Making money, making a living

[Ben Lehman]

This is another split from Pricing and Marketing your games and mine, to avoid derailing it further.  I welcome further discussion on the issues brought up in this thread.

If you have a normal job and RPG-design is not your main source of income, why not make your game as cheap as possible?

My basic rebuttal is this: Art has value, game design is art, game designers deserve to be recompensed for their effort, and it is not unreasonable to expect that a game designer could make a decent income -- whether or not they have another job.

Let's put it this way -- suppose that there's a guy who's a martial artist, and enjoys it, and is good at it, and likes to teach it, but also has another job.  Is your argument that this guy shouldn't charge money for his martial arts classes?  I don't see how the value of his work is related to whether or not he has another source of income.

(there's a side issue, too, which is that pricing something very low or free tends to diminish people's respect for it, and reduce chance that they'll use it.)

As an indie game publisher, I can't understand pricing your book any higher than enough to make exactly twice what it cost to make the book.

And I don't see why the value of something should have anything to do with the production cost.  The cost of a game is (cost of production and distribution) + (value of game as art and as tool).  Why should one necessarily equal the other?  That makes no sense to me.

If I decide (say) Want is worth five dollars, and it costs me ten dollars to produce, I'll charge $15.  If it costs $3 to produce, I'll charge eight dollars.  Why does the value of the game change with the cost of production?  This strikes me as really arbitrary.

I totally agree with Victor and Clinton. Also, I know a good many people already gulping at PtA's 20 bucks plus shipping. Here's a bit on "fair payment". See, I'm a lawyer. I'm just an employee with little experience, so they only charge € 175 per hour for me. When I'm finished with BARBAREN!, let's say I'll have put 300 hours of work into it. That sums up to a total of € 52,200. Adding € 800 for artwork and layout, that's € 53.000. Let's say I can sell 100 books of the German version, and I can print the books for € 8. So in order for me to get paid properly, that's € 538 per book.

...

No offence, Josh, but getting fair payment for the work you put into an Indie RPG? Boy, not even the rates I got when I was still a student chained to the copier in the cellars deep below some law firm. Get real.

Clearly, it's unreasonable to expect a game writer to make the same money as a lawyer.  But let's compare ourselves to a couple of other types of writers, which might be a more realistic comparison:

1) Freelance RPG writers make from 0c/word - 5c/word, maybe up to 10c/word as a veteran.  We are already past these guys by a ways.

2) Short Fiction pays between 10c/word and $1/word, hovering around 20c for an experienced writer.  Vincent says that he's made around this on Dogs.  I'm approaching this with Polaris, for two months of sales.

3) Novels pay around $5000 for a first novel and range from 5-50K for an established novelist (and up.)  It medians around $12-14k.  I don't know how much Adept Press has made, but I bet that Ron has made around this much profit.

Now, writing is not exactly the most lucrative profession.  No one said it was.  But it is a profession, and not a hobby.

I think a reasonable goal is for a game designer to make about as much as a novelist -- which is enough to live poorly or a strong secondary income if you have a spouse who works.  We aren't there yet, but it's a reasonable goal, and it seems pretty much within reach.  It isn't nonsense to talk about fair income for work on a role-playing text, nor should it be.

yrs--
--Ben

[Victor Gijsbers]

Hi Ben,

My basic rebuttal is this: Art has value, game design is art, game designers deserve to be recompensed for their effort, and it is not unreasonable to expect that a game designer could make a decent income -- whether or not they have another job.

Doesn't work as a rebuttal, for me, but I do not think it will be fruitful to discuss this issue further. For me, the value of art is something so entirely different from the 'value' of money that all comparisons fall flat. How much did Bach deserve to be paid for the Kunst der Fuge? Or Nabokov for Lolita? These questions have no answers, and - at least to me - asking them is an insult to these works. They transcend monetary value. Money is one of the strongest chains that binds us to the whims and absurdities of society. Art (among others things) is what makes us free.

We should not discuss this here. I'm just telling this to show that, perhaps, we are looking from viewpoints so different that we cannot sensibly argue about good commercial strategies for roleplay designers. (And since that is what these threads are about, this means that I'll bow out.)

[Ben Lehman]

Viktor --

I'm curious why you think we should not discuss this here.  I think the question of whether or not an artist can make a living from his work, and whether or not an artist should make a living from his world (which seems to be what you're raising) are of pressing importance to a forum who's self-described purpose is the creation, promulgation, and faciliation of art.

They are of even more pressing importance to the independent artist, who is lacking a patron or some such to provide for his well-being.

I have a certain position with respect to this -- my mother is a writer by trade and I was raised around writers and other artists as family friends, which has given me the very strong perspective of "art as job."  You have a different perspective, and I think it's really important that we see multiple sides of this issue, because it's one that's dogged art for a really long time, and will continue to do so into the future.  As independent artists, we're making our own decisions with regard to these crucial issues of money, work, and time, and I want all perspectives to get a fair hearing in front of everyone so that they can make their decisions with full information.

If you still want to withdraw from discussion, I will respect your wishes and not press you further.  Is there some other forum where you feel that this important discussion would be more appropriate?

yrs--
--Ben

[LloydBrown]

As an indie game publisher, I can't understand pricing your book any higher than enough to make exactly twice what it cost to make the book.

It's one perfectly valid strategy.  Wikipedia has a good article on price setting that it might be good for anyone interested in this subject to review. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pricing

Personally, I think formulas like 10x printing cost or 2x total production cost are viable baselines, but they can't be the only deciding factor.  You should at least compare your price to your competitor's price (preferably before you print the darn thing) to make sure the product's viable.  $40 for a 128-page b&w, art-light book won't sell.  $9.50 for the same book leaves money on the table, in my opinion.

[TonyLB]

That was very nicely and diplomatically said, Ben.  I know that my initial gut reaction on all of these issues is "Hey!  You can't tell me what an artist is or is not!", even when people aren't saying anything of the sort.  You remind us that nobody is saying what art is or isn't, where money should or shouldn't go.  Everybody is saying how they feel about those issues.  I can be interested by how they feel, but I have nothing at stake in it.  Their feelings don't affect my actions.  If they feel very differently from me then the my response (to be sane and calm) has to be "Wow!  That's really interesting!"

I really hope that we can have a discussion in that context.

For me, personally, I don't decide my prices based on what I think the book is worth, or what it cost me.  I decide based on what I think I can get away with charging.  Why?  Because I'm very, very mercenary.  I don't see that as debasing my art ... selling it is a different process from making it.  The art part is finished before I sell the first copy.

Now if I started saying "Hey, I really want to make a game about teenage romance, but a game about over-the-top soulless kung-fu would sell," and made the latter then that would be a different matter.  I do worry about how much I'm unconsciously motivated by profit.  Is that division between "what sells" and "what is art" something that any of us has absolutely?  Or is it all shades of grey?  Did the Rennaissance masters paint exactly and only what they wanted to paint, or did they say "Hey, I can attract a patron if I paint this"?  (seriously ... I have an intuition that it's the latter, but art history is not my thing, so that's not a rhetorical question)

[Victor Gijsbers]

Hi Ben,

All right, if you think a forum called 'Publishing' is the right place to discuss the relationship between art and society, I'll remain and discuss it with you. I agree that it is an important subject, relevant to indie designers, but I have repeatedly seen discussion of this sort of deep, quasi-normative questions stopped by the moderators in favour of more practical discussions.

Should an artist be able to make a living from his work?

The answer to this question depends upon how it is interpreted. In an ideal world, would those who could spend their time making valuable art get enough support to actually spend their time doing it? Yes. In our world, is an artist who is not able to make a living from his work doing something morally or aesthetically wrong? No.

There are many forms the question can take that lie between these two extremes, and our answers will vary accordingly. What struck me in your posts, and also those of some others who agree with you, is that you somehow equate artistic value with monetary value. If something is a better work of art, it should cost more. This equation or connection eludes me. Arguing against a position, or even just talking about a position, that I do not really understand is probably no going to be very useful; so I'd like to ask you if I am reading you right and, if so, whether you could elaborate a bit on the connection between artistic value and monetary value as you perceive it.

Greetings,
Victor

[timfire]

Let's look at the facts. Ron and Luke are the two most successful designers here at the Forge, and I don't believe either of them make enough to quit their day job. Ron, If I remember right, has said he makes $5k-$10k a year. Luke I'm not sure about.

Successful games at the Forge tend to sell 400-500 copies a year (Uni, DitV, MLwM, PTA, potentially tMW, etc). Less successful games can sell, I don't know somewhat less than that (200-400?). After two years, it seems those numbers start to drop a bit.

Those numbers *may* be rising a bit as the Indie game movement rises in popularity. But let's remember that not everyone is going to sell 500 a year. The Forge has plenty of deserving games that have sadly not gotten the attention they deserve.

What we should make is entirely a moot point. We shouldn't let our perception is skewed by the success of games likes Sorcerer or DitV. Noone without an established fanbase can reliably count on much more than 300 sales a year. Take your profit margin and multiply.

[TonyLB]

If something is a better work of art, it should cost more.

Yeah, that'd be a dicey proposition.  I don't buy that either.  That having been said, sometimes a better work of art can be sold for more, because of its quality, yes?  Just the same way that sometimes the harder worker gets a promotion and a raise because they work harder.  I just say it to point out that the idea that, if your goal was to make money for your art (setting aside the overall wisdom of that goal), you might consider improving your art as a means to that end.  Not because it's guaranteed to work, but because it might.

I think the interaction between art and money, as with many other human endeavours, is very complicated.  They conflict and support each other at the same time.

[Jasper Polane]

Should an artist be able to make a living from his work?

Yes, of course he should. But he should work for it fulltime. It's unrealistic to expect a 50 hour salary from self-publishing one game you wrote in evening hours.

I agree with Ben, for a game designer to make about as much as a novelist is reasonable. But, really, by selling 500 copies of a game? My children's books sold at least 10 times that number each, and didn't even earn enough money to consider continuing the series.

I think the interaction between art and money, as with many other human endeavours, is very complicated.  They conflict and support each other at the same time.

Actually, I think that interaction is just like all commercial endeavours: Supply and demand determine the price. That's why I think it strange to say the price of games should go up, because, let's face it, demand is pretty low.

--Jasper

[TonyLB]

Actually, I think that interaction is just like all commercial endeavours: Supply and demand determine the price.

Fair enough, as regards the interaction in the market.  I was talking about the interaction in the desires and actions of the artist.  Does the desire for money make your art better or worse?  Does the desire to make art help you make money, or hurt?  Or, as I would propose, do they both simultaneously help and harm the other in varying ways and degrees?  I should have been more clear, sorry.

[Josh Roby]

I don't know about comparing indie game publishers with writers of various stripes.  We do more than write -- we also edit, layout, acquire art, manufacture, market, and sell.  Writing is one essential but very small element of the much larger industry of publishing. Comparing our earnings with writers' is like comparing a one-man show's earnings with actors' in broadway productions.  It's not the whole picture.

As Tony says, creating art is a separate process than selling it.  How much you allow the requirements of the latter to affect the former is a question that really comes down to personal preference, but I'd argue that no one disregards "what will sell" entirely when designing.  Our definitions of the quality of art are always at least partially based on community norms, and we produce art with an eye for getting others to appreciate it.  (Especially RPGs -- even if you made a game for you and your three buddies, they'd have to like it in order to play it.)

Which is why the comments about supply and demand are a little off -- the S&D chart determines the optimal price point for a given product, the intersection of how many units a supplier will offer for a given price and how many units customers will purchase for a given price.  Supply and demand does not determine price -- it predicts the optimal price.  A lot of indie publishers aren't necessarily after the optimal price, and Josh's original post recognized that pricing is a communicative act between merchant and customer which can attempt to alter both lines on the S&D chart.  We can increase demand through pricing strategies.  "Increasing demand" does not mean making more people want to buy the product, it means increasing the amount of money people will spend to purchase the product.

Art's value, as perceived by the artist when the artist is the salesman, is what determines the supply side of the relationship.  The demand side is determined in part by the art's value as perceived by the customer, and that perception of value is going to be different.  The customer is buying a thing, an artifact, a product.  The customer will consider that finished product, in most of our cases a book, which has a whole assortment of assumptions about quality, artistic value, and pragmatic use attached.  While I absolutely love the Forge's emphasis on making a quality game, if we want to accurately gauge customer demand, we need to think of our products in terms of quality products and quality books.  That includes considering them as quality games, but it also includes a host of other considerations -- layout, manufacture, marketing.  And it appears that this reply has come full circle, all zen-like.

[Josh Roby]

Also, the link to Wikipedia that Clinton cited is a marvelous article.  Anybody selling anything should take a half hour or so to read it in its entirety.

[Ben Lehman]

I'll respond to everyone else in a bit.

All right, if you think a forum called 'Publishing' is the right place to discuss the relationship between art and society, I'll remain and discuss it with you. I agree that it is an important subject, relevant to indie designers, but I have repeatedly seen discussion of this sort of deep, quasi-normative questions stopped by the moderators in favour of more practical discussions.

Publishing is, of course, increasingly a indistinct word in the internet age, but I believe the definition for this forum is putting one's work up for public consumption in any form.  So I think it's desperately on topic to discuss in this forum.  Ron and Clinton may disagree with me, in which case I assume they will come along shortly to inform me of this and close or redirect the thread.

Should an artist be able to make a living from his work?

The answer to this question depends upon how it is interpreted. In an ideal world, would those who could spend their time making valuable art get enough support to actually spend their time doing it? Yes. In our world, is an artist who is not able to make a living from his work doing something morally or aesthetically wrong? No.

It was never my meaning that an artist who is not able to make money from his work, or make a living from his work, was unsuccessful as an artist, certainly not in a moral or aesthetic sense.  Joshua wasn't saying that, either.  So we're all in agreement on your second statement.

I do think, though, that the idea that all art should be offered free of charge without a recompense for the artist is totally appalling, and an insult to all art and all artists everywhere.  I think that art is work, and that it is a reasonable goal for an artist to support herself strictly off of her work.  It may not always work out like that, but I think that indie RPGs are closer than we think, and with a little more savvy about marketing we'd be there.

There are many forms the question can take that lie between these two extremes, and our answers will vary accordingly. What struck me in your posts, and also those of some others who agree with you, is that you somehow equate artistic value with monetary value. If something is a better work of art, it should cost more. This equation or connection eludes me. Arguing against a position, or even just talking about a position, that I do not really understand is probably no going to be very useful; so I'd like to ask you if I am reading you right and, if so, whether you could elaborate a bit on the connection between artistic value and monetary value as you perceive it.

I simply think that, in a modern capitalistic society, the way that we express how much we value something is how much money we will pay for it.  Offering something cheap or free devalues it not only in the mind of the public, but in the mind of the creator.  When I see people saying things like "well, I just made this game, and it isn't really big like D&D, so I'm just going to offer it for free and hope someone downloads it and maybe even plays it once" I am really upset.  Take pride in your work!

On the other hand, people who are taking a principled stand in offering their work for free (Clinton, the FATE guys) is a totally different can of beans.  Does that make any sense?

yrs--
--Ben

[Jonathan Walton]

I haven't been posting here in a while, but I've been talking to Clinton (and even Luke, a bit) about this kind of thing.  Like Clinton, I have absolutely no interest in becoming a professional roleplaying designer.  That is not what my life's work is to be and, honestly, I'm not at all attracted by the kinds of things I would have to do in order to quit my dayjob.  Maybe if the game industry changes completely in the next 10-15 years (and it might), but even then I doubt it.  However, I'm not going to stop designing roleplaying games.  And with a regular source of income, I could probably afford to spend time writing games, buy artwork for them, do the layout myself, pay for a print run, and then give copies of the game away, all without losing more money than I normally would on a side hobby (far less than I would if I had a video game or pot habit, actually).  I could totally do that.

But I won't.  Because I think my work is worth something and I want other people to think that too.  And I want people to play my game.

Making money?  That's nice, I guess, and makes it easier for me to invest funds in art and printing costs, because I know I'll make some back.

Making a living?  Not interested, thanks.

[Jasper Polane]

This is what I can't understand:

The books you are selling are not your art. They're your medium for expression, not the expression.

The price of your books doesn't have anything to do with the value of your art. If that was true, nobody could afford Shakespeare. I can buy a poster of a van Gogh painting for $15. That's not the value of his art, it's the value of the poster.

Offering something cheap or free devalues it not only in the mind of the public, but in the mind of the creator.

I honestly believe that if that's true, the creator doesn't take pride in his work.

--Jasper