Will the RPG industry disappear by 2014?

[wedgeski]

I think the biggest thing we're seeing is that D&D is yesterday's news - the general public doesn't care anymore.

Yes, RPG's are almost mainstream now, I would suggest. They're just another game to most people, like Risk and Trivial Pursuit. What the industry has lost in infamy it has gained in acceptance.

 

[Incenjucar]

There's also the fact that, by and large, it's an at home game.

It's not like you walk down a city street and see a bunch of people playing D&D on a basketball court. At best, you have to go to a community center or a library or a park or a large hotel to actually 'happen' to see roleplayers unless something rare is going on.

So people really don't have it in their face right now. There's also a lot of people who probably have no idea what Duke Nukem is, and, heck, I encountered someone who didn't know who -Elmo- or -Big Bird- were.

 

[Ferret]

I don't know an exact number of todays RPG companies, but I doubt more then 10-15 will be well known. Those that do well will grow, those that don't won't be able to.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I started playing in 1979, and I certainly don't remember RPG's beign in every store, and I lived in a pretty big town.

The only numbers I've seen from industry insiders (and I can't cite a source here) implied that 2nd Edition sold half as well as 1st, but that the 3E PHB sold about as well as the 1st edition version.

I'd expect that overall playing numbers are the same as in the 1980's. The PnP RPG world is not a big one, nor is it growing terribly quickly, but I see nothing to indicate that its going to go away. Nothing whatsoever.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I started playing in 1979, and I certainly don't remember RPG's beign in every store, and I lived in a pretty big town.

I too started playing in 1979 and what I recall was that D&D materials were more widespread because there was no such thing as a "gaming store." Every hobby store had a display with some D&D stuff on it, many bookstores had the same thing. Of course part of that was that it was the "new thing" and so even grocery stores carried some stuff that I recall.

Today with the advent of gaming stores, RPGs are pretty much found there and I usually see a small amount of large market products like D&D at bookstores. RPGs have found their market and are no longer the "latest craze," so places like grocery stores see no need to take up shelf space with it.

The same can be said about Magic: The Gathering and other card games - once upon a time the cards were sold virtually everywhere as everyone tried to cash in and maybe draw new customers to whatever they were really there to sell. Today, they are in a lot fewer places.

 

[RFisher]

Assuming that the industry really did peak in the 1980s, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The peak is often not sustainable.

If the industry basically disappeared & we were left to struggle through with OOP & free material, I don't know that that would bother me too much. I might learn to prefer it.

I do think the industry is going to continue to change whether it gets bigger or smaller. It already looks pretty different in many ways than it did in the 1980s. How much different is it going to look in another decade?

But I'm predicting a huge resurgence...

 

[vulcan_idic]

A'koss's Prediction of the RPG Industry - 2014.

By 2014 I predict there will be very little in the way of PnP RPGs.

What you'll see is a resurgence in virtual reality games and "VR-RPGs". I think monitors will begin to fall to the wayside of lightweight, high resolution video goggles, headphones and mic which will allow people to work in huge virtual workspaces. Imagine VR travel... Imagine 360 degree, realtime VR dungeons and monsters, networked with your friends and a DM who can coordinate the whole game from above. Imagine a VR-MMORPG with teeming cities and near-photorealistic graphics and motion.

2014 might be a little early for this though, but by 2020 I have no doubt that the transition will be complete.

Cheers,

A'koss.

And by the year 2000 we will be driving hovercars and vacationing on the moon - yes, Billy, all that and more in <big echoey voice> The World Of The FUTURE!!!

Data please. The WotC spokesperson in the BBC documentary I mentioned earlier seemed to indicate the opposite.

I might mention that all of your data seems to come from a single source, this one documentary that you have refereced a few times. It should be noted that documentaries - even and especially the ones claiming to be neutral are more akin to persuasive essays than they are to simple factual accounts. If the point of the documentary, as it seems to have been, was that "RPGs are dying" their choice of quotes to air would naturally have been those quotes supporting their stance.

In addition, I remember many things that I learned in my senior english classes in high school, many years ago though it was. The primary thrust of the class were debates at the end of the year that you began working on the first week of the year. We did all the normal english stuff and worked on the debate in addition to it. One of the greatest things I learned from that experience was to never trust a quote someone gives you who is trying to prove something. I can't tell you how many times I quoted articles and sources that had nothing to do with my case, or were from articles arguing the opposite, yet when the sound bite was taken out of context, it supported me perfectly. Context is everything. You could say something like "The <well known scientific journal> published a study which says, "Silicon can leak, potentially causing cancer." Computers of course contain much silicon, and thus, obviously, pose a serious health risk." Note how this hypothetical sounds like a good argument. Also notice how the person quoting this famous journal and cashing in on that journal's fame and reputation conveniently forgot to mention that the hypothetical article in question was (A) actually about breast implants and (B) published in the late 80's - hardly breaking news. I made this example up, but I recall doing basically the same thing many times myself and I know for a fact that everyone else did to - it's how the game is played. So to sum up, just because this is what WOTC is shown saying, doesn't mean it wasn't edited out of a larger interview to sound like they were saying something to support the view of the makers, which I can almost guarantee it was edited... maybe or maybe not to change the nature of the message, but all the same I'd take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I don't normally indulge in threadcromancy but this one seems rather apropos as we come to the end of 2014 and, as has been pointed out on another thread, WotC has an empty catalague for next year... which starts 31 days from today.

How radically different is 2014 going to be for RPGs, and especially D&D, compared to 2004 when this thread was first alive?

 

[Stormonu]

D&D may be dead (and even that, I don't think is true), but RPG's are not. I just bought six FATE books last week - several that were apparently possible due to kickstarter.

RPGs are evolving (again), but they aren't dead. What's happening is they can't compete as hackfests against the likes of MMORPGs. I mean, would you rather have one battle in four hours or forty battles in one hour? RPGs have to survive on their ability to provide what the computer can't - stories made by those involved. Sandboxes where you can go anywhere. Things devised, empowered and implemented by your group, instead of being confined by the boundaries of a world someone else made.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

D&D may be dead (and even that, I don't think is true), but RPG's are not. I just bought six FATE books last week - several that were apparently possible due to kickstarter.

RPGs are evolving (again), but they aren't dead. What's happening is they can't compete as hackfests against the likes of MMORPGs. I mean, would you rather have one battle in four hours or forty battles in one hour? RPGs have to survive on their ability to provide what the computer can't - stories made by those involved. Sandboxes where you can go anywhere. Things devised, empowered and implemented by your group, instead of being confined by the boundaries of a world someone else made.

Tried to give you XP but couldn't.

Great reply. I think you're absolutely right.