Yesterday on EN World, Ryan Dancey was championing the glory of the OGL and the benefits the market will reap from its existance. It got me wondering what it actually means to the independent publisher, and what we, as indie publishers, think of the business strategy espoused by Mr. Dancey.

Some issues that arose I'm particularly interested in discussion:

He suggests the hobby is growing, not shrinking, and ties this to the use of the OGL and the D20 game. How do retailers view this? Is D20 the big cash cow for THEM?

That the design philosophy they attacked (the creation of non-standardized game systems) was "killing the RPG category" and the dramatic and substantial change introduced by the OGL is the saviour that has kept the market from dying.

Of particular interest are the following quotes:

I said that making it possible to use the D&D rules at zero cost should drive support for other game systems to the lowest level possible in the market, and create customer resistence to the introduction of new game systems.

I said that making it possible to use the D&D rules at zero cost should make it harder to convince consumers that using a non-D&D based ruleset was a good idea.

I constantly hear consumers asking people who publish non-d20 games "why not use d20". That's a question that publishers have to face and answer now. They can answer it, but they have to be prepared with a reasonable response other than "we don't like WotC".

My opinions:

1) Dancey is the greatest business mind to enter the rpg arena... ever.
2) Nothing Dancey says, does, or desires has any impact on anything I put my hands to in the rpg arena.
3) 10K+ units as a benchmark for success sure as shit squezes the hell out of the competitive arena. The fact that he has such a high benchmark means that a) he could care less about micropublishing (as it should be, frankly) and b) we could care less about him (as it should be, frankly).

Dancey's OGL was a wonderful marketing tool for D&D3E. We have seen the brilliance there (where are we now? 3.5 or something?). Great. So what?

D&D serves a purpose in the rpg industry, and that is to provide a common anchor for people to latch onto. It *is* a rallying point for our subculture (opinions of the game aside). Fine. Let it be that.

What we (and by "we", I mean game designers, as opposed to product designers... ooh, that may have had teeth) are doing is advancing the industry, the subculture, and our specific playerbase.

Besides, if 10K+ units is the benchmark, Apophis has sold over that (in total, not of the core product). Obsidian2 launched at the same time as D&D3E...

But that aside, success, as has been mentioned once or twice at the Forge, should *not* be measured by turnover, but by solvency and actual play. Sure, I own D&D3e... some very kind people gave me tons of the stuff, but I have played it once... just once. It did what it was supposed to (I guess), but that ain't my can o' worms.

I would consider D&D3e a further cry from success than, say, Obsidian or Sorcerer... mainly because of the impact, growth, and solvency attributable to the later 2 games. Black is the new black, as it were.

More on this later, I gotta get to a club now and do some dancin' with some pretty people.

Dav

greyorm wrote: I constantly hear consumers asking people who publish non-d20 games "why not use d20"

Some answers to your questions, from the point of view of someone who works as BOTH an industry marketing and operations consultant as well as an indie designer:

greyorm wrote:
He suggests the hobby is growing, not shrinking, and ties this to the use of the OGL and the D20 game. How do retailers view this? Is D20 the big cash cow for THEM?

Meaning that WotC wishes to muscle out any competition, not merely allow the cream to rise to the top, but quite sincerely choke off anyone who is not publishing D20 games (which is what "making non-D&D based rulesets a bad idea" means). This, of course, is a direct threat to independent publishers who choose not to utilize D20.

Question to those in the know: how many successful launches, by the definition given above, of non-D&D games were there prior to the launch of D20?

Same question to those in the know: how many reasonably successful launches, by the definition given above, of non-D&D games were there prior to the launch of D20?

I've heard this, too, repeatedly. In fact, I was there when Ron was asked at GenCon (of Sorcerer), "Why don't you make this a D20 game?"

I, of course, know the answer: because "System Matters."

But is the word getting out to the consumers? Cruising the various message boards at RPGnet and ENWorld, it would seem not -- the consumers believe in all truth that "d20 can do ANYTHING" when it quite obviously can not fulfill the desires of all gamers, even "tweaked."

Finally, an opinion, though Ryan states that he is not biased due any connection with d20, using statements about his lack of earnings from the OGL or the strategy employed to support his claimed non-bias, I find that due the criticism he has recieved over it and his strong sustained support of the concept, his ego is as entrenched in the success or apparent success of the OGL/d20 system that the criticisms of a bias are perfectly valid and reasonable.

I would respect Ryan's assertions much more if he were ever correct about matters where I have the facts. I know that he is consistently wrong about White Wolf's business - occasionally over-inflating, more often grossly understanding - and that he keeps making assertions after people who have legitimate access to the data say "it isn't so". I also know that he makes claims about the historical rise and fall of gaming sales which directly contradict the experience of both publishers and retailers of my acquaintance.

I do think that the Open Gaming License is a remarkably good idea, and I think it took someone with his level of confidence and drive to make it happen. I also acknowledge that I was dead wrong about whether WotC would use it as a tool to mess up anyone using it who became inconvenient to their plans. I think I had reasons for that skepticism, given the company's history of capricious change of plan on no notice, but the fact is that they didn't do it.

But I don't think he's the savior of gaming. I don't think the industry would have died without the stuff he and the others set in motion. Or at least I don't think it would have died any sooner - I don't think there's more than somewhere between five and twenty years in the current gaming retail market anyway, as technological and cultural changes make it easier and easier for alternatives to compete with stagnant lazy service. I don't think D&D3 will change that.

I'm also persistently annoyed at his general refusal to acknowledge that gaming companies may legitimately pursue goals other than his and be successes by standards he happens not to hold. He acts as though there are no precedents like Arkham House or Realworld Music or the Sundance Festival or Fantagraphics or Utilikilts - successful, profitable enterprises which do not seek for or wish to compete with Bertelsmann and A&M and Fox and the Gap, but which are for true businesses making for true money and enjoying good relations with their customers. I know that he's focused on being #1 in whatever field he's in, but that's not a lot of creators' drives and in some cases it can be an active distraction from success measured by other criteria.

Bruce Baugh wrote:
I'm also persistently annoyed at his general refusal to acknowledge that gaming companies may legitimately pursue goals other than his and be successes by standards he happens not to hold. He acts as though there are no precedents like Arkham House or Realworld Music or the Sundance Festival or Fantagraphics or Utilikilts - successful, profitable enterprises which do not seek for or wish to compete with Bertelsmann and A&M and Fox and the Gap, but which are for true businesses making for true money and enjoying good relations with their customers.

I have never seen Ryan acknowledge the possible desirability of any goal but being #1, or act as though a business which completely dominates a distinct niche and is economically successful at it even though much larger players dominate the rest of the field can be considered successful. And I and others have brought this up over the years. (It's not just Ryan, of course - pretty much everyone who spoke or speaks for WotC takes the drive to be #1 very seriously. Sometimes this leads to amusingly tortuous rhetoric about why, for instance, there was never a Dominaria D&D book.)

I should repeat, since a friend browsing asked, that I really do think Ryan's got accomplishments that warrant a fair amount of pride and congratulation. He's done stuff in the face of not just skepticism but hostility, and done it in the midst of a corporate culture I couldn't function in at all. That's very substantial stuff. I don't want my substantial disagreements to diminish that - I intend them to add a dimension of complication to the picture, but not to deny or diminish the reality of the good stuff.

Hello,

Here are some impressions gathered over the last couple of years. Just consider it data, or "data from one man's perspective."

Bit of perspective: You guys should know that I keep some pretty good relationships going with a number of retailers and often give them very careful, very clear attention. These are the ones who know a bit about what's on their shelves, encourage a lot of actual play in their stores, and keep an eye on long-term success of a line. They are also the ones who've been in business for quite a while without outside subsidy.

1. Many retailers of this description would very much like to have some RPG material to sell which is not D20. They are currently experiencing a "floundering in the surf" phase in their ordering strategies which is pretty frustrating. They'd really like a game which they simply can say, "Its name is X, it's about X, and it plays like X. It isn't 'like' anything else particularly and it's not 'part of' any bigger thing in particular."

They didn't say this four years ago. They are saying it now. Common dialogue at GTS: "Is it a D20 game?" "Nope." "Oh thank God." Interestingly, and to illustrate that we are dealing with non-dummies here, they do think that highly appropriate (e.g. D&D fantasy compatible material) might do well to have a D20 section in the back

2. A good company, to them, is one which puts out books when they say they will, and one who keeps close contact with distribution so that the distributor doesn't run out of copies and simply forget about it (a common thing, with smaller-press games). It's also one which remembers their names, shoots'em an email once in a while, participates at the Game Industry Forum perhaps, and puts store info up at the website. (These guys do not mind direct-sales from websites at all, especially if they're sold at MSRP and especially if the website promotes the stores as well.)

What I'm saying is that having a non-D20 game does not constitute business suicide, if you know the business and act strategically.

3. "Success," if you're involved in the actual-book trade, is largely a matter of being in the "automatic re-order" category in the retailer's mind. Run out of Sorcerer? Oh, order it next order-period. Even better, running low on Sorcerer? Order it so we don't run out. Once you have that relationship with a certain number of stores, such that the cash flows in at a certain rate (whatever it takes to fund your expenses), then you are successful.

I agree with Ryan Dancey in nearly every descriptive particular, excepting those when he over-speaks himself about specific companies' current finances (which I can understand and overlook once in a while). Where we differ concerns only what "success" means, and hence, the necessary "what to do" when running your game company.

For example, he is very concerned with market share - the proportion of "gamers out there" which buy product X vs. product Y. This variable is so completely off my radar screen as to be almost Martian instead of English. He speaks of people "complaining" because D20 (or what-have-you) represents a large market share; I think of such complaints, if they exist, as also Martian.

4. I do think one crucial variable is being smoke-screened by every minutes of the bandwidth out there on this topic: that "present in large quantity on the shelves" does not represent "overwhelming gamer demand." And furthermore, when a large quantity is present on the game store shelves, observably high sales of that game are quite likely due to a certain degree of supply-side "push" rather than to demand-side "grab."

You guys do know, 'cause we've talked about it here at lot, that a "sale" really needs to be qualified as a "distributor sale," a "retailer sale," or a "customer sale." Not the same animals at all.

What this means is that waving high numbers in one another's face, or using empty qualifiers like "reasonable success" (a gov-speak phrase if I ever saw one, easily translated to "my kind of success"), is doubly meaningless.

Best,
Ron

Darned good points on all fronts, Ron. Most particularly about the difference between kinds of sales, he said, looking at the figures for a beloved project which came in significantly lower than it would have overall because a distributor collapse stranded more than a thousand copies. What really counts for gaming as a thing people do rather than as someone's business (which is only of interest to business people, by and large) is the sales to customers and their enjoyment of what they've got.

Bruce Baugh wrote: What really counts for gaming as a thing people do rather than as someone's business (which is only of interest to business people, by and large) is the sales to customers and their enjoyment of what they've got.

Um....No. That's not what the quote means, and your interpretation is more than a little bit over-stated.

3-4 per year. Most would come from established companies (such as when White Wolf would roll out a new World of Darkness core book).
...
I would say that averaging out to every two years or so, you'd see a breakout release from a new publisher that hit that level--Deadlands is a good example.

Yes, system does matter---which is why D20 remains the most popular game engine in use. It may not be a popular fact among indie designers, but the reason why D20 is so popular is because it suits the needs of the majority of gamers in the market. It gives them precisely what they want.

Niche marketing is just as valid, and a reasonable business decision, as long as you realize that you're never going to "break out" and reach the larger numbers.

The reason that consumers think that D20 can do anything is because, simply, in the hands of any reasonably talented game designer, IT CAN. (Then again, so could any other rules-set, given a talented-enough designer). The "tweaks" you deride are actual game design, and no different or less valid than designing the latest over-academized, jargon-heavy "GNS/pervy/vanilla/abashed game with drift and a such-and-such stance".

...and he sure as hell can't ever be RIGHT, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

I suppose this is totally naive, but it seems to me that Ryan is very useful for indie designers if, as Ron describes, the latter have and encourage relationships to various retailers/distributors/etc. Surely people who like to sell RPGs like RPGs? I mean, in the main? And I'd think that those people, believers though they often are in the nuked applecart, would really like to have their customers return to buy more stuff. Surely the best way to promote this is to encourage customers to buy things they will genuinely like?

So, for example, you have a customer who comes in, flips through the latest D20 material, and looks kind of bored and annoyed. The shopkeeper says, "Are you looking for something?" "Yeah, I played a couple of these D20 things, but they really weren't all that great. Are any of these other ones better?" "Well, perhaps, and I'd have to know what supplements you played, but maybe D20 isn't your thing. There are other options." "Really?" "Oh, yes. What kind of game did you want? I mean, like the world, or the stuff you like in movies, or whatever." "Oh, I dunno, I kinda like modern magic horror stuff." "Are you into combat a lot, or more like exploring the agony of it all?" "Oh, I'm sick of guns and ammo, actually." "Really. Have you tried Sorcerer?" "Never heard of it." "Uh huh. Here. It's not real expensive, but it's pretty fantastic. Give it a try. Come back and tell me how it went, okay?" "Great! Thanks!" Now this is a customer who's going to go back to the shop, I'm betting, to ask for more suggestions and advice ... and to buy more stuff.

I know this is an ideal case, but I'd have thought this was the whole advantage of a knowledgeable retailer: you get them into the shop using somebody else's expensive flashy products, but you get them out carrying a copy of something quite different.

If Ryan wants to carry on and make a fuss about success and money, then he's going to attract attention to the hobby. How is this a bad thing? He can't squeeze others out, even if he wants to, after all.

greyorm wrote:
Gamers don't "want" d20...the fact that the majority have experienced nothing else and are even unaware of the variety of other game systems available to them is the main reason I find this "fact" you present to be suspect.

You can't "want" something when you don't even know what the alternatives are. Gamers are "fed" d20 after a fashion -- it is often an entry-point into the hobby -- but it doesn't "suit" the majority: don't confuse ignorance with choice.

If you believe they aren't ignorant of alternatives, then you're right, we don't have anything to discuss here.

clehrich wrote: If Ryan wants to carry on and make a fuss about success and money, then he's going to attract attention to the hobby. How is this a bad thing? He can't squeeze others out, even if he wants to, after all.

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

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

We certainly agree.

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

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

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

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

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

GMS

I dunno. This all seems fairly pointless to me.

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

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Fact is, we have no hard data to back up most of this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's all.

GMS

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

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

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

That's all.

Hello,

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

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

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

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

Chris, you wrote,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hello,

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

Best,
Ron

GMS wrote

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

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... ;-)

Sylus Thane wrote:
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.

Clinton R. Nixon 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.

Sylus Thane wrote: .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.

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.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: No matter what you or I might consider it, it's created for that marketplace.

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?

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.

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.

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

Sylus Thane wrote:

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.

Dav wrote:
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

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.

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."

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.

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.

Clinton R. Nixon 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.

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.

Clinton,

You think advertising works because people actually want everything advertised? I mean, people buy beer that's advertised along the lines, "Buy this beer and hot women will have sex with you." Is this because they like the taste?

Look, it's not as simple as, "People are stupid." People are malleable, that's all, and there's an enormous industry out there intended to figure out what pushes their buttons, what provokes them into spending money. The American economy, a "consumer economy," largely rests on people purchasing things they don't need. Is this rational choice?

This isn't a matter of insulting people. People's purchasing is affected by advertising, and sex sells. So do people actually consciously believe that they are purchasing better sex when they buy a case of Coors? No. Are they attracted to purchasing Coors because of the sex in the ads? Apparently, yes.

If this seems stupid to you, then you think people are stupid. If it seems a bit glassy-eyed and uncritical, then you think people are not terribly reflective or self-critical, as I do. If you really believe people pay no attention to the sex in advertising, and that all that sex is there just to amuse the people making the ads, I'm afraid you're deluded.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: 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.

clehrich wrote: You think advertising works because people actually want everything advertised? I mean, people buy beer that's advertised along the lines, "Buy this beer and hot women will have sex with you." Is this because they like the taste?

'Scuse me ... I do see the relevance of marketing, advertising, and commercial concepts to the discussion, but I'd like to focus the thread back onto RPGs specifically.

Thanks,
Ron

clehrich wrote: Don't assume that just because it's successful it's actually a good thing.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: 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.

Ron Edwards wrote: 'Scuse me ... I do see the relevance of marketing, advertising, and commercial concepts to the discussion, but I'd like to focus the thread back onto RPGs specifically.

I think he just doesn't want the topic to wander too much. Several posts on the marketing of beer, you see. You can discuss the marketing of beer as long as you can bring it back to RPGs and it makes a relavant point about RPGs or the marketing thereof.

Jack's correct, Gareth. This isn't a forum for musing about various takes on advertising and culture in a general sense.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Jack's correct, Gareth. This isn't a forum for musing about various takes on advertising and culture in a general sense.

efindel's post nearly bull's-eyed it.

The d20 push reinvigorated the almost virulent brand identity enjoyed by AD&D in the eighties; this is the 'illusion' Ron mentions in "The Nuked Applecart" article, which I urge that you all re-read.

Wizards had two things to work with. Money (for marketing) and a waning -but yet existing brand (for identity).

Those two things are at the core of any sales endeavor.

Why any of *you* care is beyond me. You all publish good games with solid mechanics. And none of us has a blank check for marketing, so all we're left with is establishing an identity. But happily that's really the best thing to have in this hobby.

So if there is one influence on the 'industry' that the d20 push should have had, -it's to wake the rest of us up.