Anyone here making a living from RPGs?

[Pelgrane]

Is there any person who writing indie games who is making a full-time living from it? I'm just wondering how this compares with so-called mainstream RPG publishers (a number of whom are). Do you think that this position is likely to change?

Simon Rogers
Pelgrane Press Ltd

[MatrixGamer]

No.

Some people make enough to pay their car insurance payment, some may make more but I don't think anyone makes a living.

The problem is that you can usually make more in a day job. I had a psychotherapy private practice back in the late 90's. I made a living at it but didn't make as much as I wanted so I fired myself and got an agency job. Doing marketing was just no fun.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

[Andrew Cooper]

Some folks here are doing a bit more than car insurance unless car insurance is REALLY expensive where you live. :-)  I found these threads

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=19044.0
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16428.0

I think you'll find them interesting.

[Ben Lehman]

Polaris is right now my main, but not only, source of income.  This is a little bit exceptional, though.  I live in China, so the currency exchange favors me by a factor of eight.

yrs--
--Ben

[Josh Roby]

The Guild of Blades guys make a living off of their games, which includes roleplaying games and board games.

Simon, a good deal of the mainstream guys you think are making a living off of RPGs aren't.  Many are supported by spouses, have another job, lump their RPG-writing in with their other writing endeavors, produce and sell things other than RPGs, or other variations on the theme.  Steve Jackson has made far more money with smart investments outside of gaming than he's made within gaming; Wizards of the Coast made more money off of CCGs than RPGs; Dream Pod Nine did design work for film and television in addition to producing books (and you'll note the current financial situation of two of the three I cited, too).

If you are at all familiar with webcomics, the financial reality is very similar.  Sure, the Penny Arcade and PvP guys "make a living drawing comics" -- but their revenue streams include teeshirts, advertising, even some con appearances in addition to print products.  There's lots more happening under the hood than just putting out the obvious front-line product.

[Pelgrane]

Thank you very much for these very useful responses. I'm guessing that Phil Reed is making a full-time living. I'm fairly sure Monte Cook is. There may be others.

Mongoose are (details will follow in an article for Page XX), although they don't follow the indie model - they are comissioning work-for-hire.

What comes across from the threads, and the admirable openess displayed, is that the indie publishing model is at least a way not to lose money in the RPG world, and that's no mean feat.

Simon Rogers
Pelgrane Press Ltd.

[joepub]

Hey Simon...

I'm not sure if by that last post you meant to "close" this thread or not...
But I had one thing to add.


I used the free PDF RPG I had created as a credential when I applied for a job as Content Developer for an online strategy-ish game.
The work I had done for zero pay in creating that RPG helped secure me this new job...

So, although I never made money off of Point of Collapse directly, I helped secure a nice paying, fun job through it.

Hope that adds another angle to the discussion.

[Jake Richmond]

I make a living working on RPGs, but that includes not just income from my own games but freelance writing and illustration work. But really I consider that to be all part of the package of what I do for a living.

[guildofblades]

Yes, the folks here at the Guild make a living these days, or at least the full timers (all two of us) do. But....

It took us 7 years of publishing mostly part time to grow the business tll that point. And along the way we had to invest is darn near all the goodies of a print shop so we could handle all of our production in house. Because in abandoning the distribution tier for many, many of our products we don't sell in large enough quantities now to really make conventional printing and wholeselling of the products worthwhile. We're able to make a living because our production methds allow us to produce in production batches generally anywhere from about 40 to 200 units and at a really good COGS too. We're able to do board and miniature games we otherwise couldn't do and our RPGs cost us about 1/3 of what they would if produced via POD.

But here is the real kicker, if someone had handed me an extra hundred thousand dollars or more back in 1996 when I started publishing, I doubt I would have been any more successful at getting the company up to a profitable and sustainable level than I was. Because when I started I just did not have the experience to know how to effectively operate within the industry. Its not too hard to limp along in distribution moving just enough product to pay for your next print run and operate under the illusion you are "getting somewhere" . But its a whole other realm getting enough support from the other tiers to move volumes large enough to support staff comfortably.

We also began trying the distribution model and also had a few products freelanced back then. It took us about 5 years to really understand that the distribtuion tier wasn't going to work for us as a small business. Maybe someday it will become useful again, but we were burned by it enough times that we're most likely to continue to build our business via alternative means.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com

[Pelgrane]

Ryan - a fascinating answer. Would you mind me asking how many full time (or freelancer-equivalent) workers you have?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Simon,

Can you provide a little more context for dialogue, rather than just a survey? I realize you're gathering data for an article, but I also think this thread would be more helpful for that purpose - and more in tune with goals for the site - if you'd tell us more about the point of the article, or what issue/inquiry you're using for its foundation.

For example, for purposes of the article, why is "making a living" from role-playing publishing an issue in the first place? I'm not asking you this so you can post it and see it attacked, but rather so that the dialogue is more productive for everyone.

At present, all I have to say is "what Joshua and Ryan said!", which isn't very helpful. I think you know my finances with Adept Press, which are best summarized as having about $3000 on hand at any given time, and squinting at the corporate credit card in annoyance. My most serious expenses beyond printing are directly related to promoting others' success in venues like GenCon.

Best, Ron

[guildofblades]

>>Ryan - a fascinating answer. Would you mind me asking how many full time (or freelancer-equivalent) workers you have?<<

Just two full timers right now. The two principle partners that have been slaving away at the company for the last decade. We have one part time accountant and one part time helper that only works on the weekends and helps us to process orders and do production.

We don't use any freelancers at present, except for a little artwork here and there. Even that we have reduced down to minimums. We do all the layouts, map designs, box packaging, rule books, etc for our board games in house as well as the writing/game design. We then print and produce most evertyhing in house. Though we recently found a means to print our full color game counters through a traditional box printer at a price and quantity we are happy with and we'll be looking to begin printing some game board (we presently do laminated game maps for our board games) and boxes through that same printer for some of our best selling titles. Those we can be reasonably sure we can actually sell a thousand copies of within a 3-5 year spread.

What our company needs most deparately is better editing. However....we've juggled some numbers based on some assumptions (which may or may not be correct) and currently think the increase in sales from having some better edited products would not actually justify the extra cost and logistic overhead of outsourcing our editing to freelancers. So for the moment, we seem to alienate a slice of potential customers who simply can't tolerate some of our editing mistakes. I hate to lose potential customers, but if the cost of getting them is more than what I can make selling to them, hey, well, I'm NOT going to do that. lol. Besides, we are learning more and more there are a LOT of potential customers out there. The well is near bottomless. This might seem a bit backwards, but we don't really design a product intended for a specific clientel, with design a product intended for a specific genre, then go try and find the pool of potential customers it possibly could be sold too.

Otherwise, we now have two computer game programmers working part time on our Massive Multi-Player Online game 1483 Online, and other games of its ilk that will all become part of our Empires of History Online Gaming Network. We have a LOT of board game designs just begging for online conversions so this new direction we are taking as a company has a strong synergy with our current publishing efforts. Anyway, as this venture matures, we'll certainly be hiring those two programmers on full time (one is actually becoming a partner in the business) and if it grows a lot more, we'll eventually add a one or two man staff to do marketing, system management and general support.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Publishing Group
http://www.guildofblades.com
http://www.1483online.com

[GregStolze]

Making a living?  Shit no.  I'm making about enough to pay for my kid's Montessori preschool.

On the other hand, I work, at most, three hours a day, and Montessori is really expensive.  Furthermore, because I'm not working a day job, I can stay at home with my sons and avoid the costs of putting them in daycare (which would very likely be far more than I could earn working 40 hours a week).

-G.

[Pelgrane]

For example, for purposes of the article, why is "making a living" from role-playing publishing an issue in the first place? I'm not asking you this so you can post it and see it attacked, but rather so that the dialogue is more productive for everyone.

At present, all I have to say is "what Joshua and Ryan said!", which isn't very helpful. I think you know my finances with Adept Press, which are best summarized as having about $3000 on hand at any given time, and squinting at the corporate credit card in annoyance. My most serious expenses beyond printing are directly related to promoting others' success in venues like GenCon.

Best, Ron

Making a living isn't an issue per se, it's just an economic filter for this particular article - "Is the RPG Industry Screwed?." Ben Lehman has already unasked this question very succesfully. The question is deliberately framed to be provocative, particularly for those people (an increasing number) who stand outside the traditional model. I asked this question here because while the roleplaying game community has benefited enormously from the Forge, I wasn't sure what proportion of those people creating games with this model were making a living.  I'm certainly not implying that those people who don't make a living are somehow disqualified from I realize that this is an artificial distinction, and I am fascinated by succesful small press RPG publishers who create excellent games part time under the new model without losing money on a huge print run - your Fantasy Heartbreaker (it makes me weep to think about it.)

I don't have a hypothesis on this issue, and I am in the bizarre position of being a small press company making a few bucks which absolutely do not compensate for my time and effort but is a lot of fun (Pelgrane Press Ltd) and running another company (ProFantasy Software Ltd) from which I make a living which is totally dependent on the number of roleplayers available and willing to spend money to support their hobby. I have answers from retailers, distributors, traditional publishers, pdf  and print publishers, and now Ben, too, all coming from different angles. Pelgrane has moved into hybrid terrirtory - slowly releasing our back catalog as PDFs, and commisioning new games in which IP is shared, where that is what the creator desires.

Future articles will be directed at issues such as validity of a metaphor of technology when applied to roleplaying games, why people are creating and selling roleplaying games, where the RPG community is going, how important it is to own your own IP, etc.

[Ron Edwards]

Thanks man! Excellent answer and I hope lots more people reply to this thread.

I am fascinated by succesful small press RPG publishers who create excellent games part time under the new model without losing money on a huge print run - your Fantasy Heartbreaker (it makes me weep to think about it.)

Me too, me too.

Best, Ron