I’ve been thinking that a lot of the issue is in how the games are marketed. Labors of love often face a difficulty because general marketing philosophy holds that people are far more prone to ‘avoid pain’ rather than ‘seek pleasure’. A labor of love is generally marketed as a ‘wow check this out!’ rather than ‘here is the perfect solution to this burning need that you have’. The concept being to lure people TO the game as opposed to creating a game they are already out trying to find. It is far, far easier to sell something the customer not only REALLY wants, but is already out there looking for. Businesses, especially of the large budget corporate variety, are going to have their marketing people researching the hell out of the question “What do consumers in our industry want?” before they’ll spend a dime developing anything. They want the numbers, at least, to ‘prove’ success is inevitable.

Now, having rambled on with that it needs to be noted that I’m far from an expert – on anything. I know what I have read and tried for my own first hand experience, in terms of marketing, but I’m no expert on game marketing of any kind. I still, however, firmly believe that RPGs have got to be one of the most inadequately marketed entertainment products in the world today. Especially considering what an unparalleled capacity they have to entertain not just individuals, but groups of people!

I think the primary reason why RPGs do not sell to the volume that they so richly deserve to is a matter of the consumer having no idea that they exist, then upon seeing them in a store or online, having no real concept of how the books are used or what a gaming session might be like. I apologize if I am hammering points that have already been covered in other discussions, this is simply me explaining what bothers me personally about the RPG market.

The indie RPG market, as I see it, could conceivably expand past what the big companies are willing to try. There are so many ways that people are selling utter garbage “entertainment” products that I can’t fathom why RPGs should not be able to move mass quantities of books. I believe it is the approach that is coming up short when it comes to results (sales). I also know that since indie RPGs are sold by their creator, it can be incredibly tough to bust your ass to sell your game after you spent years designing it because there’s a naturally present inclination to feel that the game obviously deserves to sell and that the world is screwed up and unfair for not buying it. To me, that is the emotional reality even if the creator does not believe this at an intellectual level. This is why filmmakers have production companies, musicians have record labels, etc. Granted, there are artists of all stripes who create and deliver their own package, as well.

I’ve got all sorts of ideas on how to improve sales and expand the customer base for RPGs, but I won’t bore you guys with that. Mainly, I wanted to share my thoughts and thank each one of you who commented for really opening the topic up wider and sharing your own experience.

I sincerely appreciate it!

Whether we can skip the debate about D&D 4E as an RPG or not, we do see there a game focused on actual play over readability, insofar as the books are meant to be played with and are not, by and large, faux fiction. That game needs to do things to be a game *line*, though, and not just a *game*. Should we be taking that into account?

If what you’re interested in is getting people to actually play your games — which I crassly fear is shorthand for getting people to actually *be affected by* your games — then why are we talking about sales numbers? One does not lead to the other. I take lots of games home, and then do not get to play them.

This is just a fact of life for games that exist as books, though. RPGs can be appreciated without play, or, perhaps worse, we sometimes think they can. They are multi-stage entertainments, unlike books or movies or even video games, which are appreciated as they are consumed. But somewhat like the author can’t *make* someone like her book and the filmmaker can’t *make* someone write their Congressperson after watching her movie, the RPG designer is separate from other game designers in that she cannot *make* her reader become a player. They can inspire only to a point, but the logistics at the player’s end may be insurmountable, at least by the designer.

This is an unfortunate truth of the RPG designer’s weird position, I think. Sales and play are just different, if related, creatures.

I’m sure I’ve been no help at all.

First, on MBAs. Yeah, grabbing market share and lowering costs sound like MBAs in action to me.

Creating new markets not so good, I suppose. I mean, I just don’t know overall.

As for your question, here’s how I’m parsing it:

I think what you’re saying is: Even if someone could do what I’m proposing (that is, incrase sales considerably and market much more effectively), then the returns in terms of actual play would be diminishing. That, instead, the person would get fans of a product line (basically) and not especially more people actually playing the game.

Possibly so. I understand the argument. I may even agree with the argument.

However, I think there are two concerns:

First, the argument is based on our understanding of the RPG hobby generally. That is, we know that, say, the infamous 1990s games produced lots of books with pretty terrible game play results (both in quality and quantity). I don’t think there’s a lot of good precedence for marketing based on game quality, rather than on games-as-fandom. There’s some, but there’s a lot more of marketing that sells T-shirts and game books with the same spine, rather than game play.

But, we don’t really know very well what would happen if higher quality games focused on actual play reached larger audiences. Might they flop on that basis? Sure. I don’t think this is a sure thing at all.

Second, I’m terrified of the (possibly correct?) argument that goes: Look, don’t put in all these resources into expanding the games’ customers. Because if you do, you’ll put in a LOT of work and get only a LITTLE actual play.

I’m terrified because it’s an argument that says “This is as good as it gets.” That selling a few hundred copies to the hard core indie scene is about the right return on a publisher’s time and resources.

And, hell, it might be correct! That’s a terrible thing. I’d much rather believe more healthy growth is possible.

I’ve lost my point, but I guess I’m saying that if this marketing cooperative gets started, count me in.

I’ll cop to unfair knowledge of what you’ve been studying lately.

The executive structure of the publishing company I work for has been infested with MBAs for over a decade. In a relatively healthy market, they’re really good at growing sales volume by taking market share from the competition, and they’re really good at squeaking out higher profitibility by controlling costs and achieving efficiencies.

But what they’re not at all good at is creating new markets. They don’t have the instincts for it. And they’re not good at taking risks. They’re not good at creating new users.

Let me ask you this. If you could go back in time and double or triple the sales of your games, and provoke 5x the online conversations about them, for double or triple the amount of time and money you put into promoting them, with the result of maybe 1.5x the amount of play, would you do it? Because I think that’s about what you’ll achieve from this thinking: an increase in profit and play not at all on the same scale as the increase in your time, effort and money spent. Or rather, what directly correllates to time, effort, and money spent is fandom and unit sales, not profit and play.

Paul

I think it’s true though. The RPG market is small enough that passion and artistic merit still carry you farther away than say, in the fiction market, where in the end a lot of it is luck (whether you float or sink in the first month of your books hitting the chain-stores).

Also, some Indie people do make that choice, and then they let others publish their games. But these games have been designed as indie, and were published by others only when the authors realized that their goal is to get their games out.
The Secret of Zir’An published by White-Wolf was such a game, though they got dropped and then tried to make it on their own. I still think they could’ve made it if not for the printing error they went through.

Another is people who printed through Mongoose’s Flaming Cobra imprint. Look at CthulhuTech. A couple of people made it, then published through Mongoose IIRC, and then went and printed with someone else, perhaps on their own, and they already have like 5 supplements out. And it’s all a couple of people.

Even if they didn’t end up publishing indie, everything up to that final moment was a couple of people doing their own.
So in a way, they are indie designers, who design to that crowd, and then realized that if their goal is to get played by many people, it’s best to tap the companies that already market to their crowd.

Writing games about lasers and talking gorrillas is all fine and dandy, but to pick up Tim’s “Mind-share”, it pays off to work with the companies occupying the laser-wielding gorrilla mindshare.

“Indie Ghetto”. More indie publishers need to return to posting on RPG.net, for one, if they want to break it. “RPG.net” darling means a lot.

You can fight with me any day. But this isn’t a fight. Like you, I’m thinking out loud and trying to come to some better conclusions by bouncing ideas around with you.

—

Even if there are 5000 customers out there that are very open to new types of games, it’s still a relatively small market segment. And aren’t those the very people that will seek out the indie games in the first place? Do we need better communication with this segment? Yes. Do the indie publishers need to stop marketing to themselves and start thinking about the 5000 people who are just a Dust Devils game away from becoming indie fans? Of course.

What I’m also saying is that the ranks of roleplayers are shrinking, especially (in my opinion) because there has been such a concentration on lasers and swords and the other standard stuff. Even in the indie world, there are plenty of standard roleplaying tropes. I ask, should we keep selling people new games with the same material, or new games with new material? And I don’t think it’s about proving that we can make a game about a particular subject, or being weird for weird’s sake. If the designer is honest and passionate about his project, then he’s making a game about whatever because he thinks it’s the most interesting subject matter around. If he’s just trying to be weird, well then, let’s just say I won’t be surprised when he can’t find a sales foothold.

All that said, if you look at my games, I try to use a certain comfort level as a springboard to new ideas. Hero’s Banner is firmly planted in fantasy, and Mars Colony in sci-fi. I didn’t choose standard genres as a marketing ploy, but I do use the familiar aspects of those genres to market the game. I still want to push people out of their comfort zone because I believe, as a designer, that it leads to better roleplaying experiences — and better games. In my heart of hearts, I want to argue that we can all make great games and then figure out how to market them effectively later. I know that’s somewhat naive though. On the other hand, part of the joy (and frustration) of being an indie publisher is that I can make an “unmarketable” game and still try to find an audience for it anyway. If I fall on my face (sales-wise), then I hope that I could still smile and start work on the next project.

As a movement, though, we haven’t figured out the best way to bring new people into the hobby. That to me is still the marketing frontier that holds the most promise for sales and for the health of the hobby.

Also, Grey Ranks is that to people who have a cursory knowledge of it. Perception is the reality of sales. It’s an award winning game. It sold 300 or so copies so far. (shrug)

Isn’t that what Chad U. is doing? Mostly it’s folks who are on the far periphery of “Forge” culture. It’s also people who love that stuff. If you don’t, then don’t patronize your audience, is my heartfelt advice.

>Well, anyone foolish enough to think anymore that you can’t make a game about, oh, Polish Jews getting slaughtered in the Warsaw uprising of 1944

Ahem, Grey Ranks isn’t about that.