Popular and damaging

[John Kim]

Hey John, glad to see you jump in.  I know you have a pretty extensive knowledge/database of gaming history to draw upon.

I'm actually currently inclined to setting that transitional period at somewhere in the mid 80s.  From my own recollection (which is a bit fuzzy because I was pretty young in the hobby late 70s / early 80s) supplemented by that least rigorous of investigative techniques --- the anecdote, the time before the mid 80s seems to be a pretty eclectic mix different ideas and techniques with the period of the late 80s and 90s becomeing more and more homogenous.  

I suppose this is a pretty fair assessment.  While most trends were set earlier, the mid-80s at least still had a bunch of relatively user-friendly games like Marvel Superheroes (1984), Toon (1984), and Ghostbusters (1986).  

The early 80s had a fair amount of diversity. On the one hand, you had fairly complex games like Rolemaster (1980), Champions(1981), and many FGU games like Aftermath (1981).  On the other hand there was a push for more simplicity with games like Toon, Marvel Superheroes, Chill, and others.  

By the late 80s these differences essentially drew together.  The boxed set format like Marvel or Ghostbusters was abandoned in favor of a single core rulebook, increasingly hardbound.  Efforts at the espionage genre and other non-fantasy/scifi genres disappeared.  The simpler games like Toon all but disappeared, such that Vampire in 1991 could somehow pass itself as "rules-lite".  Having unified resolution mechanics made thicker rulebooks more palatable and the standard.  

On the other hand, I assume that there were market forces here.  The simpler games presumably didn't sell well, despite push from TSR (the only big company at this time) for their games like Marvel Superheroes and The Adventures of Indiana Jones.  Really, D&D was something of a fad which rocketed in popularity during the late 70s.  For example, E.T. (1982) portrayed ordinary kids playing D&D.  The 80s games tried different approaches to try to transform that fad into a lasting market, but none of them really took.  

I tend to view the less than promising results of some of the games you mention as largely being the result of that growing homogenity which penalized games that didn't fit the mold.  I'm inclined to believe that those games may well have been more successful if that trend hadn't evolved as it did.  

It seems to me, at any rate, that OTE is actually a much more highly respected and admired game today than it was when it was released.  

Well, what would penalize them?  I don't see any reason to suspect those games were targetted by any group or company.  As far as I can see, they failed because they weren't viable.  And this is the dilemma of design: if you take chances and break new ground, you'll get a lot of failures for every success.  I think it's worth it -- then again, I'm not a game producer taking chances with my releases, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[John Kim]

Anyway, there is no lack of products have tried to reach the larger audience with simple, quick and GMless games.  Take the "How to Host a Murder" games for instance.  Is it a dinner party?  Improv theater?  An RPG?  All of the above?  And they sold reasonably well, enough that I saw them in places like B&N and Wal-Mart.  

Well, I know a little bit about this (cf my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/murder/">Murder Mysteries page).  Though I don't have any inside sales information, it seems to me that the "How to Host a Murder" designs have stagnated even moreso than the tabletop RPG industry.  The main designs like Decipher's series are extremely formulaic, and they don't seem to get any promotion.  

They have some mainstream channels like WalMart because they are easy-to-use, but I wouldn't assume that they outpace the RPG market.  For example, Decipher seems to put more effort into promoting its RPG line as its Murder-Mystery line.

[Jonathan Walton]

The designers can't be blamed, nor the games themselves. Things did take a left turn in the early 80s: right where we wanted it to go. It was our own shortsightedness that doomed the hobby to it's continued niche status.

This is basically what I said in my post above, though not in these exact words.  So I agree entirely with Mike.  

Also, I think John's right, Ralph, that there was nothing to doom those simpler, more accessible games than the fact that they never found their audience.  I don't think this is because gaming doesn't have the potential to reach a large audience, but that those games never found the people who really wanted to play them.  Heck, I played Toon almost non-stop during middle school, with all kinds of people, including many who thought roleplaying was lame before playing Toon.  But they would never have encountered it without me and the other gamers showing it to them.

[M. J. Young]

I do wonder what the mechanism is that promotes homogeniety and penalizes innovation (especially considering that CoC was innovative, Vampire was innovative, Champions was pretty innovative--and all of these were *rewarded*--and fairly handsomely for it).

The answer has been hinted by others, but to put it up front, it's risk. Every innovation you put into a new product increases the level of risk. Sure, you are more likely to hit big if it all works together, but less likely to hit at all.

In Multiverser, one of the modifiers that sometimes comes into play is what we call a threshhold defense: the defender must roll the dice equal to or less than his defense skill, and then the attacker must roll his dice greater than the defenders but not greater than his own skill. Because a higher successful roll means a greater success, the threshhold approach eliminates all the low levels of success, leaving a much smaller chance of success but only with the big numbers.

Innovation is akin to a threshhold roll. Once you put it there, you've decreased the possibility that your game is going to be accepted as another of the games ordinary gamers pick up and play. You've got to make that roll high enough to succeed at all, against the possibility that you'll roll too high.

Well, something like that, anyway. The point is, games that are less innovative are aimed at doing what  has been proven to sell. Every game has to be a little innovative, or it's not really a new game; but the more innovative it is, the further it is from expectations, and the more likely it is that people who do look at it will be put off by the differences. Businesses like to be conservative--they like to publish stuff that is like stuff people are buying. In fact, Paramount made the first Star Trek movie because Star Wars was raking in big bucks for 20th Century Fox and they wanted to get into the space race quickly with something they already owned. Make something successful, and people will copy it to ride your coattails. Make something innovative, and everyone watches to see whether you're the next set of coattails to catch or the flaming wreckage to dodge.

--M. J. Young

[greyorm]

Ok, I'm coming into this a little late, but here's what I've been trying to finish and post since Ralph made the following point:

It takes a long time after the purchase of a game like GURPs before a GM is ready to run the game competently, especially if the GM isn't experienced with other games either.  It takes a long time to successfully prepare for a game even by a competant GM.

Only RPGs (and wargames) ask you to spend hours and hours studying the rules and then hours and hours getting the game into a format where you could start playing.

When I bring an RPG book anywhere and there are non-gamers about I whom I know, they invariably ask, "What's that?"

When I respond, "A game." the answer is always (always) a look of fear and shock, accompanied by the statement, "I'd never play a game that required me to read something that big to play!" (or a similar)

RPGs, particularly mainstream RPGs, are confined to a niche industry because of the one things most game geeks prize: their size/page count/density of information. Unfortunately, these are not an asset, not for luring in the new consumer.

My own gaming group was struck by this last year, when two of the players meant to bring a new person into our group. They had a friend who was an absolute "Wheel of Time" fanatic, and who had expressed interest in joining our WoT RPG group, which she had heard about from them -- even though she had no idea what RPGs were beyond "a game of pretend."

So, my friends brought the WoT rules to her...I knew this was a mistake, but I didn't have the chance to warn them not to do it, and the next session they reported that their friend had taken one look at the rulebook and said she really didn't think she wanted to play after all. The exact same thing I've always heard.

I have found the only consistent way to get a new person into gaming is through verbal introduction, rather than textual or game-piece introduction. I have never seen the "Read This Book" method work as a lure for new gamers.

This is also why I always shake my head when I read those "What is role-playing?" and "How do you role-play?" bits in the front section of $30 hardcover games. The text is useless and annoying because it doesn't apply or inform the vast majority of those individuals who purchase the item.

It would be like placing the basic instructions on computer-use with a server -- wasted paper: the folks who are going to be buying, setting up, and dealing with that server invariably already know the information given.

You see, I would bet my left leg that had the woman in the anecdote been invited to a session, asked what kind of person she'd like to play -- ie: "I'd like to play an Aes'Sedai (and etc.)" -- and had a blank sheet of paper handed to her on which to write information about her character as it was necessary to the game (ie: attributes, skills and levels of such, weaves known, etc) we would be plus one player right now, regardless of the size of the rulebook.

The same if the tactic had involved a blank sheet, or one already filled out, with the statement about it, "Don't worry about the numbers. We'll explain stuff as it comes up. Just tell us what you want her to do and what she says and does."

I have never seen the "Read This Book" method work, but this verbal introduction through play seems to work every time, when done correctly (that is, the individual is not swamped with information or rules).

So, when Marco makes the following off-hand comment in the same thread:

It's sort of an article of cannon around here that if games were more like, say, indie (sorry, alternative) designs, they'd be more popular.

I am forced to reply: The only reason that is thought is because indie games, as a whole, tend to be more accessible intellectually to the public than traditional games, precisely because of their typical anti-gamer bias: short page count, simple game systems, and non-"campaign" orientation (not that this is true of every indie game).

The non-gamer is not likely to blow money on a $30 rulebook, or even a $20 rulebook, because that's a good chunk of money they could spend on something they already know they like, or something they think they could get into.

Hence my anecdote above about the friend and our gaming group. A "simple," interesting RPG existing as a small, digest-sized book is the hook for new players. Or a boxed "board" game, with a short rulebook of only a few pages of concrete rules.

[John Kim]

RPGs, particularly mainstream RPGs, are confined to a niche industry because of the one things most game geeks prize: their size/page count/density of information. Unfortunately, these are not an asset, not for luring in the new consumer.  

While I agree with this to some degree, I think it oversimplifies.  Lack of data can just as easily kill a game.  There are plenty of minimalist RPGs which have been published over the years, and none of them have done particularly well in breaking in new consumers.  Hand a bunch of non-gamers a copy of "The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen", "Pantheon and Other Games", or "Puppetland" ...   They are likely to be pretty lost as to what to actually do.  

I've heard this logic before.  For example, in Interactive Fiction #4 (1995), Jonathan Tweet carefully explained his plan about how Everway was going to appeal to new consumers by its simplicity.  However, despite plenty of initial publicity and gloss from Wizards of the Coast (who were riding high on Magic at the time), the sales were apparently quite poor.  

The only reason that is thought is because indie games, as a whole, tend to be more accessible intellectually to the public than traditional games, precisely because of their typical anti-gamer bias: short page count, simple game systems, and non-"campaign" orientation (not that this is true of every indie game).  

The non-gamer is not likely to blow money on a $30 rulebook, or even a $20 rulebook, because that's a good chunk of money they could spend on something they already know they like, or something they think they could get into.  

Hence my anecdote above about the friend and our gaming group.

While I appreciate anecdotes, they don't constitute much evidence.  Jonathan Tweet gave very similar anecdotes when he predicted that Everway would be a success to draw in newcomers.  This was also the logic behind Hogshead's "New Style" line, which also has a small niche of players but doesn't seem to have broken out in any way.  

I think that there is something flawed in the logic here.  While I would like these to succeed, but they don't seem to have done that well.  Meanwhile, a game like Vampire is one of the few which seems to actually have drawn new blood into the hobby (if you'll pardon the pun).  I think that $30 cost and moderate rules are not nearly that big a barrier.  The far more important barrier is the newbie reading at the book and trying to picture what play is actually like.  How do you generate adventures, and how do you resolve real situations?  A great many indie games skimp on absolute essentials for beginners like "Who is this GM person?" and a sample adventure.  

While I don't like where the mainstream is these days in terms of being newbie-friendly, I don't think the answer is as simple as shorter rulebooks.

[Marco]

The answer has been hinted by others, but to put it up front, it's risk.

*snip*

Well, something like that, anyway. The point is, games that are less innovative are aimed at doing what  has been proven to sell. Every game has to be a little innovative, or it's not really a new game; but the more innovative it is, the further it is from expectations, and the more likely it is that people who do look at it will be put off by the differences. Businesses like to be conservative--they like to publish stuff that is like stuff people are buying. In fact, Paramount made the first Star Trek movie because Star Wars was raking in big bucks for 20th Century Fox and they wanted to get into the space race quickly with something they already owned. Make something successful, and people will copy it to ride your coattails. Make something innovative, and everyone watches to see whether you're the next set of coattails to catch or the flaming wreckage to dodge.

--M. J. Young

I don't think it's risk. There are all sorts of things companies do on a daily basis to try to limit risk that the RPG industry mostly doesn't (focus groups, target market research, limited release to check response, etc.). If it were risk we'd see nothing but pop-fiction licenses and, maybe, no RPG's at all (I think on a risk-benefit analysis almost anything else is a better bet).

RPG's are a labor of love, MJ. You know that as well as anyone here.

And risky RPG's get made and released all the time. Whether it be Unknown Armies, Over The Edge, or Prince Valliant ... those are radical (yes, I know, they're not Narrativist, but that's hardly the only way, is it?).

Because I can tell you that V:tM *was* innovative. And it was expensive. It was new, it was different. It appealed to people who didn't play traditional RPG's. It was successful. It even tapped into a Narrativist vein (boy, it's hard to talk about it without some kind of pun) while retaining the traditional mechanical outlook.

The only way it wasn't an "alternative" design was from a GNS mechanical perspective.

-Marco

[Valamir]

Some good stuff here.  It won't be any surprise that I think Raven's comment above is pretty spot on and highlights what I think one of the key choices the industry made that damaged its own growth potential.  

John, you're point is a good one, but I think the failing of games like Everway commercially  is a failure of marketing and distribution not necessarily of the game.  Tweet designed a game to appeal to non gamers and then it got sold through traditional gamer channels.  Its failure was almost a forgone conclusion.  I think the built up prior history of the hobby that had shut down most (not all but most) non gamer focused channels, and the lack (as Marco notes) of anything resembling real corporate marketing campaigns is going to make it extremely difficult for a game to break into the mainstream at this point (one of my points in this thread is that I think there was a time/opportunity in the hobby where this wouldn't have been true / as bad).  If Hasbro got a hold of Everway, gussied it up, launched an ad campaign, and slammed it through their distribution channels it probably would have been one of the most successful RPGs of all time (it still would have likely been a tiny drop in the bucket for Hasbro who would have then promptl dropped it, however).  The point being that what it takes to reach a mainstream audience is a lot more and alot more expensive than what it could have taken 20 years ago.  


To clarify some of the aspects of what I've been talking about.  I'm not nostalgically envisioning some ideal time where the games were perfect and wonderful and then they got bad.  Rather there were alot of strands about what games were and how they were put together that arose in the 70s and early eighties.  By the mid eighties several of those strands got braided together into "industry standard".

Imagine instead how different the game industry would have looked if different strands had been pulled together.  Say FGU's boxed sets with OD&Ds booklet size books (which were standard for alot early games), with the one man band production of Jeff Dee's V&V, with the stripped down "just the essentials" mechanics of Toon.  Envision for a minute what the rope braided from those elements might have looked like if that had become the industry standard.  One can repeat this excersize with just about any combination desired.  I'm not about to pick one and try to claim "if only...then everything would be perfect today".  Nonsense.

The point is that there were many strands to chose from and the ones that were chosen were almost all ones that shut the industry off from the broader market.  Mike's points above about the process being GM driven is a good one.  I'm in complete agreement with that.  But GMs didn't determine which strands became the rope.  GM's just tugged on the strands they liked.  It was the game companies that decided to respond to that tugging and cater to a particular niche of the overall potential market.  

If the computer industry had done the same thing we'd still be using unix machines...or punch cards.  The hard core computer users of the 70 and 80s had no real use or desire for mice and GUI interfaces.  Microsoft didn't simply cater to the existing hard core base to deliver more of what they wanted.  They went out and opened up the industry to the mass public by delivering a product that appealed to people who didn't even know they wanted it.  Gaming, by contrast, catered to the hard core base of existing devotees, and so...never grew beyond that base.

As for the comments that started this off.  I'll admitt my choice of calling GURPS "damaging" was perhaps a bit intentionally controversal.  But I do firmly believe that it is the poster child for this process of giving the hard core niche exactly all of the specifications they want, without worrying about features that would have made it appealing to a broader range of customers.  For me it was GURPS that took all of the individual and pairs and trios of strands and selected for those that the hard core was clamouring for and brought those strands together into the rope that we've been hanging ourselves with ever since.

So now what.  I guess this is the point where I should be launching into a plan of action on how to make things better and what we need to do about it.  Honestly.  I don't know that's its possible to do anything about it.  I love this hobby but I think the ship has pretty much sailed on any future chance of being mainstream.  I think there's alot that can be done to help make the industry healthier...but will it ever be "popular"...I think the window is largely closed on that opportunity.  I think there was a time when the window was open, but IMO it shut a good while ago (to continue that analogy a bit, I think V:TM made a great effort to take a crowbar to it and pry it open again, but it was tied down by that rope of standards and got yanked back before it had crawled more than halfway out).


One final note.  The comments about what's "innovative" and such I think are completely missing the mark.  I'm not talking about innovation per se.  The process I outlined above wasn't one of "stagnation" vs. "innovation".  It was the normal, expected, process of standard setting that every industry goes through and by and large is a good thing.  What standard will DVDs take, what standard will MP3 players use, etc.  Most industries start with a shotgun blast of ideas and eventually must evolve a standard to be viable.  So the issue to me is that the standard we chose as a industry (as exemplified by games like GURPS and CoC) was not a good choice for the continued growth of the industry...it may well (and likely was) a great choice for many of those already here.

[quozl]

The failure of Everway, as John Tynes wrote, was that they couldn't pack a GM in the box.

The failure of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen was that Baron Munchausen is unknown to 90% of non-gamers.

As far as I know, Soap is the only game ever produced that meets all the criteria listed in this thread for a game to be loved by the masses.  How is it selling?

[greyorm]

EDIT to note cross-post with Ralph and Jonathan's comments above.

While I agree with this to some degree, I think it oversimplifies.  Lack of data can just as easily kill a game...

...There are plenty of minimalist RPGs which have been published over the years, and none of them have done particularly well in breaking in new consumers.

I agree, however I think most of your answer is confounding dissimilar items; 1) what the problem is, and how people go about 2) fixing the problem. More to the point, there's two parts to RPGs: their design, and their marketing.

In looking at your responses about "what happened to product X," I don't see the relationship of your points to one another: what I see is arguably good design coupled to poor marketing to the intended audience (non-gamers / current non-consumers). What I do not see is, as you appear to be claiming, "Minimalist systems aren't the answer because they didn't sell." This is a leap of logic that simply doesn't pan out when all the variables in-between are examined.

The biggest part of the problem is that RPGs aren't pitched to the mainstream with the regularity via wide media channels and common market exposure via everyday stores. You can have the greatest game in the world, that would appeal to the average consumer, and if they don't know about it, they'll never buy it.

If your consumer doesn't know your product exists, then of course you won't sell it to them...which explains the various publication attempts you have brought up (Hogshead, et al). If the intended consumer doesn't even know about the product, of COURSE you won't sell any copies...you can't interest new buyers without advertising to them.

RPGs don't advertise in the places they need to: television, magazine, and newspaper inserts. Same places video games do. Repeated exposure in everyday life.

They aren't available in the places they need to be: Target, Wal-mart, etc -- the same places video games are available at. Stick the RPGs right up there among the board games! Repeated exposure in everday life.

Marketing, of course, is only half the picture, and thus here's the question you need to ask yourself during the design phase of an RPG you intend to be for a wide audience: knowing nothing beyond the packaging and the size of the product, given a choice between (say) Puppetland and D&D 3E, which would the average consumer choose?

What's that tell you? Maybe a little about style preference, but change the question a bit: given a choice between Blackjack and Fizzbin, which is the average consumer more likely to choose?

I claim the "minimalist" approach does work, and I cite board games. Board games are established "games"...everyone knows what they are and how they work (board, pieces, quick rules), and are thus willing to buy them when one of them catches their eye.

People don't want a lot of rules...it's their free time, and they'd rather play than study (which is what book-learning rules for a game is perceived as). Only gamers want lots of rules and mental acrobatics before the fun even begins.

To an extent, this is one reason why card games are so wildly popular, and moreso than RPGs: simplicity. No one is afraid of cards. Even "weird" CCG games like Magic:tG is "just cards"...and that's a bonus to the consumer. The other reason: all the hot card games are available or advertised in all the places I described above.

So, how do we explain Vampire's success?

Vampire had one thing going for it: wide exposure via the wildly popular Goth subculture fad of the time.

But how many people who began playing actually bought the book for $30?

I'll bet it was those who would become the GMs and Storytellers, not the large influx of players, who were created BY the purchaser rather than by the book.

Why do I say that? Typical gamers, and consumers, don't spend money they don't have to: the GM buys the book, everyone else borrows it. This occurence is a well established (and unfortunate) fact of the hobby. That's the status quo, and I've no reason to believe otherwise without evidence.

Now, here's an intersting comparison to our hobby: console video games. These lost out for a long time because of their lack of instruction, their difficulty for the average consumer, and their lack of mainstream marketing.

Apparently, the industry learned from this and is doing things now such as: including tutorials in their games, as part of play and marketing up the wazoo in traditional wide media channels. The difficulty levels are still too high, but you see bigger sales to non-traditional console gamers than you did even a few years ago.

The console video game industry has figured all this out...so why haven't we?

What we have with Everway was an attempt to fix the problem solely by redesigning the game, and then marketing it in the same old channels, hoping that somehow the intended audience would find it.

Had the video game industry done this, and followed the logic you've used "not selling = the fixes weren't the answer" would be meaningless because the marketing would have been to the wrong people (those already buying the current games, who required no "fixes" to them).

I've heard this logic before.  For example, in Interactive Fiction #4 (1995), Jonathan Tweet carefully explained his plan about how Everway was going to appeal to new consumers by its simplicity.

Everyway is anything but simple. I own Everway. It isn't simple: if I can't teach it to my 7 year old, it isn't simple.

Everway is the antithesis of what I've described as marketable to a wide audience. In fact, it suffers from being too indigestible to the average consumer, and containing too much text product.

And from what you describe, it sounds as though Mr. Tweet was expecting that his design would sell itself...call it marketing naivete on his part. The fact that gamers don't swarm to the hobby via buying production books is irrefutable. Consumers prefer less complex games (or introductions), and I base this on personal experience in the hobby, particularly in trying to interest new players as to what has worked and what has not, and upon successful products in other markets (similar and dissimilar).

So, again, there's a two-pronged assault that needs to occur for gaming to attract a wider audience, which has thus far failed due to the use of only one prong in any given situation.

[b_bankhead]

When I respond, "A game." the answer is always (always) a look of fear and shock, accompanied by the statement, "I'd never play a game that required me to read something that big to play!" (or a similar)

RPGs, particularly mainstream RPGs, are confined to a niche industry because of the one things most game geeks prize: their size/page count/density of information. Unfortunately, these are not an asset, not for luring in the new consumer.

My own gaming group was struck by this last year, when two of the players meant to bring a new person into our group. They had a friend who was an absolute "Wheel of Time" fanatic, and who had expressed interest in joining our WoT RPG group, which she had heard about from them -- even though she had no idea what RPGs were beyond "a game of pretend."

So, my friends brought the WoT rules to her...I knew this was a mistake, but I didn't have the chance to warn them not to do it, and the next session they reported that their friend had taken one look at the rulebook and said she really didn't think she wanted to play after all. The exact same thing I've always heard.

I have found the only consistent way to get a new person into gaming is through verbal introduction, rather than textual or game-piece introduction. I have never seen the "Read This Book" method work as a lure for new gamers.

This is also why I always shake my head when I read those "What is role-playing?" and "How do you role-play?" bits in the front section of $30 hardcover games. The text is useless and annoying because it doesn't apply or inform the vast majority of those individuals who purchase the item.

It would be like placing the basic instructions on computer-use with a server -- wasted paper: the folks who are going to be buying, setting up, and dealing with that server invariably already know the information given.

I know this is absolutely true because I have experienced it over and over again in my efforts to get the non hobby shop crowd into the hobby.
People DO react negatively to the size and amount of prep necessary to get into rpgs.  I regard this as a bedrock fact.

I also regard as a bedrock fact that arguments about the relative popularity of 'high crunch' games are irrelevant because non-gamers never see the rules-lite games. They are soley marketed in places where the only people who see them are hard core game.

The 'read this book' model doesn't work because very few people want to 'read this book'. They look at it , make a rueful face and put it down because they don't want to perform an activity that looks more like boning up for a physics final in their spare time.

[b_bankhead]

The failure of Everway, as John Tynes wrote, was that they couldn't pack a GM in the box.

The failure of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen was that Baron Munchausen is unknown to 90% of non-gamers.

As far as I know, Soap is the only game ever produced that meets all the criteria listed in this thread for a game to be loved by the masses.  How is it selling?

90%? I think you are being charitable here, in my estimate it would be more like 99.99999% !

Just what masses are seeing it or have any chance of hearing about it? Hell i'd say 90% of the people on rpg.net have never heard about  Soap and they represent the hardest of the hard core of the subculture.

[quozl]

The failure of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen was that Baron Munchausen is unknown to 90% of non-gamers.

90%? I think you are being charitable here, in my estimate it would be more like 99.99999% !

Just what masses are seeing it or have any chance of hearing about it? Hell i'd say 90% of the people on rpg.net have never heard about  Soap and they represent the hardest of the hard core of the subculture.

Yes, I was being charitable.

As for Soap, I'm genuinely curious at how much exposure Wingnut Games is able to give it.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

To make a comment about Everyway's marketing, it was carried by Kay Bee Toys for a while. I bought mine whenthey clearenced priced it to $5.00 from KB.  So it was available in mainstream channels. It just wasn't picked up by the mainstream. And most roleplayers had no idea what to do with it. Character creation by looking at a picture? Later, dude.

[b_bankhead]

To make a comment about Everyway's marketing, it was carried by Kay Bee Toys for a while. I bought mine whenthey clearenced priced it to $5.00 from KB.  So it was available in mainstream channels. It just wasn't picked up by the mainstream. And most roleplayers had no idea what to do with it. Character creation by looking at a picture? Later, dude.

How many people walking into Kay Bee toys even knew what Everway WAS or was for?  Marketing consists of more than putting something on a shelf. And more than putting it on the back shelf of a closeout store at that.

And by the way I used to create characters by looking at pictures all the time.  Some of my favorite rpg characters have been derived from artwork.