Quote from: Stuart;232195Collectors virtually destroyed the comic industry, and I see the same thing with the RPG industry too.  Although it's more the companies that focus on selling to the collectors than the collectors themselves that are the problem.  You can't blame the collectors for enjoying what they do.

So it more "gaming companies that are too focused on the peripheral community" that is a f*cking pox on the hobby.

I really hate it when companies do that, but very few companies engage in this bullshit.  TSR and WOTC have both released prestige versions of the core books, which is fine.  But then you see people releasing games in only super-deluxe special editions -- Nobilis, Fantasy Imperium -- that are overpriced and fall apart when used for regular gaming.  They don't seem to have much success though, so I think it's unlikely the dominate the market.

Quote from: Stuart;232204By over-focusing on making comics "not just for kids!" they ended up making comics that weren't for kids... and then were surprised that they had a shrinking market as they had fewer kids getting into comics to replace people who were growing out of them.

The collectors wanted convoluted, confusing story lines and dark, gritty characters.  They didn't want to grow out of superman and batman -- they wanted them to get older and more "mature" with them.  So rather than add comics for adults, they changed the kids stuff to be more grown up.  Great for the adults... not so great for the kids.

It was a short-term success in that the collectors would buy a lot of product compared to a casual consumer (or kids!) -- but it was a bit like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.  It's was a non-sustainable business, and eventually the house of cards started to collapse.

Over time there was a conscious decision to focus more on the mature gamer, and the collector in particular.  This is virtually the same thing that happened with the comics industry -- but about 10 years later.

The RPG industry saw it's peak in the early 80s when TSR put "Ages 10 and up" on the covers of it's books.  In 2000 WotC decided RPGs would be for adults.

And the results look very, very similar to what we say with the comics industry.

Actually you are correct up until you get to the conclusion.

I go to events and I see *tons of kids* ages 10,11,12.. playing D&D. The group I Dm on Saturday contains mom, boyfriend and an 11 year old son. My own kids play from time to time.

I in fact, have the official standards in front of me for writing adventures that demand "PG-13" levels of content.

We D&D players are not the throat rapers or the "dark and gritty" guys by any means. In 2000, common wisdom said "Yeah, this D&D thing is just rudimentary crap like pokemon, real roleplayers will continue to play Unknown Armies and Vampire for the next decade.."

THAT did not happen as planned.

So when you guys say "collector" in this thread, do you mean people who just buy stuff to have it rather than because they are going to play it?  Because I am not aware of any collector's market for gaming products.  I mean you can't put a game book in a plastic bag and think it will go up in value over time, can you?

Quote from: walkerp;232212So when you guys say "collector" in this thread, do you mean people who just buy stuff to have it rather than because they are going to play it?

Yes. Just that.

I'm addressing the argument that people who buy RPGs but don't play them damage the RPG market. I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it.

Quote from: walkerp;232212So when you guys say "collector" in this thread, do you mean people who just buy stuff to have it rather than because they are going to play it?  Because I am not aware of any collector's market for gaming products.  I mean you can't put a game book in a plastic bag and think it will go up in value over time, can you?

Dude, this shit happens all the time.  You really don't believe that?  You've spent time on RPGnet.  The amount of people there with piles of books they've never so much as played once is staggering.

Quote from: Stuart;232204By over-focusing on making comics "not just for kids!" they ended up making comics that weren't for kids... and then were surprised that they had a shrinking market as they had fewer kids getting into comics to replace people who were growing out of them.

The collectors wanted convoluted, confusing story lines and dark, gritty characters.  They didn't want to grow out of superman and batman -- they wanted them to get older and more "mature" with them.  So rather than add comics for adults, they changed the kids stuff to be more grown up.  Great for the adults... not so great for the kids.

It was a short-term success in that the collectors would buy a lot of product compared to a casual consumer (or kids!) -- but it was a bit like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.  It's was a non-sustainable business, and eventually the house of cards started to collapse.

Wow, you are really confusing two different trends in the comics market.

It wasn't the collectors who drove the trend towards darker storylines, more sex and violence, and other symptoms of grim and gritty syndrome.  That trend was driven by readers and critics, by the success of Frank Miller's Dark Knight and Alan Moore's Watchmen, by the increasing sophistication of the new generation of artists and writers who grew up post-Marvel Silver Age. ETA: And jibbajabba's point about cross-pollination with the European market.

The collectors drove the holographic covers, the sealed polybag comics, the endless Punisher/Wolverine/Ghost Rider crossovers and guest appearances, the alternate cover schemes, the one-shots, etc.  Because they bought these things in the futile hope that they would be "valuable" some day, but didn't care if they were crappy comics, they drove off many readers and Marvel went bankrupt when the market for these speculative collector's comics started bottoming out.

Hmm.. I am not sure about Stuarts point here. When comic were written for kids they sold more comics but they were shit. US superhero comics in particular were repetative and full of crap.. people look back on a goldn age becuase there were a few but there was a lot more crap. This is especially true when you compare to the European comic market that was always aimed at Adults.
So the move towards more mature comics, largely led by British writers who had always written more mature complex stuff (just look at 2000ad and Wizard), might have led to decreasing sales but it increased quality immeasureably.

So basically that process was exactly the opposite of Balbinus saying collectors increase the number of crap games maintaining sales at the cost of quality.

Quote from: walkerp;232212So when you guys say "collector" in this thread, do you mean people who just buy stuff to have it rather than because they are going to play it?

I believe so. I prefer Jackalope's term "kibitzers," but I've been told I have a weakness for Jewry.

Quote from: Jackalope;232201Exactly, need more data.

Another data point: does anyone have examples of games which have been "ruined" by kibitzers? What percentage of games are effected by this movement, and how much of the game's content is designed for these people?

There's a lot of opinion-sharing going on, which is well and good for as much as it's worth, but if proof-of-thesis is the point, some kind of perspective and context is essential. If four rules in eight games have been effected by the fifteen kibitzers, it's largely a non-issue; if 90 percent of games are 80 percent crap because 99 percent of consumers don't play the game, that's something essential and crippling to players.

Quote from: walkerp;232212So when you guys say "collector" in this thread, do you mean people who just buy stuff to have it rather than because they are going to play it?  Because I am not aware of any collector's market for gaming products.  I mean you can't put a game book in a plastic bag and think it will go up in value over time, can you?

Sure.  I sold an extra first printing copy of the 1E Deities & Demigods I had for about $125 maybe three years ago.  I just recently bought Tome of Horrors II off Amazon.  The low price was $33, just over cover.  The high price was $175.00.  A mint copy of The Arcanum, a cheap little unofficial supplement for AD&D from Bard Games that had a very small print run, will fetch $100+  You don't even want to know what some people want for a near mint copy of OD&D.

In fact, even though they're completely useless to me these days (having been updated and revised many times), my first printing Deities & Demigods and my 1E Fiend Folio are some of my prized gaming possessions.

nevermind.

Quote from: SettembriniOnly collectors make good DMs. That´s my point here. I can´t see anything difficult to understand there.

That is one of the most ridiculous comments Ive seen for a while, Ive played with a fresh GM who I gave the game to read and he was perfect at it.
It had nothing to do with him collecting but knowing the genre and style of the setting, that being CoC.

Rog.

Quote from: Mike S.;232169I can read what he says- it's just shit 99% of the time.

True dat.

Seanchai

Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is.

A collector that doesn't run or play is a net zero to the playing community as a whole, except that they're giving their money to companies who tend to have trouble making lots of money. So, you know, win, right?

And if they derive enjoyment from their purchases, no matter where that enjoyment stems from, it's good for them. I don't have anywhere near the kind of money to buy things that arn't critical to me (and that includes books - so my collection has kind of frozen), but more power to 'em if they do.

And if they don't, well, they've got other problems.

Quote from: Thanatos02;232245A collector that doesn't run or play is a net zero to the playing community as a whole, except that they're giving their money to companies who tend to have trouble making lots of money. So, you know, win, right?

Upon reflection, I'm not rejecting Stuart's comic example. Collectors in this sense will prop up rpg lines that otherwise would die due to lack of sales. This has impact across the whole hobby.

I for example would like to see GURPS die so that HERO could take that niche of rpgs completely, and thus be able to expand its product line even more. It may not turn out that way (or it may turn out to be the reverse), but I think there's a lot to be said for the concept.

As is, given that even crappy Forge games can hit even or turn a small profit- segmenting of the market is from a sales PoV a given and overall quality of game design can safely drop.