Gamer Masturbatory Exercise #11

[Nathan]

Nevermind the topic title......

Your Uncle, a lifelong war reenactor, hobbyist, and gamer, has died and left you a grand total $1,000,000. The only stipulation was for you to spend it doing your silly dream: starting a game company. You know this is your only shot... So what do you do?

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Okay, I want to hear your responses but let me put this in context. You have 1 mill, and you definitely want to make it back and make more for years to come. Based on that, what sort of product do you design? Is it a line of RPGs? Do you buy older RPGs? Do you come up with someone new and addictive?

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Mind you, $1 mill is not that much money in the world of business -- but it is in the world of RPGs.

Personally, I would try to create a new hobby, called "Adventure Gaming" or some such. Make games that implement a good reason to be continued to be purchased -> A main rulebook w/ dice($20), additional rulebooks w/ special dice ($10), novel ($5), comics ($5), etc.. The game would be setup to run with special dice which represent character powers.. There would be warrior dice, mage dice, thief dice, or whatever. Each new rulebook would detail a new type of character or power and include the dice to use with that. Also might have special dice packs with random dice ($5)... Addictive, I dunno?

Maybe also spend some cash to get a local network of players going and then grassroots it out to other cities and help it grow...

*sigh*

Thanks,
Nathan

[unodiablo]

Mr. Cynical says:

I'd put out one game and then retire on the rest. God bless Uncle Rich's soul and all, but if I want to lose a million bucks, I'd rather do it via gambling, drinking, and super-sexy hookers than starting a game company.

And it would probably be easier for me to lose the money starting my record label back up. Wouldn't have to get to know new distributors. :smile:

On the other hand, I'd probably move into my cottage up north and start the world's greatest RPG mailorder for 'cool' games only. It would take the longest to lose it that way.

[jburneko]

Seriously, if I had a million bucks to spend on a gaming company and I seriously wanted to make it back plus, I'd "sell out" and combine the tactics of WOTC and White Wolf.

I'd create a d20 game called Student Revolution.  It would be a sick parody of the rise in school yard violence but would be a serious RPG meant to really be played and have a continuing line.  There would be one race Human and the classes would reflect various high school stereotypes: Jock, Nerd, Slacker, etc.  There would of course be skills and feats specific to the setting and of course lots and lots of modern hand held weapons and firearms.  I've even toyed with a magic system excessable only to the "Goth" class or whatever that school stereotype is.  You know, high school goth wannabes.

The setting is a future in which public schools have become "Hormone Penatenturies" and have almost completely abandoned the concept of education.  The teachers are little more than over educated armed guards and the pricipal is more warden than "pal."  The idea being that the rate of juvenille deliquency has over the years grown so rapidly that they no longer give you the benfit of the doubt.  Upon reaching the age of 13 all teenages are confined to these "Schools" until they are deemed fit to join society.  

The players are of course renegades fighting the system and injustice within these academic prisons.

There would of course be factions probably called "cliques" each with their own agendas and ideas about how and why they are fighting the system.  Watch the sourcebooks and metaplot pile up. Cliquebook: Prepy.

Yeah, if I had a million bucks to start a gaming company, I'd start Student Revolution: The Roleplaying Game of Futuristic School-Yard Violence.

By the way if anyone thinks this is a good idea and is willing to fund it.  Call me.  We'll do lunch.

Jesse

[Zak Arntson]

A million dollars?  Let's see ... I'd pay off my house and student loans for starters.  With 800k left over, I could easily live on 30-40k a year living expenses.  So if I plan 5 years ahead, that's about 200k of living expenses.

So now I've got 600k with which to spend 5 years on a game company.

My current dream is for my little games to somehow fund my lifestyle.  That probably won't happen, and big games on the market tend towards the D&D-style, attributes+skills+kitchen sink design I can't stand anymore.  Yikes.

I would probably come up with a generic system (I've got one, I'll post the rules under the OGL sometime in the next couple of months) but package it with a setting.  If it sold well enough, I could use the same system with different games. This seems to be the best trend for games (D&D, WoD, Deadlands, etc.).  Oh, and it would all have d20 conversion rules.

I'd spend tons of money on marketing, trying conventional approaches (con booths, magazine spots) and unconventional stuff (publicity stunts, somehow get on MTV, freebie pamphlets at 7-11).

In addition, I would also publish my smaller games in comic-book format. I could showcase different indie artists and writers, though I doubt there'd be a profit.

After five years of that, hopefully I could turn that 600k into something profitable.

If things were way profitable, I'd also turn my focus towards videogames, but we're talking rpgs here.

[Laurel]

I'd quit my job, that's for sure :smile:  Little Fears and Obsidian represent to me the kind of professionalism that I would strive for- I would make games that look as good as anything WoTC and WW put out.  First I'd get Family Ties done which would take $2000 and a month of time to invest without interruptions like my job and friends.  Family Ties is a game with a setting very much like the 6th Sense, Poltergeist, or The Others... or any Steven King novel.  The gimmick is that all the PCs are members of the same family by blood, marriage, or occupation.  This allows for a special kind of drama-as-genre (using two words Ron hates together no less).  Its an abashedly Narrativist sort of game.

Then I'd start on Phantasyml while Family Ties was at the printer.  This would be a much more complicated project, a setting-heavy game world with some of the whimsy of Changeling or Harry Potter or Piers Anthony's Xanth.  I call it a macabre fairy tale, as the characters are ghosts in a decidely medieval-flavored underworld.  

Beyond my own games, and getting distributors to take them seriously, however, I'd want to invest some of that money into some kind of organization that would benefit Indie games in general... maybe take Clinton and the other Seattle Forgers out to dinner and put our heads together.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I'd spend 5K to put on a small-run of of one of my games and the rest into savings account. In a few years, that's a lot of interest and probably more than I'd make selling the game.

[Ron Edwards]

Nathan,

I think the money issue is very nearly irrelevant. It is not the lack of leisure time which keeps a person from writing and marketing a good RPG, nor from writing and marketing a good novel, nor from any creative/hobby endeavor.

Oh, it may be that issues like raising a family, pursuing another career, and similar things are real constraints. That's true. But all you get by adding money to the pot is boosting that conflict (e.g. career vs. game design) to a higher-income level. The conflict will remain.

The foul truth of role-playing design and marketing is that making a game really isn't expensive. People dump wads of money into it that they don't have to.

I say to you: if ALL you want to do is to publish a game in book form and just SEE it on the shelves of game stores, you can do it for about $2500, or even less. This is far beyond any imaginable means I had as a college student. But now, 15 years after graduation and well into my respectable if not munificent career, it's quite feasible.

Want to make the game really nice-looking? $5000-$8000, if you take a "grope and kill" indie-punk approach, like I did, or like the Apophis Consortium did.

So screw Uncle What's-His-Name. His legacy doesn't enter into the picture at all. Your whole proposal utterly misses the real points - it amounts to "Let's Talk About Money and Not Pay Attention to the Little Man Behind the Curtain."

The Little Man is actually a composite entity, with the following parts.

1) Breaking into the attention of the distributors. Solution: hire an agent and get a good warehouser; there are several who operate specifically for benefit of small-press games and comics, and they're not crooks.

2) Determining print run size and supplement planning. You have no idea how many dumb-ass game designers have dropped HUGE wads of money on 5000-copy to 9000-copy print runs and now have a nice landfill in the basement. Solution: keep it small and pay up front - do NOT plan to pay for your print run with the profits from those very sales.

3) The attention-span of the distributor/retailer tier system is necessarily short and not especially critical. Solution: sell to the customer, not to the distribution chain. Generate real market demand through the intelligent use of website marketing and direct contact with the fan base. USE the three-tier system but do not CATER to it.

4) Few people seem to define "successful role-playing game" for themselves. The contradictions among the usual definitions, applied simultaneously as they often are, are self-defeating. Solution: define and stick to one definition of a game's success, and direct all energies at fulfilling it.

5) Marketing notions and websites and promotion are meaningless in the absence of (a) an actual playable game and (b) commerce. Solution: make sure that (a) and (b) exist, and KEEP making sure that they exist.

You could be a billionaire and have all the leisure time in the world, but if you ignore the Little Man Behind the Curtain, your game will be a fucking flop.

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

Hello Ron,

In all fairness to the original question I think money IS an issue if you're goals are in a certain direction.  Granted, if all we're talking about is publishing an RPG and getting it in print and having people playing it ALL your points are valid I think that you yourself are pretty much Q.E.D. on that one.  Hell, I've got this document called Isolation siting on my computer that I'm pondering what to do with.

HOWEVER, take a look at my answer.  I know it looks kind of silly but it's something I've seriously been mulling over in my head.  MAYBE, I could produce the core d20 book but I could NEVER churn out all the sourcebooks and metaplot stuff on my own.  Maybe I could over time, but I'm talking about the AEG/White Wolf model where we're churing out a source book every other month.  That, takes a staff.  Getting a staff takes money.

Think about it?  Could you all by your lonesome, career and all, churn out the entire 7th Sea line at exactly the same rate as it has been churned out?  CCG and all?

I know it's not your favorite model of business.  I know it's not even the model of business this site was designed to support.  But it IS a valid model of business and I think it was the model the question was catering to.  Which is why I gave the answer I did.

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

Jesse,

I do agree with you, and that agreement is inherent to the Success element of the Little Man Behind the Curtain. If one's definition of success requires the business model in question, then the activities that you describe do follow. My objection to Nathan's initial question is that it fails to address that element.

I understand your answer, too, although I think it covertly joins Nathan's "la la la" regarding the Little Man, simply by failing to point out its definition of success in explicit terms.

Best,
Ron

[Nathan]

Ron, Ron, Ron...

The question was open -- and it is a masturbatory exercise. It's silly. My underlying want to ask this question was to see what people's ideas were if they had a mil to blow in the gaming industry - what would they do? Would they use a smidgeon of it to put out a few books, work hard with the little man, and at least get their money back? Would they go for break and try to become a major player rivaling Wizards of the Coast? Is there a right answer?

Also, I have another question related to all this silliness, but I will start a new thread for it.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Nathan,

If it's silly, keep it off the Forge. (Fun is fine; silly isn't.)

It so turns out that I think that the Real Issue of how to finance an RPG (in the sense of DISTRIBUTING money) is important and facinating. That ain't silly, and with a good look at the Little Man first, then your question is of paramount importance.

Running with it at that level of critical attention is something I'd like to continue with.

Best,
Ron

[Nathan]

Ron,

Our hobby is silly. We are silly. You are silly. :smile:

Ron must not like the word silly.

Ron, you obviously have a deeper sense of the underlying forces at work in the game industry. Good for you! Some of us are interested in that. Some of us are not.

Personally, I don't want to start a game company to make a fortune. I think there are many other business areas you can go if you really want to make money. On the other hand, I truly believe that the gaming hobby is a rewarding one with the right perspectives. My goal has only been to throw up a few of my funky ideas and see what people think. This week, Metalman reviewed sk8er on rpg.net, and that makes me excited!

But, the point is, I don't find examining the little man a deeply interesting subject. I don't care. I'd rather whack off on pointless but fun gamer fantasies like Mr. Uncle George's Fortune. I am never going to start a full time game company, so I don't want to know about building a relationship with the distributors, marketing to the three tier approach, or whatever. Although, my interests are obviously in other areas, I do find that those conversations are useful at times. Others find them a whole lot more useful than me, which is definitely good.

So -- let the cats have their cat food and the dogs have their dog food. Chime in, please Ron, with more of what you have to say. I also hope we can chime in with our young gamerhood dreams of what we would do with a mil to blow on the ultimate rpg line.

In the end, good ideas will be shared by all.

Thanks,
Nathan