This week, Borders finally realized it was dead (after a couple years of being a zombie) and will be closed down; that leaves all of one major brick and mortar bookstore left (at least, in the USA), and it has major problems of its own plus is heavily focused on marketing e-books, which are slowly increasing in market share.

Along similar lines, computer tablet sales are skyrocketing, and the industry expects over a 130% increase in sales next year.


So why is everyone in the RPG industry still talking about physical books?  Why are the producers of The One Ring, Legend, Runequest 6, etc throwing money into a sinking ship?

Why aren't there new RPGs being developed solely for an ebook or tablet app world?  And with a mindset of creating a game that utilizes the technology (for example, you can have a much more complex system for combat, etc, if the game is not designed for people to figure out calculations by hand).

Why isn't anyone in the industry even attempting to leverage the popularity of these newly emerging markets and the capabilities of the new technologies?

The best we've done so far is some mediocre pdfs and WotC's half-hearted attempts at add-ons.  It's not nearly enough.

Inertia?

A more pertinent question is whether going the iPad, kindle, etc ... route, will bring in a larger audience for WotC and other rpg publishers.

I'm sure if I could afford an I-anything I'd agree. It's a matter of time though really. While books will always be popular, the lack of sales and thus orders will force the issue.

Because despite the rise in tablets there are still more people without them with them.  Also for the RPG community pushing to RPG's designed to run on a tablet should be more then just pimping the ebook.  That brings nothing to it.  Put out a toolset, complete with rules, dice rollers, various generators, simple mapping perhaps etc....

Quote from: ggroy;468839A more pertinent question is whether going the iPad, kindle, etc ... route, will bring in a larger audience for WotC and other rpg publishers.

I disagree, because I don't see the situation as much of a choice.  What I see is that entertainment media is undergoing a fundamental paradigm shift away from physical media in pretty much every market - movies, tv, music, books, etc.

What I'm saying is, when is someone in the RPG industry going to realize it's time to get on the train before it leaves the station?

Sure, I understand, the old guard are set in their ways.  But why are newly emerging companies and new games following the same old pattern?

When do we start seeing designers who say "how can I design this digital media rpg?" instead of "how can I adapt my rpg book into digital media?"

Quote from: jgants;468837The best we've done so far is some mediocre pdfs and WotC's half-hearted attempts at add-ons.  

Comparatively, WotC has stopped producing books and basically has a digital product. While I haven't seen other publishers following suit, it isn't as if no one is moving away from physical media...

Seanchai

Quote from: kryyst;468841Because despite the rise in tablets there are still more people without them with them.  Also for the RPG community pushing to RPG's designed to run on a tablet should be more then just pimping the ebook.  That brings nothing to it.  Put out a toolset, complete with rules, dice rollers, various generators, simple mapping perhaps etc....

I completely agree with your second point, which is my point - utilize the electronics.

As to the first point, I can understand why none of the current publishers (which still sell well-enough in physical books) aren't doing this.  What I'm curious about is why no one new is thinking this could be a competitive advantage.

For example, the new Runequest guys are going to pump out another edition of Runequest when there will be one live and one only recently dead version to compete with.  Why not take advantage of what the iPad offers and design the initial Runequest 6 game for that instead of just printing yet another set of the same old runequest books?

And not to just pick on those guys - I see the exact same problem with The One Ring rpg and Dungeon Crawl Classics: they are yet another set of retreads for a setting/concept that has seen a ton of books already.  Why not make their games different by integrating with new technology?

Quote from: Seanchai;468845Comparatively, WotC has stopped producing books and basically has a digital product. While I haven't seen other publishers following suit, it isn't as if no one is moving away from physical media...

Seanchai

I see WotC as slowly (ever so slowly) getting used to the idea.  But they are still thinking in "book mode" first.

And right now, their electronic utilities leave a ton to be desired, functionality-wise.

But yes, fundamentally, they are at least trying to adapt.

Quote from: jgants;468837And with a mindset of creating a game that utilizes the technology (for example, you can have a much more complex system for combat, etc, if the game is not designed for people to figure out calculations by hand).

I don't know about you or the rest, but for me figuring out calculations by hand is part of the fun. I want no machine to take that from me.

If ones goes all electronic, do they still use dice style mechanics?

If dice style mechanics are removed entirely, do they draw numbers from a specific discrete/continuous probability distribution of the designer's choosing?

Quote from: ggroy;468852If ones goes all electronic, do they still use dice style mechanics?

If dice style mechanics are removed entirely, do they draw numbers from a specific discrete/continuous probability distribution of the designer's choosing?

That's a good question.  I'd love to see someone building games that start to experiment with those kind of ideas.

Remember back when TSR started out and every game was really different because they were just experimenting?  It could be like that again for a while.  People could publish all kinds of crazy systems and see which ones ended up being popular and/or worked best with the new medium.  

As I see it, a whole new frontier of game design to explore is out there.

Hasn't the DDI been doing exactly that?
I hear they have even an online gametable that people are killing each other about.

The last thing we need are people putting out fundamental changes to the publishing paradigm because "OMG!111! tablets is the shiznit!".  The RPG hobby has, traditionally, been about the individual creativity of the players and GMs.  That's always been the lifeblood that couldn't be replicated in digital form.  Now I do think it's possible to get to the point where a rper can say "RQ6?  There's an app for that."  However, the problem comes in making a flexible toolset, not a restrictive one, which is much harder to do.

Look at VTT software today, the easier they are to use, the less customizable they become, at least without a degree in programming.

I susoect that once cheaper tablet style devices become available and alot more people switch to them for books and such we'll start to see a a similar move towards the kind of rpgs that utilise the tech beyond just being a static .pdf & dice roller app, at the moment though theres only a few brands of tablet out there and most are out of the avarage persons price range.