Quote from: estar;896942I don't think that the issue with tabletop roleplaying in 2016.

YOu're right.  But sometimes there's some idiot who thinks his 'product' is better than everyone else's and that means they should be on top.

Quote from: estar;896951Except that is a poor analogy in 2016. The computer landscape has shifted. iOS and Android are eating Windows lunch and Microsoft is unable to compete head to head. Except that is not so simple either because iOS and Android devices are still piss poor at productivity applications. But that not simple either because web developers are doing amazing thing with HTML5 and server backends.

What has happened is that the landscape shifted into a new mode.

I dispute this because Android and iOS are not mainframe OS's that a lot, I daresay most, businesses use for their data entry and manipulation.  Android and iOS are personal device software, which Microsoft was too late to be able to penetrate into.  Which also proves my point, to a certain degree.

Quote from: estar;896951Windows was dominant because developers in the 90s like myself found it to be the superior solution for our application. Apple and Unix/Linux sucked major ass when you try to develop and deploy an application. Nothing really changed in the 2000s, but now in 2016 writing web apps has become a serious alternative for certain applications. But when it comes to regular computer application, windows is still the system to develop for.

You're not disputing my point.  You're agreeing with it...  

Quote from: estar;896951It failed because the government didn't have the case they thought they did. But they also succeeded because it paused Microsoft by just enough to allow Google and the open source community to catch up. Now IE is just one of several choices for browsing the web. And with the rise of iOS, Safari has carved a niche.

Hence why I said virtual monopolies.  Which is JUST enough to keep the government off MS's back.  But we all know that in terms of Mainframe software, Microsoft is pretty much the only OS manufacturer.

Quote from: estar;896951Ma Bell.  For all the Cell Phone providers out there, what a lot of people don't know is that Bell Telecom and AT&T are the only ones in the mainland U.S. that can actually provide wireless service.  

I don't know where you get your information in the US there are at least twodozen wireless operator who operate their own equipment and networks. Although there are five that have true nationwide reach, the rest are regional companies. Now there is a greater number of virtual wireless operators that do indeed lease service from the major companies.

I may be off with AT&T, but Bell?  Bell is EVERYWHERE in North America.  In fact, it's so big that it IS everywhere.  And you just proved it by saying that the smaller operators, the ones that would have most people believe are actually NOT affiliated with Bell, actually are.

Quote from: estar;896951Damn, I must be out of mind because I swear I have Battlefield 4 installed on my computer. I must seeing an illusion when I look at Steam and I see game like Rust, ARK, Doom, etc.

I'm confused here.  Seriously.  You just listed about 5 games that are unlike CoD in experience that, you're pretty much proving my point again.  If you want an open space, vehicle driven war shooter, you're not going to go to Activision, you're going to EA and the Battlefield series.  In fact, you're not going to find anyone else selling Battlefield.  As for Doom?  That's Bethesda Softworks.

Quote from: estar;896951Maybe it way different in Canada. Because it doesn't sound at all like what world of entertainment is like at the present in the United States.

All of which did not refute my point what so ever.

Seriously, and I'm not being snarky here, what exactly were you trying to do?

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;896966I know that the pay is not good in the RPG field. But a genuine question I have is: is the market such that the market value for RPG writers impacting the value of products coming out? I may be missing some examples, but I've been pretty impressed by some of what I see being put out, and I've had little reason to lament those that have quit RPG writing for greener pastures.

My observation that it is largely a reputation driven business now. So the answer is no there is little to no effect.

If you have the rep, people will pay, to a point. I have seen several OSR publishers bootstrap them up from nothing into what is a either full-time business or near enough. I am sure other RPG systems have done the same. But almost nobody is a traditional corporation with paid staff employees. Everything is an ad-hoc project comprised of principle owners (author or ip holder), freelancers, artists, editors, and a layout person. The ones that get the bucks are those who can work this to produce quality projects for a dedicated customer base along with a certain amount of self-promotion.

The losers in all this are the people that are just good at writing but nothing else. It is very difficult to bootstrap yourself unless you have some luck or willing to do self-promotion. What I have seen is people who are good at writing and just OK in the other areas work into a position where they are part of a partnership/corporation with a small group of people that have people good at promotion, layout, editing, etc.

But if you are known for the quality of your product and for the ability to produce on a timely basis then it can be almost as good as printing money. But it takes work to get there, a little luck, and more work to maintain that reputation.

No one likes the idea of unionizing D&D for some reason.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896932Because it's happened in every single form of media to date in some fashion.  I can point several non-Gaming related industries in which virtual monopolies exist, where we're forced to accept what we're getting because only one source exists for it.

I wouldn't call Microsoft owning Windows a monopoly on who owns Windows. Linux runs on pretty much every Macintosh these days. Crazy people could say that Linux has a monopoly on Macs.

I appreciate that it's difficult to make a living from elfgames and I kind of feel for him, but hey, the market is a bitch, and when you choose a career you've got to take the good with the bad. Some days I hate my job too.

Now, the medical bankruptcy issue is... something else, that (to the best of my understanding) is an all too common tragedy in thd US, anc has very little to do with one's career choices.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896981I dispute this because Android and iOS are not mainframe OS's that a lot, I daresay most, businesses use for their data entry and manipulation.  Android and iOS are personal device software, which Microsoft was too late to be able to penetrate into.  Which also proves my point, to a certain degree.

This is my favorite part of Jurassic Park. Let me get my VR glove so I can log into this UNIX, which I happen to know.

Where'd that popcorn emoticon go?

Quote from: daniel_ream;896977Whether we need them is irrelevant.  We don't "need" RPGs at all.  Paizo, at least, has demonstrated that people want coffee table books with statblocks in them, even if they're never used to play, and will pay for such (I think they said once that 50% of the people who buy their Adventure Paths buy them just to read them. Which is why the NPCs have such elaborately diverse backstories).

I'm going to go ahead and fess up to buying pretty RPG books that I kinda know I'm never going to play. For example, Hellas, and Mouse Guard. I'm currently playing in three long-term, consistent campaigns (running nothing), which might be my personal best since college in the 80s, so I don't have a shred of armchair-gamer shame (no offense meant to Armchair Gamer) for those purchases and the frame of mind I was in when I bought them.

Just thought I should come clean, here among friends.

All I see in that article is some "let's make sure we make our money" talk/rabble rousing, which doesn't offend me in the slightest.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896981I dispute this because Android and iOS are not mainframe OS's that a lot, I daresay most, businesses use for their data entry and manipulation.  Android and iOS are personal device software, which Microsoft was too late to be able to penetrate into.  Which also proves my point, to a certain degree.

You missed my comment about HTML5  which a lot of business are starting to use for data entry and manipulation. And while Linux/Unix has negligible presence on the desktop, it is a major competitor of Microsoft for server. Windows has a dominant position that is fragile due to the advancement in computer technology.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896981You're not disputing my point.  You're agreeing with it...

You are trying hold up Microsoft as this big bad force, well they were neither saint or sinner. You bought the fallacy of Windows is crap and is only dominant because Microsoft used their monopoly to force it that way. That not how it happened. Windows became dominant because Microsoft treated their developers like gold. Except for a brief period in the mid 2000s, it was always stupidly easy to get going with developing stuff for Microsoft Windows. Because Windows was good enough as a desktop OS it won over the Mac and IBM's OS/2. I know this from personal experience having started programming in early 80s while I was in high school and continued professionally. However the dominance of windows did not stop the development of alternatives and when the wheel of technology turned again with the Internet, and then turn again with the rise of personal devices, it demonstrated how fragile the dominance of Windows is. Desktop computer didn't go away, nor did Windows as the dominant OS but now the market has EXPANDED to encompass a lot more than desktops and laptops. That expansion has now dwarfs the desktop market.

That the part that makes it relevant to the RPG Industry. The internet, and the continued development of computer technology has enabled a publisher to reach his customers far more easily than before. To the point were one person can make a living off an audience in the low hundreds while releasing his shit for free. i.e. Dyson Logos  It just doesn't matter that Wizard and Pazio have the two top RPG to somebody who trying to break into the industry.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896981Hence why I said virtual monopolies.  Which is JUST enough to keep the government off MS's back.  But we all know that in terms of Mainframe software, Microsoft is pretty much the only OS manufacturer.

This demonstrates your ignorance of how the computer industry works. IBM dominates the mainframe business. A mainframe is a specific type of computer hardware that specializes in high speed processing and high speed I/O. Microsoft is a leading competitor for DESKTOP SERVERS.  Microsoft servers runs neck to neck with various Linux and Unix distributions. Microsoft is only dominate in two area. Desktop Operating systems and Office software. In every other area they are second best or lag far behind their competition. One of the areas they try to compete in cloud computing with their Azure platform but in that space they have to compete against Amazon and Google who sell similar services.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896981I may be off with AT&T, but Bell?  Bell is EVERYWHERE in North America.  In fact, it's so big that it IS everywhere.  And you just proved it by saying that the smaller operators, the ones that would have most people believe are actually NOT affiliated with Bell, actually are.

In terms of anything involving land lines you are correct. Nearly all of the land infrastructure involving cables and wires is owned by a company descended from one of the Bell corporations that originated with the AT&T breakup in the 1980s. However in the United State with WIRELESS service that is not the case at all. The five leading competitors are Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular and yep AT&T.  All of these own their own hardware and cell towers. However to due to regulations they often share space or land with other wireless carriers and wireless towers.

What you are confusing this with is the fact that after the AT&T break up in the 1980s, a bunch of long-distance companies sprung up, Sprint among them. All of them had to lease lines off of the old AT&T network that was owned by a single company, forgot the name, who got the hardware side of the AT&T business.

Again this is what happened in the United States, which may not be what happened in Canada.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896981I'm confused here.  Seriously.  You just listed about 5 games that are unlike CoD in experience that, you're pretty much proving my point again.  If you want an open space, vehicle driven war shooter, you're not going to go to Activision, you're going to EA and the Battlefield series.  In fact, you're not going to find anyone else selling Battlefield.  As for Doom?  That's Bethesda Softworks.

Dude they are all first person shooters, with multiplayer support and a single player campaign. They are all the same genre. Out of all them the Battlefield series is Call of Duty DIRECT competitor. What the hell point YOU are trying to make here. Call of Duty is a specific series of games in a specific genre of computer gaming. It not a monopoly situation as everybody understands the word.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896981All of which did not refute my point what so ever.

Seriously, and I'm not being snarky here, what exactly were you trying to do?

You are reacting to the present day situation with gaming as if it was an earlier. Back in the day where there were gaming stores, and a distribution channel then monopolies were a big deal and had a serious impact on the market. But that is not the case today. For the type of stuff we are talking about here (tabletop and computer games) it doesn't matter anymore. Because of Kickstarter, Patreon, Lulu, RPGNow/DriveThru, Amazon, Steam, Good Old Games, Origins, etc, etc nobody can use a monopoly or near monopoly situation to choke out the competition. Everything is just a click away.

Granted it not everybody has access, but it still expanding and hasn't finished yet.

The problem that you are complaining about, what Helton is complaining over on enworld DOESN'T MATTER anymore. It is literally a new game in the world of distributing creative stuff and there are new rules.  The main effect of which is that there are no longer these discrete steps in what being produced. It used to be that you have to had X capital to print something get in distribution. That hasn't changed much but what there are alternatives. Alternative that allow a single person to bootstrap himself into a position where he is now using more traditional methods of distribution. This is true of tabletop and this is true of computer games for example Minecraft which went from a web browser app to a multi-billion dollar enterprise. As consequence we get EVERYTHING now. From simple black and white booklets sent to a handful of people, to full color hardbacks distributed internationally.

So I have to ask, what your problem with all of this. You can't get something published? Can't get a job in the industry? Are you overwhelmed with all the choices available? Do you feel that all the choices are crap? If the answer is yes to any of these, the problem isn't with the industry. The problem isn't even you. The problem is that you lack the information to overcome the issues you are having. You can bitch and moan or you can ask one of use how we dealt with these issues. How do you get something published. How do you get a job in the industry. How do you sort out the stuff you like. And how do you find the good stuff.

Quote from: daniel_ream;896977Whether we need them is irrelevant.  We don't "need" RPGs at all.  Paizo, at least, has demonstrated that people want coffee table books with statblocks in them, even if they're never used to play, and will pay for such (I think they said once that 50% of the people who buy their Adventure Paths buy them just to read them. Which is why the NPCs have such elaborately diverse backstories).

Once again we're stymied by the lack of hard data.  Yes I know we don't "need" rpgs.  But would a less elaborate "game oriented" product sell enough more to raise the revenue curve sufficiently?  We're back in the SPI dilemma elaborated by Redmond Simonson 40 years ago... some people buy games to play, some to look at and read and admire, and the wants of the two groups are almost diametrically opposed.

In my short time here I don't think anyone else has impressed me with their willingness to unironically engage just about anyone of any level in the way that estar does. Truly a credit to the site.

Thank you, sir.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;896992Once again we're stymied by the lack of hard data.

We're really not.  No frills products of the type you're describing are still sold all the time, in PDF or POD format.  Chaosium had monographs for years. The market has spoken pretty clearly: higher production values sell better.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;896962Like many things, there are some elements of truth in the originally quoted post.  Mostly that yeah, a good chunk of gamers are cheap shitheels.  So are a good chunk of potential buyers of just about anything.  "80% of your sales come from 20% of your customer base" is an old, old principle.

On the other hand I feel like the production standards of many modern game books are absurdly high.  Do we NEED hard covers, massive amounts of color, heavy weight high gloss paper, etc?  I'm not advocating a return to Judges' Guild original smudged newsprint production standards, but RPG books are ridiculous.

Exactly.  I've ranted long and often on the subject, and the absurd amount of non-information filler jammed into RPG products just boggles my mind.

But ... sheesh.

Over the course of a seven year period (and a bunch of years ago now), I sold a dozen some-odd RPG products.  Part of it was egoboo.  Part of it was starting to do so as a broke college student, and it was income.  But the most I ever got paid was $1500 for a 32-page Conan solo, and that much was triple the going rate for the same: the company only offered that much because of a sudden hole in their inviolable publication schedule, on the condition that I put a camera-ready, proofed MS in their hands in four weeks flat.  (I didn't sleep a whole lot that month.)  I never had any delusion that I could make a living at RPG writing; one of my players at the time was the president of a game company that had one of the most touted supplements of the 1980s, and he made very little money from the hobby — the family income was based on his day job as an environmental services executive.

Yes, it'd sure be nice if society would be so kind as to pay us all enough to maintain the lifestyle we wanted, doing what we wanted to do.

That isn't the way the world works.  Yes, it's regrettable that the likes of Loren Wiseman have had financial problems, but forgive me if I'm a bit more exercised about the fate of my next-door neighbor Brad.  He's pushing 80, he has health woes of his own, he just had to put his wife in a nursing home he can't afford, the closest of his children lives five hours away, and he does mowing and snowblowing for the neighboring landlords for a few extra dollars.  Brad doesn't have a Wikipedia article; he worked in the local paper mills, when there still were local paper mills.  I don't figure several dozen GDW fanboys would rally to help Brad make ends meet.

Our economic system is based around the principle of things being worth what their purchasers are willing to pay for them.  The market's established what people are willing to pay for gaming products.  No one compelled me to take the prices on offer, or my friend Rich, or Mr. Helton.  Like any one of us, Helton's free to take on whatever job he thinks will pay him what he wants.

This ENworld author is free to charge double the market average for his products. He may even have people pay it.

I dropped $250 on the Conan boardgame (with bonus add-on goodies), and it kinda insane. I know I'm gonna have to play a crapton to make the ROI worth it, but FOR ME, it looks like a replacement for Warhammer Quest.

Then I dropped $100 on The Others: Seven Sins because I convinced myself I'll be using the minis for RPGs, but my brain kept saying $100 for a boardgame??

It's harder FOR ME to justify that money on RPGs. Why? Because I can't open a RPG book and run a game, like I can with a boardgame. No brains, just open the box, pick a scenario and go to the fun bits. With a RPG, I'm gonna be the GM most likely, gonna do a bunch of prep, gonna do some group chargen and then eventually play. Lots more investment of time for me. Thus, I am less likely to jump on a new RPG bandwagon.

Except if Kevin Crawford writes something. Then I just throw money at him because my ROI with his stuff has been great.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;896992We're back in the SPI dilemma elaborated by Redmond Simonson 40 years ago... some people buy games to play, some to look at and read and admire, and the wants of the two groups are almost diametrically opposed.

Agreed.

Quote from: Brand55;896946I was reading that article and thread earlier today and was blown away by the sheer idiocy of some of the posters. No game designer, even one of the truly awesome ones, is entitled to my money. If they put out something great at a price I can afford, I'm happy to pay it. But it's like some of these guys think every gamer out there should be dropping $10,000 or more a year on gaming materials.

It's your moral duty!

BTW, the most valuable part of the ENworld post was mentioning that 2 gaming dudes need some medical help.

Charles Wright of Frog God Games
https://www.gofundme.com/29e76zrf

Loren Wiseman of Traveller fame
https://www.youcaring.com/loren-k-wiseman-495303