Here's Jesse from another thread:

jburneko wrote:
...what I've observed is a general attitude that "everyone who can be reached, has been reached." 

...just last con I ran a game of Primetime Adventures and had 5 people who had never played before.  About half had heard of the game and owned it but just hadn't played.  That game generated at least one highly enthusiastic sale from someone who hadn't ever heard of the game and wandered in on curiosity from the description I put in the con book.

That happens about once a con for me.  By no means am I reaching people by the droves.  However, I continue to do this is the face of growing resistance.  I am repeatedly told that I'm fighting a losing battle.  That's there's no one left to reach.  That I'm opening myself up to disappointing play for no good reason.   It's very disheartening.

I think the problem is not who the movement is able to reach but who the movement is trying to reach. Look at most threads regarding marketing the number one and some times only thing pushed is get active with the indie community itself. It's mostly just a mixture of people being to lazy to aggresivley market to non gamers or "traditional" gamers to instead choose a smaller sure thing. This is just the opinion of a casual observoir though. 

I've heard people spouting off this manner of nonsense too. Often, the ones saying it are the kind of people who only play games made by White Wolf, Wizards of the Coast, Palladium, etc. and that more or less makes up their mindset about games. If a game isn't a high-budget book sold in all the book chains, then it mustn't be that great a game. So, obviously, small press indie games aren't going to reach new audiences because people want all the flash (with or without substance). At least that's my experience.

But to answer the original question, there will always be new gamers to reach. As long as gaming hobby exists, new people will be attracted to it... many of which will gravitate toward cool niche games that the big companies wouldn't touch. It's like with music. As long as there is underground music (death metal, punk in the '70s, etc.), it will appeal to a certain portion of the masses. The same thing goes with indie gaming.

Seth wrote:
I think the problem is not who the movement is able to reach but who the movement is trying to reach. Look at most threads regarding marketing the number one and some times only thing pushed is get active with the indie community itself. It's mostly just a mixture of people being to lazy to aggresivley market to non gamers or "traditional" gamers to instead choose a smaller sure thing. This is just the opinion of a casual observoir though. 

I think it's worth at least acknowledging the idea that the RPG market is not infinite in size.  That's just common sense.

That said, it might be effectively infinite for a reasonably solid, successful, intrinsically sales-generating property like Dogs in the Vineyard, et al.

To draw first from my own data, Spirit of the Century has sold less than 4,000 copies so far (print and PDF combined).  Given the likely "cap" size of the market can best be gauged in terms of how many copies of D&D sells, 4,000 copies may well be a fairly small percentage of potential already-existing RPG buyers -- and it's taking us over 2 years to hit that mark. 

For the sake of discussion, let's estimate the real size at, say, 40,000 customers (this could be wildly off, but it's solid enough for discussion purposes).  If I've got another 18 years to reach the other 36,000, I'm probably going to feel like the market's infinitely sized, at least in a practical sense.  If I had a kid today, that kid would be in college before the product "saturated"!

I seem to recall Vincent saying that Dogs in the Vineyard consistently sold around 700 copies a year for four years, so similar math could be inflicted upon that product.

But to get a little understanding of the guys "spouting off this manner of nonsense", if they're doing initial print runs sized at 8,000 to 20,000 (I don't know if they are, but let's suppose they do to get a sense of that perspective), their single print runs and expectation of sales represent a significant percentage of the market.  For them, the market would be a lot more palpably finite.

But to us folks in micro-press land, I just don't expect we'll feel the same as them.

I'm not sure it makes either party "wrong". It just means they're feeling different parts of the elephant.

  Well I did not mean so much that it would not be hard to do but the indie “front” is really on the bleeding edge of “traditional” marketing and I have actually found it easier to introduce them to inde games than traditional games, or traditional gamers to indie games for that matter. For example my fiancé who refused to ever consider playing D&D was excited to play Universalis and was interested in mortal coil but is now playing D&D and very pleased with it.
  I think it is just a matter of determining what types of people might be interested in your games design goals and socialize and chit chat with the about it as you get to know the community. Maybe your game has a wicca bend get to know some groups near you go to some of their events (I speak broodly because I don't know much about wicca) and generally socialize about what you do, if they start to get interested they may be able to better help get more wiccans interested.

Hell, I've had game designers contact me in the past couple of months who hadn't heard of any indie games! Also, a  large proportion of IPR's customers are new customers every time, which might mean something.

I've had a lot of luck finding new audiences by making games that do not focus on rpg layers as their target audience. Panty Explosion is very successful because it appeals to (or at least tries to appeal to) manga readers and anime fans, horror and suspense fans (or alternatively, fans of absurd comedy) and (I think most importantly) young women. I've ad similar success with my other games. It's obvious to me that someone who isn't into manga, anime or j-horror might not ever be interested in Panty Explosion. But since there are a huge, huge number of people who are interested in those things, making a game that targets that audience seemed like a really good idea.

No, we haven't.

We haven't reached everyone yet. I say this because there has been some talk that the indie scene has reached everyone interested at this point, and that there's no room to grow or new people out there who can or wish to benefit from what we've learned. This is nonsense.

I say it is nonsense because you can still find this sort of thing on the internet:

"Ergodika  the Science Fantasy, Role-Playing Game (RPG) was a critical success, but a fiscal failure. After spending (1995-2005) over 10K attending conventions, hiring artists, printing books, consulting attorneries, advertising in magazines, as well as, renting and designing a website, Abbadon sold only about twenty copies of this game (<$300). Fourteen surveys were returned from Ergodika buyers; as rule the game was strongly received. In addition to these meager sales, about 100 print and electronic copies of  Ergodika RPG were given away as promotions. Regrettably, it appears that electronic media (video & computer games) are eliminating table top or traditional gaming.

Face-to-face or pen-n-paper Role Playing Games have had flat and declining sales for years. It appears that Abbadon entered the industry at the WRONG time with a good product. For more detailed philosophical discussion on RPGs one can see the author’s columns in Alarums & Excursions trade magazine. For now, we will cut our losses and not pursue this financial sink hole. Traditional RPGs are being forsaken by such established industry leaders as Fantasy Flight Games and Games Designs Workshop."

"...the gaming world has changed a lot since the initial release of the Player's Guide. There's not much room for small publishers and the CRPG market continues to eat away at pen & paper products. Anyways, RSP is shutting down."

The existing games marketing is darn near infinitly large in relation to the marketing power that most any small press or indie company can wield.

Here is an example. Our leading board game, The War to End All Wars has now topped 8,000 sales (over several editions) since 1998 and all the games of the Empires of History game line are collectively hovering at about 80,000 sales. That's not shabby. Now, having opened the new retail store, right here in the Guild's virtual backyard, of all the customers who have wondered into the store, about 3 of them had even heard of the Guild of Blades previously and only 1 of them was familiar with the Empires of History line.

So at 80,000 sales collectively for games in that line, we've penetrated so little of the overall player base for games that only 1 customer who has walked in our store in over 6 weeks had any familiarity with the line. And we opened up in a metro area that has something like 4+ million people within a 30-45 minute drive.

That means 80,000 sales is barely scatching the surface of the overall active player base for games and the overall active player base for games has barely scratched the surface of the overal potential player base for games amng the broader populace.

Reached everyone that could be reached? I would bet every penny I own that would be impossible. But one might have to conceed that its possible a majority of people that could be reached easily may have been reached for a particular single venue. Which simply means its time to broaden the venues for marketing said product.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

But one might have to conceed that its possible a majority of people that could be reached easily may have been reached for a particular single venue.

Jake wrote: I think that's true. I think that just publishing a game, talking about it on your blog, hanging out at a few different community sites and going to a few conventions can only get you so many customers. If you want to move beyond that then you must try a new approach to find a new audience.

I don't think the current "indie-market" has been saturated.  But I do think its become more discrimenating.

I've been saying for the last few years that the "If you build it they will come" era of indie design is over.

The "holy cow I've never seen that before" effect now requires something a hell of a lot more than it did back when Universalis, Dust Devils, and My Life with Master were new.

>>I think "moving beyond" is a slippery slope that should be avoided in the "we've reached everyone" discussion, because it is too easy to say, "we aren't selling well, so we must have reached everyone in the current market, we should expand" when that is likely not the problem.<<

I'm not so sure its a matter of "expanding" per se, but rather trying to market to a "different" group of people or venue instead. For instance, when we first began our Empires of History line of games we marketed them aggresively at players of Axis & Allies, since the games were essentially A&A variants. In reality, the games were sort of a mixture of games like A&A and more traditional hex and counter wargames. They made some in roads to the A&A player base, sure, and they made some inroads to the hex and counter players as well, but they never did a whole lot more than scratch the surface of either consumer group. Not crunchy enough for the hex and counter group, no fun plastic minis and toys for the A&A crowd. Was there a market there within each group for the games? Sure. But was it the most fertile ground for them. No. That proved to be a broader base of consumers who were interested enough in history to be interested in historically themed games, yet not yet wedded to either of the above mentioned formats.

So, a "different" venue proved the better venue for us. That is not to say we now ignore the wargamers or Axis & Allies players, but we know where to focus the bulk of our energies for continued growth. It could very well be the publisher in question made some inroads with the indie consumer base, but to really hit their stride they might have to keep searching a bit to find a different venue they may be both more fertile ground and a larger park to play in.

Going to sell your product where all the other small companies have trodded before might seem like good common sense on the surface and it likely is, at the start. Its tried and true. But if all 500-800 companies are hitting that same target, as you might imagine, no matter how fertile ground, that's a lot of noise in the pipe to compete with.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

While that is true, I don't think it is true in this case. That is, I don't think we've completely tapped the venue.

I think "moving beyond" is a slippery slope that should be avoided in the "we've reached everyone" discussion, because it is too easy to say, "we aren't selling well, so we must have reached everyone in the current market, we should expand" when that is likely not the problem.

Raven brings up an interesting point.  My original comments were largely about the ideology of socially aware play from the more universal issues of healing gamer culture social contexts down to hocking my own play preferences as "an interesting thing to try."  Gamer culture is still infused with so many broken ideas about role-playing being a social dodge if we all just "stay in character" and GM does a good job of playing social nanny.

But Raven's point is about the commercial ramifications of independent publishing and it's probably one of the major faults I have when I play games at cons.  I forget to mention that detail to people who aren't familiar with the game.  It harkens all the way back to Ron's "Nuking The Apple Cart Essay."

But that raises a question in my mind.  Most people self publishing still have day jobs.  Even the creators of Spirit of the Century, Burning Wheel and Houses of the Blooded still generate a personal income from some where else even though those games appeal and sell well among core gamer culture.  I wonder how many of the people who sink 10k into a game and then fail would want to continue to publish their game if you took away the dream of generating a living wage from their company?

Jesse

Jake wrote: But there are plenty of games which are going to find a much larger potential audience outside the traditional gaming market then in it.

jburneko wrote: I wonder how many of the people who sink 10k into a game and then fail would want to continue to publish their game if you took away the dream of generating a living wage from their company?

greyorm wrote:

Regardless, I think one important bit to note is that the literature field tells its members the truth about writing and making a living, and doesn't tend to let misty-eyed dreams of self-sufficiency linger within its populace. Which, as Jesse points out, is exactly the opposite of what is found in the tabletop game field where the same idea is widespread but rarely shot down by established "pros", and when the reality is stated, it is often disbelieved and even argued against (as we've seen here on the Forge more than once).

Hi Malcolm,

I see no broadside. That is a wonderful post and I agree with every word, especially this part:

To my mind, the key to sustained success is to create *autonomous* play networks. That means people are playing your game who you haven't met, and forming communities you don't necessarily know about. This is where you have to develop your agenda. Are you interested in selling the game, or an inroad into an existing scene? Which comes first? If it's the community first, you're depriving your audience of their creative agency and putting the emphasis outside the natural social medium of play, away from conventions, meetups and other forms of contrived social interaction.

>>Which, as Jesse points out, is exactly the opposite of what is found in the tabletop game field where the same idea is widespread but rarely shot down by established "pros", and when the reality is stated, it is often disbelieved and even argued against (as we've seen here on the Forge more than once).<<

As one of those established pros, who started, well, lets just say at a much more basic entry point, I would have to argue the case that it IS totally possible to make a living in the hobby game industry. Killing peoples ambitions by arguing otherwise doesn't really help anybody or the industry. It is totally possible, just not easy. And it should always come with a bit of factoids such as:

1) It almost doesn't matter how much money you throw at trying to grow your hobby games publishing company, it WILL take time to grow. It takes time to learn the mistakes that you need to avoid, it takes time for your first game to enter the market and for word of mouth to help it grow. It takes time for your company to develope a recognized name within the industry. And it takes time to establish sales channels and reliable production processes. Throwing a lot of money at it to speed things up _can_ speed things up a bit, but frankly, not a lot, and it simply makes every learning mistake more costly along the way.

2) Its amazing easy to blow through money if one is not operating from a base of experience that has learned to balance capital against realistic returns. In my  time in the industry I have seen a good couple hundred companies come and go, all spending a disproportionate amount of money trying to drive rapid rowth, relative to expected growth on what would be realistic growth. It is for this reason, other than someone with the experience of Steve Jackson, Peter A and the like, anyone starting a company in this industry is usually going to be better off starting small and growing slowly as they expand their games catalog, publishing experience, distribution vehicles and brand presence.

3) Its very unrealistic that anyone is going to grow themselves a pull time paying gig in gaming through the self publication of a single game or a single game line.Unless your game is one of the seldom few to catapult into the top 5 games within the category it sells under (RPG, Card, Board, etc). Even strong sellers like BESM which topped over 30,000 units in sales with the last edition released by Guardians of Order wasn't enough of a base to sustain that company. I would say an independent designer can make some decent money with a successful game or game line, but to operate a stable company that can pay them a living wage year in and year out, the company needs to operate a whole catalog of games and it needs to market and sell them in cost effective ways. I don't care if a single game was the greatest thing since sliced bread, its just not going to sustain a whole company by itself.

4) If you want to publish a game and make a few bucks, there are plenty of resource here at the Forge and a few other places to set you on the right path to self publishing without mortgaging the house. Unfortunately all too often I have seen folks express the sentiment that they want to publish games full time for a living, but they don't want to do those pesky non game design tasks like accounting, production management, marketing, pick and pack for shipping and order management, etc. They just want to "design games" and "be in charge". Honestly, even should somebody start with a 10 million dollar capital reserve, if they want to run a company as above, I think they will eventually fail. If you want to run a publishing company, then YOU need to run the publishing company. You need to understand its core operations and nearly every nut and bolt therein. And without a doubt, you have to have an intimate relationship with all aspects of the financials. Even a couple of the long running, well established RPG publishers in our industry tried handing off the financials of their companies to employees so they could focus on game design and distribution and in both cases that decision about tanked the company. If "employees" could be trusted to operate and grow your business for you so you could just do "game design", odds a pretty darn good those employees would be operating and growing their own business instead of just working for you.

A designer needs to make a choice. Which is more important. Designing for fun and maintaining their exacting vision for a game and perhaps making some nice side money in the process. Or operating a company for a profit and perhaps for a living. Thw two goals aren't always mutually exclusive and they sure can intersect a lot of a company is structured properly for that purpose, but I guarantee there will always be a point where these two priorities conflict in interest. Prioritizing the vision over the business necessities too often might very well mean achieving or maintaining a company able to support its staff will be impossible. Prioritizing the business needs over the game design elements might mean you have to make compromises on how the game is designed and/or published. Chosing one priority over the other is not wrong. Its a personal choice based on the goals of the individual and its up to them to decide where their priorities lay. I just think it is important to recognize the points of conflict that can sometimes exists between these two priorities because I guarantee its sure to happen at some point (and likely at a lot of "some points").

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

eyebeams wrote: Actually, I write for a living. As a field, writers get together and talk about how to write for a living. We even discuss standards for the rate you need to write for a living, and often belong to organizations where membership is divided between those who make a living and those who don't.