Effects of "the D20 Push" on Indie Industry

[Gold Rush Games]

According to Wizards of the Coast, publisher of the Open Game License (specifically, their web site):

"...there will always be people who find different game systems more entertaining for different types of games and different genres."

We certainly agree.

[Valamir]

If you honestly believe that after 30 years of other products being regularly available that people are ignorant to the alternatives, then I don't think we really have anything to discuss here.  
GMS

I don't know Gareth.  I was in agreement with much of your points up to this...but in my experience the VAST majority of RPers out there  DON'T know anything outside of D&D or WoD.  

If one was to poll 1 million gamers on name recognition I think you'd find a HUGE gap between the number of gamers reporting "yes I'm familiar with D&D and World of Darkness" and the rest of the pack.

Down on the second tier you'd probably find a number of gamers reporting "yes I'm familiar with Rifts, Deadlands and Call of Cthulhu" and perhaps with "Hero, 7th Sea and Legends of the 5 Rings" but I'm pretty positive it would noticebly fewer than the above.

And then if you drop down below that...to "Yes I'm familiar with Earthdawn" or "Fading Suns" Fewer yet.

If you were to take all of these games including Shadowrun, and Top Secret, and Aftermath, and Paranoia, new games and old alike and simply ask 1 million gamers to check off the titles they're familiar with...where "familiar" is defined as "heard enough about them to have formed an opinion"...there'd be a HUGE gap between the number of people who checked D&D and the number who checked WoD. Another HUGE gap between WoD and other "better selling" RPGs, and another HUGE gap between those and everything else.

By huge I mean HUGE.  Yes I do firmly believe that there is a VERY large portion of the gaming public who aren't even aware that there are games other than D&D out there.  I've met these people.  These are the people who are life long subscribers to Dragon Magazine and menbers of the RPG.  Who go to Origins and GenCon solely to play Living City games.  Who were shocked...SHOCKED when Living Seattle was rolled out because they'd never heard of Shadow Run and couldn't imagine why anyone would play some new game.

I don't think that's 100% by choice.  I think a lot of it has to do with simple exposure.

[GMSkarka]

I swear to god, sometimes I get the impression that people are purposefully NOT getting my point because I'm blaspheming against Indie Orthodoxy or something.

My point was that over the past 30 years, even the hardcore "Dragon subscriber" type that you mention will have at least HEARD of alternatives...I didn't say that the exposure was equal, or anything else.

Yes, it's probably at least partially a matter of exposure.  But I do think it's a 100% matter of choice...because gamers know that other games exist.  If they do not choose to investigate further, that seems to me to be because their current game (D&D) suits their needs.   They don't have a desire to investigate anything else, because they're happy with what they have.

I guess the difference here is that I don't think that there is anything wrong with that.

GMS

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I dunno. This all seems fairly pointless to me.

EDIT: shucks. I had edityed my comments right after posting because I decided to ditch the combative tone. Oh well. Life goes on.

[GMSkarka]

Fact is, we have no hard data to back up most of this.

Actually, we do--the only question is the degree to which we individually agree with the "Hardness" of the data.   For example, the sales estimates given monthly in Comics and Games Retailer, which are admittedly a select sample, but have been provided for about a decade now.

I can imagine some roleplayers only manage to purchase their games at the local mall book store. Last I looked, all they had was D&D and WoD and maybe one or two other products, and that's it. The section took up one bank of shelves. But again, we don't know how many of these people there are or if they would really want something different. If find this fruitless.

The fact that you list WoD there validates what I'm saying, rather than refuting it.   WoD *is* an alternative to D&D, and supports a different style of play, and both are found with about the same regularity, even in non-specialty outlets.  Yet D&D still outsells WoD products.   The logical conclusion there would be that one is just more popular than the other, wouldn't it?

Personally, I think that attributing the lack of popularity of Indie product to a lack of exposure...to cling to the belief that if only Indie games had the same exposure as D&D, it would be the "magic bullet" that brings mainstream mass-market success to the game industry...is to deny the realities of the general appeal of this hobby.    

Indie filmmakers don't fool themselves into thinking that they're going to produce the next box-office phenom.   They concentrate on making art, and if it makes it big, then that's great.

GMS

[Jack Spencer Jr]

...because gamers know that other games exist.  If they do not choose to investigate further, that seems to me to be because their current game (D&D) suits their needs.   They don't have a desire to investigate anything else, because they're happy with what they have.

There are a couple big assumptions involved here. Here's only a couple:

[*]D&D (or other so-called mainstream RPG, WoD perhaps) satisfies their needs
[*]That they are happy with their game
[*]If any of the above was not true they would realise it and remedy the situation, most likely by investigating the other games out there.
[/list:u]

I'll quote the GNS essay:

from the Introduction
My straightforward observation of the activity of role-playing is that many participants do not enjoy it very much. Most role-players I encounter are tired, bitter, and frustrated.

from chapter 6
The tragedy is how widespread GNS-based degeneration really is. I have met dozens, perhaps over a hundred, very experienced role-players with this profile: a limited repertoire of games behind him and extremely defensive and turtle-like play tactics. Ask for a character background, and he resists, or if he gives you one, he never makes use of it or responds to cues about it. Ask for actions - he hunkers down and does nothing unless there's a totally unambiguous lead to follow or a foe to fight. His universal responses include "My guy doesn't want to," and, "I say nothing."

I have not, in over twenty years of role-playing, ever seen such a person have a good time role-playing. I have seen a lot of groups founder due to the presence of one such participant. Yet they really want to play. They prepare characters or settings, organize groups, and are bitterly disappointed with each fizzled attempt. They spend a lot of money on RPGs with lots of supplements and full-page ads in gaming magazines.

These role-players are GNS casualties. They have never perceived the range of role-playing goals and designs, and they frequently commit the fallacies of synecdoche about "correct role-playing." Discussions with them wander the empty byways of realism, genre, completeness, roll-playing vs. role-playing, and balance. They are the victims of incoherent game designs and groups that have not focused their intentions enough. They thought that "show up with a character" was sufficient prep, or thought that this new game with its new setting was going to solve all their problems forever. They are simultaneously devoted to and miserable in their hobby.

My goal in developing RPG theory and writing this document is to help people avoid this fate.

Ron states he's met dozens, perhaps a hundred roleplayers like this. I believe Ron had said that he himself was in that boat. I was as well. I might still be in that boat if I didn't realise why I wasn't having any fun.

That is, D&D may fit the bill for a lot of people, but quite a few people keep doing the same thing expecting different results. It didn't help that much of the product over the last 30 years was either very close to D&D in how it worked or was mistaken as such by people familiar with D&D and believed that was how an RPG was supposed to work.

[GMSkarka]

Looking back, I think my overall message is getting lost in the wrestling over the individual points:

What I'm saying is that there is nothing wrong with recognizing that non-D20 products are, by definition, minority products...and that there is nothing wrong with staking your claim on *that* niche market share.

I just don't see the point in staking that claim, and then complaining that you're not getting the exposure or sales of the majority segment.

That's all.

GMS

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Looking back, I think my overall message is getting lost in the wrestling over the individual points:

Agreed. *takes step back and considers*

What I'm saying is that there is nothing wrong with recognizing that non-D20 products are, by definition, minority products...and that there is nothing wrong with staking your claim on *that* niche market share.

I just don't see the point in staking that claim, and then complaining that you're not getting the exposure or sales of the majority segment.

That's all.

*considers*

The impasse here is that we disagree on a couple unquantifiables:

[*]The number of roleplayers who fit the above description quoted from the GNS essay
[*]The number of persons who are not currently roleplayers, but could and would be but are simply not interested in D&D
[/list:u]
We can only guess at the numbers here. Would these numbers be high enough to make D&D a minority? Who knows?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Gareth, I believe my earlier post spoke to the "complaining" issue already.

Is someone complaining about not receiving "exposure" or "market share" because they don't publish a d20 game?

Who? [Looks right, looks left, looks in the mirror, looks under chair] Don't see anyone.

So ... what's the point of saying "they" (whoever they are) shouldn't complain about that? [Listens carefully to be sure, reviews posts on Forge] Can't think of any "they" who's relevant to consider here.

Chris, you wrote,

Surely people who like to sell RPGs like RPGs? I mean, in the main?

The bitter snickering you're hearing isn't very nice, I'm afraid, but I think assuming your phrasing to be the case is one of the main reasons small-press publishers fail. No, it turns out that many retailers who sell mainly RPGs don't like them particularly, if at all.

Bruce, you might enjoy looking over some of the older threads in this forum. I'd be interested in your take on my comments about the three-tier ordering issues, the real market (based on enjoyment and play), and the history of White Wolf Publishing in particular.

Best,
Ron

[Bruce Baugh]

Obviously there's no firm answer to a counterfactual, but I can explain the foundations for my own outlook.

There are, I think, somewhere between a hundred thousand and a million people who play one or more roleplaying games several times a year, in the US. Ryan would say more, but I don't trust the WotC survey; it can scarcely be less than a hundred thousand. Let's go with a million for tidiness' sake. I'm defining "roleplaying game" here in a totally pragmatic sense, as something that people here and/or on RPG Net and/or EN World and/or some similar venue would recognize as a roleplaying game. The boundaries are fuzzy, and my numbers are to stay in keeping with that.

That means that about one person in three hundred in the US is a somewhat active rolegamer. A few times that many are inactive rolegamers, or former rolegamers. Some unknown portion of the remaining population are potential rolegamers who haven't heard about it, don't find current games appealing, and so on.

Best-selling computer games of recent years seem to top out around 5-10 million copies sold. (Tetris may have gotten as high as 70-80 million copies sold worldwide all told.) That makes anywhere from one person in a hundred to one person in thirty for the big-name games like the Diablo and Rainbow Six series. Everquest is up into a couple million copies or so, but that includes expansion sets so it's about a million customers total - again, about one person in three hundred. The Sims is heading toward 10 million - one person in fifty or so has a copy, though inevitably not everyone plays what they've got.

The Sandman series is past seven million copies sold of the trade paperbacks sold, and well on its way to ten million. They don't all sell in equal numbers, of course, but that means about a million people own the complete run of Sandman. I believe that's a record in comics sales; at least, I can't find a report of anything higher.

Now, I have the assumption that even under optimal conditions, there will be fewer roleplayers than readers or computer game players for the perfectly sensible reasons that it's more work. More folks watch sports than play, and more people play sports just with friends and on vacation time than in amateur leagues, and so on up. More people read about gardening than garden. More people watch plays than act. And so forth and so on. Rolegaming requires some more effort than related alternatives and provides less feedback than a completed product does. For rolegaming to become more popular than nearby "consumer" alternatives would be a major reversal of a pattern I find in pretty much every area of life (work as well as play).

If the rolegaming population is as large as Ryan thinks, then I believe there's more or less no room for growth at all. If it's about the size I and many of my colleagues think, there's definitely room for growth, but assuming - as I do - that much of the potential audience is (unbeknownst to itself) looking for story-oriented games with crisp, clean (though not always "light') mechanics, even so, it wouldn't displace D&D as king of the hill. It would more likely end up building another summit, somewhat lower than the one D&D is on.

I could see the total gaming audience being perhaps five to ten times larger than it is now. But that would take it perilously close to where much more receptive media are now, and so that's the ceiling I see.

Now, I also know that I don't know everything, and I'd be glad to have fresh light shed on the matter.

[Bruce Baugh]

Bruce, you might enjoy looking over some of the older threads in this forum. I'd be interested in your take on my comments about the three-tier ordering issues, the real market (based on enjoyment and play), and the history of White Wolf Publishing in particular.

Sounds interesting. Will do.

[Bruce Baugh]

Ermph, Ron. The information I have about WW's financial health over the years is strongly at variance with yours, but I'm really not at liberty to go into details - it includes both things said to me in official capacities and the private, after-hours confidences of friends in the office, and disentangling it all would be a mess. What I can say is that to the best of my knowledge (note that qualifier), WW was never in danger of bankruptcy. What it had was lines which were in steady decline despite efforts to revive them and perhaps some of those losing money. So where the money was going didn't match where the money was coming from. AFter a couple of years of farting around with not-necessarily-well-conceived-or-implemented plans, WW went to a simple standard: each line must be profitable. That done, the cycle of annual layoffs stopped. It had probably never been necessary, but, well, game company business practices and all that.

I also think that the discussion of "mainstream" is prone to smuggled-in assumptions to force conclusions. If we look at computer games, we find D&Doid fantasy ruling, both in networked games and offline ones. If we look at fantasy/horror/sf and at romance, we find vampires wildly successful. Vampires aren't in horror so commonly anymore (though Anita Blake is bustin' along), but they're an established category of romance along with the time-travel romances and a few other incursions from genre sf/f/h. TV and film certainly are popular media, but they're not the only ones, and at this point console games and genre fiction are, I think, worth considering as flavors of mainstream or something like it.

Though it's true that there are major genres in multiple media that gaming barely touches. If I can get some free months, I really need to do something about that.

[Bruce Baugh]

Ermph. I hate to eat and run as it were, but...I'm supposed to finish developing the Gamma World Player's Handbook by Friday. I am a terribly distractable eprson,a nd moreso when there's work piled up. For my own sake, I'm removing gaming forum bookmarks until this project is done. So I'll be gone for a bit, though still taking e-mail, and will gladly pick up where I left off. Sorry about the suddenness of this - I, um, didn't read my calendar right.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

The history of White Wolf (finances, whatever) will be a topic for a new thread when Bruce's schedule permits.

Best,
Ron

[Sylus Thane]

GMS wrote

The word IS getting out to the consumers...it's some designers that are ignoring the word. It's not rocket science, folks. Economics bear it out. D20 is what the majority of gamers want. If you design for something other than D20, don't complain about a smaller audience, because you're purposefully designing for a minority niche by not using the most popular rules-set. THERE ISN'T ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS. Niche marketing is just as valid, and a reasonable business decision, as long as you realize that you're never going to "break out" and reach the larger numbers. It just doesn't make sense to complain about it.

I think out of all the things said in this thread this one bothers me the most. Gareth I know you work in the industry and consult but if this is the type of consultation advice you give then remind me never to hire you.

I think perhaps this is the worst thing that could possibly be said simply because it is a defeatist attitude. I would have every right in the world to complain that my game is not reaching the mass market because of a specific individual company or an individual using their power to make the world d20. I would have no right to complain if it was not getting there because of lack of my own effort. Now my effort will eventually defeat theirs but that still does not does make it right that they try and achieve a monopoly on the industry and tell me that I should be content with the scraps from their table.

In a way you can think of the gaming industry within Star Wars setting. WoTC is the Empire and Dancey in a way is either the Emporer or at least Vader, don't know for sure, never met him personally so I don't know if he use to be a small fry or not. then you bring in the Rebellion, made up of a huge amount of Indie designers trying to bring down the Empire and make it a republic again. Now the republic use to have a big champion in the form of WW, they destroyed the first death star with the release of WoD. But where are they now, in a way they are their own empire now that would need to be brought down as well, or at least gain an easy truce with to leap the hurdle they have established.

If you look at all of this it seems like it may be impossible as rebellion is really fractional and has real troubles working together. Ron in his own way has been become kind of an Obiewan Kenobi in that he is working on showing people that their are other ways. There are lot's of of Han Solo's out there fighting in their own way, but that is part of the problem, their Solo. It's very hard to fight against something so huge as the WoTC Empire. Will their be a Skywalker that comes along and show the galaxy that there are things out there better than the Empire in a mass attention type of way, eventually, all rebellions take time. Do I hope to be that Jedi, HELL YES!

My point is that yes WoTC may be a huge obstacle, but it is not insurmountable. Their are lot's of good games coming out and in development that it is really just a matter of time. This whole idea that we should just be content filling a niche of a niche market is ridiculous at best and catostrophic at worst. How Indie games will leap this hurdle I don't know for sure yet, but am I going to keep looking for it HELL YES! As for the d20 push on the market, other then keeping track of what they are doing, ignore them, get your game completed, give yourself some deadlines and goals. When you are done try and get your game into as many diverse places as possible, advertise well and sooner or later the WoTC Empire will crumble, or at the very least be forced to move over.

Sylus