Gareth M. Skarka is at it again: The hobby is DOOMED! (http://gmskarka.com/2010/10/21/tabletopocalypse-now/)
(link to GMS's blog from Oct. 21, 10)
From the link above:
Quote from: GMSThere’s a lot of denial among gamers that their hobby is shrinking — a combination of anecdotal evidence (“There are plenty of gamers around here.”) and One-True-Way purity (“My hobby will NEVER die!”). Mixed into this is the always-charming assertion that the industry may be shrinking, but that “the hobby doesn’t need the industry.” (Never mind asking such geniuses to ponder where new players will come from without product on store shelves drawing their attention — or when was the last time they met a player-piano enthusiast, another form of entertainment that no longer has an industry producing material for it…)
LOL You gotta love the comparisons.
(Sound in incredibly loud, long flatulence here.)
Shock! Horror!
I posted this yesterday on the S&W forums:
Quote[T]here's a perpetual undercurrent of fear in the RPG community that the hobby is on the verge of death and will fade away if we don't keep trying to renew it by celebrating each new edition of the flagship game.
The imminent demise of roleplaying games has been confidently predicted for the last 30 years, but The Fear never goes away. I feel it most when someone says "Meh. New edition. I've already got all the books I need to keep gaming for the rest of my life". But...but...if you don't buy books, the industry collapses and there'll be no new players and no-one will know about RPGs until reptilian archeologists dig up the remains of Old Earth far into the future!
Alright, dissection.
QuoteThere's a lot of denial among gamers that their hobby is shrinking — a combination of anecdotal evidence ("There are plenty of gamers around here.") and One-True-Way purity ("My hobby will NEVER die!"). Mixed into this is the always-charming assertion that the industry may be shrinking, but that "the hobby doesn't need the industry." (Never mind asking such geniuses to ponder where new players will come from without product on store shelves drawing their attention — or when was the last time they met a player-piano enthusiast, another form of entertainment that no longer has an industry producing material for it...)
I agree that the industry is important to the hobby, but Skarka is apparently conflating the two. In fact, having a few thousand people out there playing, say, 1e D&D, but not buying new books
does help to keep the hobby afloat. Does he think those gamers exist in non-communicative bubble of sub-reality?
And the player-piano comparison is beyond absurd. P-Ps were replaced by radios,
which do exactly the same job, but better. Despite the flight to computer MMOs, there has been no true improvement on pen & paper RPGs.
Exactly why he chose to compare a piece of technology that has no input from anyone but the manufacturing engineers with a type of flexible, social game of creativity and randomness is anyone's guess.
QuoteIt's not a matter of debate though. Anyone who has paid attention over the past two decades has seen the undeniable shrinking. There are far fewer dedicated speciality stores any more (current estimates place total numbers in the US at somewhere in the low-to-mid 2000s, according to ICV2, Diamond/Alliance distributors, and others). Fewer stores means fewer orders, as well as fewer social centers for the tabletop gaming community. Sales numbers are massively down from the 90s, much less the numbers seen during the 'd20 explosion' of the early 2000s.
Yes, it
is a matter of debate despite a blogger using the decline of brick & mortar shops to infer a a lack of sales and interest while completely ignoring the explosion of both online merchants and downloading-for-free-but-very-enthusiastic game pirates.
QuoteTake a look at this: ICV2's report of the top 5 selling RPGs for Q3 2010. You'll note that number 5 is the Dresden Files. An excellent game, and Fred Hicks & Co. over at Evil Hat deserve every bit of that success. The interesting thing about Fred, though, is that he's a big fan of transparency. So much so, in fact, that He posts his actual sales numbers. Fred gives the total distribution sales for each of the two Dresden Files rulebooks as follows: DFRPG:Our World: 1285 copies. DFRPG:Your Story: 1776 copies.
That's as good as meaningless. Sales are total, not relative. 4E and Pathfinder could outsell Dresden Files by millions of copies and it wouldn't show in the rankings.
Evidence so far suggests that 4E is lagging behind sales of 3.x over the same time period, but that hardly indicates the death throes of the RPG industry.
Conspicuously absent from Skarka's foretelling of doom is the fact that many RPG gamers are using systems that can be downloaded free and legally, and hence won't show up in sales figures. And if he thinks that means new players won't enter the hobby because the books have little physical presence, it just shows that he has no knowledge of what's actually happening within the classic gaming community.
I don't care to address the rest of Skarka's blog, but it's essentially the same old pessimistic shit we've been hearing since computers killed the chit & hex wargame industry.
:hmm:
To expect constant growth in any industry or endeavor is not realistic to begin with so ho-hum.
If the art of RP attracts fewer new players for a time then perhaps that will instigate more inovation in the hobby.If there is a shaking out of companies along the way well...wheat from the chaff...bloat is never good.
Rhetorical statements about the demise of the hobby are nothing new. The audience may very well be shrinking at this juncture but is that a harbinger of doom or...opportunity?
:)
Quote from: Hairfoot;411510*snip*
I don't care to address the rest of Skarka's blog, but it's essentially the same old pessimistic shit we've been hearing since computers killed the chit & hex wargame industry.
Nice post Hairfoot, but about this last bit...I still see plenty of new chit (or block) & hex wargames (as well as card systems) being produced.
Perhaps the industry is leaner...by no means "killed".
I come from a family of folklorists. One of the constant refrains from amateur folklorists is he notion of the approaching death of various folk-art/lore forms. The amazing thing is that the field of folklore essentially exists because of the belief a little over two-undred years ago that much folk-knowledge was going to disappear if it wasn't collected and preserved. This was and is a false belief in typostrophism, a projection of a perceived condition unaltered into the future. If the only screenpainters in Baltimore are all over seventy and retired, the alarmist realizes that all of those seventy plus year old painters will be dead in less than forty years leaving no one to screenpaint. This ignores the fact that in forty years those painters' grandchildren will be retired and looking for a way to fill up their days and will have the memory (and even the output) of grandma and grandpa to inspire them.
Those of us who were gamers in the eighties and early nineties remember the explosion of commercial role-playing games that flooded the market then. The reason for that flood, the first generation of RPGers had eached the age of adulthood and sought to make a living from their hobby.
Their failure to do so and the implosion of the RPG market is not evidence of the end of the hobby, merely evidence that tabletop RPG design is not a viable career path. Many an economist or consumer analyst would then say the hobby is doomed because if you can't make enough money at an activity, you won't engage in it; but the reality is that even without remuneration the hobby is appealing enough that the old books continue to circulate and new ideas are tried out for no reason but love of the games.
Our passion for tabletop RPGing remains and we will inoculate others with that passion. Tabletop RPGs may be dying as a business, but the hobby is well and will remain so. If dying means no one is getting rich from them, then sure tabletop RPGs are dying, but nobody who is an enthusiast today is making money at it. Hell, EGG quit his job and became a shoe repair man in order to devote more time to his brand new hobby/venture. As long as some of us love tabletop RPGs someone will keep supporting the hobby even if there is no money in it.
yeah! all that stuff Zoot said...:D
The Hobby is not The Industry.
At first tabletop roleplaying games were not going to die, they were going to be stillborn - because they could never possibly compete with
real wargames like Advanced Squad Leader.
Later, tabletop roleplaying games were going to be killed by the Satanic cult scare. Then computer games. Then Magic cards. Then computer games again. Then online roleplaying games. Then computer games again. Then the internet. Then...
Tabletop roleplaying games have been dying for so long they have become undead.
Look, the truth is that we'll never return to the glory days of the early to mid 80s, when every second kid in high school was gaming. But gaming will still happen, and there'll still be an rpg industry - as much deserving of the name "industry" as it ever has been.
Rather than "player pianos" or whatever the fuck Goddamned Morbid Skarka was talking about, the better comparison is with the plain old card game bridge. Back in the 50s bridge used to be
huge, every suburban slob was playing it after dinner or in clubs. Then it kind of flopped - but oodles of people still play bridge.
Quote from: ZootMany an economist or consumer analyst would then say the hobby is doomed because if you can't make enough money at an activity, you won't engage in it;
Daniel Pink in
Drive makes a good comparison, that in the 90s two bunches of people were planning to make an online encyclopedia, one hired a bunch of professors and experts to write excellent articles for good money, the other hired nobody and just let any nerd with too much time on their hands write and edit articles and nobody got money for it, which would an economist consider to be most likely to succeed? Well, Encarta flopped and Wikipedia is stunningly successful.
GMS is probably confusing his own personal career success with the future of the hobby as a whole.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;411536At first tabletop roleplaying games were not going to die, they were going to be stillborn - because they could never possibly compete with real wargames like Advanced Squad Leader.
Later, tabletop roleplaying games were going to be killed by the Satanic cult scare. Then computer games. Then Magic cards. Then computer games again. Then online roleplaying games. Then computer games again. Then the internet. Then...
Tabletop roleplaying games have been dying for so long they have become undead.
Look, the truth is that we'll never return to the glory days of the early to mid 80s, when every second kid in high school was gaming. But gaming will still happen, and there'll still be an rpg industry - as much deserving of the name "industry" as it ever has been.
Rather than "player pianos" or whatever the fuck Goddamned Morbid Skarka was talking about, the better comparison is with the plain old card game bridge. Back in the 50s bridge used to be huge, every suburban slob was playing it after dinner or in clubs. Then it kind of flopped - but oodles of people still play bridge.
Daniel Pink in Drive makes a good comparison, that in the 90s two bunches of people were planning to make an online encyclopedia, one hired a bunch of professors and experts to write excellent articles for good money, the other hired nobody and just let any nerd with too much time on their hands write and edit articles and nobody got money for it, which would an economist consider to be most likely to succeed? Well, Encarta flopped and Wikipedia is stunningly successful.
GMS is probably confusing his own personal career success with the future of the hobby as a whole.
I agree with you and it's also "strange" that the quality and vitality of the majority of the products available now are as good if not IMHO better than the "heyday" of the hobby.
A lot of the best stuff being produced right now is by passionate "amatuer" publishers who play regularly, the games are being played and guess what all these people are having kids! I wonder what hobby these younger generations are going to grow up around?
I think some publishers are their own worst enemies sometimes. If they're not shooting themselves in the foot with crap like this, then they are making daft decisions. Take Eden for example, they have a forum of people crying out for hard copies of their excellent Witchcraft rpg and supplements but they haven't got the resources to produce the books. Obviously they have the source material so they could do POD or use Lulu and get the games selling again but they won't because they will make less profit. Jesus, less profit is better than no profit at all!
Back to Skarka though, how much time did he waste researching this nonsense and writing a Blog post about it? How much of that time could have been spent on his business? Did this exercise earn him any goodwill or profit? Was it a worthwhile exercise? Crazy!
How in hell is going to die a hobby that uses imagination, dice and a couple of dudes as key components?
Really, tabletop RPG are not CRPGs, videogames and such... they don't need actualizations to keep playing it. There are like hundreds of RPGs around and you only need to choose one, read the rules and play it. For years. Yes, it's cool to see new games, learn new rules and such, but if you like D&D or Vampire or CoC you can play them the next 20 years only with the material edited just now.
I don't see anyone crying "Bingo is Dying!" or "Jumping the Rope is Dying!" and are two games that have not seen an improvement IN AGES.
The idea that an industry, any industry, will continue to grow endlessly is absurd. It's the mental model that has gotten all of us into the economic mess we are currently experiencing. What we need is an economic 'ecology'. Self-sustaining and capable of weathering the ups and downs of the market. Not endless, blindly hopeful growth that sets us up for yet another round of failures, recessions and possible depressions. There are dozens of gaming publishers out there that will fill the void once WotC bows out of the RPG market. Something I think can't happen soon enough. Let the torch pass to those that love the hobby and want to make a profit rather than those that just want to make a profit.
Quote from: Tetsubo;411547The idea that an industry, any industry, will continue to grow endlessly is absurd. It's the mental model that has gotten all of us into the economic mess we are currently experiencing. What we need is an economic 'ecology'. Self-sustaining and capable of weathering the ups and downs of the market. Not endless, blindly hopeful growth that sets us up for yet another round of failures, recessions and possible depressions. There are dozens of gaming publishers out there that will fill the void once WotC bows out of the RPG market. Something I think can't happen soon enough. Let the torch pass to those that love the hobby and want to make a profit rather than those that just want to make a profit.
Hear! Hear!
Typical Skarka stuff. "I'm so wise and prophetic; why do the bleating, ignorant masses not recognize my greatness? Everyone who disagrees with me is just burying their head in the sand."
Maybe it's because I'm not running a game company, but I love where RPGs are now. People are making amazing RPG products all the time and putting them on the Internet. There are more sophisticated games, tools and accessories than ever before, and way more games to choose from than ever before.
To be honest, the "glory days" of RPGs pretty much sucked for me. The game stores in my town had shit selection, and if I wanted to special-order something from the surly bastard who treated his customers like lepers, it could be weeks, months, or never before I got it. The crappy selection of games at the chain bookstore is still there, just like it was in the heydey, and there's still nothing I want to buy. In some ways, nothing's changed since the 80s; it's still 99% overpriced D&D crap on the shelves, but at least now I have choices -- lots of them.
Sales figures don't seem to be stopping people from creating great stuff. Skarka can consider my opinion charming and ignorant if he wants, I guess, but as a GM and player, things have never been better.
Quote from: Professort Zoot;411524Their failure to do so and the implosion of the RPG market is not evidence of the end of the hobby, merely evidence that tabletop RPG design is not a viable career path.
That's it. That's the key. And for those of us who love this hobby and its cottage aspects, that actually might be very good news.
Skarka is soooooo 1999.
Quote from: Settembrini;411578Skarka is soooooo 1999.
LOL Mike Mornard/Old Geezer was posting he was sooooo 1987! :D
Despite their hamfisted implementation the 40k rpg's seem to be quite successful, so I don't really get where this comes from. There seem to be quite a few succesful games around and someone's making them.
Perhaps we should discuss what rpgs can learn from video games, since the latter seems to be the elephant in the room that we can all apparently blame.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;411587Despite their hamfisted implementation the 40k rpg's seem to be quite successful, so I don't really get where this comes from. There seem to be quite a few succesful games around and someone's making them.
Perhaps we should discuss what rpgs can learn from video games, since the latter seems to be the elephant in the room that we can all apparently blame.
To tell you the truth, I think that attitude is the problem. There's nothing TTRPG's can learn from CRPG's.
CRPG's popularity comes from...
1.) Single-Player experience.
2.) Multi-Player is usually adhoc whenever you want it with no planning.
3.) Increasing awesome graphics, including hella-sexy chicks.
4.) Cheats available so you can be as hardcore or as wish-fulfilled as you feel like that day.
5.) Totally self-centered instant gratification.
None of that applies to TTRPGs and the idea that somehow CRPGs have some wisdom they can impart because of the success of Bioware or Blizzard is totally misplaced.
The computer software TTRPGs need to learn from is...
collaborative real-time filesharing software
communication software
WYSIWYG web design software
The reason a lot of people are playing MMORPGS is because there is no TT option that fits their lifestyle. Give them a means to take what system they want, use a computer program to build a dungeon that doesn't require a degree in graphics design, xml, or C/VB/Java scripting, and a program to communicate with other players and show maps, and automate some game elements and you'll see people playing a lot more Virtual Table-Top.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;411562Typical Skarka stuff. "I'm so wise and prophetic; why do the bleating, ignorant masses not recognize my greatness? Everyone who disagrees with me is just burying their head in the sand."
If the industry is
doomed!, what is this stupid fuck doing, still publishing and selling games? :rolleyes:
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;411562Maybe it's because I'm not running a game company, but I love where RPGs are now. People are making amazing RPG products all the time and putting them on the Internet. There are more sophisticated games, tools and accessories than ever before, and way more games to choose from than ever before.
Amen, brother! Much as I love my D&D RC and CoC, there's oodles of fun to be had with newer stuff like Savage Worlds or Eclipse Phase. Not to mention games from before I started gaming, like OD&D/S&W and Traveller (Classic or Mongoose), which are now easily available.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;411562To be honest, the "glory days" of RPGs pretty much sucked for me. The game stores in my town had shit selection, and if I wanted to special-order something from the surly bastard who treated his customers like lepers, it could be weeks, months, or never before I got it.
You too?
Down here, to add insult to injury, we still had to pay an arm and a leg for the book, shipped overseas.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;411562Sales figures don't seem to be stopping people from creating great stuff. Skarka can consider my opinion charming and ignorant if he wants, I guess, but as a GM and player, things have never been better.
Here we disagree. Back In The Day I was in High School, so I had
a lot of time for gaming. :o :D
Role Playing Games can learn something from the Ad Hoc multiplayer experience, in the sense that you could pick up a tabletop RPG and play it after ten minutes of looking through the box's contents. It seems, however, that TRPGs are learning the complete reverse lesson (more options, more tactical grinding, more more more) from CRPGs, weirdly enough.
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;411536*snip*Tabletop roleplaying games have been dying for so long they have become undead.
*snip*
.
:rotfl: :hatsoff:
1. Every year I go to a local gaming convention. I bring a backpack full of prepared adventures and set up shop at the 'open gaming' tables. By nature, I'm lazy and mercurial so I don't want to commit to reserved gaming slots. At 3 p.m. on Saturday I might want to go strolling through the art room instead of run a game. I just want to keep my options open.
I have never, never, had an empty table. In fact once I break out the books and the scenario notes I'm at that point where I have to tell people that the game is full and that I'm sorry that I can't take any more players. I often see some familiar faces but there are always more new faces at the table (and more distressingly to me they all look so much younger than I think I looked back then).
2. I play Final Fantasy Online (insert Japanese RPG sucks joke here). I posted a request at this forum for information on virtual tabletops a few weeks back. I did that because my FF Online friends have found out I'm a GM and are begging for me to run a 'real rpg' for them. Some of these people are tabletop gamers who don't have a GM available, but most of them have never played a tabletop game and really want the chance to try it. They even want to give up a prime playing night (Friday) in order to play in my game.
I know. "Cool stories, bro." But I think the point I'm trying to make is that there are players out there and new players joining all the time. Computer RPGs and MMORPGs are stop gap measures. A way to game when you don't have a gaming group, but its been my experience that if you offer a computer gamer a chance to play a tabletop rpg they will take that chance and never look back.
As far as the 'industry' goes, well I think the industry has and continues to produce too much material for the market. In the average gaming group, the GM who is running the game purchases the core books and any supplements he wants. The players might or might not buy the core books and might or might not buy supplements. Most of the time though they won't. So in a group of 8-12 players, only one person is purchasing the majority of the games. Then you figure that a game is going to run for at least 6 months before the players and GM want to move on. Reconcile that with an industry which is releasing multiple $20 to $30 books every month and is it any wonder the industry is always in doomsday mode.
Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;4116002. I play Final Fantasy Online (insert Japanese RPG sucks joke here).
(http://www.bingegamer.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/japan.jpeg)
:D
I was watching a demo video of Microsoft's "Surface" and a Catan game for it was being discussed. The game was still a boardgame, though the board was generated on the Surface, but it relied on "virtual dice." They were real dice, made out of what looked like clear plastic. When rolled on the Surface, the Surface could "read" the dice and make all the calculations, leaving the player free to concentrate more on what he wanted to do than checking the board and having to think about the game mechanics. I could see the same thing being done for a RPG, even if one didn't use a game like 4e that used a grid for combat. It would speed things up in combat, especially for more complex games.
Trouble is, the thing is in the $12,000-15,000 range. Maybe in a few years it would be affordable enough to make it worthwhile to buy to play boardgames and RPGs on it, but for now it's more a tantalizing glimpse of the future than anything else.
GMS doesn't care about the hobby, he cares about the industry.
He sees gamers as consumers of product, he sees the hobby as important only insofar as it enables the industry.
I agree with his analysis that the industry is in terminal decline. I don't think that's news, I think it's been true and indeed evident for years.
Where I disagree is with his view that the hobby needs the industry. I think his idea that games shops bring in new gamers is charmingly old fashioned, and indeed pre-internet and in fact pre-1990s.
Model railroads and miniatures wargaming get by fine without the delusion that they need a commercial industry to support them. Gamers for some reason think such a thing is required.
Happily they're wrong. Happily because the concept of an rpg industry is inherently non-viable, and always has been. Any hobby in which the best product from a consumer perspective is one that enables an entire group to play for years with no further purchases clearly isn't going to make money. Rpgs don't.
His analysis is correct, but out of date, and he misses the important issue. The issue is the hobby and how it will fare with the decline of the industry, that's what's interesting. GMS doesn't see that because he has no interest in the hobby, and little understanding of it, to him we are simply potential purchasers of his product. He doesn't understand that his product is like a trumpet or a canvas, it's a tool to enable another's creativity.
GMS makes a classic business error. He thinks the customer is at fault when they don't support his company. No. The company either needs to make products customers want or redirect its efforts to another industry.
Like so many middling businessmen over the years, he sits facing economic decline and complains that his customers just don't get it.
Quote from: Benoist;411602(http://www.bingegamer.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/japan.jpeg)
:D
Well I figured it was best just to get that out and in the open so we can all move along. ;)
Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;411600Computer RPGs and MMORPGs are stop gap measures. A way to game when you don't have a gaming group, but its been my experience that if you offer a computer gamer a chance to play a tabletop rpg they will take that chance and never look back.
Quoted for absolute motherfucking 100% truth.
Tabletop rpg games becoming like the energizer bunny, that keeps on going and going and going ....
You know, i respect GMS in many ways, and i don't condone dismissing him lightly, as many have done in this thread. He's made a living from RPGs where many others have failed. It's only natural that every now and then he sounds an alarm call to the rest of the crazy fuckers out there that want to follow in his footsteps.
I say, hat's off and good luck to him and the others like him.
Quote from: The Butcher;411590If the industry is doomed!, what is this stupid fuck doing, still publishing and selling games? :rolleyes:
That was my thought. Perhaps he'll move on and spare us The Sharka.
Seanchai
Quote from: Seanchai;411653That was my thought. Perhaps he'll move on and spare us The Sharka.
Seanchai
I think you mean Skarka. Although maybe he has very sharp teeth.
Quote from: One Horse Town;411654I think you mean Skarka. Although maybe he has very sharp teeth.
I do mean Skarka. Apologies.
Seanchai
Quote from: One Horse Town;411651You know, i respect GMS in many ways, and i don't condone dismissing him lightly, as many have done in this thread. He's made a living from RPGs where many others have failed. It's only natural that every now and then he sounds an alarm call to the rest of the crazy fuckers out there that want to follow in his footsteps.
I think Skarka's a blowhard, but I've purchased and enjoyed many of his RPG products.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;411657I think Skarka's a blowhard, but I've purchased and enjoyed many of his RPG products.
Sometimes there's a need for blowhards. This site here? You guessed it.
Dancey, Skarka, Mishler, etc ...
It's classic Skarka:
1. Post an unsupportable position (while frequently claiming that he has evidence to support his assertions - not that he'll let YOU see it, mind you).
2. Face a withering barrage of contradictory opinion.
3. In response, howls either that a) he's been misinterpreted; b) his critics are idiots; and/or c) the internet is full of poopyheads hateful and hostile to him - but especially RPG enthusiasts (whom he truly seems to loathe).
4. Repeat every 4 to 6 months.
Lord Hobie
Yet he remains, whilst many others in similar positions have folded.
Maybe there's a reason for that?
Quote from: One Horse Town;411661Yet he remains, whilst many others in similar positions have folded.
Maybe there's a reason for that?
You got me. I've lost count of the times he's said something to the effect of 'why do I continue to stay in this business?' on various fora.
Stubbornness, perhaps?
Lord Hobie
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;411657I think Skarka's a blowhard, but I've purchased and enjoyed many of his RPG products.
I think Skarka is a blowhard, and most of his RPG products are irrelevant to my gaming.
Quote from: One Horse Town;411661Yet he remains, whilst many others in similar positions have folded.
Maybe there's a reason for that?
(http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/Assets/palooka.jpg)
QuotePalooka will battle anyone, anytime, anywhere - he seems to love it, even though he always takes a beating. After a terrific pounding at the hands of, for example, Kung-Fu Master, he'll just struggle to his feet and wobble back into the ring. His astonishing ability to absorb punishment leads one to suspect that during his long Warrior career Palooka has taken a few too many punches. Often, as an act of mercy, Nanny will step in to stop the fight.
Quote from: One Horse Town;411651You know, i respect GMS in many ways, and i don't condone dismissing him lightly, as many have done in this thread. He's made a living from RPGs where many others have failed. It's only natural that every now and then he sounds an alarm call to the rest of the crazy fuckers out there that want to follow in his footsteps.
I say, hat's off and good luck to him and the others like him.
That doesn't paint him in a particularly good light.
Quote from: One Horse Town;411661Yet he remains, whilst many others in similar positions have folded.
Maybe there's a reason for that?
His products seem small enough not to require huge investment or time (especially as pdfs). As opposed to some 300 page full colour impossile to read pdf. That's just an observation. The only game of his I ever owned was Underground. To be fair, that was pretty decent.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;411681His products seem small enough not to require huge investment or time (especially as pdfs). As opposed to some 300 page full colour impossile to read pdf. That's just an observation. The only game of his I ever owned was Underground. To be fair, that was pretty decent.
His Pulp stuff is pretty good, he used to (perhaps still does) run a pulp mailing list and he knows the field extremely well. That knowledge and love shows in his product.
He wrote Hong Kong Action Theater!, one of the very few games I've ever been able to take to cons or games days and be absolutely 100% guaranteed to have a good time. He did Age of Empire, a nice, keep-it-simple steampunk game before that was all hot. His d20 stuff seemed mostly competent. His Mars book was disappointing.
His internet persona is cantankerous. His views of the industry and the hobby seem filtered purely through his place in it and his ability to make money in it. However, he seems to be disproportionately vilified for just being a curmudgeon.
I only own three products by GMS/Adamant Entertainment: Thrilling Tales (Savage Worlds), MARS (Savage Worlds) and ICONS...
Thrilling Tales is TREMENDOUS...I've never been able to finish reading MARS and I have a very...love-hate relationship with ICONS. At the least, I'll say that I think the quality of the game is a bit...overblown...on the internet.
Gareth has some interesting opinions about gaming and the people who are involved in it. Like these (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=17570).
Quote from: Melan;411694Gareth has some interesting opinions about gaming and the people who are involved in it. Like these (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=17570).
Oh yes. I remember that one. Brings some perspective on this one here, in some respects.
I have spent over half my working life in the service industry, so I can tell you that it's not uncommon for people working in it to despise their customers.
Which is both ironic and sad. But there you go. GMS is not really any different to the chef who races out into the dining to heap abuse on people for wanting a well-done steak, and who is then surprised and dismayed when he has fewer customers tomorrow night. "Why can't they appreciate my genius?! Unworthy scum!"
I don't get the hate for GMS. So he's opinionated and posts thought provoking, contentious stuff? Big deal.
I don't "hate" GMS. I just think he's a douchebag.
Of course the hobby is in decline. It doesn't advertise itself, does no youth marketing and keeps making products only aimed at current hobbyists.
It's like if model airplanes stopped making basic kits for young kids and dropped all their adverts, then a decade later wondered why their hobby was falling apart.
GMS wrote HKAT so he's good in my book.
Quote from: CRKrueger;411589To tell you the truth, I think that attitude is the problem. There's nothing TTRPG's can learn from CRPG's.
CRPG's popularity comes from...
1.) Single-Player experience.
2.) Multi-Player is usually adhoc whenever you want it with no planning.
3.) Increasing awesome graphics, including hella-sexy chicks.
4.) Cheats available so you can be as hardcore or as wish-fulfilled as you feel like that day.
5.) Totally self-centered instant gratification.
None of that applies to TTRPGs and the idea that somehow CRPGs have some wisdom they can impart because of the success of Bioware or Blizzard is totally misplaced.
The computer software TTRPGs need to learn from is...
collaborative real-time filesharing software
communication software
WYSIWYG web design software
The reason a lot of people are playing MMORPGS is because there is no TT option that fits their lifestyle. Give them a means to take what system they want, use a computer program to build a dungeon that doesn't require a degree in graphics design, xml, or C/VB/Java scripting, and a program to communicate with other players and show maps, and automate some game elements and you'll see people playing a lot more Virtual Table-Top.
Bingo! I completely agree. I bolded the last because it completely describes my opinion on this. I would give up lotro in a heartbeat to play a more traditional RPG if software was available that was no more difficult than any computer game to learn to use. I'd have 4 or even more groups and be playing most evenings happily.
Quote from: D-503;411627GMS doesn't care about the hobby, he cares about the industry.
He sees gamers as consumers of product, he sees the hobby as important only insofar as it enables the industry.
I agree with his analysis that the industry is in terminal decline. I don't think that's news, I think it's been true and indeed evident for years.
Where I disagree is with his view that the hobby needs the industry. I think his idea that games shops bring in new gamers is charmingly old fashioned, and indeed pre-internet and in fact pre-1990s.
Model railroads and miniatures wargaming get by fine without the delusion that they need a commercial industry to support them. Gamers for some reason think such a thing is required.
Happily they're wrong. Happily because the concept of an rpg industry is inherently non-viable, and always has been. Any hobby in which the best product from a consumer perspective is one that enables an entire group to play for years with no further purchases clearly isn't going to make money. Rpgs don't.
His analysis is correct, but out of date, and he misses the important issue. The issue is the hobby and how it will fare with the decline of the industry, that's what's interesting. GMS doesn't see that because he has no interest in the hobby, and little understanding of it, to him we are simply potential purchasers of his product. He doesn't understand that his product is like a trumpet or a canvas, it's a tool to enable another's creativity.
GMS makes a classic business error. He thinks the customer is at fault when they don't support his company. No. The company either needs to make products customers want or redirect its efforts to another industry.
Like so many middling businessmen over the years, he sits facing economic decline and complains that his customers just don't get it.
Which is SOP for Skarka as far as I've seen. His ignorance and lack of confidence show clearly in his attempt to short-circuit any disagreement with his opinions by using condescending language to describe anyone who's opinion differs from his. This is also SOP for Skarka as far as I've seen. In the same way he also reveals his complete lack of gratitude and respect for the consumers of the types of products he has created. He seems to be of the opinion that we should be grateful to him for creating something for us. Pathetic, really. One can only hope that when the industry finally "collapses", he will stop all this bleating he does in his efforts to stave off the obscurity he deserves.
Quote from: The_Shadow;411753I don't get the hate for GMS. So he's opinionated and posts thought provoking, contentious stuff? Big deal.
The only thought he provokes in me is "What an idiot." Otherwise, I don't hate him any more than any other loud-mouthed, yet irrelevant, prick. I reserve my hate for the loud-mouthed pricks that can actually influence my life, like Pat Robertson or Sarah Palin.
a niche publisher in a niche hobby...and his opinion is relevant why? oh yeah, cause he makes provocative statements and has the power to put panties in bunches. (SAVE vs. PANTY-BUNCHING, for those of you playing along at home...)
sounds like an irrelevant douche-bag.
I don't know enough about Skarka to think he's an idiot, let alone hate him. Quite a few people seem to think well of him, so he can't be all that terrible.
In this case, however, he's written a lazy and poorly-researched blog entry which flogs a very dead horse, at a time when the hobby, if not the industry, is buoyant and stands to beneift greatly from enthusiasm and positivity.
Oh wow, I read the comments on his blog. I shouldn't have done that.
I'll give him this much, if anyone has the ego necessary to make it in this apparently dying business, he does.
Actually I take it back...the best thing in his post was the comment talking about this:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?p=12950402#
Which is pretty awesome...
I'm sure it would be if the average gamer had the money to own an ipad.
Also, the Personal Computer is dying. Has been since, oh, at least the early nineties. It'll be replaced by , as gains , a keyboard, mouse and .
The last challenger I heard about was consoles gaining hard drives, keyboards, mice and internet access. Guess what consoles today have? Guess what the PC (Personal Computer, not Player Character, it must be said) hasn't done?
The whole thing is ridiculous because PCs will be replaced the moment something comes along that does the job of a PC, but better. And what will that be? A new version of the same idea.
Just like radio is v2 of the same idea as the Player Piano. Just like, if something does replace RPGs, it'll be the same idea, version 2.
Or, if they do die, it'll be for the simple reason no-one wants to play them.
Of course, with all the sophisticated forms of entertainment, no-one plays what has to be a form of the oldest known game ever. Yes, [del]throwing spears[/del] darts has been completely forgotten.
PC gaming - and the game niches specifically tailored for the PC's strengths - have shrunk significantly, though. Most high budget games can't afford it anymore to ignore the console market and the console focus groups.
What is a high budget game though? A large, weighty hardback? Or a 'pocket' sized player guide like savage world explorer edition?
I'd rather the latter over the former for many reasons, nost least of all practicality.
FFG's 40k games are surely high budget. They are lush in production, look stunning and tick all the right boxes for high quality big budget (proofreading nothwithstanding). But they are also big and heavy and expensive. Even the supplements are between £30-40!
We all love the big books. I remember buying VtM 2E and relishing it. But i didn't relish lugging it and all the various supplements around on a bus!
Quote from: Melan;412093PC gaming - and the game niches specifically tailored for the PC's strengths - have shrunk significantly, though. Most high budget games can't afford it anymore to ignore the console market and the console focus groups.
It has mostly shifted to on-line purchasing. Steam and similar sites has just as much variety as PC game stores had back in the day.
Quote from: estar;412103It has mostly shifted to on-line purchasing. Steam and similar sites has just as much variety as PC game stores had back in the day.
Very true. Steam is where I get almost all of my computer games these days. Haven't owned a console since the Xbox.
completely off-topic, but the next consoles won't have CD/DVD drives anyway. It'll probably be solid-state storage and a Steam-like interface, thus rendering the used game market null and void.
progress...it's a M.F.
also, I don't buy that the iPad is outside the price range of the disposable cash demographic that plays role-playing games. Those same people shell out cash for the latest version of Sony/MS's console systems, and are used to $60 games. Granted there are your luddite grognards who will shake their heads at "these kids with their fancy sticks and hoops", but still...they are the exception.
Going back to the beginning of the computer game market and you're still looking at $60 dollar games - Only, with inflation, that's a significantly more expensive $60.
Quote from: kregmosier;412114completely off-topic, but the next consoles won't have CD/DVD drives anyway. It'll probably be solid-state storage and a Steam-like interface, thus rendering the used game market null and void.
My situation is that my kids scratch the damn CDs all the time. Having gamed from the floppy only era of 1990 to now. I like the on-line services. I switched computers once since I started buying from Steam and it a lot less hassled getting things up and running with the current situation.
Of course if Steam ever went away it would suck, a lot. But now entering my third decade of computer gaming so far it is an acceptable trade off. However I rarely will pay release day prices unless the game is really really good. It was several years before I picked up Civilization IV + expansions for a song on Steam.
The exception are with companies that are not a dick about DRM like Paradox and their Hearts of Iron/Europa/Victoria series of games. With Paradox I buy their thing, download it, enter the key (if it even needed) and start playing. Those guys and similar companies I like will get my money on the day of release.
The Steam DRM in my opinion is worth the risk once you get down to the sub $30 range.
Also there are a bunch of retro-games sites, I don't have any links at the moment, that putting the time in packaging emulators with old old games, and getting legal permission to sell. I think that is way cool, hopefully we will see the old SSI gold box games pop up someday.
Quote from: estar;412284Also there are a bunch of retro-games sites, I don't have any links at the moment, that putting the time in packaging emulators with old old games, and getting legal permission to sell. I think that is way cool, hopefully we will see the old SSI gold box games pop up someday.
Good old Games is the one I know about. I'd appreciate links for any others.
I like a number of Gareth's games, he's a good game maker. He's also very outspoken ;). And I also agree that the industry is shrinking. Most of the game stores that I knew of 5 years ago are either out of business or well on their way. And Hasbro could easily just shut WotC down if it's profits aren't what Hasbro wants (and from some of the stories coming out early in 3e, even those sales weren't good enough).
Quote from: danbuter;412300I like a number of Gareth's games, he's a good game maker. He's also very outspoken ;). And I also agree that the industry is shrinking. Most of the game stores that I knew of 5 years ago are either out of business or well on their way. And Hasbro could easily just shut WotC down if it's profits aren't what Hasbro wants (and from some of the stories coming out early in 3e, even those sales weren't good enough).
*Psst*
We've had a world-wide recession for the last few years.
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;412304*Psst* We've had a world-wide recession for the last few years.
Psst, D&D 3E was launched at the beginning of the one-two Dot-com bubble burst / 9/11 recession.
As it happens, D&D 3E was a good prduct, readable both by newbies and grown ups (I'm re-reading the Manual of the Planes and I'm amazed at the quality of writing and at the sheer amount of content) and sailing on the wings of "The Lord of the Rings" movies (when you see scores of halfling clerics named "Aragorn" you understand the impact).
D&D 4E is a terminally lame attempt to cash into a score of markets that have near-nothing to nothing to do with GdRs (Eurogames, MMORPG, miniature skirmish games, card games...) And the contents are written with retarded children in mind (or, even worse, by people thinking that if you write for a kid you must write in a retarded way).
[As a side note, I'm finally playing "World of Warcraft" steadily due to a job-related need - and I even more amazed by how much 4E attempts to plagiarize this MMORPG mechanics. So much for those who scream "lie!" when you point out the similitudes].
Anyway, regarding tabletop RPGs and MMORPGs, the original link gives us this gem:
"Now, imagine you're Hasbro. You have total control of the rights to one of the most recognizable fantasy brands in the world. Will you a) leverage that brand online, where games like World of Warcraft and even fucking Farmville are making hundreds of millions per year, or b) stick with the traditional model, aimed at a shrinking market where 3000 copies per quarter means you're a top-seller?"
Uh? Why not *BOTH*?
And a last note regarding "4E Essentianls" - the game that allows you to play with... er... ELVES AND DWARVES!!! A friend of mine has a 12 years old son and a 11 years old daughter. They are both reading "The Lord of the Rings" and enjoying it to the point that my friend had to buy a second copy so that each kid has his own.
"You know?" he noted "for us (he is a gamer) many things are a given: elves, dwarves, the enchanted wood, the dungeon with the end boss... but, of course, when you are 12 you are discovering them FOR THE FIRST TIME". True: after all, I myself discovered this "new, amazing, never heard before" book in 1980 - 25 years after it was published. And I followed up with D&D *Basic Set* in 1984 - I wasn't interested, at that age, in "different thinghies" like Glorantha or Elric.
We are now planning a session with his kids, using Basic D&D (the revered Rules Cyclopedia) and they are jumping with excitement at playing "Legolas".
Which is the whole fucking point WotC missed with its "Jasonbourne" and "Shadowcuckold" races and classes: if you write for a kid, write around basic archetypes. They are not called so without reason.
He's now posted a follow-up (http://gmskarka.com/2010/10/27/tabletopocalypse-follow-up/#more-3261) saying we're all big dummy doo-doo heads for being provoked by his provocative blog post. Also, we don't understand anything he said, or meant. And other passive-aggressive classics, followed by a lament that people still incorrectly think he engages in the kind of obnoxious behavior he just finished engaging in.
Good times. Oh well. I wish him luck with his transition into digital media, or video games, or whatever he's going to do when all his infallible predictions inevitably come true. And I still like Hong Kong Action Theater.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;412329He's now posted a follow-up (http://gmskarka.com/2010/10/27/tabletopocalypse-follow-up/#more-3261) saying we're all big dummy doo-doo heads for being provoked by his provocative blog post. Also, we don't understand anything he said, or meant. And other passive-aggressive classics, followed by a lament that people still incorrectly think he engages in the kind of obnoxious behavior he just finished engaging in.
Good times. Oh well. I wish him luck with his transition into digital media, or video games, or whatever he's going to do when all his infallible predictions inevitably come true. And I still like Hong Kong Action Theater.
I imagine the responses of us doo-doo heads make for quite the feast of fap.
Lord Hobie
Good to see Skarka still behaving like a giant cock. Every time i've come across his nasty vitriol (usually on rpg.net) I've thought nothing less than 'what's his problem'.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;412331behaving like a giant cock
Calling out someone for "nasty vitriol" and then in the same breath coming up with that one! Stay classy now....:D
Quote from: The_Shadow;412333Calling out someone for "nasty vitriol" and then in the same breath coming up with that one! Stay classy now....:D
what are you talking about?
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;412329He's now posted a follow-up (http://gmskarka.com/2010/10/27/tabletopocalypse-follow-up/#more-3261) saying we're all big dummy doo-doo heads for being provoked by his provocative blog post. Also, we don't understand anything he said, or meant. And other passive-aggressive classics, followed by a lament that people still incorrectly think he engages in the kind of obnoxious behavior he just finished engaging in.
Good times. Oh well. I wish him luck with his transition into digital media, or video games, or whatever he's going to do when all his infallible predictions inevitably come true. And I still like Hong Kong Action Theater.
My favourite part of that one is where he interprets the fact no-one read Sheppard's blog until he linked to it as meaning that people can't refute his argument.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;412334what are you talking about?
It's called irony.
Quote from: Grymbok;412336My favourite part of that one is where he interprets the fact no-one read Sheppard's blog until he linked to it as meaning that people can't refute his argument.
Yeah, I read that.
"You'll continue to chat online about games, maybe kinda sorta play them but more often, pretend to play them and plan theoretical campaigns ("Setting Riff: Shut the Fuck Up Because You'll Never Fuckin' Play It")"Kinda has Bitter-Ex-Gamer written all over it. But sure, I guess we just can't handle his facts and stuff.
Quote from: Reckall;412313Psst, D&D 3E was launched at the beginning of the one-two Dot-com bubble burst / 9/11 recession.
Which was not nearly as bad as the Great Recession. I know you're eager to piss all over the cornflakes, but let's keep some perspective...
Seanchai
Quote from: One Horse Town;412347It's called irony.
How was that ever ironic? 'Calling him out' The fuck is that? You think i 'called him out'? Grow up ffs!
I keep forgetting that you're borderline retarded.
Quote from: One Horse Town;412364I keep forgetting that you're borderline retarded.
So you can't even explain your ad hom bullshit and resort to crap like this? The fuck is your problem boy?
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;412365So you can't even explain your ad hom bullshit and resort to crap like this? The fuck is your problem boy?
Sigh.
Are we sitting comfortably? Good, then we'll begin.
The irony in your statement about GMS was that you said he was abusive online, whilst earlier in the sentence, you called him a cock - itself an abusive term.
I imagine that was what The Shadow was intimating.
Quote from: One Horse Town;412366Sigh.
Are we sitting comfortably? Good, then we'll begin.
The irony in your statement about GMS was that you said he was abusive online, whilst earlier in the sentence, you called him a cock - itself an abusive term.
I imagine that was what The Shadow was intimating.
If you can't tell the difference between insulting someone or their behaviour then you can take your trolling elsewhere. Now fuck off to rpg.net where they play this game all the time, you'll be right at home there with this sort of wind up shit.
Quote from: Reckall;412313Psst, D&D 3E was launched at the beginning of the one-two Dot-com bubble burst / 9/11 recession.
PS: I was referring to his claim that most of the stores he knew *five* years ago, are now shut down. The recession fits nicely into that timetable.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;412407If you can't tell the difference between insulting someone or their behaviour then you can take your trolling elsewhere. Now fuck off to rpg.net where they play this game all the time, you'll be right at home there with this sort of wind up shit.
You are aware that i didn't make the initial remark?
You are also aware that you exhibited the exact behaviour in your post that you were decrying GMS for using? That's where the irony thing came from.
Whatever, perhaps it's best we don't converse any more. Your stupidity is draining my brain cells and i don't want that.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;412353Kinda has Bitter-Ex-Gamer written all over it. But sure, I guess we just can't handle his facts and stuff.
Sure. If you read into their respective blogs, they seem to have this
very RPGNet sort of contempt against "gamers". They have constructed themselves a strongly negative stereotype about their audience, and by default, that's how they see almost everything in the hobby. Hence, the obsession with "transmedia" as a means to exit the market and find a similar one that's seen as unpolluted. It is kinda understandable, since being a game designer exposes you to the nastier side of people without even being well compensated for it, but it also means their opinions should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;412409PS: I was referring to his claim that most of the stores he knew *five* years ago, are now shut down. The recession fits nicely into that timetable.
That helped some of them along, I'm sure. RPG's are a luxury item, and I suspect they are one of the first things removed from the budget when times are tough.
With regards to Hasbro and WotC, I remember reading sean reynolds stuff about how no matter how great WotC thought their sales numbers were, the beancounters from Hasbro didn't think they were very good.
Quote from: danbuter;412468That helped some of them along, I'm sure. RPG's are a luxury item, and I suspect they are one of the first things removed from the budget when times are tough.
With regards to Hasbro and WotC, I remember reading sean reynolds stuff about how no matter how great WotC thought their sales numbers were, the beancounters from Hasbro didn't think they were very good.
The world would be a better place if people spent a lot less time listening to bean counters. They have here uses, don't get me wrong. But driving a creative hobby like role-playing games is not one of them. If you don't love the hobby, I don't want you involved in the business.
As far as disposable income and RPGs are concerned, they are the first thing to get the axe in a tight budget. I can live without new RPG books more than without food or a roof over my head. Though I still want them mind you.
Quote from: Tetsubo;412474As far as disposable income and RPGs are concerned, they are the first thing to get the axe in a tight budget. I can live without new RPG books more than without food or a roof over my head. Though I still want them mind you.
There are a lot of things I'd dump before RPGs if money were tight. I'm not referring to essentials like shelter and food, but for most of us there are a lot of other things to cut first. For my money, RPGs are the most dollar/entertainment efficient items I spend money on.
Quote from: Bobloblah;412488There are a lot of things I'd dump before RPGs if money were tight. I'm not referring to essentials like shelter and food, but for most of us there are a lot of other things to cut first. For my money, RPGs are the most dollar/entertainment efficient items I spend money on.
And I could game for several lifetimes with the RPG books I already have on my shelves. I have 60+ feet of shelf spaced dedicated to RPG products. When things get tight, I cut out *all* unnecessary expenses. My non-fiction reading pile is 300+ books. I could read for years and never buy another book. I am very good at entertaining myself. :)
But you are correct, RPGs are a good value per dollar.
Quote from: Bobloblah;412488There are a lot of things I'd dump before RPGs if money were tight. I'm not referring to essentials like shelter and food, but for most of us there are a lot of other things to cut first. For my money, RPGs are the most dollar/entertainment efficient items I spend money on.
Game playing, yeah. Game collecting, probably more of a luxury (although going out on Friday night is still bound to be more expensive).
Quote from: Tetsubo;412492And I could game for several lifetimes with the RPG books I already have on my shelves. I have 60+ feet of shelf spaced dedicated to RPG products. When things get tight, I cut out *all* unnecessary expenses. My non-fiction reading pile is 300+ books. I could read for years and never buy another book. I am very good at entertaining myself. :)
But you are correct, RPGs are a good value per dollar.
Okay, yeah, I've got nothing on that. I have perhaps a quarter of that for all my non-computer gaming stuff (RPGs, boardgames, ccgs and miniature games). I'm not sure whether to think you're nuts or be green with envy. Maybe both.
First of all, let me point out that the standard by which to measure the hobby is not whether or not people are still playing a lot, but whether or not (and how many) NEW people are playing. In that sense, the hobby and the industry are very tied together. The Industry should be, by all rights, what brings new people into the hobby. Part of the problem is that the industry has become so incestuous that its done a shit-godawful job of bringing new people in for something like the last 15 years.
Second, regarding GMS' blog entry. I draw parallels here to the environmentalist movement. Whenever an environmentalist doomsayer claims "ITs already too late! In 5 weeks the earth's temperature will rise 100º, the seas will eat Baltimore, and toxic algae will choke out all life on earth and/or toxic algea will die out leading to the extinction of all life on earth!!!!11!!!1!", often presenting no solution (or no solution aside from "we have to wipe out 95% of the population and go back to hunter-gathering, its the only eco-responsible thing to do!"), it makes things harder for those of us who do agree that there are serious problems but want to try to focus on finding pragmatic innovations to save things. That's because people tend to think dualistically, so if option A is "the world will end in 4-8 weeks", option B is going to be "everything is just fine and EVERYTHING the green-pinkos are saying is a lie".
Its the same here; every time that someone says "the hobby is dying", it makes things much harder for those of us who want to point out that the hobby is not in healthy shape, but who want to focus on how to make a healthier hobby.
I love how Skarka seems to use the D&D Essential line, the first serious attempt (however misguided or flawed some elements of it might be) to introduce an RPG to regular mass-market outlets (toy stores, wal-mart, whatever) instead of specialty shops, as evidence of how bad things are; when really that's the most optimistic development in fucking AGES. I suppose to Skarka, healthy would be if there were more uber-specialty shops dedicated to uber-nerds who will pay $50 a book for stuff Skarka writes. Maybe what he's bemoaning isn't so much the death of the hobby, but the fact that primma donna writers will be having an increasingly hard time of actually making a living as RPG "auteurs". Its a case of the old line about the comedian "Is he dead? No, but his career is".
RPGPundit
In my experience game stores close because they are run by people that know nothing of the hobby nor how to cater toward their intended customerbase.
Others however close because said customer base comprise fickle assholes.
Travelling Man was (is?) a chain of hobby/memorabilia/comic stores that existed since the 80's. I recall seeing ads for them in White Dwarf! They opened a shop in Bristol in the mid part of the last decade and went bust about three years later because, IMO, they just had no idea what they were doing. Importantly they had no idea of how to compete with the Forbidden Planet shop just up the road. They could have coimpeted: FP is not really a gaming shop, though they sell rpg's. FP are also notoriously expensive. TM refused to hire staff that knew games and refused to give local gamers what they wanted. When they first opened the entire back end of the shop was wal to wall rpg's. When they closed that was reduced to a pair of small shelves and replaced by comics - the one thing they couldn't possibly compete with FP (FP are owned by Titan books).
Sad.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;412786In my experience game stores close because they are run by people that know nothing of the hobby nor how to cater toward their intended customerbase.
Others however close because said customer base comprise fickle assholes.
Travelling Man was (is?) a chain of hobby/memorabilia/comic stores that existed since the 80's. I recall seeing ads for them in White Dwarf! They opened a shop in Bristol in the mid part of the last decade and went bust about three years later because, IMO, they just had no idea what they were doing. Importantly they had no idea of how to compete with the Forbidden Planet shop just up the road. They could have coimpeted: FP is not really a gaming shop, though they sell rpg's. FP are also notoriously expensive. TM refused to hire staff that knew games and refused to give local gamers what they wanted. When they first opened the entire back end of the shop was wal to wall rpg's. When they closed that was reduced to a pair of small shelves and replaced by comics - the one thing they couldn't possibly compete with FP (FP are owned by Titan books).
Sad.
We had a local game store. Now they're comics. I might add that, in the same location, a guy had been running a use book store for years until he decided to retire. He said he could make more money driving a cab; I think there was a definite difference between the profits they were making and the profits they thought they "should" be making.
I also think that, if they had actually done such things as put up, keep and maintain a schedule of games, instead of saying "it's on the website" and then never updating said website schedule, it would have gone better for their store.
Also, not keeping a regular schedule of hours of operation. Or even, AFAICT, making one.
Yes, at all levels, the industry is full of rank amateurs who think they can run a business just because they vaguely like some part of the hobby.
Including more than a few gaming stores (though they never last very long) that get started by some guy who seems to think that owning a gaming store, an actual place of business, will be the same as hanging out at his college lounge gaming with his buddies, only he'll also be making money at it. Its sad to see the process as they realize just how wrong they were, and the inevitable collapse when they are in no way ready or willing to do the vast amount of actual WORK that it takes to keep a small business afloat.
Shit, you even see it in forums. How many idiots split off from RPG.net, or even from this site, thinking "if those fuckers can do it why can't I"? And it turned out that they inevitably couldn't, because of horrifically underestimating how hard it is to keep a major forum up and running and not turning it to an empty wasteland.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Benoist;411754I don't "hate" GMS. I just think he's a douchebag.
The funny thing is that in-person he's a pretty nice guy.
Met him and chatted with at Gen Con two different years. Last year he was talking up Ennie winners or nominees. The time before that he was more like "Hey! Good to meet you!"
Only posted this as a contrasting view.
I'm sure he does seem like an ass quite often online.
Many people do, and yet in person they might be quite agreeable and even share a drink.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;412911The funny thing is that in-person he's a pretty nice guy.
Met him and chatted with at Gen Con two different years. Last year he was talking up Ennie winners or nominees. The time before that he was more like "Hey! Good to meet you!"
Only posted this as a contrasting view.
I'm sure he does seem like an ass quite often online.
Many people do, and yet in person they might be quite agreeable and even share a drink.
- Ed C.
I would not be surprised if he's also one of those guys (i.e. most people) who are basically affable unless they get switched onto the particular topic that turns them into an asshole.
That doesn't surprise me. Another good reason not to get too serious about blog rants. The incendiary stuff always gets more attention, anyway.
Original Tabletopocalypse post: 81 comments
Follow up "you just don't get it" post: 15 comments
Negative brand post: 5 comments
Subsequent post: 0 comments
If you want to get lots of traffic, just honk people off. I only started posting here because I enjoyed (although rarely agreed with) Pundit's blasts of vitriol.
I know nothing about Skarka as a person, save that he was perfectly polite to me when I emailed him about HKAT years ago. I don't care for how he comports himself on his blog, but whatever. I've found that's generally a poor indicator of what someone is really like -- it's fairly trifling to affect a persona online.
Quote from: Insufficient Metal;412922If you want to get lots of traffic, just honk people off. I only started posting here because I enjoyed (although rarely agreed with) Pundit's blasts of vitriol.
That's basically what it amounts to, IMO. Now, I dislike Skarka's online persona because he's always acting with such condescension as to make him utterly distasteful in any gaming related discussion, and because he just interacts with any sort of disagreement like a complete asshole. He's just not willing to take a clue, so I treat him like the asshole he wants to be. Fine by me.
has anyone ever met anyone who was IRL as much of an asshole as they are online?
remember -
(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215499488_8pSZr-L-2.jpg)
Quote from: Melan;412444Sure. If you read into their respective blogs, they seem to have this very RPGNet sort of contempt against "gamers". They have constructed themselves a strongly negative stereotype about their audience, and by default, that's how they see almost everything in the hobby.
This usually happens when one is unable to come out of the closet as a "gamer", and so he strives to build the idea of "something different & better from a gamer" - to whom he belongs.
My two Freudcents :D
Quote from: danbuter;412468With regards to Hasbro and WotC, I remember reading sean reynolds stuff about how no matter how great WotC thought their sales numbers were, the beancounters from Hasbro didn't think they were very good.
Imagine if you were a store selling 10 products. One of the products sells x10 more than it did last year. Yeah, horray! However, even with that boost, that amount is still 50% of your 2nd lowest selling product.
Even at its best, D&D is too small potatoes for a major corporation.
Quote from: RPGPundit;412727Part of the problem is that the industry has become so incestuous that its done a shit-godawful job of bringing new people in for something like the last 15 years.
Zero marketing to noobs will do that.
Quote from: RPGPundit;412727I suppose to Skarka, healthy would be if there were more uber-specialty shops dedicated to uber-nerds who will pay $50 a book for stuff Skarka writes.
That would be a very healthy hobby. In that world, you could sell F!tA and have ten times the site traffic. All small press publishers and authors want the Skarka dream hobby.
I am hoping we see Essentials kick ass this Christmas, but I haven't seen any advertising. So its just a box on a shelf. That's better than no box, but Hasbro spends millions promoting toys and if they want WotC to succeed, they need to spend the marketing dollars.
Quote from: Spinachcat;413104Zero marketing to noobs will do that.
Calling people unfamiliar with RPGs "noobs" will do that, too.
Quote from: Reckall;413086This usually happens when one is unable to come out of the closet as a "gamer", and so he strives to build the idea of "something different & better from a gamer" - to whom he belongs.
My two Freudcents :D
That wouldn't be out of line with my suspicions. Forge designer Matt Snyder had basically the same problem: self-imposed stigma-->externalisation.
I don't follow many game blogs, so I mostly become aware of that dude when he says something "provocative" (read as: insulting and condescending), so I get why people react badly to him. Maybe he writes about neutral, interesting stuff the rest of the time. Or maybe I should pick up one of his games sometime.
What irks me is the focus that he and some like-minded people seem to have on this weird duty that gamers should have toward nurturing the "industry"*, and how RPGs are a gold-mine for extracting "IP" for "transmedia" companies, except gamers won't cooperate.
But none of that matters to me. Its like every time I hear about this guy, he's haranguing me for not doing stuff I have no interest in doing. I just want to play Lady Blackbird (http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/); I don't care if that doesn't help a stranger make money, or recruit new gamers. That shit is not on me.
* A slightly self-important term for what is more or less a loose collection of hobbyists and a couple small companies. I would barely call my field an "industry", and it is several orders of magnitude larger than every RPG company combined.
I would rather have a hobby with ten times the people currently playing, than one where I was selling ten times the number of FtA! books. And focusing on hobby shops selling overpriced books from specialty "celebrity" authors to autistic-fanboy "Collectors" is not the way to get to either.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;413737I would rather have a hobby with ten times the people currently playing, than one where I was selling ten times the number of FtA! books. And focusing on hobby shops selling overpriced books from specialty "celebrity" authors to autistic-fanboy "Collectors" is not the way to get to either.
RPGPundit
Someone else made an apt analogy: radio and television. Television did not eliminate radio. But it did *change* radio. We are in that transitional phase for tabletop RPGs. I have no interest in games that *require* an internet connection. Or computer RPGs at all. I may well be a shrinking, grognard demographic. But fpr me, tabletop RPGs are about sitting around a table out here in the meatspace and interacting with other people. Even with the occasional bought of gamer 'funk'. The question is, how do we keep that model alive?
I think it will keep itself alive through many small, independent actions, as it has for 30-40 years. Like, instead of one group deciding on How To Save Gaming!, we have many individuals and groups and local gaming scenes playing games, and people making their own games (on whatever scale) and distributing them.
Cool people doing cool stuff makes the gaming scene vibrant and worthwhile. Dudes trying to "monetize" my hobby time and then lecturing me on my failure to adequately comply will not.
I think that the shockwave effect coming from the Death of the Forge will clear away the detrius from the creative end of the community and allow for clearer thinking to finally take hold once more.
I think that the story-obsessed end of TRPGs should be pushed to another medium that better exploits such sensibilities, as should be the twitch-focused and build-obsessed gamers, and instead TRPGs should refocus and retrench upon the elements that the tabletop medium works best at expressing. The old paradigm that focused on site-based exploration, on regional exploration, and the frontier-focused milieu (ala the West Marches) is what tabletop gaming is so much better at doing than any other medium where RPGs exist- vulnerable only insofar as information exchange matters, both text and images.
I'm going to pursue a personal project to see if I can get a viable model to work where I live, and if it gets going then I'll share how I did it here so other can do something similar- take what works, modify to fit their specific circumstances and do it themselves.
Hmmm. At the risk of sounding like an eternal defender/apologist for the games I prefer, I'll have to disagree with you, Bradford.
I think the indie/story/whatever movement, small as it may be in relative terms, is really healthy for tabletop gaming.
Just speaking personally, that school of games kept me in the hobby as an active participant, and that means I sometimes end up playing (or buying, or downloading) other, more traditional/classical games. Like Dungeonslayers, or the '81 Moldvay edition of D&D, or Spellbound Kingdoms, all of which I've played in the 5-6 months.
So I think divisions like the ones you suggest are neither useful nor accurate.
But this is an old argument here, I realize, so we can just agree to disagree on that issue.
Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;413774I think that the shockwave effect coming from the Death of the Forge will clear away the detrius from the creative end of the community and allow for clearer thinking to finally take hold once more.
I think that the story-obsessed end of TRPGs should be pushed to another medium that better exploits such sensibilities, as should be the twitch-focused and build-obsessed gamers, and instead TRPGs should refocus and retrench upon the elements that the tabletop medium works best at expressing. The old paradigm that focused on site-based exploration, on regional exploration, and the frontier-focused milieu (ala the West Marches) is what tabletop gaming is so much better at doing than any other medium where RPGs exist- vulnerable only insofar as information exchange matters, both text and images.
I'm going to pursue a personal project to see if I can get a viable model to work where I live, and if it gets going then I'll share how I did it here so other can do something similar- take what works, modify to fit their specific circumstances and do it themselves.
I sure hope you're right. I do think that the Forge basically killed meaningful game design for about half-a-decade there.
What RPGs desperately needs is the equivalent of a Chicago School; an anti-pretentiousness think-tank that doesn't want to manipulate and change RPGs into something else to suit their dark agenda, but to allow the laissez faire of RPGs unregulated by ideology or social engineering to flourish.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;414010I sure hope you're right. I do think that the Forge basically killed meaningful game design for about half-a-decade there.
What RPGs desperately needs is the equivalent of a Chicago School; an anti-pretentiousness think-tank that doesn't want to manipulate and change RPGs into something else to suit their dark agenda, but to allow the laissez faire of RPGs unregulated by ideology or social engineering to flourish.
Does one really need a think-tank or "school" to do something like this?
I don't think so.
Quote from: ggroy;414011Does one really need a think-tank or "school" to do something like this?
It would let the "theory" folks fly their freak flags without throwing in agendas or cults of personality.
Quote from: RPGPundit;414010I sure hope you're right. I do think that the Forge basically killed meaningful game design for about half-a-decade there.
What RPGs desperately needs is the equivalent of a Chicago School; an anti-pretentiousness think-tank that doesn't want to manipulate and change RPGs into something else to suit their dark agenda, but to allow the laissez faire of RPGs unregulated by ideology or social engineering to flourish.
RPGPundit
Funny. I would've fairly directly equated the Chicago School with the likes of the Forge: a bunch of twits that couldn't grasp the significance when the world failed to live up to their theories.
Quote from: RPGPundit;414010I sure hope you're right. I do think that the Forge basically killed meaningful game design for about half-a-decade there.
What RPGs desperately needs is the equivalent of a Chicago School; an anti-pretentiousness think-tank that doesn't want to manipulate and change RPGs into something else to suit their dark agenda, but to allow the laissez faire of RPGs unregulated by ideology or social engineering to flourish.
RPGPundit
But... the Chicago School destroyed the
entire world economy and offered shitty non-functional austerity measures to try to "fix" it. When times are good, they suggest tax cuts. When times are bad, they suggest tax cuts. Their proposals produce as much poverty as wealth, because they are not
rational. Driven as they are by ideology, and possessed of an occasionally effective privatization hammer, they try to treat all problems as if they were nails.
I mean sure, I want to see a Hundred Flowers Bloom as much as the next guy, but you aren't going to get that listening to a bunch of mouth breathers ranting about Rational Expectations day in and day out. What you want is some Scandinavian school - something that acknowledges that there are multiple answers to multiple questions and tries to achieve some sort of balanced mixture.
-Frank
Quote from: Bobloblah;414025Funny. I would've fairly directly equated the Chicago School with the likes of the Forge: a bunch of twits that couldn't grasp the significance when the world failed to live up to their theories.
A-yup. :cool:
Quote from: Bobloblah;414025Funny. I would've fairly directly equated the Chicago School with the likes of the Forge: a bunch of twits that couldn't grasp the significance when the world failed to live up to their theories.
I had a very similar thought.
IMHO, one day someone will wake up and say: "Hey, let do this!" - the way Gary Gygax and Richard Garfield did in their respective genres. "This" will be both good and succesful and the world will move on starting from it.
The problem I see now is that from the Forge actually sprung out some good ideas, but the behaviour of the movement as a whole managed to alienate people both from them and from their ideas.
I bought a couple of their games out of simple curiosity, and, by willingfully ignoring the Fundamentalists mindset behind the movement, I was able to enjoy the games as they were, and to appreciate some of the ideas behind them (what didn't happen was to be totally converted to these ideas and only these ideas body and soul - an unforgiveable sin, I understand).
But I also feel it would be a loss to throw away the baby with the water (better yet: with the hot air). Some of the ideas about extending the RPG concept to shared narrative experiences, without a clear "Game Master/Narrator", at the very least enlarge the field (again: IMHO the folly of the Forge was to try to totally transform the field instead of contributing to it). In these kind of RPGs you would lose a bit of authorial control but gain a bit good brainstorming (if done right).
Anyway - and sadly - the ideas and the way their were presented are, now, so unextricably interwined that even the most interesting among the former will suffer from the latter for the foreseeable future. Just say: "I think that I'll self-publish... and I have no problems in creating a niche product where I explore some theories of mine" (all legit endeavours) and you will be already labeled. And this will be the sadful legacy of the Forge.
Must every single thread on this forum devolve into people rending their garments and rubbing ashes in their hair over The Forge and its sinister dystopian collectivist conspiracy to Destroy All Fun?
Although, having checked, the existing thread that is actually about the Forge devolved into a D&D Edition War, so I guess the karmic balance is maintained.
Carry on!
Quote from: BWA;414043Must every single thread on this forum devolve into people rending their garments and rubbing ashes in their hair over The Forge and its sinister dystopian collectivist conspiracy to Destroy All Fun?
No, some just sort of peter out.
The good threads though...
The funny thing is, the majority of posters here either don't give a fuck about the Forge either way or think it did at least some good, it even has some outright fans. The anti-Forge crowd is if anything something of a minority.
A vocal minority though, one has to give them that.
Quote from: BWA;414047Although, having checked, the existing thread that is actually about the Forge devolved into a D&D Edition War, so I guess the karmic balance is maintained.
Carry on!
It's been more restrained than the RPGnet one - which has been closed.
Quote from: One Horse Town;414052It's been more restrained than the RPGnet one - which has been closed.
WOW.
( I hadn't looked in over there in close to 12 hours) It also resulted in maybe two to three spin-off threads in Trouble tickets and 3 to 4 bannings .
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;414056WOW.
( I hadn't looked in over there in close to 12 hours)
It also resulted in maybe two to three spin-off threads in Trouble tickets and 3 to 4 bannings .
- Ed C.
Yeah, my last post to that thread where i said the lasting legacy of the Forge would be
division seems to be prophetic.
Quote from: BWA;414043Must every single thread on this forum devolve into people rending their garments and rubbing ashes in their hair over The Forge and its sinister dystopian collectivist conspiracy to Destroy All Fun?
No. But a lot of threads have someone coming up and asking if every single thread on this forum must devolve into people rending their garments and rubbing ashes in their hair over The Forge and its sinister dystopian collectivist conspiracy to Destroy All Fun. :p
Quote from: One Horse Town;414052It's been more restrained than the RPGnet one - which has been closed.
That thread is MADNESS. So much blood ...
To quote a poster from StoryGames, commenting on that thread a couple days ago: "In the grim darkness of the 41-page thread, there is only war."
Not sure how many pages it actually got to before it ended in ruin.
Quote from: Reckall;414063No. But a lot of threads have someone coming up and asking if every single thread on this forum must devolve into people rending their garments and rubbing ashes in their hair over The Forge and its sinister dystopian collectivist conspiracy to Destroy All Fun.
Shit is meta, yo.
To be fair, the only threads here I follow all that closely are the ones where people rend their garments over the Forge and its diaspora, so I'm a self-selecting audience.
Quote from: Koltar;414056WOW.
It also resulted in maybe two to three spin-off threads in Trouble tickets and 3 to 4 bannings .
Heavily-moderated, restricted speech leads to more frustration and aggression than lightly-moderated, free speech. It's almost as if people could just say what they think, even if it's a bit rough and nasty, then get on with the discussion and forget any nastiness later, like adults.
Who'd've thought?
Quote from: Kyle Aaron;414144It's almost as if people could just say what they think, even if it's a bit rough and nasty, then get on with the discussion and forget any nastiness later, like adults.
Does that, in your opinion, describe TheRPGSite? It doesn't in mine, not anymore.
Quote from: Melan;414272Does that, in your opinion, describe TheRPGSite? It doesn't in mine, not anymore.
Why not?
Yes, it describes therpgsite.
Sure, some people hold grudges. But they'd hold grudges even if we weren't allowed to call each-other cunts.
And then there are people who never ever hold grudges, no matter what.
Most of us are in the middle, if we have a bit of a yell and swear we feel better, build a bridge and get over it.
Quote from: ggroy;414011Does one really need a think-tank or "school" to do something like this?
Yes, as a permanent vaccination against the would-be "Theory Swine" out there.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Bobloblah;414025Funny. I would've fairly directly equated the Chicago School with the likes of the Forge: a bunch of twits that couldn't grasp the significance when the world failed to live up to their theories.
Touche. I could have tried to find a better comparison, but one didn't spring to mind.
RPGPundit
Quote from: FrankTrollman;414026But... the Chicago School destroyed the entire world economy and offered shitty non-functional austerity measures to try to "fix" it. When times are good, they suggest tax cuts. When times are bad, they suggest tax cuts. Their proposals produce as much poverty as wealth, because they are not rational. Driven as they are by ideology, and possessed of an occasionally effective privatization hammer, they try to treat all problems as if they were nails.
I mean sure, I want to see a Hundred Flowers Bloom as much as the next guy, but you aren't going to get that listening to a bunch of mouth breathers ranting about Rational Expectations day in and day out. What you want is some Scandinavian school - something that acknowledges that there are multiple answers to multiple questions and tries to achieve some sort of balanced mixture.
-Frank
But that sort of thing is bound to get infiltrated and subverted by the extremists. That's why I set up the Landmarks as the absolute foundation of all "theory-style" discussion here. Because if not, if you inevitably start in good faith when your opponent is NOT acting in good faith but simply wants to take over and get rid of you, you're doomed.
In fact, that's what the Forge already did once, when they first came into being; they subverted all the theory-talk that was going on at the time, and even subverted the GDS theory to utterly kneecap any potential intellectual opposition to their semantic jargon.
RPGPundit
There's a discussion on the ukroleplayers forum about the price of entry to rpg's. I have argued (or tried to) that it's artificually high. This is because books have uneccesary expensive production values. My preference these days, as i have expressed before, is smaller books like savage worlds explorer edition, or the new essential edition of Wild Talents. There are other examples.
I link to that discussion here (http://www.ukroleplayers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=9023&p=99793#p99792)because someone has made the claim that the writer (and artist and editor) can expect at least £1000 for their writing an rpg for a publisher. That seems rather high to me.
Consequently that's why books are so expensive. Does that make sense? I still maintain my preference as the way forward for the print side of the hobby.
The problem isn't those filthy writers wanting to get paid, it's that the average RPG business plan is based on trying to break even with 1,500 copies sold.
Quote from: Grymbok;414678The problem isn't those filthy writers wanting to get paid, it's that the average RPG business plan is based on trying to break even with 1,500 copies sold.
Some probably don't even break a few hundred copies, in the first year of sales.
http://collective-endeavour.com/articles/first-year-sales
Quote from: ggroy;414682Some probably don't even break a few hundred copies, in the first year of sales.
http://collective-endeavour.com/articles/first-year-sales
Wow. Seeing 316 described as a "runaway hit" with those sales is just mad.
None of those are particularly significant games. That article is clearly written for the purely vanity-publisher.
RPGPundit
I think Gareth is witnessing the death of the hobby store and the three-tier distribution system and thinking they will take the games industry with them.
I happen to think the death of both would be good for small games publishers, not bad.
Quote from: Grymbok;414678The problem isn't those filthy writers wanting to get paid, it's that the average RPG business plan is based on trying to break even with 1,500 copies sold.
Wow, yeah, that would be a problem business plan. We sold over 1500 units of
Diaspora in our first year (which I consider unexpected by a factor of about 10) but we also made over $10,000 doing it. Of course, we wrote and edited for free to develop it, so whether or not we wound up adequately compensated for that is up for grabs.
But we knew that a few hundred sales would be doing pretty good for a game that only a handful of people would ever even hear about. So we published tactically with that in mind. The ability to do this is undermining small-scale traditional publishers -- even small scale independents that choose to pre-print and warehouse books before they know if they have a hit.
Quote from: Halfjack;415260Wow, yeah, that would be a problem business plan. We sold over 1500 units of Diaspora in our first year (which I consider unexpected by a factor of about 10) but we also made over $10,000 doing it. Of course, we wrote and edited for free to develop it, so whether or not we wound up adequately compensated for that is up for grabs.
But we knew that a few hundred sales would be doing pretty good for a game that only a handful of people would ever even hear about. So we published tactically with that in mind. The ability to do this is undermining small-scale traditional publishers -- even small scale independents that choose to pre-print and warehouse books before they know if they have a hit.
Fair dos. I pulled the number out of my head - the point I was trying to make was just that RPGs are expensive because sales are low.
Quote from: Vigilance;415256I think Gareth is witnessing the death of the hobby store and the three-tier distribution system and thinking they will take the games industry with them.
I happen to think the death of both would be good for small games publishers, not bad.
I will miss the gaming store. Rummaging through bargain bins of RPG stuff is one of my favorite hobbies. I just found a new store in Southern MA this weekend.
http://www.medievalstarship.com/
Quote from: Tetsubo;415320I will miss the gaming store. Rummaging through bargain bins of RPG stuff is one of my favorite hobbies. I just found a new store in Southern MA this weekend.
http://www.medievalstarship.com/
I am not saying such stores necessarily will go away, or even that they should. I just think focusing on traditional print runs and trying to please the LGS is actively bad for most small game companies.
I certainly have spent a lot of enjoyable time in several game stores over the years.
I just think everything Gareth is pointing out says more about the health of small game stores and the old three-tier distribution system than it really does about the health of the hobby as a whole.
Quote from: Koltar;412911The funny thing is that in-person he's a pretty nice guy.
Met him and chatted with at Gen Con two different years. Last year he was talking up Ennie winners or nominees. The time before that he was more like "Hey! Good to meet you!"
- Ed C.
I agree. I've chatted with him at two Gen Cons, and he's been quite affable and friendly.