The wood blocks are for tying to the bottom of their shoes, so they can appear tall enough to get into R-rated movies.And here I've been wearing fake moustaches and sitting on the shoulders of a kid sitting on another's shoulders beneath a big and tall trenchcoat all this time.As the kid at the bottom, I must say, I've built a lot of strength in my shoulders and thighs. I've also learnt to lift with my legs and not with my back.
What movie are we seeing today, boss?
Your thighs are Norweigan spruce, dude. No doubt.
Tarren's legs, in general, are incredibly powerful. I once saw him stand at home plate in flip flops and snap kick a fast ball pitch right up and out of the park.
I'd like to inject into this the fact that D&D is increasing in popularity in China as we speak, and in their customary manner, the Chinese are picking this game up without the help of publishers, but rather by translating and disseminating it on the web.
You know I don't quite get the violence in media turning children into bratty forces of evil argument. I'm 30 years old. I manage a business. I have a Bachelors in Arts and I'm a year away from becoming a CPA. Disney movies weren't shown in my home while I was growing up. My mother took me to see Nightmare on Elm Street 3 at the theaters when I was ten or eleven. When asked "what is my favorite movie" by my first grade catholic school teacher I enthusiastically replied "The Godfather." Strangely enough, the only thing that ever phased my parents is when I discovered Dungeons and Dragons in the 7th grade. After I explained away the crazed satanic influences the game supposedly induced, my parents who always respected my opinions, even as a kid, let it be. My younger brother, growing up in the rise of the video game generation plunged his thumb calloused hands into every violent, bloody game on the market. Worse yet, my brother read every one of the 80s conan novels complete with sex, slasher violence, and half naked women splashed on the covers by the 2nd grade. His third grade book report on Conan the Relentless raised some eyebrows. My parents were proud he was reading such involved books. We had no curfews growing up. Despite all of this we were both straight A students. We are both successful. More importantly we always respected our parents. I dated a girl in high school who grew up on a diet of Disney movies. The first disney movie I ever witnessed was Beauty and the Beast when I was 16. Absolutely horrific if you ask me....if dancing silverware isn't the sign of the beast, I don't know what is. She was sheltered from anything rated R. She was sheltered from anything that smacked of adult content. When she finally graduated high school, she was so poorly adjusted to how the real world functioned, she failed out of college and returned home.
Yeah, my two closest friends and I weren't sheltered from adult content once we reached the age of 12 or so. We all played D&D, but I was into Conan and heavy metal music, one of my friends was a huge comic book dork, and the other, well, I can't think of anything "unwholesome" that he was into, but that was by choice. Now we're not doing too bad. I'm heavily involved in this industry, one of them is now a doctor of genetics, and the other run the operations end of a medium sized company.
You know I don't quite get the violence in media turning children into bratty forces of evil argument. I'm 30 years old. I manage a business. I have a Bachelors in Arts and I'm a year away from becoming a CPA. Disney movies weren't shown in my home while I was growing up. My mother took me to see Nightmare on Elm Street 3 at the theaters when I was ten or eleven. When asked "what is my favorite movie" by my first grade catholic school teacher I enthusiastically replied "The Godfather." Strangely enough, the only thing that ever phased my parents is when I discovered Dungeons and Dragons in the 7th grade. After I explained away the crazed satanic influences the game supposedly induced, my parents who always respected my opinions, even as a kid, let it be. My younger brother, growing up in the rise of the video game generation plunged his thumb calloused hands into every violent, bloody game on the market. Worse yet, my brother read every one of the 80s conan novels complete with sex, slasher violence, and half naked women splashed on the covers by the 2nd grade. His third grade book report on Conan the Relentless raised some eyebrows. My parents were proud he was reading such involved books. We had no curfews growing up. Despite all of this we were both straight A students. We are both successful. More importantly we always respected our parents. I dated a girl in high school who grew up on a diet of Disney movies. The first disney movie I ever witnessed was Beauty and the Beast when I was 16. Absolutely horrific if you ask me....if dancing silverware isn't the sign of the beast, I don't know what is. She was sheltered from anything rated R. She was sheltered from anything that smacked of adult content. When she finally graduated high school, she was so poorly adjusted to how the real world functioned, she failed out of college and returned home.
Preach on. It's time to give the familiar gripes a rest. It's everyone else's fault that (social phenomenon I don't like) is popular because they don't know how to raise their kids. (social phenomenon I don't like) is (immoral/evil/advocates demon sacrifices/turns girls into STD-carrying moms at 13). Kids today are broken somehow because they're into (social phenomenon I don't like). (social phenomenon I like) is not the ONLY way to make kids into responsible members of society, just the best one.
It has to stop sometime. All social phenomenon, whether positive or negative, enter vogue, passe, and cult levels of interest as a part of being..well, a social phenomenon. D&D isn't dying any time soon. Neither is wargaming, the internet, horoscopes, tie dye, portal gaming, pet rocks or what have you. Will the fanbase reduce in size like a shrinky dink(remember those?) at 300 degrees? Sure. But it will also grow and come back as people who have never heard of it before get into it. The fact that we're all here talking about it is proof of that.
I'd like to inject into this the fact that D&D is increasing in popularity in China as we speak, and in their customary manner, the Chinese are picking this game up without the help of publishers, but rather by translating and disseminating it on the web.
I heard a rumor about this from a friend of mine who just came back from there not too long ago- apparently he got really popular with a few of his cousins and their friends because he had the PHB with him in english and translated bits and pieces of it for them verbally in his broken Mandarin(or is it cantonese, I'm not sure). How big is it getting over there?
I'd like to inject into this the fact that D&D is increasing in popularity in China as we speak, and in their customary manner, the Chinese are picking this game up without the help of publishers, but rather by translating and disseminating it on the web.I heard a rumor about this from a friend of mine who just came back from there not too long ago- apparently he got really popular with a few of his cousins and their friends because he had the PHB with him in english and translated bits and pieces of it for them verbally in his broken Mandarin(or is it cantonese, I'm not sure). How big is it getting over there?
To the Chinese, D&D and Pathinder are probably both new. That creates an unprecedented opportunity, so Paizo, take the offense and market directly to them with a Pathfinder PDF translated into Chinese. Maps will be a problem but I'm sure they'll forgive a few less than gorgeous over-types (white out type deal). They're going to steal it seven ways to Sunday but you'll likely make your money back, in spades, just through the sheer numbers.
I'll bet hiring one Chinese translator/editor with graphic design experience could do the entire magazine and all peripheral products each month.
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Mmmm. Looking at a lot of the responses, maybe the question shouldn't be so negative. Perhaps it should read:
Could the gaming industry vastly benefit from (more) advertising?
Obviously, word of mouth is the best. I have seen some kids playing D&D because one of their uncle plays or whatever. That's great. But I can't help but think their is an untapped market out there that has no clue games like these exist.
I mean throw a D&D miniature commercial on during saturday morning cartoons. You can't tell me somewhere there's a bunch of kids saying "Wow, those look cool. I want some of those" and are genuinely interested in it.
Let's not forget about games like Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico. Where I live the only place to buy these games are at the gaming store. Now these are award-winning, best selling games, so I think the companies are doing alright. But could they do better if more people knew about them. Same goes for other games like Runebound, Descent, etc.
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I copied this from the YouTube thread:
Was this one ever shown on TV?
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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The dirty RPG industry secret is that no more than two or three companies can actually afford advertising in a print publication, so it's not worth worrying about and probably has far less influence in a post-internet world anyway.
I suspect at least a quarter of the RPG company ads placed in Dragon and Dungeon during the Paizo tenure were never collected because the companies that placed them went out of business, went bankrupt, or had to be sent to collections.
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In the 'Versions of D&D' thread,
I guess I would just hold off on proclaiming that D&D will always be around. If kids don't pick up the game, the population will shrink and eventually the hobby will die.and it reminded me of something I once thought about concerning the gaming industry. How come there is no advertising that tartets non-gamers?
From what I've seen from my years of gaming, the only people that know about gaming (CCG, RPGs, Wargames, etc) are, well, gamers. How do you know a new supplement for a game is coming out? Because you're a gamer. I don't even play Warhammer 40K, but I know when a new army hits the shelves. Because I'm a gamer. So how do new people get into gaming?
I understand that advertising costs money, but can this industry survive on word of mouth alone? Where's the ad campaign? The commercials? And who is the target audience? Or is just not cost feasible?
I have seen ads for D&D in video game magazines and comic books. In fact, I had no clue about 3.0 until I saw an ad in a mag. Which got me back into gaming. Thank God for that. But, like I implied earlier, it seems like they target people who are already interested in the same types of things (comic books, video games, etc)
I have met several people who, after I tell them I play D&D, say things like "Oh yeah, I used to play that when I was a kid, that game is still around?" They have no clue what the state of gaming is and how will they?
Am I on to something here, or is not that big of a problem?
Not as long as people have basements and kid's wear glasses. What more advertising do we need?
I might also add that youth kicked off D&D with parents shaking their heads. These days parents promote the game because they played it. That is a big difference!
:)
Cheers,
Zuxius
The dirty RPG industry secret is that no more than two or three companies can actually afford advertising in a print publication, so it's not worth worrying about and probably has far less influence in a post-internet world anyway.
I suspect at least a quarter of the RPG company ads placed in Dragon and Dungeon during the Paizo tenure were never collected because the companies that placed them went out of business, went bankrupt, or had to be sent to collections.
That's...exceedingly sad.
The dirty RPG industry secret is that no more than two or three companies can actually afford advertising in a print publication, so it's not worth worrying about and probably has far less influence in a post-internet world anyway.
I suspect at least a quarter of the RPG company ads placed in Dragon and Dungeon during the Paizo tenure were never collected because the companies that placed them went out of business, went bankrupt, or had to be sent to collections.
I often wonder what would happen if an RPG company were to take out massive business loans so they can advertise in a major magazine, like GQ or some other primary man/geek publication. Sure, spend several times the amount of money on advertising as you would on the product itself. That would certainly cause your product to reach a larger audience and it might produce results. The question is whether that money would just be a massive loss or if it could potentially be worth the risk.
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Recent advertising for DnD is on the back of many comic books. The classic get out from behind the computer and play DnD advertising theme. I see the point about instant gratification - the advent of card games like magic, rage, or whatever else is out there now. Now we have computer games like WOW and others that suck the living soul out of some kids and adults :) All that is a plus in some ways since at some point those gard gamers and video gamers might try something they've heard started all those things - DnD or some other RPG that they find interesting.
Kohl
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*shrug* You don't have to take my word for it - Lisa Stevens has even said the industry is in decline. Putting your fingers in your ears and going back to bed isn't going to change the facts, no matter how hard you wish it were so. To think the hobby can't die or is the equivalent of great institutions is naieve. Historical wargamers had a lot of societies, products, and magazines, and yet they are practically extinct. It has happened and it can happen again.
Blame for the virtual disappearance of the historical wargaming industry lies elsewhere...at least according to Greg Costikyan. (The article at that link, btw, is about twelve years old, so pieces of it are going to be dated.)
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I often wonder what would happen if an RPG company were to take out massive business loans so they can advertise in a major magazine, like GQ or some other primary man/geek publication. Sure, spend several times the amount of money on advertising as you would on the product itself. That would certainly cause your product to reach a larger audience and it might produce results. The question is whether that money would just be a massive loss or if it could potentially be worth the risk.
Definitely a risk to say the least, the problem isn't attracting new players to the game, it is keeping them their.
It is a fair bet that a good deal of people who are attracted to the notion of roleplaying (fantasy roleplaying in particular) already have a strong interest in cross-related hobbies, and have had the word of mouth to expose them to the games. The key is getting them to actually try the game so they know they enjoy it - I don't know how much a big splashy magazine ad helps with that. You might get a few gamers out of it, but most positive response will be fleeting. Roleplaying is not for everyone.
So I think the real question is how should the industry advertise to create games people can join? RPGA was a step in this direction, but in a way it caters only to current hardcore gamers who enjoy that style of play (at least on occasion). I think the industry needs more things like D&D Day - a reason to attract people into stores and get them actually playing the game. RPGs are so complex, you absolutely cannot read a review and get a full impression of the product, especially if you have never played any tabletop RPGs before.
*shrug* You don't have to take my word for it - Lisa Stevens has even said the industry is in decline. Putting your fingers in your ears and going back to bed isn't going to change the facts, no matter how hard you wish it were so. To think the hobby can't die or is the equivalent of great institutions is naieve. Historical wargamers had a lot of societies, products, and magazines, and yet they are practically extinct. It has happened and it can happen again.Blame for the virtual disappearance of the historical wargaming industry lies elsewhere...at least according to Greg Costikyan. (The article at that link, btw, is about twelve years old, so pieces of it are going to be dated.)
The article makes no sense. I question if its even a logical argument, i.e. one that goes from A to B and therefore C. Some significant sized companies went bad, OK. But saying that this is somehow the reason the entire industry fizzled and died makes no sense. In fact I can barely understand exactly where he is placing the blame.
It seems to me that the author is basically going back and forth between ranting and yearning for 'the good old days'.
Lets look at the things he does blame as the cause for a moment. We have SPI being mismanaged, OK thats plausible. We have them then being pretty much destroyed by TSR. Again that makes sense. However drawing a conclusion that this some how destroyed the whole industry makes absolutely no sense at all. If Blizzard finds out that its got huge debt and their servers stop being well maintained to the point where one by one the entire customer base quites in disgust over shoddy service do you honestly believe that this will somehow destroy EAs market share? Hell it would just open a void which would be filled by a dozen computer game companies all fighting to snatch the crown.
The author continues on by showing that Victory Games did pretty well but was eventually strangled by lack of raises. The author fails to note (may not have realized it at the time) that Avalon Hill was dieing at the same time. Its not just that Victory Games was not being supported, Avalon Hill could not support themselves and would soon be taken over by Hasbro.
The final target of the industries demise is the most ridiculous of the lot. He blames the demise on the rest of the industry on the people struggling to create the games themselves. Apparently they did not know how to make wargames. Its insulting to think that this is in anyway true. They were the die hard fans desperately trying to keep the flame alive. His view that they failed because they did not make games 'like SPI' is simply false. They made all sorts of games from highly detailed ones that appealed to Grognards to simpler games that they hoped would be a hit among the less hardcore. The idea that everyone in the industry was just to retarded to know how to make a good wargame is phenomenally insulting as well as patently absurd. Beyond that the authour should take off the rose coloured glasses - SPIs products were often good but they were not the epitome of perfection and they did not really stand up all that well when compared to the slick products being put out by many of the later companies. Even within the industry things evolved and improved as time went on. Mechanics got honed and bad ones were dropped. Think of some of the most basic ideas like using the back of the counter to represent a damaged unit. Most SPI era games did not have that innovation. You could not just go back and copy what SPI had done in the past. Their products and methods were dated and it showed.
It seems clear to me that the market simply vanished. Those games that sold 200,000 were often sold to people that would realize that they would not actually play them more then a couple of times. Most of these guys were not the Grognards but the somewhat curious. For most once you had half a dozen titles you never played you just did not go and buy any more. The appeal of the games themselves don't stand much of a chance in the face of computers - which will play the games with you even if you can't get some one over to play the other side.
Maybe computers were not that great in 1996 but the computer industry has improved by leaps and bounds. Those laymen that might have bought the odd copy of a best selling game are probably still around - they're playing Civ IV. As for mainstream wargaming - the computer is a far better platform to play on then paper and cardboard ever was. The authour notes the seeds of the industries doom in the article itself.
Go back and reread the part where SPI's market research shows that 90% of its customers play most of their games solitaire. Some how I doubt that was really by choice - they played solitaire because they had no one to play with. Well guess what - you want to play a wargame? Hop online. There are dozens of titles available. You can play real time in some games or if thats not your cup of tea then look for one of dozens of titles that offer extremely robust play be email. That, IMO, is what killed wargaming - the choice between playing a two player game all alone or actually playing against some one.
Now even online wargaming is a tiny hobby and I think it will pretty much remain that way but then it never was particularly mainstream and consumers, these days, have a lot of different options. For most playing a wargame is simply not their favourite option when they could be playing something else.
I'd like to inject into this the fact that D&D is increasing in popularity in China as we speak, and in their customary manner, the Chinese are picking this game up without the help of publishers, but rather by translating and disseminating it on the web.
I heard a rumor about this from a friend of mine who just came back from there not too long ago- apparently he got really popular with a few of his cousins and their friends because he had the PHB with him in english and translated bits and pieces of it for them verbally in his broken Mandarin(or is it cantonese, I'm not sure). How big is it getting over there?
If my stats are correct, Chinese internet subscribers now outnumber any other single nationality, although there are still more English language users than Chinese. But browsing the net over here brings more hits on the D&D hobby than in English. This seems to me to be because Chinese players RELY on the internet for there rules, as it is hard to come by hardcopies of the rules in Chinese, rather than being ascribable to more actual players.
Nevertheless, the game is on a sharp increase over here from nothing to I'd guess 1000 gaming groups in maybe 3 or 4 years, and as their disposable income increases (15% in the last year) there are bound to be more players. Also, early P&PRPG growth is exponential.... and with the population here... yikes.
In particular, and this is my personal observation, the whole CS and WoW generation over here (these are the two single most popular games ever produced in China) seems really interested in tabletop gaming having become jaded by the impersonal worlds of RPG and FPS gaming. They are, quite literally, RIPE for the taking over here and if someone was willing to print their rules and sell dice cheap the moaning over decreasing player bases would quickly end.
I'll bet hiring one Chinese translator/editor with graphic design experience could do the entire magazine and all peripheral products each month.
Translating it is tough work, but it's sure not expensive. It'd take more than one I'd guess.
Of course, I know people that would translate the PFPRG for free.
If it was my decision, I'd be offering PFRPG for free in Chinese as a pdf, it would cost a few bucks but I'm pretty sure it would pay off. Put some adds for other Paizo products and Paizo would start getting letters in broken English asking for translations. It's an investment for the future. Bold, maybe even stupidly bold, but someone is going to do it. Reality... the Chinese will make their own RPGs.
If a western publisher did do it on paper prices would have to be lower. For example, those music labels and movie companies that have offered their stuff at Chinese prices have really put the fix on piracy. It turns out that a Chinese guy would rather pay 3-5 USD for a legal Hollywood DVD than paying 1 dollar for a DVD rip that may not work when he gets home.
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Personally, I would not be surprised if D&D (and RPGs in general) died out as a commercial venture, except for a very, very specialist and tiny market. In the computerised era there are many more instantly gratifying ways of having your nerdy, vicarious violence, even if (once you have played D&D) actually interacting with fellow players via a DM instead of a computer is more rewarding.
My brother (who is ten years older than me) used to be very in to playing soldiers and playing out battles with them as a teenager, and he did so with lots of his chums. Yet I suspect that, as a mass-mrket hobby, it is probably largely dead and instead the preserve of a few middle-aged men. D&D has lasted remarkably well but it strikes me as definately going that way. Vague exhortations to the net and to our collective consciousness are not going to change commercial imperatives. I'm sure people will still play D&D for decades, albeit in decreasing numbers. But whether table-top RPGs will continue to be viable commercial propositions in the long term is something I doubt - witbess the massive collapse in the number of RPG shops and decreased interest from mainstream booksellers. I really hope I am wrong, but D&D might well be a fad with its glory days in the 1980s that did well but will ultimately go the way of bear-baiting.
I'm not sure if it's the lack of advertising that's killing the game. It's all a matter of other options being open. Fantasy gamers have much easier accessible means to satiate their orc killing urges, what with Xbox and such.
Another one of my beefs with hack-n-slash…video games seem a much better medium.
“So why do you want to be like Legolas?”
“So I can kill hundreds of orcs!”
Me, I would rather plumb Boromir’s inner conflicts. Of course I can not do that until about 10th level either and the only way to get there is to kill hundreds of orcs. Yay.
Found this advert for the boardgame on youtube; it definitely sounds more kick-ass when described in German.
That commercial ROCKS! If I was a kid I would definitely be going for that. And that boardgame plays VERY well since it plays almost exactly like one of my other favorite games, Descent: Journeys in the Dark.
WotC should have ABSOLUTELY expanded this product line into the USA and marketed it towards younger gamers. It does a GREAT job of introducing kids to the game.
Why they left it to Europe I don't know.
I'll bet hiring one Chinese translator/editor with graphic design experience could do the entire magazine and all peripheral products each month.Translating it is tough work, but it's sure not expensive. It'd take more than one I'd guess.
Of course, I know people that would translate the PFPRG for free.
If it was my decision, I'd be offering PFRPG for free in Chinese as a pdf, it would cost a few bucks but I'm pretty sure it would pay off. Put some adds for other Paizo products and Paizo would start getting letters in broken English asking for translations. It's an investment for the future. Bold, maybe even stupidly bold, but someone is going to do it. Reality... the Chinese will make their own RPGs.
If a western publisher did do it on paper prices would have to be lower. For example, those music labels and movie companies that have offered their stuff at Chinese prices have really put the fix on piracy. It turns out that a Chinese guy would rather pay 3-5 USD for a legal Hollywood DVD than paying 1 dollar for a DVD rip that may not work when he gets home.
After submitting that post I was wondering if it would take more translators. I was picturing the Nick Logue of translators... not just any ol' guy. But even then... that's a lot of type.
I think Paizo's trying to just make it all work with the budget they have now, and playing it as safe as they can in an unstable and uncertain market. However, if they translated the first final ruleset and Pathdinder 1 into a Chinese language PDF just to test the waters? I think they'd get one heck of a bite. Might even start to look like easy money.
You know, Lisa was asking for help on how to run the company.
You know, Lisa was asking for help on how to run the company.
I love the smell of disempowerment in the morning.
Disempowerment or disembowelment? I have difficulty distinguishing.
My apologies to everyone. I am feeling especially snarky this morning.
Disempowerment or disembowelment? I have difficulty distinguishing.
My apologies to everyone. I am feeling especially snarky this morning.
S'alright, my man. I figured you were just in a mood.
Personally, I would not be surprised if D&D (and RPGs in general) died out as a commercial venture, except for a very, very specialist and tiny market. In the computerised era there are many more instantly gratifying ways of having your nerdy, vicarious violence, even if (once you have played D&D) actually interacting with fellow players via a DM instead of a computer is more rewarding.
My brother (who is ten years older than me) used to be very in to playing soldiers and playing out battles with them as a teenager, and he did so with lots of his chums. Yet I suspect that, as a mass-mrket hobby, it is probably largely dead and instead the preserve of a few middle-aged men. D&D has lasted remarkably well but it strikes me as definately going that way. Vague exhortations to the net and to our collective consciousness are not going to change commercial imperatives. I'm sure people will still play D&D for decades, albeit in decreasing numbers. But whether table-top RPGs will continue to be viable commercial propositions in the long term is something I doubt - witbess the massive collapse in the number of RPG shops and decreased interest from mainstream booksellers. I really hope I am wrong, but D&D might well be a fad with its glory days in the 1980s that did well but will ultimately go the way of bear-baiting.
I'd expect more of a shift then the death of the hobby. There are ways that computers could enhance this experience very significantly but I think its fundamentals are pretty sound. RPGs, at their core, are an excuse to go and hang out with your friends and engage in an activity that provides the entertainment.
We have layered in stuff like story telling into the mix and thats important as well but I think the true strength of RPGs is that they are a social activity. Computers can enhance our experience but, so long as the core of the experience is really about having fun with your friends, computers can't really totally undermine the RPGs.
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S'alright, my man. I figured you were just in a mood.Disempowerment or disembowelment? I have difficulty distinguishing.
My apologies to everyone. I am feeling especially snarky this morning.
I just have to point out that this is the best part of these boards, sometimes people will broach a subject or response the wrong way but most people here don't take it to heart.
Pathfinder manga? Where?!?! :D