Also Pathfinder and Kingdom Death did a team up, Pathfinders of Death was one of the options you could pledge for and they'll be selling them later on the Paizo webstore.
Also Pathfinder and Kingdom Death did a team up, Pathfinders of Death was one of the options you could pledge for and they'll be selling them later on the Paizo webstore.
Theres also male and female pinups ^w^
Sure but when they've effectively already cleared $12 million in sales I'm guessing there won't be much left.
A funded Kickstarter is like a movie that's been out 4 weeks. Sure you could cite numbers that say some movies spend 9 weeks in the theaters, but then look at the numbers and realize it takes in under 10% of it's revenue in the final 5 weeks.
Only if this game turns into the next CAH will there be something left in the tank for retailers.
As for "pinups". Yeah I saw that but sexist vs men has never been much of a PC issue for RPG artwork.
A funded Kickstarter is like a movie that's been out 4 weeks. Sure you could cite numbers that say some movies spend 9 weeks in the theaters, but then look at the numbers and realize it takes in under 10% of it's revenue in the final 5 weeks.
In that analogy, I think the retailers are actually the tv networks and DVD sellers, not the last few weeks of movie ticket sales (those are really analogous to the 'tail' of the direct sales via the publisher).
A funded Kickstarter is like a movie that's been out 4 weeks. Sure you could cite numbers that say some movies spend 9 weeks in the theaters, but then look at the numbers and realize it takes in under 10% of it's revenue in the final 5 weeks.
In that analogy, I think the retailers are actually the tv networks and DVD sellers, not the last few weeks of movie ticket sales (those are really analogous to the 'tail' of the direct sales via the publisher).
Oh sure. I'm not particularly beholden to my analogy. As long as the emphasis in point remains the same. That a given Kickstarter, to the extent that it is successful, is the same extent that it is pulling money from established businesses and not really growing the TTRPG pie.
A funded Kickstarter is like a movie that's been out 4 weeks. Sure you could cite numbers that say some movies spend 9 weeks in the theaters, but then look at the numbers and realize it takes in under 10% of it's revenue in the final 5 weeks.
In that analogy, I think the retailers are actually the tv networks and DVD sellers, not the last few weeks of movie ticket sales (those are really analogous to the 'tail' of the direct sales via the publisher).
Oh sure. I'm not particularly beholden to my analogy. As long as the emphasis in point remains the same. That a given Kickstarter, to the extent that it is successful, is the same extent that it is pulling money from established businesses and not really growing the TTRPG pie.
Only if it's drawing money from people's fixed TTRPG budgets, rather than sparking an interest that increases their spending. Either an individual spending more than he'd planned or bringing someone new in.
I've only backed a couple of Kickstarters, but they didn't take away from my (admittedly already meagre) RPG purchases.
I've only backed a couple of Kickstarters, but they didn't take away from my (admittedly already meagre) RPG purchases.
Same here. Last year, I backed the Blight Kickstarter and the 7th sea kickstarter, but that was additional money, and if I hadn't spent it on those projects, I highly doubt that I would have spent it on other RPG related material.
There was some analysis reported over at ICv2 showing how the retail Board Game market was impacted negatively by Kickstarter projects.
Because of the way the business is reported we can't know to the same degree of certainty if TTRPGs are similarly impacted. At some point people stop collecting crap stuff they can't practically use.
If personal anecdotes are going to be submitted here I'll state that I have only purchased a few items (maybe six) over the past two years. And that includes the three core books for D&D 5E. I inherited two boxes of gaming loot from former gamers and have no need to purchase more since I now realize that I won't even utilize everything that I do own for my home campaign.
Similarly my cousin hasn't bought anything new since before I started gaming*. He prefers to create his own content and hang it on the bones of Baker's Eberron setting.
*Though he has a few items as gifts from other people.
That a given Kickstarter, to the extent that it is successful, is the same extent that it is pulling money from established businesses and not really growing the TTRPG pie.
I don't think the evidence supports this thesis.
During the time that crowdfunding has become a thing, the TTRPG industry (sans kickstarter, etcetera) has continued to grow at pretty much a constant rate. ICv2 used to not count it and (barring the year and a bit when D&D wasn't being produced) they didn't notice any drop off in growth of the overall market. If it were the case that kickstarter was reducing $ available for other, more traditional channels we would have seen some sign of it as it grew larger and larger.
Whilst I think there are some people who have a fixed budget on RPG products and use kickstarter as another channel to get RPG books from, I think there is another, more economically significant niche being filled - namely the production of product which would otherwise never get made.
I bought FGG's Bard's Gate kickstarter (for example). I paid over a hundred bucks for a leatherbound book, four hundred bucks for the biggest continguous RPG map I've ever owned and a grand or so for the right to go and play with the Frog God guys at the NTRPG convention. Those kind of perks just aren't feasible in traditional RPG publishing.
There were, of course, vastly more people who just backed $50 or whatever for the book - but in a world without kickstarter, FGG would have produced the book "traditionally" and sold those anyhow. That element of the transaction is really just substitution it's not a loss to anyone else - take away kickstarter and the dollars which are "back in the pool of traditional distribution" get soaked up by the increased number of products now being produced by FGG. So Traditional publishers are no better off, but crowdsourcing allows a whole lot of other products which would otherwise never be produced.
That's the actual benefit of kickstarter - the production of product which would never warrant the risking of capital.
If personal anecdotes are going to be submitted here I'll state that I have only purchased a few items (maybe six) over the past two years. And that includes the three core books for D&D 5E. I inherited two boxes of gaming loot from former gamers and have no need to purchase more since I now realize that I won't even utilize everything that I do own for my home campaign.
Similarly my cousin hasn't bought anything new since before I started gaming*. He prefers to create his own content and hang it on the bones of Baker's Eberron setting.
How were those figures impacted by kickstarter's existence?
Only if it's drawing money from people's fixed TTRPG budgets, rather than sparking an interest that increases their spending. Either an individual spending more than he'd planned or bringing someone new in.
I've only backed a couple of Kickstarters, but they didn't take away from my (admittedly already meagre) RPG purchases.
Not only that, but if kickstarter hadn't existed and they'd instead produced it 'the old fashioned way' you still wouldn't have given anything to other businesses - you'd have bought it from them (you just wouldn't have been as spoilt for choice when it came to add-ons and 'deluxe editions').
If personal anecdotes are going to be submitted here I'll state that I have only purchased a few items (maybe six) over the past two years. And that includes the three core books for D&D 5E. I inherited two boxes of gaming loot from former gamers and have no need to purchase more since I now realize that I won't even utilize everything that I do own for my home campaign.
Similarly my cousin hasn't bought anything new since before I started gaming*. He prefers to create his own content and hang it on the bones of Baker's Eberron setting.
How were those figures impacted by kickstarter's existence?
I see you agree with my assessment of the worth of personal anecdotes.
As for the general impact of Kickstarter (and Patreon, etc.). It is hard to say. I agree with the value of those projects (stuff gets made that would never see a green light otherwise) but we need to know what is driving the enthusiasm.
Do I see stuff at the FLGS and search online to buy something similar? Do I see stuff in my Facebook feed and go to my FLGS to buy it, or something similar?
Is the upward trend in money spent on gaming a reflection of simple demographics - more people + better economic times? Or would the trend be less without Kickstarter and its clones?
With board games there is some indication that Kickstarter bleeds existing sales modes for its own benefit. We essentially have no usable data for TTRPGs. And what we do know is a little confusing.
For instance, my generation generally prefers to own the "right to content" and not own the things in themselves. But the sales numbers for 5E seem to indicate that in the TTRPG world, a company that doesn't cater strongly to the PDF crowd!, is totally stomping the TTRPG market largely with print only content.
If personal anecdotes are going to be submitted here I'll state that I have only purchased a few items (maybe six) over the past two years. And that includes the three core books for D&D 5E. I inherited two boxes of gaming loot from former gamers and have no need to purchase more since I now realize that I won't even utilize everything that I do own for my home campaign.
Similarly my cousin hasn't bought anything new since before I started gaming*. He prefers to create his own content and hang it on the bones of Baker's Eberron setting.
How were those figures impacted by kickstarter's existence?
I see you agree with my assessment of the worth of personal anecdotes.
Not really - I think they're useful. I thought you were kind of suggesting they weren't.
Quote:
As for the general impact of Kickstarter (and Patreon, etc.). It is hard to say. I agree with the value of those projects (stuff gets made that would never see a green light otherwise) but we need to know what is driving the enthusiasm.
Do I see stuff at the FLGS and search online to buy something similar? Do I see stuff in my Facebook feed and go to my FLGS to buy it, or something similar?
Is the upward trend in money spent on gaming a reflection of simple demographics - more people + better economic times? Or would the trend be less without Kickstarter and its clones?
With board games there is some indication that Kickstarter bleeds existing sales modes for its own benefit. We essentially have no usable data for TTRPGs. And what we do know is a little confusing.
For instance, my generation generally prefers to own the "right to content" and not own the things in themselves. But the sales numbers for 5E seem to indicate that in the TTRPG world, a company that doesn't cater strongly to the PDF crowd!, is totally stomping the TTRPG market largely with print only content.
How are they doing that?
Parenthetically: I think it's the power of the brand, personally.
I don't agree with "We essentially have no usable data for TTRPGs" - we know that they increased and at quite a healthy rate, even during a protracted and severe economic downturn. That was a big surprise to everyone. If crowdsourcing was pulling money from them as it also grew during the same period it's an even bigger surprise.
We're never going to have proof of anything (given the disparate sources of data and the fact most entities holding those data are either too small or not prepared to share them). However, we do have usable data - the ICv2 estimates are the best thing out there, largely because they get lots of small people to submit information, plus some of the 'big players' are willing to share their own estimates and insights.
It's not going to be perfect, but it's still strong enough to draw conclusions from when answering some of the big questions (like "is the rise of crowdsourcing a zero-sum game such that every dollar raised that way is a dollar gone missing from an established business?")
Here's a couple of anecdotal pieces by people with years of business experience and who, as they say, still have skin in the game. These comments match what I observe at the two FLGSs I frequent.
What does this likely mean for the game trade? I think it will mean increased balkanization, with Kickstarter games lacking penetration into brick and mortar. I think it will mean distributors will take the same approach as us, essentially not taking new clients and using their budget for big hits. Small publishers are likely shut out. Metrics for picking up a new game will increase. Good is no longer good enough, we all want great.
Make no mistake, Pathfinder is still the #2 RPG at Games and Stuff by an easy margin, although Star Wars occasionally barks at its heels. But more and more it’s becoming apparent that the sales volume generated by the game is from hardback books and new releases, with current and fully in-print Adventure Paths holding their own. But the four linear feet I have dedicated to back catalog Pathfinder books is no longer earning its keep....Since the release of D&D 5E, Pathfinder has been on a slow decline, but as April of 2016 shows (with Ultimate Intrigue) it still sees nice spikes when new hardbacks are released. Meanwhile, that green Other line frequently outperforms D&D!
I've been thinking about what it would be like to run my own store sometime after I finish college but I'm not prepared for that in at least two ways. First, I'm not pursuing a business degree and while that may not be strictly necessary to make success more likely it does still seem prudent. Second, all this anecdotal commentary from game store owners and former owners combined with the decreasing brick-and-mortar sales stats makes this seem like a bad idea even if I had an MBA and cash start-up money so as to avoid the strangle hold of indebtedness that kills so many new businesses.
Still it's fun to speculate what the market is like and why.
So anyway, Games and Stuff actually ended our year with the RPG department having greater sales than 2014, which for those of you keeping score at home, was the year that the current edition of D&D was released. Better RPG sales than a D&D launch year? I’ll take it!
Bolstered by third party products like Cubicle 7’s Adventures in Middle-Earth* and Kobold’s Tome of Beasts, D&D was tracking at about three times the sales of Pathfinder for November and December. And that hobby-store exclusive cover for Volo’s Guide was nothing to sneeze at either.
...
Traveller. Traveller! I’m not sure if I’ve got a higher than normal percentage of grognard customers, but the new Traveller continues to sell for me. A steady stream of smaller inexpensive supplements, plus the more pricey Central Supply Catalogue, have kept this thing in the Top 10. It’s been a while since a hard science fiction game has really made an impact on the RPG scene, and I’m glad this one’s got some traction. Much like Cthulhu 7E, it’s the first truly modern looking version of the game in, well, ever.
I just wish somebody had talked them out of that $60 Starter Box that’s releasing at some point in the future. That’s $10 more than the Core Rulebook. Starter Box, people, Starter Box. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
...
Finally, curious about my Top 10 for the year as a whole? No surprises in the Top 5, but I think the next five are noteworthy. All that little stuff adds up people.
1. Dungeons and Dragons
2. Pathfinder
3. Star Wars
4. Shadowrun
5. The One Ring
6. Warhammer 40,000
7. Call of Cthulhu
8. Through the Breach
9. Lamentations of the Flame Princess
10.Dungeon Crawl Classics
My store has struggled with RPG sales, aside from D&D and Star Wars for the last several years... However, since bringing in a bunch of titles from IPR, sales have been going up for the department as a whole. D&D is far and away the leader, Star Wars at #2. After that it goes to a bunch of the IPR games,
Black Diamond Games tells a similar story to RPG Evolution but hasn't posted any year-over-year summary, yet.
For the first time that I know of, a WOTC CEO participated in the Toy Fair presentation and gave some recognition to Dungeons & Dragons. Chris Cocks said that in 2016, D&D had its best sales in 40 years.
Note that the New York Times best seller lists are based on reported sales primarily from book stores, so it does not include sales through most game stores (including paizo.com) or hobby distributors. So the sales gulf between 50 Shades and the PHB isn't as big as it would appear (though make no mistake—it's still huge).
And it got me thinking:
Looking at how 5E is dominating on Amazon (sales rank of the PHB bounces around generally below 100 in the books category {49 as I type this}, while competitors are at 1,000+), then realizing if you take the number from the ICV2 report, that for every Amazon sale (or other on line or big box sale) there are 4 hobby store sales... Yeah, WotC is kicking###!
Or are they? Does this not mean what I think it means?
I'm not sure if it's relevant (I may well be misunderstanding your point) but it's worth bearing in mind that the ICv2 numbers are an estimate of the size of the entire market - they interview store owners, distributors, producers and probably don't have as much insight into some distribution channels as they do for others. Nonetheless, they are attempting to estimate the entire size of the market for new RPGs from kickstarter to mainstream bookshops to FLGS to paizo subscriptions.
It's probably quite inaccurate, but it's the best thing that's publicly available.
It's difficult to see what this interview reveals, especially since they've lumped in all WotC sales - so it includes Magic:the Gathering figures mixed in with D&D and we know that Magic outsells D&D by an order of magnitude or two. Consequently, any trend there is going to totally dominate the D&D figures and what's true for Wizards' sales numbers overall may not have much relation to D&D sales numbers.
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
3 people marked this as a favorite.
Quark Blast wrote:
Rysky wrote:
Also Pathfinder and Kingdom Death did a team up, Pathfinders of Death was one of the options you could pledge for and they'll be selling them later on the Paizo webstore.
Theres also male and female pinups ^w^
Sure but when they've effectively already cleared $12 million in sales I'm guessing there won't be much left.
A funded Kickstarter is like a movie that's been out 4 weeks. Sure you could cite numbers that say some movies spend 9 weeks in the theaters, but then look at the numbers and realize it takes in under 10% of it's revenue in the final 5 weeks.
As someone who's run a number of successful Kickstarters, I don't think this really holds true. Our first Kickstarter produced the Gothic Campaign Compendium and we had 242 backers (print and PDF combined). The book released in March of 2014, and since its release has sold over 1300 copies in print and PDF. Our Mythic Mania project tells a similar story. In both cases, we also still sell plenty of copies of component products that were produced along the way to making those books, so they sell both in compilation form and in a la carte PDF and print-on-demand form.
Trail of the Apprentice, our beginner adventure path, has not yet made as much in post-Kickstarter as it did during the KS process, but it's only been out a year and was always understood as something of a niche-market product - adventures for kids and families. Legendary Planet is still being completed, so who knows for sure how that one will turn out?
Long story short, though, if you're doing it right, there's no reason Kickstarter should be the lion's share of your revenue for a product.
Steve, good points. Partly my post is confusing because I'm trying to figure this out and haven't yet.
Taking your input and looking at Amazon sales of MtG stuff (and unlike TTRPGs WotC seems to have some serious competition in Pokemon and Yugioh), I see that WotC still consistently ranks up there. That means, along with the previously cited article at ICv2, that the "hobby channel" is tremendously important to WotC (4/5ths of their sales). But you're right in that we cannot tease out TTRPG from CCG numbers.
Still it looks to me like the D&D brand waltzes into first place. And does so without (until very recently) a decent interactive online presence and a still insignificant use of PDF publishing.
Tangent:
I listened to a podcast the other week interviewing some sociologist or other about the nature of gaming culture. He cited some pop culture references for the continued popularity of TTRPGs but did not mention any by name. He also cited the rise of Kickstarter for the surge in board games. He claimed to be a long time board gamer, that he was into it before Settlers of Catan was ever a thing, and that from his personal/professional experience he could see how Kickstarter has made the board game market in to what it is today.
I wonder if the next D&D movie, if it gets made, will affect TTRPG sales? Does anyone know how fast The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game faded after the last movie was released on BluRay? Or how The One Ring Roleplaying Game fared now that The Hobbit movies are all over and done with?
Also Pathfinder and Kingdom Death did a team up, Pathfinders of Death was one of the options you could pledge for and they'll be selling them later on the Paizo webstore.
Theres also male and female pinups ^w^
Sure but when they've effectively already cleared $12 million in sales I'm guessing there won't be much left.
A funded Kickstarter is like a movie that's been out 4 weeks. Sure you could cite numbers that say some movies spend 9 weeks in the theaters, but then look at the numbers and realize it takes in under 10% of it's revenue in the final 5 weeks.
As someone who's run a number of successful Kickstarters, I don't think this really holds true. Our first Kickstarter produced the Gothic Campaign Compendium and we had 242 backers (print and PDF combined). The book released in March of 2014, and since its release has sold over 1300 copies in print and PDF. Our Mythic Mania project tells a similar story. In both cases, we also still sell plenty of copies of component products that were produced along the way to making those books, so they sell both in compilation form and in a la carte PDF and print-on-demand form.
Trail of the Apprentice, our beginner adventure path, has not yet made as much in post-Kickstarter as it did during the KS process, but it's only been out a year and was always understood as something of a niche-market product - adventures for kids and families. Legendary Planet is still being completed, so who knows for sure how that one will turn out?
Long story short, though, if you're doing it right, there's no reason Kickstarter should be the lion's share of your revenue for a product.
I'm not arguing that Kickstarter cannot do that, only that it hardly ever does. Kickstarter seems to have blown up the board game market in a good way but I don't see that in the TTRPG market.
You have examples to counter my contention, and I'm not saying you're wrong there (in fact, I believe you!), but on average what is Kickstarter doing? On average, the business model as I understand it, would seem to decrease FLGS sales.
Clearly Kickstarter is great for the TTRPG hobbyist. Beyond that I've not seen any convincing evidence that it is growing the TTRPG pie.
In particular you cite your first Kickstarter as countering my claim and a year-old+ Kickstarter as maybe making my point. What about the dozen or so other Kickstarter projects you've been involved in? On the whole how has that worked out?
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Quark Blast wrote:
Jason Nelson wrote:
Quark Blast wrote:
A funded Kickstarter is like a movie that's been out 4 weeks. Sure you could cite numbers that say some movies spend 9 weeks in the theaters, but then look at the numbers and realize it takes in under 10% of it's revenue in the final 5 weeks.
As someone who's run a number of successful Kickstarters, I don't think this really holds true. Our first Kickstarter produced the Gothic Campaign Compendium and we had 242 backers (print and PDF combined). The book released in March of 2014, and since its release has sold over 1300 copies in print and PDF. Our Mythic Mania project tells a similar story. In both cases, we also still sell plenty of copies of component products that were produced along the way to making those books, so they sell both in compilation form and in a la carte PDF and print-on-demand form.
Trail of the Apprentice, our beginner adventure path, has not yet made as much in post-Kickstarter as it did during the KS process, but it's only been out a year and was always understood as something of a niche-market product - adventures for kids and families. Legendary Planet is still being completed, so who knows for sure how that one will turn out?
Long story short, though, if you're doing it right, there's no reason Kickstarter should be the lion's share of your revenue for a product.
I'm not arguing that Kickstarter cannot do that, only that it hardly ever does. Kickstarter seems to have blown up the board game market in a good way but I don't see that in the TTRPG market.
I can't really speak with authority on the board game market or TTRPG market as a whole, but I can say that it makes it infinitely more feasible to create niche products. In a way, all 3PP products are niche products, but even beyond that. I don't have to sell 10,000 copies of something to call it a hit, or even 1,000 copies. If I sell 100 of something, I'd grumble but wouldn't take a loss. If I sell 200 of something, that's a win.
Kickstarter makes it possible to try things you ordinarily wouldn't risk, because it is essentially a presale and publicity mechanism that lets you test proof of concept and proof of market with limited risk.
Whether those new or different concepts are bringing in new people to the hobby as a whole, or simply new people to YOUR business, that's a lot harder to say.
Quark Blast wrote:
You have examples to counter my contention, and I'm not saying you're wrong there (in fact, I believe you!), but on average what is Kickstarter doing? On average, the business model as I understand it, would seem to decrease FLGS sales.
Yes and no. Without Kickstarter, a great many larger-scale 3PP products would not exist to be sold in the first place, so by definition Kickstarter cannot decrease sales of those products. You can't go down from zero. :)
Also, FLGS sales are only one factor in post-Kickstarter sales. We do sell into book distribution channels and directly to book and game stores, but we sell a lot more product directly to consumers through our own webstore and vendors like Paizo.com, DrivethruRPG, Open Gaming Store, and amazon, and in person at conventions.
The larger point is that, even for a KS project like Legendary Planet, which is still in production (5 out of 8 adventures complete for both PF and 5E, plus a PDF-only player's guide), we had a total of 434 backers; by your "only 10% after Kickstarter" principle, that means we would only ever sell 40-50 copies of each adventure (and the eventual compilation version) after the Kickstarter, and we're already well past that mark other than for the most recent adventures to come out (within the last month or two).
Trail of the Apprentice had around 330 backers, and in exactly a year since that KS ended (and only 8 months since the full book was completed), we've already sold more than 330 copies of the full compilation, PLUS nearly 1000 PDF, POD, and VTT copies of the five individual adventures for PF and 5E.
Quark Blast wrote:
Clearly Kickstarter is great for the TTRPG hobbyist. Beyond that I've not seen any convincing evidence that it is growing the TTRPG pie.
I can only speak with certainty to the growing market for our products, which is not dispositive of a commensurate trend in the TTRPG market as a whole. It's a data point in favor of growth, but you'd need information from many more sources to prove a pattern of growth for all.
Quark Blast wrote:
In particular you cite your first Kickstarter as countering my claim and a year-old+ Kickstarter as maybe making my point.
Making your point in what way? Post-KS sales on Gothic and Mythic both dwarf what we took in from the KS itself. Trail of the Apprentice is about even if you count only the full compilation itself, plus a large chunk of additional revenue from the individual adventures.
Legendary Planet is still being completed, but it's already well past the 10% threshold despite that fact.
Quark Blast wrote:
What about the dozen or so other Kickstarter projects you've been involved in? On the whole how has that worked out?
I haven't been involved in a dozen or so other Kickstarter projects.
We are just now completing the Forest Kingdom Campaign Compendium (it ends tonight at 8:59 PM Pacific - you should totally pledge if you like fey, wilderness adventure, Kingmaker, and every other good thing in the world! :)
But seriously, we can't draw any conclusions about post-KS sales on a book that doesn't exist yet.
I've contributed some writing to a few Kickstarters. I've also helped manage 2 small Kickstarters for "Hypercorps 2099" (PF and 5E) and "2099 Wasteland" (5E) only, both niche-of-a-niche post-apocalyptic cyberpunk/supers/sci-fi setting/rule books. On those so far, sales have been okay but on Hypercorps 2099 (158 backers, with well over 100 additional sales in less than a year on the core book, plus another 300+ adventures sold - adventures that were funded by the KS and would not exist without it), and 2099 Wasteland (97 backers) just went on public sale last Friday, so we have no meaningful data yet as to how it will do, though as of right now it is the #8-ranked D&D product on DrivethruRPG.
So, in every case for which we (LG) have any data, every Kickstarter is way past 10% of its KS sales in post-revenue sales, and in 4 out of 4 cases where the completed product has been available for more than a few days, post-KS sales have exceeded during-KS sales, in 3 of 4 cases by a lot.
1) These successes are (apparently) doing nothing for FLGSs. For board games there does seem to be some spill-over to the FLGS part of the hobby game market. Like at least double-digit growth spill-over.
2) The "10% threshold" was just a number I threw out there as an example for theatrical releases. I didn't expect KS projects to follow that value but I didn't know if it was > or < and, at least for the ones you've been involved in, post-KS sales are on average way closer to parity than 10%.
There is a third thing but you can't answer it though I'll state it here in case someone else comes by who can: What proportion of TTRPG KS projects fail?
People aren't usually as forthcoming about their failures. Especially if they are hopeful to have yet more KS projects in the future it would be bad form to lay out your failures for all to see.
I leave it at that since I'm getting pretty tangential to the OP at this point.
EDIT The post titled Ptolemaic Retailing - Monday, April 24, 2017 over at BDG - Quest for Fun highlights the dilemma I'm trying to understand.
There is a third thing but you can't answer it though I'll state it here in case someone else comes by who can: What proportion of TTRPG KS projects fail?
People aren't usually as forthcoming about their failures. Especially if they are hopeful to have yet more KS projects in the future it would be bad form to lay out your failures for all to see.
By "fail" do you mean "not fund"? Because This page has some useful statistics on projects. Gaming generally does worse than average (although perhaps we should make a distinction between a project below $10k and one above that (or some similar threshold). If you're counting some successfully funded projects as failures that's impossible to answer without defining failure pretty carefully (and I doubt it's going to be objective - do you judge a project which delivers it's promised rewards twelve months later than it said it would as a failure or a success? I think it depends on many intangible factors, personally).
For me the argument against your position is that kickstarter and similar sites have blossomed in recent years and, during that time, the gaming market has done really well (surprisingly so, given the economic turmoil of the last ten years).
The idea that crowdfunding has been bad for the market overall is hard to defend unless you think that in the midst of a global recession, gaming would otherwise have undergone a true renaissance and has instead been held back to just doing surprisingly well. (D&D revenue in 2016 was greater than any other year in its' history. Presumably that's nominal not real, but it's nonetheless an impressive achievement).
FLGSes are doing badly - but that isn't a proxy for the market it's a sign that TTRPG retailers are being disrupted by technological change, just like every other "traditional" retailer. FLGSes are doing badly in every industry. That's a function of the growing power of e-retailing and is probably exaggerated in the TTRPG space since more and more products are only available electronically - if you're 'forced' to get a whole bunch of stuff from an online retailer by virtue of the fact that FLGSes don't sell PDFs, it's pretty easy to divert your printed material budget their way as well.
TTRPG retailers face the same problem that shoe retailers do - with the added problem that many customers are no longer buying physical products (at least something the shoe retailer doesn't have to contend with). Their route to survival will involve developing an online presence themselves and, more importantly, selling stuff you can't buy online. If they can't innovate in that way they're unlikely to last in the long term, in my view - but that doesn't mean the market overall is doing badly, merely that it's changing structurally.
Kickstarter makes it possible to try things you ordinarily wouldn't risk, because it is essentially a presale and publicity mechanism that lets you test proof of concept and proof of market with limited risk.
This is definitely a plus (although I think also introduces a related risk - I've seen several projects struggle because they decided to add cards/pawns/boxes/something-else-outside-their-usual-field-of-expertise. Perhaps if they weren't emboldened by kickstarter's apparent risk mitigation they would have been a little more circumspect and not bitten off more than they could chew).
Now that's really interesting, because the figures I've been working with assume that online sales make up 50% of total sales. If it's only 20%, then that completely changes my calculations for Merle's comments on 5e exceeding total sales of 1e-4e for core books.
Jason Nelson
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Steve Geddes wrote:
Jason Nelson wrote:
Kickstarter makes it possible to try things you ordinarily wouldn't risk, because it is essentially a presale and publicity mechanism that lets you test proof of concept and proof of market with limited risk.
This is definitely a plus (although I think also introduces a related risk - I've seen several projects struggle because they decided to add cards/pawns/boxes/something-else-outside-their-usual-field-of-expertise. Perhaps if they weren't emboldened by kickstarter's apparent risk mitigation they would have been a little more circumspect and not bitten off more than they could chew).
Very true. The seduction of MORE!!!! is powerful. With LG I've been very leery of non-book physical rewards, not because they're impossible to do but precisely because they involve a much deeper pool of complications than you would think. Also, because a 3PP is usually working in much smaller numbers, the economies of scale are radically against you with making things like that something you can effectively market vs. bigger competition.
Sure, I could create custom molds and produce a line of pewter figures, but I'd have to sell them at $4-5 apiece plus shipping just to break even, and that's a pretty tough price point when people can get prepainted minis from Paizo or WizKids for half that. If we're just doing a small run essentially as a vanity project or a special one-off, hey, go for it. It's your business, and if that's an expense you want to absorb and it feels worth it to you, then by all means do it. But as a money-making enterprise, those kinds of things are much harder to justify using the cold, hard numbers.
Kickstarter is still the domain of the fringe and the unlikely to be produced otherwise. Yes, there are mainstream publishers there, but mostly with fringe products within their own range. It's also increasingly common to see retailer tiers in these projects and we've done well in promoting such options with our customer base and turning them into pre orders.
What was once a non starter because of cash flow issue for the store is now turned on its head as we collect payment months in advance from customer pre orders. They trust us to do this and take the risk for them and we're happy to oblige. This only works with publishers with retailer friendly Kickstarters who promise to offer stretch goal items to retailer tiers.
There are certainly going to be incredibly devalued games on Amazon or in mass and it makes perfect sense we turn our back on those companies, preferably their entire lines to send a message. In the end, we're retailers. If we can't sell board games any longer, so be it. We'll sell something else. If we can't sell games at all? Something else. I would like to see us more flexible so we can send such messages rather than taking one for the team. When you're stabbed in the back and a publisher tells you it's good for you, don't believe them.
So for him Kickstarter, when it includes a retailer option, is a plus. The great majority of board game or TTRPG Kickstarter projects do not include a retailer option though and so at best do nothing for the FLGS.
At least that's what I understand Black Diamond Game blogger to be saying.
There is a third thing but you can't answer it though I'll state it here in case someone else comes by who can: What proportion of TTRPG KS projects fail?
People aren't usually as forthcoming about their failures. Especially if they are hopeful to have yet more KS projects in the future it would be bad form to lay out your failures for all to see.
By "fail" do you mean "not fund"? Because This page has some useful statistics on projects. Gaming generally does worse than average (although perhaps we should make a distinction between a project below $10k and one above that (or some similar threshold). If you're counting some successfully funded projects as failures that's impossible to answer without defining failure pretty carefully (and I doubt it's going to be objective - do you judge a project which delivers it's promised rewards twelve months later than it said it would as a failure or a success? I think it depends on many intangible factors, personally).
For me the argument against your position is that kickstarter and similar sites have blossomed in recent years and, during that time, the gaming market has done really well (surprisingly so, given the economic turmoil of the last ten years).
The idea that crowdfunding has been bad for the market overall is hard to defend unless you think that in the midst of a global recession, gaming would otherwise have undergone a true renaissance and has instead been held back to just doing surprisingly well. (D&D revenue in 2016 was greater than any other year in its' history. Presumably that's nominal not real, but it's nonetheless an impressive achievement).
FLGSes are doing badly - but that isn't a proxy for the market it's a sign that TTRPG retailers are being disrupted by technological change, just like every other "traditional" retailer. FLGSes are doing badly in every industry. That's a function of the growing power of e-retailing and is probably exaggerated in the TTRPG space since more and more products are only available electronically - if you're 'forced' to get a whole bunch of stuff from an online retailer by virtue of the fact that FLGSes don't sell PDFs, it's pretty easy to divert your printed material budget their way as well.
TTRPG retailers face the same problem that shoe retailers do - with the added problem that many customers are no longer buying physical products (at least something the shoe retailer doesn't have to contend with). Their route to survival will involve developing an online presence themselves and, more importantly, selling stuff you can't buy online. If they can't innovate in that way they're unlikely to last in the long term, in my view - but that doesn't mean the market overall is doing badly, merely that it's changing structurally.
To fail is to never deliver the promised product.
Though if your backers are teens and/or college students and you take 5 years to come through, well, you've failed. I doubt 5 years from now I'll still be playing TTRPGs. And if I am the frequency will be fractional to what it is now.
Now that's really interesting, because the figures I've been working with assume that online sales make up 50% of total sales. If it's only 20%, then that completely changes my calculations for Merle's comments on 5e exceeding total sales of 1e-4e for core books.
IKR?
Hard to wrap your head around this when all the numbers, when they report anything at all, are partial or relative.
I doubt 5 years from now I'll still be playing TTRPGs.
Really? Everyone's different of course, but I can tell you I've been playing D&D and other RPGs for more than 30 years and I have no doubt I'l be playing 5 years from now :)
I guess I'm just saying I wouldn't be so quick assume :)
I doubt 5 years from now I'll still be playing TTRPGs. And if I am the frequency will be fractional to what it is now.
I'm not challenging that, of course. However I thought I'd point out that what matters in terms of "market health" is what you spend - no how often you play.
In my own case (for example) I was playing for hours every week in the 70s and 80s and buying about three or four books per year. As I grew older I did indeed play less in the way you anticipate, but my disposable income went up and I end up spending way, way more now than I used to.
Ironically, the market is only really concerned with expenditure, not with activity (granted they're likely to be correlated in some way - in some cases though it will be a negative correlation).
Time. I have less of it all the time. By this fall my class load and work load will be too much to do anything but play (not GM) maybe once a week. I want to get through college without debt and than means working jobs that will accommodate my ever changing class schedule. And those aren't the best paying jobs. Less $/hour means even more time spent working.
Nothing is certain but also the group I GM for will be moving on, everyone of us, and I don't have it in me to wrangle a new group.
Honestly, I was thinking of owning my own game store someday but the more I understand the business the less I like the idea of owning one. :p
Even so I like considering stuff related to the gaming industry at all levels. Your posts and many of the others just might mean this is my favorite thread on the Paizo messageboards. :)
Time. I have less of it all the time. By this fall my class load and work load will be too much to do anything but play (not GM) maybe once a week. I want to get through college without debt and than means working jobs that will accommodate my ever changing class schedule. And those aren't the best paying jobs. Less $/hour means even more time spent working.
I appreciate that (it was the same for me - for a little while, at least. As one gains seniority it's often possible to choose more free time again).
My (tangential and anecdotal) point was that playing less can sometimes result in spending more. I, for one, find reading RPG products to be a decent surrogate for playing.
As such, a cohort graduating and playing less (because they're working and earning more) may, paradoxically, be good for the market.
Honestly, I was thinking of owning my own game store someday but the more I understand the business the less I like the idea of owning one. :p
Even so I like considering stuff related to the gaming industry at all levels. Your posts and many of the others just might mean this is my favorite thread on the Paizo messageboards. :)
Time. I have less of it all the time. By this fall my class load and work load will be too much to do anything but play (not GM) maybe once a week. I want to get through college without debt and than means working jobs that will accommodate my ever changing class schedule. And those aren't the best paying jobs. Less $/hour means even more time spent working.
Nothing is certain but also the group I GM for will be moving on, everyone of us, and I don't have it in me to wrangle a new group.
I was in the same position back when I was in college. Had three different jobs (each no more than 5-10 hours per week) so I could be flexible enough for classes.
Finally landed a job in the emergency room as a back up for clerks or techs who called in sick. Worked 16-24 hours per week with that one job and it remained flexible for the three years I was there. At $16/hr, the pay was good for a college student.
As far as games went, my college (yours probably does this too) had a gaming club that met at least once per week. I could show up, drop in a game, and not show up the next week. It worked really well for a flexible schedule. And it's also a great way to meet other gamers to set up a private game that could easily switch days.
Even with the jobs and scholarships (I applied for every damn scholarship I could every quarter), I still ended up with 10k in loans. I managed to pay those off in three years.
How to pay off loans quickly:
Tally your income and expenses and see what you have left over. Then instead of saving any (or spending it on crap like booze, games, vacation, eating out, etc), put as much as you possibly can into paying off the source of debt that has the highest interest rate. This is flexible; if your second highest interest rate debt can be paid off in a few months, while the highest is a few years away, focus on the second highest. Just play it smart. Don't pay something that has zero interest when you can be paying something that has interest. Things like that.
Basically, you sacrifice saving money and having any discretionary funds to pay off your debt.
By the time I was done with my bachelor's, I had around 10k in debt through three different loans (each around 3-4k). One started accruing interest right away, and the other two didn't build interest as long as I was in school. Grad school counted (even though I got paid for grad school). I paid off the one that gained interest as soon as I could, putting down as much as I could afford every month.
I've been out of college for four years now. All my college debt is paid (paid off while I was in grad school). I have no credit card debt. All my vehicles are paid off. And now I'm just saving money; I've saved enough for a down payment on a house.
You can also skyrocket your credit rating by paying for normal stuff on your credit card (like food, gas, etc..) and then paying that off 100% every month. You have to pay it off 100% or you'll get dinged with those outrageous interest rates, and doing so will make your credit rating jump really high.
The result of continued devaluation is an overall decline in quality and service and an exiting of the marketplace for everyone who touches that product, publisher, retailer, and eventually distributor. It means destruction of companies who rely on long term sales, ceding the market to short term players, like you see with Kickstarter. We already see the Kickstarter quality of games in pretty steep decline, as reported recently. None of this is in the long term interest of the consumer.
Cloud Cap Games wrote:
I understand in theory how deep discounting hurts brand value, but my Asmodee and Fantasy Flight sales were pretty good 5 years ago when the products could be bought cheap. I'll take the old days of competing with discounters over the new days of competing with Kickstarter. In my opinion, Kickstarter has done more to hurt our industry than online sales because retailers are largely excluded from carrying the same products that consumers can purchase via crowd funding. And since Kickstarter is now a major advertising platform, albeit years before a product is ready, those amazing traditionally published games get lost and become difficult to sell at any price.
These sentiments don't surprise me. I could see this coming, especially the difficulty Kickstarter makes for brick-and-mortar stores. Also that Kickstarter "production value" would erode the standard is all but inevitable. Making games is hard work and only very successful games* pay the developers anything like double minimum wage; which is arguably the floor for what creative and energetic can expect in the modern marketplace working for 'the man'.
*Hoping for a wildly successful game - say Cards Against Humanity - is like hoping to win the lottery jackpot. Sure play if you want but don't count on it.
FWIW - my opinion is that the current success is better thought of as a Silver Age; something mentioned by at least two of the posters there at EN World.
I think some of the rise in popularity of board games and a more inclusive attitude are contributing to whatever age. However it adds up, its a good thing for gamers.
White Wolf alone exceeds $3 million (in 2014). RPGs are the only game type you can sort by on Kickstarter - it has it's own tag.
As of mid 2014, Monte Cook seems to be solo dominating in the category of totally new RPGs on Kickstarter. The other successful slice among Kickstarter RPGs are re-boots and addendum products to current (already successful) games.
However, Kickstarter has not started any new companies. No GW, no Paizo, nothing like this has come out of Kickstarter.
TTRPGs against the collective whole of entertainment available to people today has no corollary in heyday of the 1990's.
Today is economically nothing like it ever has been and the demands on our free time are at least equally unprecedented.
Paraphrases on the downfall of TTRPGs wrote:
If I now sell 5,000 units of my core game I consider that a success. Had managed to get my stuff out before the crash I could have sold 10x that much, easy.
The flux in the sales ranks of the various TTRPGs have never been more volatile.
What's happening is with the flood of new games and game formats (card games, board games, online "TTRPG"s, console games, PC games, smart phone games), TTRPGs have fallen and will never regain their preeminent position among gamers.
The time to do game prep and play is HUGE compared to the commitment needed to just play a game. Most people are opting to play now rather than invest time in a TTRPG.
White Wolf alone exceeds $3 million (in 2014). RPGs are the only game type you can sort by on Kickstarter - it has it's own tag.
As of mid 2014, Monte Cook seems to be solo dominating in the category of totally new RPGs on Kickstarter. The other successful slice among Kickstarter RPGs are re-boots and addendum products to current (already successful) games.
However, Kickstarter has not started any new companies. No GW, no Paizo, nothing like this has come out of Kickstarter.
TTRPGs against the collective whole of entertainment available to people today has no corollary in heyday of the 1990's.
Today is economically nothing like it ever has been and the demands on our free time are at least equally unprecedented.
Paraphrases on the downfall of TTRPGs wrote:
If I now sell 5,000 units of my core game I consider that a success. Had managed to get my stuff out before the crash I could have sold 10x that much, easy.
The flux in the sales ranks of the various TTRPGs have never been more volatile.
What's happening is with the flood of new games and game formats (card games, board games, online "TTRPG"s, console games, PC games, smart phone games), TTRPGs have fallen and will never regain their preeminent position among gamers.
The time to do game prep and play is HUGE compared to the commitment needed to just play a game. Most people are opting to play now rather than invest time in a TTRPG.
TTRPGs are 20 minutes of fun packed into 4 hours.
When did table top RPGS have a "preeminent position among gamers"? (How is gamers defined in that quote?) They've always been a niche, compared to tradition board or card games. And easily eclipsed by computer games, pretty much as soon as computers (or consoles) were widespread enough.
If the heyday was the 90s, that was at least a decade before Kickstarter, so it's hard to blame Kickstarter for the drop from that. I'd actually guess the heyday was the late 70s and early 80s - the peak of AD&D. The 90s might have been good for other games because AD&D was at a low point before the revamp with 3.0.
When did table top RPGS have a "preeminent position among gamers"? (How is gamers defined in that quote?) They've always been a niche, compared to tradition board or card games. And easily eclipsed by computer games, pretty much as soon as computers (or consoles) were widespread enough.
If the heyday was the 90s, that was at least a decade before Kickstarter, so it's hard to blame Kickstarter for the drop from that. I'd actually guess the heyday was the late 70s and early 80s - the peak of AD&D. The 90s might have been good for other games because AD&D was at a low point before the revamp with 3.0.
First of all, I'm not blaming Kickstarter. Only pointing out that Kickstarter does very little for gaming outside of niche-niches.
As I explicitly stated:
Card games, board games, online "TTRPG"s, console games, PC games, smart phone games and so forth, have collectively ensured that TTRPG's will never again be what they were in terms of dominating the gamer market.
People who play/ed "tradition{al} board or card games" never called themselves gamers afaik.
Emphasis on "traditional".
Players of Scrabble or Monopoly (for example) and the term "gamer" have never gone together. TTPRGs and "gamer" are ubiquitously coupled in my experience. So too is "gamer" and console/PC game players and I'm thinking it was adapted from the TTRPG use.
White Wolf alone exceeds $3 million (in 2014). RPGs are the only game type you can sort by on Kickstarter - it has it's own tag.
However, Kickstarter has not started any new companies. No GW, no Paizo, nothing like this has come out of Kickstarter.
I would imagine the company that actually made the $3 million dollars and not the nonexistent IP farm at the time counts.
Quote:
As I explicitly stated:
Card games, board games, online "TTRPG"s, console games, PC games, smart phone games and so forth, have collectively ensured that TTRPG's will never again be what they were in terms of dominating the gamer market.
Except one of the more hotly anticipated games is weirdly enough a TTRPG.
When did table top RPGS have a "preeminent position among gamers"? (How is gamers defined in that quote?) They've always been a niche, compared to tradition board or card games. And easily eclipsed by computer games, pretty much as soon as computers (or consoles) were widespread enough.
If the heyday was the 90s, that was at least a decade before Kickstarter, so it's hard to blame Kickstarter for the drop from that. I'd actually guess the heyday was the late 70s and early 80s - the peak of AD&D. The 90s might have been good for other games because AD&D was at a low point before the revamp with 3.0.
First of all, I'm not blaming Kickstarter. Only pointing out that Kickstarter does very little for gaming outside of niche-niches.
As I explicitly stated:
Card games, board games, online "TTRPG"s, console games, PC games, smart phone games and so forth, have collectively ensured that TTRPG's will never again be what they were in terms of dominating the gamer market.
People who play/ed "tradition{al} board or card games" never called themselves gamers afaik.
Emphasis on "traditional".
Players of Scrabble or Monopoly (for example) and the term "gamer" have never gone together. TTPRGs and "gamer" are ubiquitously coupled in my experience. So too is "gamer" and console/PC game players and I'm thinking it was adapted from the TTRPG use.
Under that definition, TTRPGs stopped dominating the "gamer market" about the same time the market started including anything outside TTRPGs - the PC/console game market has been bigger than TTRPGs since about 5 minutes after it came into existence (slight exaggeration.) It's vastly larger and more mainstream than the niche TTRPG market has ever been - even at its height.
I'd be more interested in the actual size of the TTRPG market and how that's changed over time, than in what percent of some hypothetical "gamer" market it has. If as a wild hypothetical over the decades computer games went from almost nothing to 80% of the market that looks like they're destroying TTRPGs, but it could also match TTRPGs doubling and computer games bringing in a huge new bunch of gamers into the market. (Numbers made up and are pretty much guaranteed to bear no resemblance to reality.)
After doing research by listening to various YouTube discussions and interviews involving gaming insiders, game store owners and other gamer-people who lived through the 80s & 90s, I'd say WoW was the final indicator of whether companies should look for bank in TTRPGs. Clearly the money is on getting a hit in the MMORG market. Console/PC gaming is a little steep to get into unless you've got backers with deep pockets (and Kickstarter/Patreon just won't get you there).
I think the impact of TTRPGs is best measured in number of active players/capita*. Sometime after 1994 that number seems to have started an unending downward trend with the exception of a possible small up-tick with the release of 5e.
If you try to use another measure, like total gross earnings, profit, number of industry employees, cross-cultural impact, or ???, a comparison gets much less relevant because TTPRGs don't count for much by those measures. And they never have.
The one thing that hasn't changed much is domination of the TTRPG market by one, or two, and (sometimes) three companies, with massive fluctuation from quarter to quarter in rankings below the top tier.
Places like the Paizo Messageboards, GitP, RPGnet, EN World, etc., are somewhat of an echo chamber. I've lost count of the times I've had to explain TTRPGs with the phrase, "Like World of Warcraft only the experience is moderated by a fellow human rather than a program running on a server somewhere". Most of the world does not get, and never will get, TTRPGs. There is no money in this market worth chasing unless you're already in the game. You might as well try to go from skateboarding to driving for NASCAR, as changing from TTRPG player/GM to game content publisher.
*Not TTRPG-exclusive players because people have multiple hobbies sometimes.
Chief Technical Officer
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
