Incoherency and Sales

[jdagna]

The GNS article pretty well avoids addressing how game sales relate to their GNS focus (or lack thereof).

It seems to me that many of the most successful products have often been the least coherent, and the examples in the article seem to indirectly make this point.  But perhaps this is because most games are incoherent to begin with, so the majority of the successful ones have shared this flaw?  

On the other hand, perhaps incoherent games appeal to a wider audience, even if they fail to satisfy any member of that audience?  This certainly seems to match what people tell me about AD&D.  No one plays it exactly the same way, but they all appreciate that there's no lack of fellow players.

It would also seem that most of the most successful role-playing games have had a Simulationist bent despite their overall incoherency.  Is the market for Simulationist games larger than Narrativist ones? And, it would appear that market for Gamist games is larger than both, but mostly concentrated in the CCG, wargame and board game arenas, not so much in RPGs.

Obviously, determining whether a game is G/N/S, and coherent or not is a value judgement to begin with... but does anyone have opinions on whether this is a trend or not?

[Mike Holmes]

The GNS article pretty well avoids addressing how game sales relate to their GNS focus (or lack thereof).

It seems to me that many of the most successful products have often been the least coherent, and the examples in the article seem to indirectly make this point.  But perhaps this is because most games are incoherent to begin with, so the majority of the successful ones have shared this flaw?  

Bingo.

On the other hand, perhaps incoherent games appeal to a wider audience, even if they fail to satisfy any member of that audience?  This certainly seems to match what people tell me about AD&D.  No one plays it exactly the same way, but they all appreciate that there's no lack of fellow players.

Nothing stops a player from drifting a coherent game, either. Incoherency is not an asset. Lots of players is, theoretically an asset. But people do not play D&D because it's incoherent, they play despite it's incoherency, and perhaps because there are so many players. That's a huge advantage of being first. Is M:TG the best CCG? No. But it's played many times more often than the others becuse it was first.

It would also seem that most of the most successful role-playing games have had a Simulationist bent despite their overall incoherency.  Is the market for Simulationist games larger than Narrativist ones? And, it would appear that market for Gamist games is larger than both, but mostly concentrated in the CCG, wargame and board game arenas, not so much in RPGs.

The most successful RPG, sales-wise is, hands down D&D. A Gamist system. Narrativist systems are newer. Who knows how big the potential market is.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Full discussion of this issue, from me, awaits my Big Industry Essay, which only a few people have seen in very ugly note-ridden draft form. I'll try to abstract a few points that illustrate why I think this question is going to be difficult for most people.

1) "Success" is a badly-misused word in discussing the economics of RPGs. It's much like "balance" when discussing design. Examples:

Time and time again, people hold up D&D and Vampire as the Big Industry Successes. Time and time again, I hold up the facts that TSR went under multiple times, changing ownership via bankruptcy and near-bankruptcy; and that White Wolf nearly went bankrupt before they changed their entire strategy of publishing away from the four World of Darkness lines. Not any kind of "success" I'd shoot for, personally.

2) "Sales" are equally difficult for people to grasp. Most publishers refer, of course, to moving books from their printer to a distributor, because that's when they get paid. But that's not a "sale" in a market sense at all, because the book has not yet reached an end consumer. The three-tier system is actually a three-market system, and a "good seller" at the early stage often doesn't mean squat at the later stage.

I will go so far as to say that, at certain points in RPG history, selective market effects that are specific to the needs of distributors and/or retailers have completely overriden market effects that reflect consumer satisfaction.

3) Finally, the key economic ingredients toward a game being even viable to an end-use customer (ie "in the stores," with enough buzz and presence to be noticed) are not understood by most role-players at all. They include things like (a) whether the book is returnable from the store to distributor if it doesn't sell, and/or whether it is returnable from the distributor to the publisher; (b) how negotiable "discounts" are, ie, the percent off the MSRP that a retailer pays a distributor to acquire the book; and (c) the degree to which outside investors have been willing to dump speculative dollars into publishers' production regarding a particular "line."

All of these things have changed and shifted over the course of the hobby's existence, and they have had huge impacts on the "industry" that gamers never dream of. It ain't a case of plain old supply-and-demand thinking.

In conclusion: Comparing games' "success" with their GNS categorizations (and remember that those are indirect categorizations to begin with) is probably not a viable task at this time, due mainly to widespread ignorance and misunderstandings about the money and publishing side of things.

However, just to be interesting, and for purposes of discussion, I think we might do better to look at games' success in terms of play, not "sales" (at least not without a much more sophisticated definition of the term, which would include production costs). I do offer these games up for consideration, all of which have been successful in terms of sustained play over decades, apparently regardless of the fortunes of the company that did or does produce them.

- Marvel Super Heroes (focused Narrativism/Gamism hybrid, easily Driftable)
- RuneQuest (focused Simulationism)
- Call of Cthulhu (focused Simulationism)
- Champions (an interesting case of easily-Driftable incoherence)

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

However, just to be interesting, and for purposes of discussion, I think we might do better to look at games' success in terms of play, not "sales" (at least not without a much more sophisticated definition of the term, which would include production costs). I do offer these games up for consideration, all of which have been successful in terms of sustained play over decades, apparently regardless of the fortunes of the company that did or does produce them.

- Marvel Super Heroes (focused Narrativism/Gamism hybrid, easily Driftable)
- RuneQuest (focused Simulationism)
- Call of Cthulhu (focused Simulationism)
- Champions (an interesting case of easily-Driftable incoherence)

Best,
Ron

While I agree that this is a useful way of looking at things in terms of whether or not a game is "dead" (vs. the definition that requires constant supplements), I don't know how useful a distinction it is to measure success.

I would bet large money that more games of D&D and WoD are played in a given year than all of the above games put together...heck probably all of ANY game put together.

So by that definition if we want to be successful we should duplicate D&D and WoD.  But as you note above, from a business perspective TSR and WW are not exactly shining lights of profitability.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ralph,

Well, ya see, ya see, that's another whole confounding variable. I refer to the issue of relative to performance of other games as opposed to relative to performance for the same game.

Let's take a look at Sorcerer: do less people buy it pound for pound, than those playing D&D? Yup. But does Sorcerer return me, the publisher, more bux per buck spent than D&D returns to Hasbro? Yup. (And I cite the movie as part of their 2001 "production costs," as well as the obvious and frantic unloading-tactics of Hasbro toward the property even as we speak.)

Same logic applies to actual play - either we compare Sorcerer to some other game, in terms of how many people play it, or we compare it to the possibility that fewer people (or no one!) plays it at all. Or, for a slightly different sort of analysis, we could compare actual play this year as opposed to actual play last year.

The issue is across-game comparison vs. within-game comparison. I suggest that quite a bit of the latter is worth considering more carefully, and quite a bit of the former is (a) irrelevant and (b) over-emphasized in discussion.

Yet another nuance to the whole topic that keeps me from spending too much air time on it, pending the aforementioned essay.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Good point.

I see two types of "Successful" games.

The first is the Fun Factor or Entertainment Quotient.  This would be something like:  ((Number of games played per year / number of distinct "campaigns) X the square of the average units of "enjoyment" had during play).   In other words...something so impossible to measure rigorously that its useless...a pure Green / Purple issue.

The second is $$.  Being an investment manager I'd love to get my hands on some audited GAAP compliant financial statements from TSR or WotC or WW or SJG.  I want to see the basics like Cost of Goods Sold, and Gross Margin, and then I want run through the fun stuff like Liquidity Ratios and Inventory Turnover, and Return on Assets / Return on Equity, Free Cash Flow, Debt Coverage and so on.

I imagine the results would be down right scary from investment analysis perspective.  I further suspect that the vast majority of game companies don't even maintain GAAP compliant finacial statements.

[Le Joueur]

All very true, but I wonder....

I've often given the above bold statement a little extra thought and here's what I get.  Everything Ron says is true, especially from the idea-all-the-way-to-market point of view.  What he often says about the faux utility of using GNS to proactively design a game is also very true.  However, I don't see that (or any attack on the concept of "success") having any bearing.

What I think Justin is talking about when he uses the 'S' word is how many copies he sees of a game being carried around 'on the street.'  This is a very practical and down-to-earth view of 'how well a game is doing.'  Since I am not in it for the money, I can kinda see it that way too.  I'd sure like it if as many people played Scattershot in ten years as own Dungeons & Dragons now; it's just a 'my idea is popular' feeling.

I have to say that buried in Justin's post (and all the others we've seen like it over the months) is an idea that really appealed to me back when we framed the design specifications for Scattershot.  His mistake is framing it in coherency issues and implying sales.  What I think he's getting at is the question of whether the lack of coherency is a driver of the accessibility of these games.  In other words, an incoherent game 'takes drift' well.  A 'driftable' game would be potentially popular among more people that a coherent game that caters only to a section of the populous (either a Gamist game, or a Simulationist game, or a Narrativist game, never all three audiences).

And that's why we chose to create a Transition-based generalist system.  Done well, rare would be the person who wouldn't be satisfied by our game, no matter their what GNS inclination.  More potential customers equals more 'popularity' because of 'universal' accessibility powered by an effective Transitional game system reaching the widest audience also based on a wide genre choice offered by the generalist system.

It isn't really a matter of 'incoherence selling,' but the absence of the accessibility of Transitional games.  Hybrids are popular to more than one mode of GNS tendency than singular focused games for the same reason.

Fang Langford

p. s. Sorcerer is successful at being popular to a smaller target market.  More sales to the intended (and deliberately restricted) market.  What percentage of Narrativist like and buy Sorcerer?  What percentage of broad spectrum gamers bought Dungeons & Dragons?  Do these percentages compare arbitrarily?  Does it matter?  I don't think Justin was talking about sales.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Three things ...

THING ONE: FANG'S POINT
Accessibility, as you describe it, is certainly an important element of the picture as well.

However, it's awfully easy for a real piece of shit to be made accessible, and for a manufacturer to profit in the short-term. This is the "spike" model of movie financing: hype it to the gills, showcase all two-point-five minutes of cool stuff in the previews, and hope you cover your production costs in five days of showtime, 'cause after that everyone will know how bad it is. Bluntly, a lot of RPG publishers do this. I'll forego naming names 'cause it makes for bad feelings; fill in your personal blank as you see fit.

Now, I'm not trying to get virtuous or "quality over profit" on anyone. No way.

Instead, my call is that consumerism, ie the tendency to buy whatever is shoved at you and to believe (until you bite into it) that it's good, is a viable model for financial success, but it is terribly risky. Such a game (or game line) gets a lot of positive buzz over and over, until it's released and enters the Consumer Bermuda Triangle of "anticipated it enthusiastically, bought it upon arrival, it sucked, don't mention it, anticipate next game, la la." Many a company has hit once with it, then crashed - some stumble along trying again and again with venture capital. Their "success" represents the publishers' acumen at convincing investors, rather than any merit or user-based success of the games.

So accessibility or visibility on its own, as an indicator of "success," is something I tend to shy away from.

THING TWO: SOME REFERENCING
We discussed RPG success, specifically the concept of a "line of supplements," but also generally, in Successful RPG line. That thread spawned a good discussion of the three-tier retail system in Channel conflict with distribution-retailers-manufacturers. I also think I laid out about eight or nine versions of the term "success," many of them contradictory, in some thread or another, but I can't find it.

THING THREE: ARE WE ON TRACK
I think we've beaten the secondary discussion into the ground. My question now is to Justin, who started this thread. Has your question been addressed to your satisfaction?

Best,
Ron

[jdagna]

I think we've beaten the secondary discussion into the ground. My question now is to Justin, who started this thread. Has your question been addressed to your satisfaction?

I think it's been fairly well answered, at least to the extent that it seems like no one really knows for sure (and that even if we did know, specific definitions of the terms could dramatically change the results).

My question was ultimately looking for evidence of an objective test for the GNS classification system.  In the artistic world, critics often develop ideals, styles and meanings that may be useful to the artists and other critics, but which have little value to the average person.  I would be skeptical of putting design emphasis on a classification system that actually put my game in conflict with the market.  

In other words, coherence might be an admirable aesthetic ideal, but if incoherent (or driftable) games actually do better, then coherence isn't particularly useful to game designers who desire other people to use their games.

The responses I've gotten seem to confirm what my other research has indicated: that good or bad design (however they are defined) can influence the success of a game, but are only one of many factors - some of which are out of the game designer's control.

Naturally, "success" can be defined in many ways, though I think D&D epitomizes the key elements for me: both number of sales to consumers and long-term play from them.  The actual financial state of a company depends on so many factors, that I consider it less important.  Likewise, a game that piles up in distributors' warehouses or retailers' shelves has a relatively short future in store for it, even if its intitial numbers look like success.

[Le Joueur]

My question was ultimately looking for evidence of an objective test for the GNS classification system.  In the artistic world, critics often develop ideals, styles and meanings that may be useful to the artists and other critics, but which have little value to the average person.

So classification systems like "romance novel" or "chick flick" are useless?  Let's watch what's in the bath water, baby.  The GNS is just one of many models yet to crest into the public arena.

Will it be useful there?  No one can tell.  But perhaps there are enough games now that better genres need to be identified than merely what style of setting the game is based on.

Naturally, "success" can be defined in many ways, though I think D&D epitomizes the key elements for me: both number of sales to consumers and long-term play from them.  The actual financial state of a company depends on so many factors, that I consider it less important.  Likewise, a game that piles up in distributors' warehouses or retailers' shelves has a relatively short future in store for it, even if its intitial numbers look like success.

Justin points out what I was getting at.  Sure over-hyped games will have 'huge sales,' but again Ron is making it all about money.  A successful accessible game would not only sell well, but be played for a long time, exactly as Justin describes.  When I bring up accessibility, I'm not talking about 'is it in the stores' (an easy mistake based on my bad word choice), I'm talking about things related to 'ease of use' or 'familiarity of subject' (separate from 'lowest common denominator' issues).

And my definition of success is long-term exposure.  Does it get out there?  Do people like it?  Does it 'get legs?'  You can't guarantee these things, but I think singular GNS coherency will certainly limit a games overall reach.  Theoretically, a game that is Transitional will appeal to 'the masses' the same way I speculate that Justin's "incoherent games" do.  GURPS' use of a general system has put it into the hands of more than just 'fantasy gamers.'  Generalist games can reach farther (they're more 'accessible').  I think these things can contribute to the 'success' Justin seems to be calling for.  In the past it was done accidentally by "incoherent games," perhaps it can be done intentionally (I hope).

Is that what you meant?

Fang Langford

[jdagna]

So classification systems like "romance novel" or "chick flick" are useless?  Let's watch what's in the bath water, baby.  The GNS is just one of many models yet to crest into the public arena.

I didn't say they were useless, just "of little value to the average person."  Case in point: While art critics wax poetic about the likes of Picasso, people like Thomas Kincaide open chain-store galleries to sell their own mass-produced work.  I have yet to hear an art critic say anything nice about Kincaide's work, while some have written multiple pages praising the deep meaning they found in a modern art piece which is nothing but a solid red canvas.

And my definition of success is long-term exposure.  Does it get out there?  Do people like it?  Does it 'get legs?'  You can't guarantee these things, but I think singular GNS coherency will certainly limit a games overall reach.  Theoretically, a game that is Transitional will appeal to 'the masses' the same way I speculate that Justin's "incoherent games" do.  GURPS' use of a general system has put it into the hands of more than just 'fantasy gamers.'  Generalist games can reach farther (they're more 'accessible').  I think these things can contribute to the 'success' Justin seems to be calling for.  In the past it was done accidentally by "incoherent games," perhaps it can be done intentionally (I hope).

Is that what you meant?

Yes, that's pretty much what I meant, although I'm not sure if I agree with your take on how GNS affects it.  GURPS, for example, seems fairly consistent in its approach - it's diversity stems from multiple settings and genres in my opinion.  I'm also not sure that the "incoherent" games I talked about were successful BECAUSE of that, or IN SPITE of it.  I tend to think the latter, but would love to see some numbers to back up the hunch.

Furthermore, there might be a problem in trying to offer multiple approaches.  I'm not sure I'd trust the average gamer to fully understand which rules meet his needs (let alone the needs of his group).  Offering all approaches at once may result in players choosing a bad mixture of those options - lord knows I've seen it happen with optional rules in groups I've ran, and I had a player once who described himself in Simulationist terms, but acted like a Narrativist.  I'm not sure how your particular game deals with it, so don't take this as a criticism.

[Le Joueur]

So classification systems like "romance novel" or "chick flick" are useless?  Let's watch what's in the bath water, baby.  The GNS is just one of many models yet to crest into the public arena.

I didn't say they were useless, just "of little value to the average person."  Case in point: While art critics wax poetic about the likes of Picasso, people like Thomas Kincaide open chain-store galleries to sell their own mass-produced work.  I have yet to hear an art critic say anything nice about Kincaide's work, while some have written multiple pages praising the deep meaning they found in a modern art piece which is nothing but a solid red canvas.

Now you're confusing critical language with the 'critics' of 'high art.'  You don't hear movie critiques using terms like "chick flick," they use terms like "cinema verite."  I really don't see GNS in that light; to me it's in the bookstore, here's romance, there's mystery, on the back is science fiction/fantasy.  Here's Gamist, next to the card games, Narrativist is over there next to the fiction, and I think Benny just got a shipment in of Simulationist up at the island, but that's a hybrid; no, we don't have any anarcho-syndiclist, self-referential pogromatic games, whatever they are.

And gaming has little in common with 'high art.'  Like Ron's analogy, it's the garage band, not the opera.

And my definition of success is long-term exposure.  Does it get out there?  Do people like it?  Does it 'get legs?'  You can't guarantee these things, but I think singular GNS coherency will certainly limit a games overall reach.  Theoretically, a game that is Transitional will appeal to 'the masses' the same way I speculate that Justin's "incoherent games" do.  GURPS' use of a general system has put it into the hands of more than just 'fantasy gamers.'  Generalist games can reach farther (they're more 'accessible').  I think these things can contribute to the 'success' Justin seems to be calling for.  In the past it was done accidentally by "incoherent games," perhaps it can be done intentionally (I hope).

Is that what you meant?

Yes, that's pretty much what I meant, although I'm not sure if I agree with your take on how GNS affects it.  GURPS, for example, seems fairly consistent in its approach - it's diversity stems from multiple settings and genres in my opinion.  I'm also not sure that the "incoherent" games I talked about were successful BECAUSE of that, or IN SPITE of it.  I tend to think the latter, but would love to see some numbers to back up the hunch.

GURPS is strictly an example of how a generalist system has broader appeal; there are no examples of the "success" of a Transitional game.  As far as I know they haven't been created yet.

I'm not sure how to address your apparent shift from what sounded like 'incoherent games are successful, so the coherency is of little value' to 'incoherent games succeed in spite of this albatross.'  I was supporting what I thought was another call that incoherency hid some kind of success formula, rather than illustrated that coherency was pointless.

I have a hard time imagining any form of analysis that could "back up" either of these statements and can't really make any statement on them.

Furthermore, there might be a problem in trying to offer multiple approaches.  I'm not sure I'd trust the average gamer to fully understand which rules meet his needs (let alone the needs of his group).  Offering all approaches at once may result in players choosing a bad mixture of those options - lord knows I've seen it happen with optional rules in groups I've ran, and I had a player once who described himself in Simulationist terms, but acted like a Narrativist.  I'm not sure how your particular game deals with it, so don't take this as a criticism.

"Don't allow the options to be mixed" is our approach.  For example, when looking at the vast catalog of optional rules in one of the industry's flagship generalist games, GURPS, we chose to go almost totally the opposite direction.  We have only three options (well...five), Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced (well...and Hands-Free and Collectible Card Based).

In terms of Transition, our plan is to map out a number of 'nodes' (72 at last count) each with a fairly clear description.  Each would also give a short catalog of 'nearby nodes' with suggestions of how to 'move' an increment in those directions (especially if play has already been behaving so).  Sounds like an immense game system?  Maybe if we put it all into one book; we aren't planning to.  Each 'slice' will focus on one node and the Transitions will lead to other 'slices.'

The 'whole system' supports Transitional play, but the consumer doesn't get force fed the whole thing at once.  (Too much pie will make you sick.)

Fang Langford

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Actually, Fang, I think you're fightin' a battle that isn't happening, in terms of this discussion. Justin has raised some issues, but I finally figured out that he's not driving toward a given claim. I think (correct me if I'm wrong, Justin). Let's all chill a bit ...

Now to go out on a limb. With all possible disclaimers and provisos in place, I think that coherent RPG design contributes to a game's legs in terms of actual play. That would be one type of game success. To be absolutely clear, "legs" refers to the phenomenon that people who play the game also recommend it to and teach it to other people, so that customer usage becomes advertisement. Classic word-of-mouth, in action over a long period of time.

Fang's "accessibility" does factor into this. However, surprisingly, I think that it's a minor factor if we are talking about game success and legs alone.

Just to be clear about that, compare Marvel Super Heroes (highly coherent, practically totally inaccessible as a product for most of its history) to Call of Cthulhu (highly coherent, fully accessible as a product throughout its history). Both have demonstrated phenomenal legs and should be considered among the highest ranks of game success.

(Fang, I think that the conceptual accessibility and physical accessibility are two very different things; clearly, above, I'm referring only to the latter. Regarding the former, obviously MSH ranks near the top of the heap.)

Now all that is a totally different concept from company success. That's a key point.

Company success in RPGs, as with film, relies pretty much on one of two tactics, or a combination of them. (1) Put game-success aside entirely and rely on hype and the "spike" model of profit. (2) Establish game-success and try to keep costs down, relying on continued use of the game to provide funds for ongoing productions - more of a "low plateau" model of profit.

We could have a huge thread about how given RPG companies have utilized one or both of these approaches over the last three decades. For now, I'll only say that one of the key strategies within #1 is to pretend that you're using #2.

Overall, I'd like to establish here that "success" as a further-unspecified term is essentially useless for discussion. I'd appreciate it if people could focus on whether they mean:
- game success or company success
- in either case, within-unit success (ie year to year) or comparative success (ie across entities)

Best,
Ron

[Le Joueur]

Actually, Fang, I think you're fightin' a battle that isn't happening,

Fang, I think that the conceptual accessibility and physical accessibility are two very different things; clearly, above, I'm referring only to the latter. Regarding the former, obviously MSH ranks near the top of the heap.

Total agreement here.  (Personal note, sorry about the tone; when the kids get to be a discipline problem while I'm typing, I slip into 'battle tone.')

Now all that is a totally different concept from company success. That's a key point.

It most certainly is!

The whole reason I got into this discussion was to give my opinion as far as my work goes.

"Company success" is meaningless.  I don't care if everyone in the country owns a copy of your game; if the significant portion gathers dust, it's a failure.  Same goes for gross monetary profits.  And units 'moved.'  Or anything.  I don't care whether the "three tier system" greases it or balks it; I don't even care if it's on paper.

If it doesn't get used; it's useless (nice play on words there).  If it doesn't enlighten, intrigue, or interest people; I'm not interested.  If it only changes the way people think and they give it that credit, it's a success.  If people use it, it's a success.  If people keep using it, it's a success.  If lots of people like it, it's a big success.

I don't care about money.

If you disagree with any of this, tough; that's the nature of an opinion.  An opinion can't be biased; an opinion is bias (by definition).  And that's what this is, my opinion.

I understand and respect Ron's opinion and how it always seems to imply monetary success (company success), but I haven't really heard Justin's opinion on success.  Perhaps a clear statement, purely on the matter of success, is warranted.  Either way, I've said my piece; time to go back to the salt mines.

Fang Langford

[jdagna]

Well, first of all, to quote myself:

Naturally, "success" can be defined in many ways, though I think D&D epitomizes the key elements for me: both number of sales to consumers and long-term play from them.  The actual financial state of a company depends on so many factors, that I consider it less important.  Likewise, a game that piles up in distributors' warehouses or retailers' shelves has a relatively short future in store for it, even if its intitial numbers look like success.

To the nature of GNS as critical language, I do think it is fair to compare it to critics' terms like "cinema verite."  This doesn't mean that it isn't an extremely useful tool (especially to the designer), but that it is language that is highly specialized and not in common usage.  You certainly don't see it in bookstores yet, and I would wager putting a note on the back of a book that "This book conforms tightly to many Simulationist methods of play" would confuse more people than it would help.

As to whether incoherent, driftable or transitional games were more successful, my original assertion (that the most successful game seem to be incoherent) also raised the question that they might not be successful because of incoherency, but in spite of it.  In any  event, it seems like there aren't any real numbers to compare whether the GNS is a useful tool marketing-wise.  Since this was not the intent of the GNS model, I'm not surprised.