Quote from: FrankTrollman;416407Sure there is. I quit writing "professionally" to go to medical school. But before that I noticed that the time I spent getting my writing into game books was not well paid. And by that I mean that if you totaled up the hours I spent writing proposals, dealing with developers, fiddling with contracts, and arguing with the other chefs working on the stew, and considered my paycheck for writing to be renumeration only for that lost time - I would still have made more money simply working at Pizza Hut. Let alone driving an ambulance (my actual job at the time).

Writing is something I do for fun. I like doing it. Dealing with publishing companies is not fun. I don't like doing it, and that is why I need to be paid money for doing so. If it were not for a misplaced sense of "pride" at having my work published in "official" books, I would have simply walked away from the career long before I did.

So the thing I do today, where I make games and put them online for free, and then go back to studying for my real job where I will make real money - that makes much more sense from an economics standpoint. The time taken to monetize my products is simply less well paid than spending an equal number of hours working in healthcare and leaving my work as freeware.

The same can be said about many "dream jobs" that some young people aspire to, such as:

- movie star
- professional sports player
- rock star
- fashion model
- etc ...

In the geek/nerd world, typical "dream jobs" is crap like:

- writing rpg games
- writing/drawing comic books and/or cartoons
- become the next George Lucas
- become the next Einstein or Hawking
- designing video games

When I was growing up, other popular "dream jobs" at the time were:  rocket scientist, astronaut, etc ... which today are no longer really considered "dream jobs" or viable.

During the dotcom bubble, some kids wanted to become the next "Bill Gates", which isn't so popular or viable anymore.

Wouldn't be too surprising that many kids and young adults do not think "rationally" about things in an economic sense.

Kids and young adults being driven more by ego and emotions, than anything resembling "rationality".

Count me in as one of the people mocking them for begging for money.  I mocked Seimbeida when he did it, I'll mock Metzner and co too.  

Clearly they have neither found investors nor seem to have managed to create any product so far - something even the Forge hacks (and Pundit) managed to do.

It's a little sad that this is where they appear to be at this stage of their life / careers.

Quote from: jgants;416430It's a little sad that this is where they appear to be at this stage of their life / careers.

They could be bored with being retired.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: Nicephorus;416411Tim on answering player questions: "One of the very few good aspects of being the guy that had to answer the questions was that nobody cared how I answered. I would let them accumulate untill I scored some really good smoke and then bang them all out in a bong-haze inspired all-nighter."
 
Well then, sign me up as an investor.

"I used to put off doing my job for as long as possible, then I would get high on the company dime and give everyone the finger, laughing all the way to the bank. So, meanwhile, we need $250k."

Quote from: Cole;416435"I used to put off doing my job for as long as possible, then I would get high on the company dime and give everyone the finger, laughing all the way to the bank. So, meanwhile, we need $250k."

The dotcom strategy of fleecing venture capitalist firms in the late 1990's.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;416407Writing is something I do for fun. I like doing it. Dealing with publishing companies is not fun. I don't like doing it, and that is why I need to be paid money for doing so. If it were not for a misplaced sense of "pride" at having my work published in "official" books, I would have simply walked away from the career long before I did.

So the thing I do today, where I make games and put them online for free, and then go back to studying for my real job where I will make real money - that makes much more sense from an economics standpoint. The time taken to monetize my products is simply less well paid than spending an equal number of hours working in healthcare and leaving my work as freeware.

-Frank

Writing game material is fun, that is why you do it. Turning those efforts into money (enough to be considered a career) is, as you explained , much less fun.

I have no problem with producers charging money for their work. If the product is good I will happily pay for it.

The expectation that such work can provide a sustainable living is where everything falls apart. The rpg hobby was built by people who loved what they were doing. You said yourself that the business end of things was not fun and that is why it needed to produce cash.

Once something becomes a primary and dependent source of income, the business end of things gets ever more important ( in other words, the fun part starts to decrease rapidly) leading to thoughts of "why am I doing this again?" Eventually the decline of passion will be evident in the actual work.

IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off largely made up of smaller semi-professional producers who can put out material that they love without worrying about it having to provide a living.

Otherwise we have the problem of the industry serving itself instead of the hobby.

Quote from: ggroy;416436The dotcom strategy of fleecing venture capitalist firms in the late 1990's.

RPGs were really cleaning up in the late 1990's too, especially traditional D&D style ones!

Wait.

Quote from: Nicephorus;416411Tim on answering player questions: "One of the very few good aspects of being the guy that had to answer the questions was that nobody cared how I answered. I would let them accumulate untill I scored some really good smoke and then bang them all out in a bong-haze inspired all-nighter."
 
Well then, sign me up as an investor.

Frankly, when it comes to the Sage Advice column, that's the only proper way to do it aside from answering "Grow some balls and make your own goddamn decisions already." to every inane request they send you. So one point goes to Tim Kask. On the other hand, read his screeds at the links KenHR provided. Ugh.

Quote from: Melan;416387Which is actually a tremendous problem with RPG publishing, since companies don't write supplements, people do. TSR could mean someone actually talented like Monte Cook (although he's not my favourite), a generic hack like Douglas Niles or Jean Rabe, whose output was uniformly godawful.

Jean Rabe, the Tubgirl of RPGs, goddamn you for bringing back those memories.

Quote from: CRKrueger;416462Jean Rabe, the Tubgirl of RPGs, goddamn you for bringing back those memories.

I love that description.

This thread is apparently slander and defamation.

Which is nothing kaskoid would stoop to.  Nope.  Not at all.

I fail to see how this thread constitutes defamation, and moreover, how this post of Tim Kask actually would refer to threads like this one? Harsh criticism here, okay. But it's full of links to actual posts written by Tim. It's not like people here are just making stuff up, barring their own opinions of what these posts show or mean about Tim.

PS: Why are you so worked up about this, Ken? A personal beef going on?

I have to say bringing up posts from 3 years ago doesn't really count. Lord knows I said some stupid stuff in the past that don't really apply anymore.

Quote from: Melan;416460Frankly, when it comes to the Sage Advice column, that's the only proper way to do it aside from answering "Grow some balls and make your own goddamn decisions already."

Bingo.   Its too bad the Dragon coddled the OCD bitches and rules lawyers.

Quote from: danbuter;416494I have to say bringing up posts from 3 years ago doesn't really count. Lord knows I said some stupid stuff in the past that don't really apply anymore.

The interwebs damn us forever.