![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I don't normally pontificate about the RPG industry or any of that sort of thing. In the last year, this has been specifically because I was employed by WotC. It just seemed that nearly anything I could have said was either treading upon NDA issues or generally just unseemly as I was no longer freelancing, and it's easy to ramble into theoretical zones when it's not your money or time on the line. There's a big gap between WotC and other RPG publishers, and while crossing that gap is very illuminating, it also renders one's view of the industry at large rather moot. There are so few points of comparison that can be made that, really, most theories becomes completely spurious. At least, that was my experience. I was loathe to take on the potential role of the patrician explaining to the plebs how they could better earn a daily wage, so I eschewed it entirely. It seemed the wisest plan.
The other reason I don't generally go there is a more long-lasting one, in that there's an odd sort of breach of etiquette involved. I have opinions based on my experiences and things I've both seen and heard about, but in order to justify my arguments, I should of necessity disclose how I came to them. The nature of this business, though, rebukes any such public disclosure of things I may or may not have been told in confidence, but which certainly may not be known to the general public. As tempting as it is, for good or ill (and usually to the industry's detriment as a whole), telling tales out of school comes back to bite you on the ass, and that was never a risk I was willing to take. Given that making arguments without being willing to back up how I got there seemed an equally bad plan.... well, you do the math.
The recent flurry of postings and LJ rants and unusual activity related to the health, welfare, and general rigamarole of the RPG industry, however, has made the subject much on my mind of late. I'm therefore going to indulge in a short Q&A of standard industry questions, just to formally expunge the urge from my psyche.
Q. Is the industry going to die?
A. No. It may change, it may fade slightly, but this form of entertainment will be around for a long time to come. Heck, cooperative storytelling has already been around for nearly as long as mankind. It's not going to fade in a decade thanks to World of Warcraft. I'm not sure that our grandchildren will play RPGs in the same way we do, as eventually technology will filter down even into this niche market. We may see an end to the traditional print market along with any pretentions to "mass market penetration," but to a large extent that's already happening. That's not to say that big, gorgeous books will go away, as there will always be a market for those, much like there's still a market for vinyl records and sword replicas from history and movies with swords in them. But something has to change, and is changing, and how it will shuffle out in the end is anyone's guess.
Q. Why are so many companies having problems right now?
A. This question has so many factors it's almost impossible to answer clearly. For me, though, I think it boils down to 1) the disintegration and system failure of the traditional retail/hobby game model and 2) d20. Now, 1 is fairly obvious to anyone who watches the industry, and I don't think we really need to go into it in detail. It is very much possible to own a game store and make money, to own a distribution business and make money, and to own a publishing house and make money. Being in the industry as a hobby, however, will not allow you to make money in any of those positions. It's impossible to be a distributor and do it as a hobby, really, but it has been very possible to be a publisher or a retailer who is. Those times are quickly passing, if not already gone, and many of those doors are closed for good, taking more than a few professional retailers and publishers with them.
As for 2, I suppose that's a bit more controversial, but not much. On the positive side, d20 opened the doors for innovation and allowed dozens of companies to take the most recognized brand/system we have in the RPG field and run with it. On the negative side... well, the same thing, really. Those dozens of publishers flooded the market with content without markedly increasing the audience to purchase those products. Print runs dropped by a factor of ten within a year or two, and show no signs of returning to their former levels. The sheer volume took a tendency toward front-list distribution and spurred it forward into the magazine model, as companies tried to make up with separate titles what they'd previously sold in only one or two books. Consumers who formerly eagerly awaited the next release for their favorite game now have to decide between 3-4 titles a month at least, as there's simply been too much to keep up with purchasing, much less actually using it all, for their games. We've burned out our consumers, our publishers, our distributors, and our retailers, and now the industry as a whole is paying the price for it. Companies and retailers are closing up shop, the number of major distributors has plummeted, and the consumer base is more fragmented than ever, even though a noticable percentage of these people are ostensibly playing the same game. The companies that were the least affected are the ones with old, established systems and IP, the ones who didn't jump on the d20 band wagon. The movement that was heralded as potentially the savior of the industry has instead done amazing amounts of harm. It's ironic.
Now, to head off potential comment, I don't actually see this laying blame at the feet of anyone. It was a really good idea, and I think, looking back, it was a brilliant move and could still end up being a very positive force... in fact, I think it already has been. Mutants and Masterminds, for example, would not have come about without it, and I think the industry as a whole would be lesser for it. But in the short term, it was essentially Pharaoh setting out the grain and inviting The Locust family over for dinner, then adding "oh, and bring a friend" to the invitation. Humans are short-sighted. Very few people would have deliberately done something they knew to be to their later detriment, and yet the effects are pretty darn clear through hindsight. Such is the way of things. It'll fix itself eventually, but the question of who will still be around then is up for debate.
Q. What about this whole Forge/"RPG Industry" brouhaha?
A. What brouhaha? The Forge is set up for the industry enthusiast, essentially. It's like an academic playground for discussion of game design and game play, trying to dig into the whys and wherefores of why people game the way they do, and how to make a game that works on that level. It's not about making money, though distribution and sales sometimes come into it, usually as a secondary concern. It has some very good points. Of course, those points also have almost nothing to do with the industry as a whole, so when someone who makes games for a living goes on there and talks about their experience in that role... well, they might as well be speaking at each other in totally different languages. They have so little common ground, aside from a passion for games as a whole, that there's not any reason they should be altogether chummy, anyway. And, as a friend pointed out, there is no monolithic "Forge" and "Industry" waiting to battle out their disagreements like ancient titans with pay-per-view wrestling appointments. It's just people, and lots of different people at that. *shrug* Someone tell the tempest to get back in the teapot, please. It's soaking the rug, and all the rumbling has sent Sparky under the bed and I don't want him chewing up my slippers.
Q. How do PDFs affect the industry?
A. They're the greatest thing since sliced bread, really. Which is not to say that they're perfect by any means, or that they won't be replaced as soon as we come up with something better -- they will be, trust me. But they're a placeholder for now, a useable one that fills a very present need for both publisher and consumer. Until or unless the distribution system rights itself, they will only continue to have a larger presence in the market. Now, given the low financial hurdle to publishing a PDF, this has the potential to do the same thing to the online market as the brick-and-mortar market saw happen, but really that's far less likely. The lack of inventory concern alone renders a lot of the argument moot, and while consumer burnout is still a possibility, the largest online retailers (DTRPG and RPGnow) both have taken steps to create some differentiation and specialization, as well as trying to make it easy to find what you're looking for rather than browsing through endless lists of random games -- much like your average physical game store, rather than an exceptional and successful one. I don't believe that the proliferation of PDFs from material that might have been posted up on someone's web site for free a decade ago has any appreciable effect on the growth of the art and science of game design, honestly. The barrier to accessing that information is so small as to be nonexistent, and the argument assumes that anyone publishing PDFs is a hobbiest who would have done all that work even without the chance of being paid for it. Granted, there are Part Time Gods of Game Design, but it's still a false assumption. Much like the idea that WoW is sucking away all the gamers from pen-and-paper RPGs, it assumes that WoW players would be playing RPGs instead with that block of time if the MMORPG were not available -- a bad assumption to start with.
Q. How do you feel about piracy?
A. I think it sucks, frankly. I'd like to get paid, and if it's hurting my chances of getting paid for my work, then I have to be agin' it, as old mythical Okie relations of mine might say. That being said, though... my experience and observation leads me to believe that when a commodity is restricted from whatever level of access the public deems proper, that the people who end up with the restricted items are the ones that would have broken the laws anyway. You enact gun control laws, fewer normal citizens have them but criminals don't really feel the pinch. You enact a prohibition against alcohol, people who want to stay within the law don't get it while those outside the law profit (and get schnockered). If you go out of your way to put protections on your work that inhibit rightful users, you'll turn them off while largely leaving the people who would have stolen and not paid you for it in the first place unaffected. I don't agree with piracy, but really, most pirates aren't interested in my opinion, nor do I think additional safeguards will prevent them from doing what they were planning on doing anyway. Among people who regularly steal or shoplift, it's rarely about the item they're stealing. It's about the act itself. Large scale pirates don't typically profit from their deeds except in the goods, but if they don't use or enjoy the goods... well, it moves into another realm entirely, really. I guess my position can best be summed up as: don't steal. If you get something you didn't pay for and it isn't yours, either pay for it or give it back. If someone bought something of yours fair and square, don't get in their way. That's what I teach my kids, so I suppose it works well here as well.
Whew. Well, that ought to do it. I'm spent. With luck, I'll have that out of my system for another five years, at least. :) Although I do have a vague rant about professional vs. amateur around here somewhere... Ah well. Another time, perhaps.
The other reason I don't generally go there is a more long-lasting one, in that there's an odd sort of breach of etiquette involved. I have opinions based on my experiences and things I've both seen and heard about, but in order to justify my arguments, I should of necessity disclose how I came to them. The nature of this business, though, rebukes any such public disclosure of things I may or may not have been told in confidence, but which certainly may not be known to the general public. As tempting as it is, for good or ill (and usually to the industry's detriment as a whole), telling tales out of school comes back to bite you on the ass, and that was never a risk I was willing to take. Given that making arguments without being willing to back up how I got there seemed an equally bad plan.... well, you do the math.
The recent flurry of postings and LJ rants and unusual activity related to the health, welfare, and general rigamarole of the RPG industry, however, has made the subject much on my mind of late. I'm therefore going to indulge in a short Q&A of standard industry questions, just to formally expunge the urge from my psyche.
Q. Is the industry going to die?
A. No. It may change, it may fade slightly, but this form of entertainment will be around for a long time to come. Heck, cooperative storytelling has already been around for nearly as long as mankind. It's not going to fade in a decade thanks to World of Warcraft. I'm not sure that our grandchildren will play RPGs in the same way we do, as eventually technology will filter down even into this niche market. We may see an end to the traditional print market along with any pretentions to "mass market penetration," but to a large extent that's already happening. That's not to say that big, gorgeous books will go away, as there will always be a market for those, much like there's still a market for vinyl records and sword replicas from history and movies with swords in them. But something has to change, and is changing, and how it will shuffle out in the end is anyone's guess.
Q. Why are so many companies having problems right now?
A. This question has so many factors it's almost impossible to answer clearly. For me, though, I think it boils down to 1) the disintegration and system failure of the traditional retail/hobby game model and 2) d20. Now, 1 is fairly obvious to anyone who watches the industry, and I don't think we really need to go into it in detail. It is very much possible to own a game store and make money, to own a distribution business and make money, and to own a publishing house and make money. Being in the industry as a hobby, however, will not allow you to make money in any of those positions. It's impossible to be a distributor and do it as a hobby, really, but it has been very possible to be a publisher or a retailer who is. Those times are quickly passing, if not already gone, and many of those doors are closed for good, taking more than a few professional retailers and publishers with them.
As for 2, I suppose that's a bit more controversial, but not much. On the positive side, d20 opened the doors for innovation and allowed dozens of companies to take the most recognized brand/system we have in the RPG field and run with it. On the negative side... well, the same thing, really. Those dozens of publishers flooded the market with content without markedly increasing the audience to purchase those products. Print runs dropped by a factor of ten within a year or two, and show no signs of returning to their former levels. The sheer volume took a tendency toward front-list distribution and spurred it forward into the magazine model, as companies tried to make up with separate titles what they'd previously sold in only one or two books. Consumers who formerly eagerly awaited the next release for their favorite game now have to decide between 3-4 titles a month at least, as there's simply been too much to keep up with purchasing, much less actually using it all, for their games. We've burned out our consumers, our publishers, our distributors, and our retailers, and now the industry as a whole is paying the price for it. Companies and retailers are closing up shop, the number of major distributors has plummeted, and the consumer base is more fragmented than ever, even though a noticable percentage of these people are ostensibly playing the same game. The companies that were the least affected are the ones with old, established systems and IP, the ones who didn't jump on the d20 band wagon. The movement that was heralded as potentially the savior of the industry has instead done amazing amounts of harm. It's ironic.
Now, to head off potential comment, I don't actually see this laying blame at the feet of anyone. It was a really good idea, and I think, looking back, it was a brilliant move and could still end up being a very positive force... in fact, I think it already has been. Mutants and Masterminds, for example, would not have come about without it, and I think the industry as a whole would be lesser for it. But in the short term, it was essentially Pharaoh setting out the grain and inviting The Locust family over for dinner, then adding "oh, and bring a friend" to the invitation. Humans are short-sighted. Very few people would have deliberately done something they knew to be to their later detriment, and yet the effects are pretty darn clear through hindsight. Such is the way of things. It'll fix itself eventually, but the question of who will still be around then is up for debate.
Q. What about this whole Forge/"RPG Industry" brouhaha?
A. What brouhaha? The Forge is set up for the industry enthusiast, essentially. It's like an academic playground for discussion of game design and game play, trying to dig into the whys and wherefores of why people game the way they do, and how to make a game that works on that level. It's not about making money, though distribution and sales sometimes come into it, usually as a secondary concern. It has some very good points. Of course, those points also have almost nothing to do with the industry as a whole, so when someone who makes games for a living goes on there and talks about their experience in that role... well, they might as well be speaking at each other in totally different languages. They have so little common ground, aside from a passion for games as a whole, that there's not any reason they should be altogether chummy, anyway. And, as a friend pointed out, there is no monolithic "Forge" and "Industry" waiting to battle out their disagreements like ancient titans with pay-per-view wrestling appointments. It's just people, and lots of different people at that. *shrug* Someone tell the tempest to get back in the teapot, please. It's soaking the rug, and all the rumbling has sent Sparky under the bed and I don't want him chewing up my slippers.
Q. How do PDFs affect the industry?
A. They're the greatest thing since sliced bread, really. Which is not to say that they're perfect by any means, or that they won't be replaced as soon as we come up with something better -- they will be, trust me. But they're a placeholder for now, a useable one that fills a very present need for both publisher and consumer. Until or unless the distribution system rights itself, they will only continue to have a larger presence in the market. Now, given the low financial hurdle to publishing a PDF, this has the potential to do the same thing to the online market as the brick-and-mortar market saw happen, but really that's far less likely. The lack of inventory concern alone renders a lot of the argument moot, and while consumer burnout is still a possibility, the largest online retailers (DTRPG and RPGnow) both have taken steps to create some differentiation and specialization, as well as trying to make it easy to find what you're looking for rather than browsing through endless lists of random games -- much like your average physical game store, rather than an exceptional and successful one. I don't believe that the proliferation of PDFs from material that might have been posted up on someone's web site for free a decade ago has any appreciable effect on the growth of the art and science of game design, honestly. The barrier to accessing that information is so small as to be nonexistent, and the argument assumes that anyone publishing PDFs is a hobbiest who would have done all that work even without the chance of being paid for it. Granted, there are Part Time Gods of Game Design, but it's still a false assumption. Much like the idea that WoW is sucking away all the gamers from pen-and-paper RPGs, it assumes that WoW players would be playing RPGs instead with that block of time if the MMORPG were not available -- a bad assumption to start with.
Q. How do you feel about piracy?
A. I think it sucks, frankly. I'd like to get paid, and if it's hurting my chances of getting paid for my work, then I have to be agin' it, as old mythical Okie relations of mine might say. That being said, though... my experience and observation leads me to believe that when a commodity is restricted from whatever level of access the public deems proper, that the people who end up with the restricted items are the ones that would have broken the laws anyway. You enact gun control laws, fewer normal citizens have them but criminals don't really feel the pinch. You enact a prohibition against alcohol, people who want to stay within the law don't get it while those outside the law profit (and get schnockered). If you go out of your way to put protections on your work that inhibit rightful users, you'll turn them off while largely leaving the people who would have stolen and not paid you for it in the first place unaffected. I don't agree with piracy, but really, most pirates aren't interested in my opinion, nor do I think additional safeguards will prevent them from doing what they were planning on doing anyway. Among people who regularly steal or shoplift, it's rarely about the item they're stealing. It's about the act itself. Large scale pirates don't typically profit from their deeds except in the goods, but if they don't use or enjoy the goods... well, it moves into another realm entirely, really. I guess my position can best be summed up as: don't steal. If you get something you didn't pay for and it isn't yours, either pay for it or give it back. If someone bought something of yours fair and square, don't get in their way. That's what I teach my kids, so I suppose it works well here as well.
Whew. Well, that ought to do it. I'm spent. With luck, I'll have that out of my system for another five years, at least. :) Although I do have a vague rant about professional vs. amateur around here somewhere... Ah well. Another time, perhaps.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-12-23 02:47 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-23 03:57 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-23 05:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-12-24 03:59 pm (UTC)From:I'm rather curious about the "amateur v. professional" rant, incidentally....