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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dbm" data-source="post: 9764175" data-attributes="member: 8014">I’ve often thought about this split between ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ systems. I put a name on the shift towards lighter systems as ‘appification’. What I mean by that is - consider desktop applications like Word, Excel and so on. They can do lots of different things but they are very complex and expensive to make. Contrast that with the earlier days of phone apps where they would do one thing well and not try to do anything more (the complexity / capability of mobile apps has crept up the scale in more recent times).So, big and chunky ‘do anything’ systems like GURPS, HERO are more on the Word end of the market and short, focussed games are more on the app end of the market. Both can be great and useful. Apps, and light RPGs, are easier to make, priced more competitively, and also easier for people to learn. So the volume of such games goes up in the market place (lower barrier to adoption). Big and expansive games / programmes are much harder to make, get to quality (testing issues out…), more expensive, and more effort for people to learn (higher barrier to adoption). So the numbers are always likely to favour making more small products unless you really want to make that expansive one. And then getting a big enough ‘install base’ to support it becomes tricky unless you already have a strong brand presence.I think crowdfunding can help in this regard, however, as it can potentially allow creators to find an under-served market in the ‘big game’ space and serve that market. Draw Steel is an excellent example of this happening - Matt Colville  had a vision of a chunky game he wanted to make (along with his collaborators) and had the profile to parley that into a big crowd funder.Will more follow? I am sure they will since creators will be inspired by his success and more likely to try. I wish MCG would have another stab at their Arcana Unearthed system, keeping the level of complexity but moving further away from main-line D&D as a base. They have the design chops and market presence to pull it off.</blockquote>

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