Years ago on TBP, back when publishers used to comment there regularly, the consensus from industry types whenever this subject came up was that the same numbers that would have been considered middling to disappointing sales in 1989 would constitute a massive beak out hit in 2000. So unquestionably there was a steep drop off during the 90s.

What I'd be interested to see is how stable things have been from roughly 2000 to the present.

Yeah, the hobby's pretty much about to die out.

Wait, no it's not.

April Fools Day was yesterday.

Twitch TV and Hitbox are online gaming stream sites. Both have categories for tabletop RPGs (as "Dungeons & Dragons"). While not the powerhouse of views that Hearthstone (seriously) and World of Warcraft are (and Heroes of the Storm will become), they are good-sized and growing.

Virtual Tabletop technology is now cheap and user-friendly enough to replace meatspace meetups for an increasing number of players. That's where your growth is, and that means rulesets need to change to facilitate virtual tabletop usage if publishers want to take advantage of it. Electronic publishing is a big part of it, but continued development of things like Roll20 is the load-bearing pillar holding it all up.

An increasing number of these stream hosts are (a) making that "pro-GM" thing a reality that pays (subscription income is a thing), and (b) using YouTube as an archive of past streams. (Go look up "Table Topping" at YouTube to see one guy doing just this; runs four or five weekly campaigns of D&D5 and Pathfinder.) Since you need not even have user accounts to watch streams, using these sites as resources is an option. (You will need an account to use the chatrooms, but that's free.)

He who isn't busy being born is busy dying.

I was reading through G. Gygax's posts on dragonsfoot, and thought what he said here is sorta tangentially interesting to this topic:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=166610#p166610

QuoteThe number of crashed RPG groups from ill-advised "improvements" to the game system is likely staggering. What the hobby really needs is a school to teach GMing, with classes in game design and creative writing included. thet would surely add greatly to the number of RPG fans enjoying real RPGing;)

I think GM'ing well isn't easy, but having a good GM as my first experience was what hooked me onto the hobby irreversibly. Still, I'd say that I've had more so-so to mediocre GMs than good ones. Maybe if there was mentoring of some sort, there would be more good GMs and more people coming into the hobby.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823829I think GM'ing well isn't easy, but having a good GM as my first experience was what hooked me onto the hobby irreversibly. Still, I'd say that I've had more so-so to mediocre GMs than good ones. Maybe if there was mentoring of some sort, there would be more good GMs and more people coming into the hobby.

The trouble is that so often it's a matter of someone with no previous experience getting the book and so becoming GM for friends who are no wiser. If there's someplace to get started by playing with an experienced GM, then one can learn from that.

I don't think it's a big handicap, though. The point, after all, is simply for everyone to have fun; it's not like more competitive games. It's pretty much like throwing a party, not rocket engineering. Talk, listen, respond with an eye to keeping the dramatic action going and everyone engaged.

A handbook should include some basic pointers on how to GM, not just a rules set, if it's to be good for very inexperienced people. Folks with some experience in GM'd wargames, LARP, or such might be good to go with just a brief rundown.

The hobby is dying insofar as it isn't making money.
Of course neither is the rest of the economy.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;823850The hobby is dying insofar as it isn't making money.
Of course neither is the rest of the economy.

JG

Not allowed to go into 'details' - but our store at Holiday time this past year  did much better than it did in 2013. As a result certain adjustments were made in favor of the employees.

Not a  'huge' thing I know - but still better business than the previous year is a good thing. One of several factors contributing to that might have been the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons being available just before the Holiday season.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Teazia;823176Giving credit where it is due, PF also helped stabilize the biz.

At times I wonder how much of Paizo's revenue is primarily generated from the compulsive completionist crowd on the Pathfinder splatbook treadmill.

Quote from: ggroy;823918At times I wonder how much of Paizo's revenue is primarily generated from the compulsive completionist crowd on the Pathfinder splatbook treadmill.

Selling to compulsive completionists is a pretty nice gig if you can get it. How much of White Wolf's revenue during their boom years in the 90s came from obsessed WoD completionists?

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;823829Maybe if there was mentoring of some sort, there would be more good GMs and more people coming into the hobby.

Maybe the GM section should be put in the front of the book.

I'm not really joking.

I fully agree that good GMs increase the player base. That's one of the main ideas behind RPGA and other organized play - having premade adventures that the GM follows page by page takes some of the guesswork out of the process. Instead of wondering if this random mook at the end of the table knows how to put together a coherent adventure, that is done for them.

Not my preferred way of playing, but I have not had a problem finding GMs who know how to create adventures, but apparently that's a big issue for many GMs.

I do agree RPG companies should incentivize GMs getting more skilled.

Quote from: ggroy;823918At times I wonder how much of Paizo's revenue is primarily generated from the compulsive completionist crowd on the Pathfinder splatbook treadmill.

I know for a fact that was what kept TSR and White Wolf going as long as they did.

JG

Quote from: Spinachcat;823957Maybe the GM section should be put in the front of the book.

I'm not really joking.

I fully agree that good GMs increase the player base. That's one of the main ideas behind RPGA and other organized play - having premade adventures that the GM follows page by page takes some of the guesswork out of the process. Instead of wondering if this random mook at the end of the table knows how to put together a coherent adventure, that is done for them.

Not my preferred way of playing, but I have not had a problem finding GMs who know how to create adventures, but apparently that's a big issue for many GMs.

I do agree RPG companies should incentivize GMs getting more skilled.

I agree - "how do I run this thing" in front of more RPGs might be a big boon. The assumption is always that you're already in the hobby and know what you're doing isn't always positive.

Personally always thought it made more sense to explain what you do and how, preferably with examples of game play to show various things you could/might do with the game, before you even get into creating characters and rules. So many games start out with "here's how you create your character" but unless you have a guide it's sometimes hard to know what you should create and why.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;823159Serious correlation question... are people getting tired of MMORPGs? And deciding that face to face interaction has more of a role to play in RPGs? I could be off track especially with the advent of virtual table tops, but I would look at that relationship for the answer.

I think that the person who was dragged away from the tabletop for ease of access in MMORPGs has probably migrated to tablet gaming and not come back to the fold (noting that some people did migrate back, I am sure, but that the sort of person who thought D&D was a pain in the ass and WoW fulfilled all their needs is probably still playing WoW...and if WoW stopped filling their needs, I doubt they're going to migrate "backwards" necessarily unless they've had a genuine epiphany about how hollow the online MMO experience is these days.