Effects of "the D20 Push" on Indie Industry

[Valamir]

Heh...Sylus, you may be stretching that analogy to the breaking point, but damn if it wasn't a fine read....just don't make me be Luke Skywalker, he was such a putz...

This would have been a fun thread for the Birthday Forum...casting industy people and companies into their Star Wars roles...after all it all ties together in a big Campbellian monomyth right...So who gets to be Gold Leader...the guy who ordered "Stay on target...Stay on target" before crashing and burning... ;-)

[Clinton R. Nixon]

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. ... 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.

Sylus,

Your ardor is to be appreciated, but I think you don't get it.

Looking at your post, it seems you understand the point that independent games fill a smaller market than D&D. At first, I didn't think you did, but I re-read your post, and realized you do understand that.

d20 (and D&D) are such different beasts from Soap, Sorcerer, Donjon, octaNe, Dust Devils, or what have you, that their target audience is totally different. It might intersect - I like D&D and Sorcerer, for example - but it's completely different. Trying to say every D&D player can be converted to playing independent games is like saying "every movie viewer would love Polish absurdist film if they were exposed to it," or "every car driver would want a motorcycle if they drove one once."

Now, here comes the part of my post I expect real serious disagreement with: the market makes the product. D&D is what it is because hundreds of thousands of people play it. They want what it is, whether you consider that resource-management heavy strategizing; homogenized substance-free junk; a weird mix of wargames, RPGs, and computer games; or the Holy Grail. No matter what you or I might consider it, it's created for that marketplace. In the same way, small-press games are created for their marketplace. If you were to switch those two marketplaces, I believe you would ruin both products.

[GMSkarka]

Now, here comes the part of my post I expect real serious disagreement with: the market makes the product. D&D is what it is because hundreds of thousands of people play it. They want what it is, whether you consider that resource-management heavy strategizing; homogenized substance-free junk; a weird mix of wargames, RPGs, and computer games; or the Holy Grail. No matter what you or I might consider it, it's created for that marketplace. In the same way, small-press games are created for their marketplace. If you were to switch those two marketplaces, I believe you would ruin both products.

Thank you, Clinton, for more perfectly crystallizing what I was trying to get at.   That's what I'm saying---two different niches...if you target one, you're not likely to get the other (although it's not impossible).  Either way, it seems folly to complain that you're not appealing to the majority if you aim your product at the minority.  

.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.

Don't worry about it.  I prefer my clients to have a better grasp of business and the conditions of the market than they can present by using a "Star Wars" analogy.

GMS

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Now, here comes the part of my post I expect real serious disagreement with: the market makes the product. D&D is what it is because hundreds of thousands of people play it.

I have my doubts about that, personally. When dealing with a mass market, even as small a mass and the roleplaying market, you're not so much giving people what they want as giving them stuff they can live with. McDonald's puts ketchup, mustard, pickles, and onions on their hamburgers. Some people may not like onions. Some people may want extra mustard. Such people have a couple choices:

[*]special order, which would be a metaphor for house rules, I guess
[*]eat elsewhere
[*]just eat it. Complain, perhaps, but they eat it anyway
[/list:u]
It is a fairly well documented pasttime in roleplaying to complain to no end about this and that feature of D&D. Such things spark much pointless discussion.

I wonder,.. how much better would it be for D&D if it became smaller? If it ceased to be the McDonald's of roleplay and got a smaller audience who really liked it rather than played it and complained the whole time about the onions.

[C. Edwards]

No matter what you or I might consider it, it's created for that marketplace.

And it also creates its marketplace. DnD is as close as any rpg has come to being a household name. It has the critical mass to be, to a degree, self-perpetuating. This is certainly true regarding actual game play. There are enough people playing (some version) of Dungeons & Dragons that any other game would be hard pressed to make a substantial dent in that player base. Even games that are remarkably similar can't do it because DnD is entrenched, she was there first (more or less) and she's dug in.

As far as sales go, if you have a large enough player base you will sell a certain amount of product. I think Mr. Dancey has done a hell of a job for WoTC and DnD, but it's not like he had to start from scratch. An overhaul and some new paint and the old bird was ready to fly again.

-Chris

[Matt Snyder]

Folks, can we discuss this without getting snarky, please?

My take:

D&D and Indie games serve different niches. That much seems clear. Further, it's obvious D&D currently serves a larger niche.

The discord occurs when people observe overlap between those (or rather, among these and others).

I think Gareth is right in that D&D'ers generally want what they get. Obviously, D&D is filling a niche nicely, and assumes a lot of attention for that role. D20 propogates this.

I think others have also rightly pointed out that _some_ D&D'ers aren't appropriately aware of options or niches that would better suit their tastes. Whether by ignorance or choice, I think it's likely a signifincant amount of this sub-set of D&D'ers (or even folks who are playing similarly styled games) don't recognize Tabletop RPG alternatives that would keep them "in the hobby." So they move on.

I theorize (as in, I don't have any data, and it's likely none exists) that these people leave the hobby ignorant of things that might keep them around. D&D has no vested interest in addessing these kinds of people; it has a strong interest in seeking out more peole like they "used to be," thereby recycling the market.

However, it seems to me that the Forge, by and large, and Indie publishers are intensely interested in these people. They are the D&D "slunk," the flotsam and jetsam gamers they'd like to keep around via games that nail individual preferences with laser-focused designs.

In short, I'm saying this: D&D and D20 doesn't care if System Matters. It's not relevant to their niche in the industry.

Indie game publishers care INTENSELY that System Matters. It's how they're going to keep the attention of at least part of their audience to this hobby niche. (And note here I said hobby niche, not industry niche as in the previous paragraph.)

System matters folks.

That's what this whole thread hinges on. Obviously, I've pitched my tent in that "Yes, it does" camp.

I can see why others would choose otherwise. I nearly did so myself. There came a time not long ago when I consciously made this very specific choice as it realted to D20 for at least two major aspects of my hobby life (freelancing and game design).

I submit that you either draw that line in the sand as a fundamental demarcation point about your hobby, or you forever get into snarky "discussions" like these and perpetuate all kinds of nonsense (Wotc is Evil, the Forge is elitist, D20 sucks, Sorcerer is all hype, and on and on and on). Who needs it?

[Sylus Thane]

Clinton wrote

Now, here comes the part of my post I expect real serious disagreement with: the market makes the product. D&D is what it is because hundreds of thousands of people play it. They want what it is, whether you consider that resource-management heavy strategizing; homogenized substance-free junk; a weird mix of wargames, RPGs, and computer games; or the Holy Grail. No matter what you or I might consider it, it's created for that marketplace. In the same way, small-press games are created for their marketplace. If you were to switch those two marketplaces, I believe you would ruin both products.

I totally agree with you that they have totally different audiences Clinton, but I would say though that the reaon DnD has such the large market place that it does is that other games have not really challenged their supremacy. WoD has come close, as their target audience is different and they did it in a unique before other people did. Dust Devils I would say is steadily climbing that way as well. IMHPOV WotC has subtly taken DnD and changed it into a what they may feel is a universal system. In a way it follows their Make the world D20 motto by saying to people "Why would you want to play anything else? We can do all these things and you already know us. Trust us. You don't want to go changeing now do you?"

My personal opinion is that the d20 push is so successful not from anything Dancey or WotC is doing, but from the lack of what other companies are doing. If everyone loves d20, WotC, and Dnd so much why are there so many people out there creating their own and selling them because they weren't satisfied?

And then Gareth said:

Don't worry about it. I prefer my clients to have a better grasp of business and the conditions of the market than they can present by using a "Star Wars" analogy.

I may not be fluent in bs buisiness marketing lingo or have some kind of insider trading type of "IN" that many of you here on this forum do, but it still doesn't mean I don't have any clue as to how to follow a market and express what I have seen happen over the last ten years in a simple and direct manner that everyone can easily understand and enjoy. So to put it in a simpler manner that you can easily understand:

"If this is the type of consultation that you do in which you advise your clients that they should not hope to be able to compete in role-playing market on a large scale because due to the overwhelming marketing structure of WotC and their D20 model, and should just be content in filling a small niche area within the said market. then it would be my priority as a buisiness owner not to take anything you were to say into consideration as by your rhetoric you seem to be more of a d20 frontman than a consultant of the buisiness within the industry whose priority would be to help a small buisiness be able to compete against the larger companies."

Jack:
Your mcDonalds analogy works well to, as it does show that just because you may be seen everywhere it does not mean you have the highest quality and people will still patronize your business because it is convenient although it may not always be what they are wanting. Really overall i think people should look at what WotC is doing with d20 and see what parts work well for them and use them. Remember most of the other very large and successful chains of fast food came from people who bought into McDonalds or KFC, found what worked well, expanded on it, then ran like hell with their idea. fast food is probably a better analogy for the RPG industry because if indie people did things similar then WotC would find themselves fighting for their top slot instead of sitting contently on top of pile tossing people chicken nuggets to designers at their leisure.

Sylus

[Dav]

Well, I get back from the club, and lookee here...

I was going to expand, but GMS pretty much summed it up (maybe with a bit more "I dare you"-ness than I would have, but hell, why not?).  

The only bit I disagree with, overall, is (and I AM paraphrasing here, because I'm lazy): "Ryan Dancey has saved the RPG industry in the long run".  I disagree.  Entirely.  

I think the RPG market is mature enough to survive with or without D&D.  Hell, most of the people I know hate d20.  This is not because I know tons of indie folks (I do, but I'm ignoring them for a second).  Most people I know that go in for the D&D thing, they like 2nd edition.  Yeah, I know, it fucks with my chi as well.  

This is not to say that they don't buy 3rd edition, they just don't play it (someday, this will have to be explained to me in terms I can comprehend).  

Anyway, I do have one question for you Gareth (if I'm not attempting to steal state secrets or nuttin'):  Where do you get your retailer sales data?  (This is NOT a challenge, it is an honest request for information).  I can get data for my area (and if we want to get janky, my "Nation of North America" if we are going to segment it out across the 9 nations of north america (that, kids, was a marketing joke, and not a geographic one... so before you call me a moron, stop.).)  Most of the retailers in my area (Chi-town area), ordered ass-tons of d20, and can't move a whit.  Hell, the Gamer's Paradise (a misnomer, trust me) near my home refuses to order any further d20 stuff until he moves 15% of the d20 stuff he already has.  Other stuff goes pretty well though.  But, then again, Chi-town has this knee-jerk reaction against the big fish in the industry, so that might be some of it.

Anyway, seriously, where you get your info?  You're like a data ninja or something...

Dav

[GMSkarka]

by your rhetoric you seem to be more of a d20 frontman than a consultant of the buisiness within the industry whose priority would be to help a small buisiness be able to compete against the larger companies.

Yep, you found me out, Sylus.  I'm a frontman for d20.  

(I find it funny that you react with such hostility to my Star Wars crack, given that I was only jokingly responding to your "remind me never to hire you" attack....which it was, by the way.  You were publicly disparaging my ability in an area that I work for a living.  You play nice, and I'll play nice.)

But, to spin it around on you and answer your not-really-a-question-but-just-another-slap, quoted above:

I do help small business, by working within the reality of the market.  The reality of that market is, unless you have literally millions to spend in marketing, advertising, and production, you're not going to compete with WotC.   Ever.    You're not even in the same ball park, or even playing the same sport.

One of Ron's terms that I've found that rings the truest is the "Fantasy Heartbreaker."    I think that there needs to be a correllary to that term--the "Publishing Heartbreaker"---which is the delusion that many inexperienced publishers have that tells them that if only more gamers try their product, they'll be catapulted into the stratospheric realms of the big boys (Hasbro, Wizkids, etc.).

You specifically cite Dust Devils as something which is "steadily climbing its way" to challenge D&D's market supremacy.   I *LOVE* Dust Devils.  It's brilliant.   But I think even Matt would have to say that if you think it's going to challenge D&D, you're smoking crack.   It's going to do well, because it deserves to, and with savvy marketing and a smidge of luck, it will do really well...but at a completely different level than the multi-million dollar realm of WotC, Wizkids, and the like.  

Anyway, seriously, where you get your info?

A number of sources--including the monthly sales reports and year-end commentary from Comics and Games Retailer magazine, commentary from Distributors and Retailers on the delphi Game Industry Forum, and speaking with retailers across the country on a regular basis.

GMS

[philreed]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Releasing quality D20 products, more than once, will drive customers to other products that you release.

In less than two months sales of The Whispering Vault have brought in almost $1,500. This is take home after all fees. This would not have been possible without hundreds upon hundreds of people purchasing my D20 PDFs.

D20 is not good or evil. It's simply another tool that, when used wisely, can be made to work for you.

[samdowning]

This is a brilliant thread, and I'm enjoying it immensely.  I just want to point out a few corrolaries that may or may not be true based on reading this thread.

D&D has been around for years.   As far as I can think of, it's the oldest _continuing_ game published.  I know Traveller is quite old, but it was not published continuously (at least I don't think so).

Someone else said that retailers like companies that can put out their product on time and regularly.

Put these two together, and you get why D&D, in all its forms, has been the top of the heap for so long.  It's been continuously published and they've been publishing on time for quite a while (at least for the most part, I would think).

Also, it's not gamers who are ignorant of other products.  It's the non-gamers or the one-time gamers that fit that category.  These are the folks that "the industry" is always trying to lure.

I heartily agree that those of us near the bottom of the sales heap should not bother with trying to be as big as WotC.  The independent film maker analogy was right on target - make a great game, and people might notice.

Remember the ad campaign for Snapple a few years ago.  They weren't trying to knock Coke or Pepsi off the top of the ladder, they just wanted to be #3.  #5 or 6 would be enough for me, even #10 would be nice (though I don't know who that would follow).  I don't mind.  I just like to make games.

Oh yeah, my favorite quote from Norwescon when presented with Red Dwarf - the Roleplaying Game
"Is it d20?"
"Nope."
"Good.  Lemme see."

[Bruce Baugh]

This is a correction for the record. It's been pointed out to me that I have misrepresented Ryan's comments on sales of new games including Exalted. Upon review, I find it's true. It's an error I made in good faith, and I find some of his comments very obliquely put, but the fact of the matter is that he did not claim that Exalted had sold or would sell no more than 10-15,000 copies in its lifetime. He set aside Exalted and Hero from his discussion of new non-d20 games as having the advantage of significant preexisting player bases. I got tangled in the syntax.
 
Ryan and I have enough actual disagreements without me manufacturing any through parsing errors, and it's important to me to keep discourse focused on what people actually write, not what others might guess they wrote. I do not wish to criticize him for anything he didn't actually post, nor to suggest that I'm doing so through any sort of backhanded sniping. Ryan, sorry for the misunderstanding.
 
In future I shall check again before proceeding quite that vigorously. My bosses have long advocated a strategy of simply not engaging with some sorts of comment or criticism, and I wish I could muster more of their detachment about it. Certainly it would be an improvement over even unintentional misrepresentation.

[Ryan Wynne]

Why would I want to release yet another D20 game into an already flooded market?

  I totally disagree with GMS on the "D20 can work for all games" Stick.  It wont work for the Mecha rpg I have designed (and I have tried) because it causes the game to lose it's "Feel".

  D20 doesn't work for every game and I think those who aren't mindless and jump on the bandwagon are being smart.  Because eventually the market is going to clear out the dead weight.  If you want to use D20 I suggest waiting until that happens.

[clehrich]

Now, here comes the part of my post I expect real serious disagreement with: the market makes the product. D&D is what it is because hundreds of thousands of people play it. They want what it is, whether you consider that resource-management heavy strategizing; homogenized substance-free junk; a weird mix of wargames, RPGs, and computer games; or the Holy Grail.

Jack's point about McDonald's is well taken, but I'd go further.  This is an extremely dangerous assumption, and furthermore one that every really big corporation involved in sales would like you to believe:

1. We provide a product
2. People buy it
3. Therefore,
4. People are satisfied with the product

By this logic, Windows is nearly perfect, and just about every American loves tasteless, mealy tomatoes, and just about every American wants television to be just the way it is, and just about everyone in the whole world likes movies to be intentionally sophomoric, violent, filled with nudity, and based on the wild sex-and-violence lives of beautiful, brainless teenagers.

This is sometimes called the Culture Industry.  Don't assume that just because it's successful it's actually a good thing.

The problem is that the Culture Industry is successful, and that isn't simply a question of forcing things upon the audience.  It's a matter partly of forcing, but also of convincing the audience not to look for other things, and to look down upon them when they do encounter them.

For example,

"Oh, those indie films, they're all long and boring and artsy and in French or Polish or something, right?  Doesn't sound American [because not from here]."

"Oh, that organic food, that's like a bunch of communist hippie freaks, right?  Doesn't sound American [because wrong politics]."

"Oh, that classical music, that's snobby and and I don't understand it anyway.  Doesn't sound American [because elitist]."

Once you put over that sort of attitude, people gravitate toward a common denominator, however low, and think not only that there are few other options, but that those options are bad -- even without looking at them.  In these admittedly extreme examples here, the point is that you get people who know nothing about the other options to treat them as immoral and unAmerican.  If you can set this up to be self-perpetuating, you barely need to advertise, because people will do the sales pitch themselves.

A Noam Chomsky-ite version of this would see discourse being defined in poles, and anything outside the poles of analysis is simply crazy.

By either model, you've got a range being set by d20, D&D, WotC, and so forth.  Of course, they're competing with each other.  But anything well outside that range is by definition not worth consideration.

Furthermore, it is in their interest to pitch all discourse in this fashion, i.e. as Normal System A vs. Normal System B.  This seems clearly graded in the RPG industry, because you've got few big companies: The "Solid Tradition" System vs. The "Radical And Edgy" System, or whatever.  This sets up a nice range, and who the hell cares about a few wackos?

See, by doing things this way, you never need to deal with the fringe.  The customer, even if he encounters you, is likely to say, "Why would I want a whole new system when d20 works fine?  What's the point of rebelling -- it's like rebelling against gravity, for god's sake!  What are you, some kind of nut?"

Okay, just a cultural criticism rant here.  The point is this: the idea that the product is pitched to the customers is both true and false, because the product also makes the customers, and tries to create a self-perpetuating cycle so they can keep selling products.  Yes, it's pitched to customers, and no, if those customers directly encounter something radical they will not likely buy it.  But that doesn't mean that the industry isn't cynically manipulating people into being stupid, ignorant, and narrow-minded in order to take their money.

Hey, if it works for every other part of the entertainment industry, why not RPGs?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Clehrich,

That's an extremely well-stated argument. Like most of what Noam Chomsky says, however, it's incredibly insulting to real humans, who are assumed to be unable to see the fact that they're being fooled, led, and used.

On the other hand, if something's successful, it's less insulting to assume people really want it. McDonald's is successful for the same reason WotC is - the majority of the user base makes the choice to eat that food or buy those games. That majority either (a) makes that decision based off what they want or (b) make bad decisions. I happen to agree with the first.