21 Replies to “As Predicted”

  1. I love the folks who say “Fuck the industry! The hobby shall live on forever!” or, even more narrowly, “Fuck the industry! I only play MY FAVORITE GAME.”

  2. My personal favorites:

    “People who have insider information by virtue of their experience in the business somehow threaten me.”

    and, of course, the ever-popular:

    “GMS is a big ol’ meanie-head.”

  3. Are we suprised?

    As we talked about at GTS, there is serious need in this industry to treat things like a “real” business not merely a really cool pipe dream.

  4. What amazes me is that the long tail clearly presents a model that jibes with everybody’s experiences. Talk about this? Zero.

  5. Well, at least you aren’t the Great Satan.

    I would add that 2005 was a pretty successful year for MMORPG’s, namely World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, Everquest and EQII. 2006 isn’t doing too bad with exapnsions and the new Dungeons and Dragons Online. I’m not saying this is replacing tabletop gaming, but it is filling a niche for some and eating a lot of free time for others.

    It’s not surprising that DDO is actively being marketed to people that play tabletop D&D (or used to). In fact, you can’t play the game solo, you need to get a group together to make headway.

  6. Which pretty much matched the “whuh….?” looks that I got when I talked about it in the seminar at GTS.

    …and you’re a complete bastard for bringing that user icon into my LJ. :)

  8. I agree with what you said Gareth. Im just not of the opinion its an entirely bad thing.

    The RPG industry has been supporting this dinosaur of a distribution model for far too long already.

    I think PDF, PDF and direct sales are the future.

    Chuck

  12. I thought that might be the reaction. :)
    Some of my feeling is that with the bonhomie and interrealtion, the friendship and cross-pollination that used to go on, somewhat, the ‘amateurishness’ where things weren’t quite so ruthless things were somewhat better.

    My main examples of commercialisation as bad thing would be GW virtually wiping out the gaming distribution structure in the UK in establishing the ‘Games Workshop Hobby’ and the aggressive method in which they went about it and WOTC’s buying up and killing of ‘rivals’ during their initial boom.

    A tertiary one would be the stormy relationship between White Wolf and their LARP society.

    I think the POD/PDF market benefits in no small amount from its ‘amatuerish’ and _largely_ convivial, hobbyist atmosphere. Which isn’t to say that everyone that does it is a complete amateur but that the atmosphere and ‘environment’ are more condusive to creativity and cooperation than a cutthroat business model.

    Hoepfully I’ve expressed that right, it is late, I’m sure you’ll tear a strip off me if I’ve been unclear. :)

  14. My view isn’t polar to yours, commercialisation can also bring good things (such as money, which means you can do more and better things). I just have a deep need to dissent and don’t feel that it is _entirely_ a good thing.

  15. rpgobjects chuc,

    Was the article saying it was a bad thing? I agree with both you and Gareth, in that I think this is what is happening but I’m not sure it’s a disaster. It’s a generational shift in how entertainment media are marketed and delivered and it hits niche industries first, but that doesn’t make gaming unique, just more vulnerable by virtue of size and so more prone to showing how things are changing ahead of some other related industries.

  18. From what I’ve seen it’s been of the “at least he used TWO sources” variety….and then continuing with the usual denial-based bashing.

  19. Unfortunately, a spat between myself and Belen, who’s always, *always* denying there’s anything wrong, stating that PDF publishers are an ‘aberration’ and similar wackiness got said thread closed. Sorry, Gareth – there were a few good comments in there. I was hoping to expand on the need for community-building, but…

  20. He (and BryonD, and Numion, and a few others) were exactly who I was referring to in my original post about choosing to keep it here, rather than posting on a forum.

    I mean, come on….we’re talking about a dipshit who has claimed in the past that products “don’t count as d20 support” if he can’t use them in his home campaign.

  21. Yeah, Belen’s opinions are…interesting, in the sense of ‘what color is the sky on your planet…?’ interesting. Still, I was hoping we could stagger along without any acrimony for a bit and actually discuss things. Mostly I regret helping close the thread before any of the nascent ideas could develop and making more work for the mods there.

    I don’t get it, in a sense – what’s *with* all the acrimony about a new way of doing things? Take a look at the past 5 years at how the standard distro model’s failed RPG companies: Wizard’s Attic and IIRC) Osseum ran off into the night, laughing, with publishers’ stock and money. That caused a lot of companies to fold, hurt others (like the oft-cited Green Ronin)…almost everyone with actual knowledge of how game publishing works agrees that the model *must* change to fit the climate, else the market perish (or nearly so).

    Even SJG’s revamped their model a bit, as have FFG and Mongoose – they’ve diversified and are helping their RPG market along with more standard, marketable and easily-distributed board and card games. AEG stuck with the collapsing CCG and RPG merket and are nearly broke, though they wisely shuffled off Spycraft support to Crafty Games. With all the evidence at hand, if not hard numbers, what’s with the vitriol when anyone proposes that *maybe* the old model isn’t working real well anymore? I mean, jesus, if it wasn’t for the PDF market (and thanks to you and Phil for your course, btw), I’d have at least 5 books that would have never seen the light of day.

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