Ridiculous Hypothetical Theatre

jrients · May 05, 2008, 10:40:19 AM

Tabletop RPGs have become absolutely unprofitable. Nobody can make any money off of them. Not Wizards, not Clash Bowley. Any game company that has shareholders expecting a profit ends up going bust. Freelancer types would be expected to lance for free. Publishers and game stores could do no better than breaking even. Losing your pants selling RPGs is still a distinct possibility.

Will you and your game be affected?

Nicephorus · May 05, 2008, 10:50:27 AM

I'll pick up some books cheap as stores/publishers go out of business. As everything becomes freeware, layout/art standards will drop slightly.

Dr Rotwang! · May 05, 2008, 11:02:06 AM

I'll do what Nic says, plus I'll write more crazy crap for EC and Wilderlands of High Dumbness and share it, for free, with the other gibbering motards who think that sort of thing is cool.

Dwight · May 05, 2008, 11:08:59 AM

Besides concern of running out of dice and having to obtain access to a CNC machine to make my own, no problems for me. Even if the internet shutdown and I had no access to new free stuff, I'd die before I ran out of acceptable games to play. Perhaps there would be opportunities missed by what would otherwise be created, and I and other players would get bored some years in the future without fresh blood coming in.

But it's a bigass world out there. Lots of things to do. RPGs are not my life.

Aos · May 05, 2008, 01:37:30 PM

it wouldn't really impact me at all. I tend to buy a game and play it into the ground. I've probably only got time to do this 6-8 more times before i die- and there's at least one rerun (V&V) in the pile already.

beejazz · May 05, 2008, 04:39:57 PM

Quote from: jrientsWill you and your game be affected?

Books: Harder to find, but cheaper where they are.
Groups: Fewer, but I'm a GM. Probably a bigger group for me if I end up the only GM in town. By the time I go over the eight player limit, all I can run is mass melee. But then there may be fewer and more hardcore players, so I may not run that risk.
Non-mainstream Games: If I'm the only guy that's supplying it, players will find their way to my table to play it.

Balbinus · May 06, 2008, 10:26:50 AM

Actually, no.

Haffrung · May 06, 2008, 10:40:31 AM

My game? No. I have enough books to run games for a long time, and I can make up what I don't own.

It would hurt the ancillary hobby of buying and reading game material. I like a real book in my hand, and I don't have much interest in free online content (my experience being that it tends to be worth what you pay for it).

James J Skach · May 06, 2008, 10:54:51 AM

Quote from: jrientsTabletop RPGs have become absolutely unprofitable. Nobody can make any money off of them. Not Wizards, not Clash Bowley. Any game company that has shareholders expecting a profit ends up going bust. Freelancer types would be expected to lance for free. Publishers and game stores could do no better than breaking even. Losing your pants selling RPGs is still a distinct possibility.

Will you and your game be affected?

Nope.

Quote from: DwightBesides concern of running out of dice and having to obtain access to a CNC machine to make my own, no problems for me.

IIRC, one of the BD&D Boxed sets came with numbered chits instead of dice.

flyingmice · May 06, 2008, 11:01:07 AM

I would still be writing games. I just wouldn't be releasing them. My ego doesn't need the stroking that badly. It wouldn't be worth the bother of illustrating, laying out, editing, re-writing for understandability, betatesting off-site, and busting butt to do my best just to get savaged by some guys on a web forum. If I just had to write it for me, it would be ridiculously simple. A few notes and some tables, and I'd be golden.

-clash

wulfgar · May 06, 2008, 11:29:10 AM

The collapse of commerical rpgs would not bring with a dice shortage. Polyhedral dice are easily cannibalized from many board games.

VBWyrde · May 06, 2008, 01:56:38 PM

Quote from: jrientsTabletop RPGs have become absolutely unprofitable. Nobody can make any money off of them. Not Wizards, not Clash Bowley. Any game company that has shareholders expecting a profit ends up going bust. Freelancer types would be expected to lance for free. Publishers and game stores could do no better than breaking even. Losing your pants selling RPGs is still a distinct possibility.

Will you and your game be affected?

I'm not sure why this is true, though. If I create a game and put the rules in a PDF and sell it through Lulu then my costs are low and distribution is simply a matter of it being on the net. People might buy it if I price it reasonably, I am guessing. What I don't need to do is try to publish a glossy hardbound or it's equivalent in a comic book store. I think that part of the business model may very well be what you're talking about. But PDFs online? That seems feasable, no?

Koltar · May 06, 2008, 02:09:22 PM

I just realized the one problem with this thread.

According to an earlier thread we had on here, the one company that will survive will be Steve Jackson Games - no matter what seems to happen to them, they keep chugging along and survive.

They might not be publishing RPGs actively - but they'll probably still have them available for download.

In this bleak future was suggested WotC just might get absorbed into the greater Hasbro and become an imprint name the way that Avalon hill is now.

- Ed C.

flyingmice · May 06, 2008, 02:24:11 PM

Quote from: VBWyrdeI'm not sure why this is true, though. If I create a game and put the rules in a PDF and sell it through Lulu then my costs are low and distribution is simply a matter of it being on the net. People might buy it if I price it reasonably, I am guessing. What I don't need to do is try to publish a glossy hardbound or it's equivalent in a comic book store. I think that part of the business model may very well be what you're talking about. But PDFs online? That seems feasable, no?

This is a hypothetical situation, VB, not current reality.

-clash

Dwight · May 06, 2008, 05:21:13 PM

Quote from: KoltarI just realized the one problem with this thread.

I've realized an even more fundamental problem. If the economics are really that bad either a Texas-sized meteor hit the Earth or someone came up with something so compelling that I, like most other people, will be spending their free time doing that instead.

Will my game be affected? Either way I wouldn't give a shit if it was.