Quote from: RPGPundit;520295India is in some ways culturally closer to anglo-saxon culture than S.America is.

RPGPundit

Hm. I agree that India is certainly one of the, if not the, closest culturally to the Western culture country in Far East. In it's case it is surprising why RPGs did not yet establish a foothold there. Perhaps because of the lack of Indian - Fantasy based RPGs?

I'm no expert by any means but I seem to recall reading somewhere that Indian legends and myths are tied quite tightly to their religion and that heroes and adventures don't feature heavily.

On the other hand, Bollywood movies are massive. I wonder how a Bollywood-themed generic RPG would go down...

Quote from: Dodger;520412On the other hand, Bollywood movies are massive. I wonder how a Bollywood-themed generic RPG would go down...

use feng shui for bollywood adventures!

I've heard that term before "Bollywood" but what does it mean? And what are differences between them and "Hollywood" movies inasmuch much that they have a specific term for them?

Quote from: Marleycat;520442I've heard that term before "Bollywood" but what does it mean? And what are differences between them and "Hollywood" movies inasmuch much that they have a specific term for them?

Most importantly, Bollywood is how films would look if most of the directors thought that films are just musicals recorded with cameras .

Also - why don't you try to make your own film to see?

http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index.php?lang=en

Quote from: RPGPundit;520295India is in some ways culturally closer to anglo-saxon culture than S.America is.

RPGPundit

As a man currently in India ... hmmm... Remember most of S America are European emigrees. And the most alien culture I ahve ever visited is Japan and I think that is the asian country where RPGs are most likely to work.

So there is a traditon of playing games in both India and China. There are numerous board and card games in both countries Chess for exampel is very popular in India.
Historically its fair to say that neither culture has a concept of haning round at each others houses but that is because historically houses are small households are very large. Most Indian homes even now don't have space for a half dozen teenagers to sit round and play a game for an afternoon.
Also in both countries there is no real concept of a 'teen-ager' as being someone who can laze about and play games. Teenagers work.
Now that is changing as wealth increases and families reduce in size. If you have a decent job and only 2 kids then maybe they don't have to get jobs at 11 but then there is a huge drive in education, education education....

I think the entry point for games in India and China is schools. If you could promote RPGs through the school system and give them a gloss of studiousness then I think you solve the issues of homes being small and parents thinking games are a waste of time.
A friend of mine who lives in Majorca uses D&D  to teach small kids (6-9)English and he gets a lot of sucess with it.
There are hugely popular mythological traditions in both countries and folk heroes abound. Both countries have their own very sucessful movie industries and they tap into a vein of escapism and both countries love violent action adventure which is of course what 90% of RPGs are about.

I think it woudl work. I also of course think there is no money in it or I would have been doing it already. Protecting IP in either country is next to impossible. But cheaply mass produced d6 based games created in a magazine format so the books could be produced and sold for $1 each I think have real potential to penetrate.
MTG already has a strong presence in China (though not India).

Quote from: Rincewind1;520443Most importantly, Bollywood is how films would look if most of the directors thought that films are just musicals recorded with cameras .

Also - why don't you try to make your own film to see?

http://www.grapheine.com/bombaytv/index.php?lang=en

Forget I asked, "A pox on thine house, a pox I say".

Quote from: RPGPundit;520289There's also a more sizable chunk of the world's population in China than in South America.  But you might note, if you get your head out of your own ass for a moment, that I was comparing S.America to NORTH america, not to korea.  

I also notice that you keep directing your argument toward China rather than India...what's your excuse for why there isn't an effort to expand the hobby there?

S.America PROVES that there's nothing particular about RPGs that means they'll only work in north america and europe.

RPGPundit

Does South America really prove that? Are the sales that good that everyone rushes a spanish translation of their RPG to not miss out on the South American market? I think not.
And about RPG/computer games and asia. Reality proves me right there. There is simply no arguing about it. Computer games are huge, RPGs are a footnote with the exception of some Japanese created game that are so story gamey that you wouldn't probably count them as RPGs anyway.

Quote from: jibbajibba;520450As a man currently in India ... hmmm... Remember most of S America are European emigrees.

It depends. A lot of South American countries are populated mainly by people of Amerindian heritage (or mixtures of Amerindian with other races). Countries like Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, etc. Interestingly, it's in those countries that have sizeable populations of European heritage where the hobby is strongest, like Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil.

QuoteHistorically its fair to say that neither culture has a concept of haning round at each others houses but that is because historically houses are small households are very large. Most Indian homes even now don't have space for a half dozen teenagers to sit round and play a game for an afternoon.
Also in both countries there is no real concept of a 'teen-ager' as being someone who can laze about and play games. Teenagers work.

These two explanations sound plausible, especially the last one.

QuoteI think it woudl work. I also of course think there is no money in it or the Chinese and the Indians would have been doing it already.

Fixed it.

Quote from: DominikSchwager;520469Does South America really prove that? Are the sales that good that everyone rushes a spanish translation of their RPG to not miss out on the South American market? I think not.

Yes and no. Although you can find Spanish translations in South America, they are usually made in Spain for internal consumption. The hobby does exist in South America, but there is no local industry (except in Brazil). This is something I'd love to see, local publishers writing and publishing RPGs. If they are any good, I'd buy them!

Quote from: jibbajibba;520450Historically its fair to say that neither culture has a concept of haning round at each others houses but that is because historically houses are small households are very large. Most Indian homes even now don't have space for a half dozen teenagers to sit round and play a game for an afternoon.
Also in both countries there is no real concept of a 'teen-ager' as being someone who can laze about and play games. Teenagers work.
Now that is changing as wealth increases and families reduce in size. If you have a decent job and only 2 kids then maybe they don't have to get jobs at 11 but then there is a huge drive in education, education education....

I think the entry point for games in India and China is schools. If you could promote RPGs through the school system and give them a gloss of studiousness then I think you solve the issues of homes being small and parents thinking games are a waste of time.
A friend of mine who lives in Majorca uses D&D  to teach small kids (6-9)English and he gets a lot of sucess with it.

I know India a bit, if superficially - a few years back I did a lot of business trips there to Delhi and Mumbai. What's true of most of the population - kids at work, small homes with a lot of people in them - is not true of the upper strata that use English or Hinglish as a lingua franca and are pretty well embedded in Western culture, both through carrying on with status-conscious traditions and activities left over from the Raj and - more important these days - just tuning in to what they think is cool from overseas. They are a small percentage of the population, but in such a large country they add up to a market of opportunity comparable to a large European state.

India does have a tradition of heroes and legend - its pretty culturally distinctive, so I can imagine why offering that market the standard western fantasy fare would only interest those completely steeped in western culture (e.g. went to school in England) which isn't a market.

China and Japan - the appetite and market for English Language Teaching is enormous, and they enjoy using entertainment media to do it (I know from personal experience). I don't know if anyone has ever tried RPGs as a way to do it commercially as a niche product, but I doubt it.

Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;520474I know India a bit, if superficially - a few years back I did a lot of business trips there to Delhi and Mumbai. What's true of most of the population - kids at work, small homes with a lot of people in them - is not true of the upper strata that use English or Hinglish as a lingua franca and are pretty well embedded in Western culture, both through carrying on with status-conscious traditions and activities left over from the Raj and - more important these days - just tuning in to what they think is cool from overseas. They are a small percentage of the population, but in such a large country they add up to a market of opportunity comparable to a large European state.

India does have a tradition of heroes and legend - its pretty culturally distinctive, so I can imagine why offering that market the standard western fantasy fare would only interest those completely steeped in western culture (e.g. went to school in England) which isn't a market.

China and Japan - the appetite and market for English Language Teaching is enormous, and they enjoy using entertainment media to do it (I know from personal experience). I don't know if anyone has ever tried RPGs as a way to do it commercially as a niche product, but I doubt it.

I would agreewith a lot of that from my experience expect that upper middleclass indian layer do expect their kids to work hard and go to good colleges and there is a lot of parental control.  I think an upper middle class Indian Prep School would be a fertile ground for RPGs.

Quote from: RPGPundit;519342I disagree. RPGs arrived in latin america largely after computer games, and there is a small but thriving fandom.
Nor do I think that language is a barrier.  While there are games written in portuguese in brazil, and spanish games or spanish translations of games brought into south america, the vast majority of gamers in south america play the games using the english game books.  And I'd wager there's at least as many english readers and speakers (or potential readers and speakers) in India as there are here.

My own impression of the gaming situation in Mexico is that it's not that common to order stuff through the internet, at least for any people I know, and it's difficult for people who are potentially interested to actually get them. My soon-to-be sister in law, who is in Mexico City, is very interested in both board and roleplaying games and knew of exactly one gamestore in the whole city (though there must be more).
Also, the games are very expensive compared to the average Mexican budget. 500 pesos for Arkham Horror is a lot of money and she almost didn't want to accept us giving it to her as a birthday present.
Though the numbers are increasing there's still a lot of people who hardly know any English. Spanish-language editions would help a lot in that respect.
There's a Spanish edition of Call of Cthulhu lying around at my gf's family's house but no one has seriously given it a read or considered actually playing it. My gf bought it because she's a Lovecraft fan, not knowing what it was exactly. I'm considering running it for them but I'd have to run it in English which is not my first language and would rule out non-English speakers in the family from participating.

Quote from: RPGPundit;519682I doubt that too.  There's a computer games INDUSTRY in east asian countries (not really in India as far as I know) but every single kid in south america plays computer games here, probably as much as in north america.

In Mexico, anyone who can afford them seems obsessed with playing console games. My 12 year old computer gamer nephew has expressed some curiosity regarding pen and paper RPGs, though I think he primarily likes the cover illustrations.
Manga and anime are extremely popular and much more mainstream than in the Netherlands, which might also lead to an interest in tabletop RPG.

So yeah, there's probably lots of potential interest but availability, language barrier and price tag present obstacles. Mind you, I'm unfamiliar with the upper class situation, where those obstacles would not exist.

In Korea (last I lived there was 10 years ago so things have changed obviously, but...)

Parent's apartments don't have basements (or anywhere else) to turn into gaming space and people don't generally visit each other's houses socially - entire districts of cities are packed with 10 floors of cafes and bars for adults hanging out. High-school kids are usually too busy studying or taking after-school private classes to do anything approximating hanging out (I kid you not), but when they do, the PC-room is their social environment, row upon row of machines with starcraft (or whatever). They've got other places, like Video-rooms with little rentable cubicles with DVD-players and TVs so the kids can watch movies together, though these are probably dinosaurs with the advent of smartphones, I dunno.

I think the idea of integrating RPGs with English-as-second-language teaching would be the best entry point. When I used to walk home from work, complete strangers, university aged?, would stop me on the street and ask if I would be their English tutor. Had I said "Yes", I could have had a campaign running within the week.

I have a new player in one group who is Iranian, and she mentioned the other day that, although she has played WoW etc., "I don't think we have ever had to use our imaginations like this before". Conceptually then, translating a RPG into Persian and then dropping it in the Iranian market wouldn't work - people have no experience with this kind of collaborative imagination-play, "ok, so what are we supposed to do with this?"

Quote from: DominikSchwager;520469Does South America really prove that? Are the sales that good that everyone rushes a spanish translation of their RPG to not miss out on the South American market? I think not.

Because people are idiots.  There are more gamers in Montevideo than the total sales figures of some of your favorite forge non-RPGs.  Yes, more than 3 of us!  In fact, there are hundreds, and Montevideo is the first place I'd been to in a long time that had an open and inter-communicating community of gamers that weren't just tiny little closed groups.  I currently have a floating pool of about 15-20 players for my games.  How many people can say that in North America, dipshit?

Anything that arrives for sale in Uruguay gamebook-wise, which is to say almost nothing, sells out immediately, and these are for english books imported and sold often at double the price of what you'd get it for in the U.S.  
They devour it. Any game someone brings in gets photocopied, downloaded, printed out, and played everywhere.  There's a big community of Amber players here. Why? Because I brought an Amber book with me.  Another person brought in L5R and the same thing happened.  Someone else did that with the Sailor Moon RPG, and that's big here too (mostly among teen girls, but whatever).  

There is a company here that's making and selling its own dice, and I think another that's bringing them in from somewhere.

If someone actually sat down and figured out, INTELLIGENTLY, how to market an RPG to the latinamerican market (rather than just token efforts at distribution or translation), they'd do really well. In fact, SJG HAS done really well doing precisely that with GURPS for the Brazilian market, from what I've been told.

The only thing you've demonstrated is that whether you're talking about Latin America, China, or India, its not that RPGs fail, or that the poor darkies can't figure out why they're great, its the fault of the INDUSTRY, who FAIL AT CAPITALISM.

RPGPundit