Why are the sales of tabletop rpgs so bad?
Because it's an incredibly niche hobby.
>>45777315
This. And generally they're only advertised to people who already know what they're looking for. You're not going to see an ad for D&D on television or in a magazine that isn't already devoted to typical "nerd" hobbies.
>>45777315
This, and that for the most part, once you buy the books and guides, you dont really need anything else until the next edition come out.
>>45777351
And not everyone needs a book. In a group of 5 player a book is enough.
A single Magic player spends more money than 10 rpg player.
>>45777306
Because the majority of the "product" gets created spontaneously by the players as they play it; you don't need to shell out cash to get an enjoyable game. Rule sets are free and mostly can't be copyrighted. Paizo for example gets a large part of its sales by effectively caging the imaginations of their players and guiding them along "Adventure Paths". It's neutered roleplaying and worldbuilding.
Roleplaying is, and probably always will be, a niche hobby. It requires a lot of investment to get into and doesn't provide the same degree of instant gratification a lot of other entertainment does.
I don't think this makes it better or worse than other forms of media and entertainment, it simply makes it different. Personally, I love it. It's great fun getting emotionally invested in a character, a story and a world, and even if it takes a lot of time, thought and personal investment, the payout is worth it. I find roleplaying deeply satisfying and far and away my favourite pastime, but for a lot of other people, they prefer the instant gratification and lesser investment that is required for movies, videogames, books or music, and that's fine. I don't think roleplaying is dying, either- It's bigger than ever. But that's just becuse, in a larger market, our particular niche is finding more and more people it appeals to. I don't think it's ever going to be mainstream, and I don't think there's a problem with that.
>>45777306
Cause of roll20 and pirate bay. Also, people tend to produce a lot of their own content, especially as they get more experienced.
>>45777306
>Niche Hobby
>Not every member of a group needs a book to play
>Online filesharing
Also
>implying that the sales a bad
You only need to sell enough to keep your company and, with that, yourself at a good living standard. Not everything needs to sell a gorillion copies and make you Minecraftrich.
I'm pretty happy with writing shit and selling enough to have a decent living standard. Beats having to wageslave or living on neetbux any day of the week.
Because we pirate the shit out of everything. Hard copy is alright, but not necessary. And even when purchased, not necessary for everyone to play.
>>45777306
....bad by what standard?
They're doing pretty well.
On top of this being an incredible niche hobby that limits its audience by requiring things like a significant amount of time and actual social interaction, the publishing industry in general is getting its ass kicked by the distribution of pdfs on the internet.
RPG sales aren't bad. There are plenty of businesses and individuals making a living out of tabletop RPGs.
There's no corporate big bux in it though because you can't sell endless crap to players.
Also it's very hard to play these games and it takes a huge amount of effort compared to some other activities.
>>those:
>>45778519
>>45777426
>>Also:
Compared to books of the same "popularity", it happens so because a RPG book is not something you will read and skip to the next one , usually people will spend some time learning and playing with the book they just got before they move on to the next one (this can take from days to years), thus reducing the numbers of books they will buy.
>>45777306
Because the companies are staffed and run by incompetent people, haven't adapted to the current market, have been cucked by boardgaming, and by and large have massive entry barriers for shoddy products.
All these things like piracy and the hobby being niche are excuses for accepting mediocrity as the standard.
>>45779686
How do you even arrive at this conclusion? Are you just bitter and think you could do it better?
>>45777306
It's a nerdy game for nerds so it's unpopular, one book lasts you months and you can reuse it infinitely if you don't like variety of systems. Small number of customers, one-time purchase, not huge demand even then.
>>45779686
>for accepting mediocrity as the standard.
The actual quality of many RPG products is phenomenal.
Tabletop RPGs as we know are nearly unmarketable to mass audiences. "Adapting to the current market" (read: trying to sell more products for more profit) would mean to create something completely different: easier, faster, shorter. I.e. something that's not a TTRPG.
>>45779893
Despite the idiocy of the guy you're talking to, he might have had something resembling a point.
Wizards almost achieved this with 4e, before they had a combination of reality shitting on them and shooting themselves in the foot. The offline character builder is a great idea, making the process of chargen quick and easy, giving you all your options right there, and the fully featured adventure tools would have made a complete package that would make running and playing a TTRPG easier than ever, which I think would have made the product attractive to some people by lowering the barrier for entry.
Unfortunately, the guy making the programs was caught up in a murder suicide, the character builder is a nice thing to have but it's crippled by WotC's attempts to control it, and then they switched to the stupid online tools locked behind a paywall.
I think if someone put real time into making a user friendly set of digital tools for running and playing a game, and were pretty open about their distribution, it could have a really positive effect, getting people interested and excited for the game, boosting sales rather than undermining them. Sure, you might get all the meat for free, but the books could contain guidelines, fluff ideas, background for items and other things that you could tease at from the builder short descriptions, effectively making the distribution of those tools free advertising for your product.
>>45777306
People still play these things?
Because you only need one copy of each book (And usually only 1-3 books in the entire product line, strictly speaking) for an entire group of four or more people. Even if the group has multiple copies, there are still always going to be people who do not buy a copy of any book.
Wizards of the Coast have been trying a slightly different model, by outsourcing a lot of adventure modules, they're trying to have a constant stream of income with relatively low overhead.
Their ideal situation is that every group buys the core books at least once, then buys an adventure book at fairly regular intervals.
Having ~150 pirated pdfs on my laptop is way more convenient than buying and carting around a bunch of books. It's also free.
>>45781839
Do you buy books of games you support? Not accusing or anything, just curious. I try to buy at least the core book of any game I actually use, depending on availability and whether or not the PDF is unreasonably priced.
>>45779991
>Unfortunately, the guy making the programs...
WotC had only one software developer?
They couldn't find another?
Or did they look at the market wages and go "fuck that, I'm not paying some nerd 100k to sit at a keyboard"
>>45782013
I'm a poorfag. I don't buy anything I can get for free. I'm not deluded enough to claim some kind of mortal superiority for this. I just don't want to pay. If the books weren't available online, I'd just not play.
Other people have already pointed out the reason (because it's a niche hobby) but let's consider the reasons that it IS a niche hobby.
There's a lot of barriers to entry that I don't think many people consider. In order to get a typical TTRPG off the ground you need to:
1)
>enjoy reading what amounts to a textbook about imaginary shit
2)
> want to fill out paperwork about someone that doesn't exist
3)
>find the idea of sitting around in a basement for 4 hours doing math exciting
and perhaps most insidious of all
4)
> have all that be true for yourself and 3 other people MINIMUM.
When you look at it like that, I don't think it's surprising that TTRPGs are dying. In America, 90% our population is functionally illiterate, so asking them to read anything is an instant deal breaker. At each stage the number is further reduced by 90% so that by the time you hit stage 4 the number of people that enjoy all of the above AND have friends is going to be a tiny, tiny, tiny share of the market.
And all of that is just the work you need to put in if you want to be a player. God help you trying to find someone that would look at all the work necessary to run a fun adventure and go "yeah, sounds reasonable".
1/2
>>45782296
2/2
RPG publishers need to stop marketing to adults. OD&D was published for kids. It said "for ages 13+" on the cover for godsake. Go look at how thin the original D&D rule book was. A bunch of moronic 13 year olds could easily pick up and play that. Now you need to set aside time to read through all the unnecessary rules and conditions and exceptions and BULLSHIT just to be able to play. I say all of this as a complete hypocrite: my favorite system is GURPS.
If you want to expand the marketplace, then kids need to be brought into it. They're the ones that have the time to spend on a weekend playing grabass in the mines of Phalendvar or whatever. Marketing to adults is a dumb strategy.
It would be super easy to make something kids would want to play. I think we're on the very tail end of this fad, but a couple years ago a minecraft TTRPG would have been a license to print money. A publisher just needs to snap up the rights to whatever franchise bloats up next and BAM. Whole new generation of dorks is brought into the world of TTgaming.
>>45782317
>>45782296
TTRPG's aren't dying. They're more popular than they've ever been. What they aren't is massively profitable, which results in a lot of big companies acting as if they're worthless. It's a common flaw in modern business thinking, ignoring a regular return over chasing the big hits.
>>45782207
>mortal superiority
Of course skeletons would be ones to pirate products, their faces are on the Jolly Roger for fuck's sake.
>>45782343
>They're more popular than they've ever been
By what metric? Sales? I highly doubt that.
>>45782687
The largest audience, the most games available and probably the most sales, yes.
We're living in a golden age of traditional gaming. Sure, it's easy to miss it since it's overall less profitable than other forms of entertainment, but RPGs are growing strong. Most of it is likely ease of communication, more people finding out about RPGs and getting involved, independent creators crowdfunding projects and things like that. Financially, it's a drop in the bucket, but compared to every era of RPGs before it, things have never been better.
>>45782687
>"Hasbro is a publicly traded company, so we can’t give exact details from Wizards’ business. But I will tell you that we don’t even have a full year of sales on this yet, and we believe very, very strongly that [fifth edition] will finish out on the current trajectory to be the best launch we’ve ever had, both in terms of dollars and in terms of units."
>Every hobby store I talked to at the last couple distributor conferences could not be more excited with their sales.
>"It was pretty amazing to see the Player’s Handbook climb to the #1 bestseller spot on Amazon."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2015/04/15/new-dungeons-dragons-fifth-edition/#2076af22e508
>>45782843
Nobody is going to just up and say that they're fucking shit up, especially when they can hide behind "we can't actually give you any proof"
>>45783065
Sorry have multiple threads open, and replied to wrong one.
>>45782343
>ignoring a regular return over chasing the big hits
>flaw
From the standpoint of the business runner, it isn't a flaw.
>>45783312
I fail to see how. Chasing the big hits rarely yields anything close to what is seen by the market leaders. More than one company has folded for banking on the next big thing and falling flat, while ignoring reliable and stable sources of income which can provided a stable foundation for that kind of reach.
>>45783468
Two words: payback period.
In the time one reliable business takes to pay itself back, you can establish ten of them, and assuming you aren't too dumb, you will have a positive profit margin.
Also,
>Chasing the big hits rarely yields anything close to what is seen by the market leaders.
The goal isn't to earn more than them, the goal is to earn more than you spent on it.
>>45783081
They can be held accountable for making shit up once the legally required reports for a publicly traded company are out, though.
Also, 5e was at the top of the bestseller lists for weeks, Pathfinder continues to rake in the good bux, FATE had a huge kickstarter, dozens of RPG kickstarters get funded every month, god knows how many streams, videos and podcasts on this shit are out there and we have a more diverse RPG market then ever.
But yeah, TTRPG is dying.
>>45779753
No one who isn't utterly useless says "cucked." I don't know why you're surprised
>>45783637
I never said TTRPG was dying (inb4 you can't possibly believe that more than one person could ever respond to your posts), just that you can't trust the public face of a company or product to just up and say they're in dire fucking straits. Back in the 90s "best-seller" lists decided to not track game books because all the D&D shit would have shown up on them whenever they printed something new, and TSR still tanked, nearly took D&D with it, and almost nobody said anything publicly about the company being at death's door until it actually happened.
Everybody knows at this point that D&D's value to Hasbro is in name recognition and licensing, not the game itself.
>>45784522
When a company is in the shitter, they either keep quiet or hide behind bullshit. You don't proudly proclaim that you're doing the best you ever have because once you're caught lying it will only make things worse. You're definitely right that a company can do fine in sales and still go under due to mismanagement, but assuming we're still talking about the overall health of RPGs and not Wizards as a company, sales figures imply demand, and since books are generally a one-time purchase, they aren't a bad indicator of the number of people playing. Unless WotC are straight up lying about how 5e is selling compared to other editions this likely means the hobby is growing.
>Everybody knows at this point that D&D's value to Hasbro is in name recognition and licensing, not the game itself.
Sure, but All that means is that they have no vested interest in the quality of the game so long as it still sells. The reason those things have value is that they drive sales of the game.
There's way too much friction to getting into games.
It baffles me that, in [current year], WOTC doesn't have online character-creation and dungeon-creation tools available at a cheap price. I'd fucking LOVE to pay like $50 for that, but nope. I don't even get the option.
>>45777306
Let me guess, you wrote shit phase?
>>45786481
Part of the unfortunate end of 4e, as detailed above. Fear of piracy killed the offline tools, and an actual murder suicide killed a guy who was doing the work for them, at a point where they were already getting ready to jump ship, so they never finished it.
Have Kickstarter, PDFs, print-on-demand, etc. killed the RPG publishing industry?
>>45777407
That, and with the internet now people can just download a pirated .pdf of the current rulebooks and just pass their tablet around the table or print it if they need to.
>>45786631
Explain your answer.
Three FLGSes have gone out of business since I started doing those three. I guess they didn't sell enough Magic cards and hardback D&D books.
>>45777306
1. One or two people can buy books that are then shared by the entire group.
2. Competition with vidya.
3. Piracy.
4. Availability.
5. But, yeah, piracy really.
>>45782843
>http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2015/04/15/new-dungeons-dragons-fifth-edition/#2076af22e508
cant get on forbes with an adblocker enabled
How do we increase the monetization of tabletop RPGs? Can we start making rulebooks more like booster packs, where you don't get access to spells and monsters without the right cards, which are randomly inserted into Monster Books or Spell Books?
>>45788027
I think the best way is:
>Buy roll20
>Make it work better on lower-end hardware
>Incorporate basic rules checks but let you get out of them easily
>Charge a subscription to use it (very cheap and for an entire group), plus an additional subscription to get custom-drawn and planned dungeons and stuff once a month
>>45787483
Yeah screw them. Too many ads are annoyingly loud or insert malicious adware and malware.
>>45777306
>>45778992
This.
The Rpg market will never again go back to the glory days, but the hobby is going through a popular resurgence. what exactly do you mean?
>>45788046
Yeah, no.
>>45784522
TSR bought an old hotel and spent a large portion of its capital turning it into office spaces.... And never finished before collapsing.
TSR was run like utter shit because it expanded way past what it would afford. Modern gaming companies are normally a few people exchanging emails from wherever and not a typical business.
>>45787032
FLGS =/= TTRPG Publishing Industry
>>45788027
Hey guys, why don't we make 3.5 for a third time?
>>45777306
First, it is a niche hobby. There are next to no female players and the males tend to be social outcasts for the most part so it isn't likely to increase in popularity.
Second, players share their resources more often than not so one person buying a lot of RPG books will supply a large group thereby cutting into designer and publisher funds.
Third, and this is most prevalent and can be witnessed here on /tg/, PDF piracy is god damned rampant for source books. This was not the case even fifteen years ago. Now though? People rarely buy books and just download them for free.
The way to fix the third problem is to make a bunch of physical components to enhance your game that isn't easy to copy in PDF form. Like Warhammer Roleplay 3e. The downside is that hinders online RPG sessions which are more and more standard these days.
Gamers will kill their own hobby in time.
>Make a solid RPG system
>Release adventures for the system instead of just splatbooks.
>Have the adventures include a DM screen specific to the adventure, have player handouts and player and GM maps, and other goodies that are well made but cheap to produce and sell them for $10 a pop.
Generate funds.
>>45788606
>The way to fix the third problem is to make a bunch of physical components to enhance your game that isn't easy to copy in PDF form. Like Warhammer Roleplay 3e.
What did that do?
>>45789194
It tanked because of the stupid expensive preherphials.
Why the fuck to people keep thinking that alienating your customer base is how you fight piracy?
You know you fight piracy? Make a product people will be willing to pay for, not punishing people who would have been willing to pay.
>>45789394
And because it's a niche luxury item that is easily pirated, few are willing to pay for it.
>>45789983
Yeah, and?
That doesn't change the fact that putting tons of money into combating piracy does fuck all, except annoy people.
Want to sell your product? Make it a great value. Sell it cheap and with bonuses. Give people a reason to think you're not trying to screw them.Or, you know, be a faggot and only sell physical copies.
>>45790027
Well, the industry can either try to combat piracy, or give up being an industry. You whine about RPG creators who only release physical products, but that's a defense against piracy, and a limited one at that. Everybody here pirates, and we are choking the industry of our hobby by doing so. That's the simple truth.
>>45789394
>Stupid expensive peripherals
Except the core game including absolutely everything needed for three players and a GM and loads of fiddly bits and stands was easy to acquire for about $50-$60 bucks shortly after launch.
The modules including adventures were also easily obtained for around $20-$30 and that is hardly pricey all things considered.
Now that the bulk of the stuff is out of print, it has gone up in price, but since a re-print of the core box set was done recently you can probably find that on the cheap soon enough.
The cost of the game was hardly terrible and it is one of the complaints that when stated lets me know people don't know a god damned thing about the game.
It has plenty of flaws with it and those are fine to critique, but the price, especially considering the other bigger games out there like D&D, Shadowrun, and more having a higher barrier of entry for all the stuff needed to run a complete game is more than a little bit bullshit in comparison.
>>45790027
>Make your product a great value.
A set of physical core books offer basically unlimited play value for a one time purchase. You don't get better value than that.
>>45790514
>Well, the industry can either try to combat piracy, or give up being an industry
Contrary to what you've been lead to believe by copyright trolls thus far the best proven method to defeating piracy has been not to combat it directly.
>>45790514
>You whine about RPG creators who only release physical products, but that's a defense against piracy
It wasn't for WotC.
The only reason they refuse to release PDFs is because they just stopped caring about digital.
>All these people blaming torrenting
I'm huge into PnP RPGs, and I can tell you that if I couldn't torrent the books, I simply would not have played in my life so far. Too cheap and too poor to rationalize the purchase, even if it was only a one time thing.
>>45788046
I can think of like 3 companies/sites that already use that business model.
>>45782013
Sometimes. Honestly though its shot me in the foot several times. Most notable incident for me was I ran a one of game of Deathwatch. Players loved it, I loved it, everyone wants to play more of it. I scalp the core book, first founding and honor the chapter from a used book store, and we end up never playing again.
>>45784411
Case in point.
>>45788606
You know this wasn't the case twenty years ago, right? Or even really now, if you count LARP. Lots of women played old World of Darkness games (mainly Vampire, or Changeling if she was molested as a child) and still do (if you count LARP again)
The industry is fractured and contracted, since the biggest names are skeleton crews. 5e is made by 6 people and Onyx Path is one guy and a horde of freelancers. You can't make big fancy marketing campaigns or bold release strategies because you don't have the capital for it. And there's probably the sting of those great leaps forward last decade, which gutted D&D and shuttered WW. Sales are down because the manufacturers are playing conservative and can't afford a massive (or really any) failure.
>>45788027
You can increase monetization by adding alternate artwork or just making boutique versions of books. For this to be effective, the books need to be worth something more than the rules gribblies. See: Pathfinder books. The art is lavish and sexy. You could also bang out some nice comics and/or prose pieces so people will want to, you know, read your book.
Making a good 2D/3D doll builder for characters and charging a nominal fee for it would probably do well too.
>>45782728
Indie and alternative games have always been a thing and there have always been a lot of options: the difference between now and then is you hear more about the indie stuff and more people crowdfund to sell you their fantasy heartbreaker.
