What're yah gonna do about it?

[Tyrant]

Damn it Wil stop using that fancy speak!!! Im going to have to bookmark dictionary.com if you keep it up! lol

Seriously though, while I do not think anyone can argue that GAMA doesn't do a great job of bringing distributors, publishers, and retailers together, I THINK Fourecks is actually advocating something a little different. I suspect he is advocating a body designed to produce game or promotional material to introduce people to RPGs in a "non-traditional" manner. He wants a group designed to help think up cross-over opportunities and encourage people who wouldnt normally be exposed to RPGs to experiment with them. One example might be an organization that does the legwork necessary to put information into the Murder Mystery box sets about "other fun roleplaying opportunities".

Eric Price

 

[tensen]

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37138

By the way. What is this pointing out? That there is secret industry mailing list? Some hidden agenda? World domination, thats the goal

I'm not sure exactly what that had to do with the topic of the thread.


Personally I think I'm on enough lists of activity, and I know I'm not even on all of them... because I'm still somewhat an outsider.
There are freelancer lists, retailer lists, GIF, GAMA lists, fufillment house lists, private friends lists, digital publisher lists, and endless assortment of buddy lists. We have barely enough time to keep up with other publishers and their activities, while trying to get our products out on time.

 

[JohnNephew]

I suspect he is advocating a body designed to produce game or promotional material to introduce people to RPGs in a "non-traditional" manner. He wants a group designed to help think up cross-over opportunities and encourage people who wouldnt normally be exposed to RPGs to experiment with them.

That would be neat. But who would pay for it?

If I'm a game publisher, and such a group is going to attract people to gaming, it benefits me whether I provide funding for it or not. Thus, I'm better off not funding it; I get all the same benefit, but zero cost. (Whereas, if I do fund it, I'm providing free advertising for all my deadbeat colleagues who aren't kicking in any money.)

Of course, everyone does the same calculation, and so no one has funding for it.

The exception would be companies so big that they might expect a majority or at least a very large percentage of the new audience to be buying their prouducts. But then, if you're such a company, why not push your own products entirely?

Thus, Hasbro had those "Family Game Night" ads, because they dominate family board games (owning MB, Parker Bros., etc.). And WotC has advertised D&D in many non-hobby media; they don't advertise the joys of RPGs in general, but their specific product. (Still, the growth of D&D has coattails for the rest of the industry -- one of our best sales months ever was the month D&D3E was released, not even counting our one D20 title available at the time. The excitement of 3rd edition brought people into the stores, which led to better sales across the board.)

Within it's pragmatic limitations, GAMA is quite successful, in part because it has revenue sources other than member dues (income from conventions, for example) that pay the bulk of its bills.

But even if it had a much larger budget for promotion, there would still be complaints that it was inadequate, that no one had heard of it, etc. After all, Mike Stackpole is a New York Times bestselling author, whose books have sold more copies than many RPG companies lumped together, yet he still is completely unknown to some in this thread.