whether they actually use the material or not in their sessions. More = Better.

2) Gamers want official material; they will take non-official material, but tend to view this as a stop-gap until a "real ruling" comes through.

This is not to say that there is not excellent, and happily used, fan-based material out there, not at all, but look at the OGL model -- if, say, Green Ronin (or other Third Party publisher of your choice) presented a class and later WotC presented a class based on the same theme, people wanted the WotC version more; this situation becomes even worse if you replace "Green Ronin" with "some guy's website".

 

[Zimri]

This discussion, unsurprisingly, is turning political.

But on what basis are you basing your supposition that The Beatles or Carl Sagan don't deserve more money than a typical teacher or a garbage collector? Clearly society at large disagrees with you, so why should society listen to you in re-organizing its priorities?

Who turned it political. I am discussing a SOCIOECONOMIC paradigm shift. That has absolutely nothing at all to do with how a government or any country is run.

 

[MichaelSomething]

This is perfect chance for me to round up a group for a play-by-post campaign of Raven Crowking's Fantasy Game! Who's with me?

 

[Hairfoot]

Post no longer relevant. Please ignore.

 

[Shades of Green]

For the sake of reference, here are a few examples of things people made completely (or mostly) for free. I hope that these would help you judge the question at hand.

Pen-and-Pencil RPGs and Miniature Games:
Basic Fantasy RPG
Fast and Dirty Miniature Skirmish Rules
Mazes and Minotaurs
Labyrinth Lord (sure, some of the supplements/adventures are sold for money, but the core book is free).
Mutant Future (sure, some of the supplements/adventures are sold for money, but the core book is free).

Computer Games:
Transcendence
5 Days a Stranger
7 Days a Skeptic
Trilby's Notes
6 Days a Sacrifice
Cult
Cult II
Notrium

Computer Programs
Dungeon Crafter III
Adventure Game Studio
RPG Toolkit