I know we'll still have our book collections, regardless; but what do you think about the state of the industry? Is everyone but WOTC in trouble now?
My initial thoughts were that they should be OK and on the other hand the retail shops are closed, at least one major distributor is not paying out to their suppliers and our whole economy turns out to be super fragile so what do I know.
My local retail store is doing shipping, delivery and/or curbside pickup. I assume that a lot of other stores will start to follow suit, the longer this goes. Like any niche market I think there is a certain fragile aspect because if folks lose jobs they have less disposable income, but I assume businesses will find ways to get you stuff if you want to buy it.
People have a lot of leisure time right now, but even those with money are saving because of the uncertainty. So while there might be a boom in online game playing, there probably won't be a corresponding boom in sales. FLGSes are pretty marginal non-essential businesses with fixed costs, so I imagine a lot will fold. RPG publishers with dedicated office or warehouse space, or physical inventories, may have to let them go. Those that are primarily mail order have a better chance. Those that are electronic or use print on demand technologies are in the best shape, because they can keep servicing their customers fairly easily, and delay any new development projects until the world is back to normal. This includes the really small press/DIY side of the hobby.
If the Chinese Virus nonsense panic continues long enough to create a major recession, every hobby industry will suffer as spending money for luxuries dries up first. The unemployed focus on food and shelter, not new toys. The employed fear potential imminent unemployment and focus on savings.
However, a recession isn't terrible for the HOBBY (aka, actual play by gamers). Hobbyists who create freebies via blogs won't be affected, but small publishers and Kickstarters are fucked. The mid-tier companies are truly fucked and WotC will downsize to a skeleton staff while Hasbro tries to leverage the D&D brand into Hollywood and video games, but those are also bad avenues in a recession.
But with people saving money, you will see more playing of what people already own. Plenty of blogs will pop up about dusting off fun games from the past years and blogs promoting RPGing and boardgaming as cheap fun.
In fact, a recession isn't the worst thing for the HOBBY - again, I mean the focus on actual play - because people will be looking for cheap escapism. I remember past recession gaming quite well. We gathered and played stuff we had owned forever, often brought pot luck homemade chow to share, and had a really wonderful time.
Don't get me wrong. I want to avoid a recession in the extreme as I'm partnered in a startup and I need the USA to be back spending like drunken sailors ASAP. I'm built to survive downturns, but they ain't fun which is why I have good memories of escaping into fantastical RPGing during those crapass days.
It's going to be hardest on the midsized companies who don't have parent companies with deep pockets and are still dependant on retail sales for the bulk of their business. Little garage operations will survive just fine.
Most game stores and retail that doesn't involve food had to close down.
Ohio just extended the 'stay at home' order to May 1st.
- Ed C.
I both anticipate, and regret a return to the days of very few FLGSs. Online shopping will rule the day.
I've always liked to examine a book in hand, before buying it. That way; I know my copy doesn't have flaws in the binding or printing, beyond what I am willing to accept.
Anything with high overhead requiring steady cash flow to cover is going to hurt for a while. That said, one way that steady cash flow was covered for RPG companies in better times was churning out lots of mediocre stuff that people bought out of habit and boredom.
More people can play RPGs right now than ever before. So those with money have an easier time wrangling a group together. That will be a plus in sales, but the main cash flow, people who like a pretty bookshelf, should see a decline in spending. Owners and Readers are the whales of the RPG world.
In the short-term I expect sales to flatline for a bit, then steadily climb to levels below pre-pandemic, but much higher than all the closed industries.
Your job isn't as secure of law enforcement, healthcare worker, farmer, or grocer, but better than others as people get more bored and need cheap social things they can do from their homes.
Quote from: Razor 007;1125452I know we'll still have our book collections, regardless; but what do you think about the state of the industry? Is everyone but WOTC in trouble now?
Worry when DriveThru goes under.
I sincerely hope that those of you who are making a living in the RPG Industry, can keep it in the black. This is such a cool industry, and hobby.
Retailers will get hit hardest if they have very close margins. Some publishers will get hit as well for the same reason. The rest really depends on the situation and distribution. Any break along those lines of supply and who knows.
Quote from: Koltar;1125473Most game stores and retail that doesn't involve food had to close down.
Ohio just extended the 'stay at home' order to May 1st.
Koltar, what's your store's plan to survive?
The SBA loan program kicks in Friday. Hope the store owners are looking into how they might snag some of that tasty $2 trillion Kung Flu bill. As for you, if you're unemployed, make sure to apply ASAP to get the bonus cash.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1125488More people can play RPGs right now than ever before. So those with money have an easier time wrangling a group together. That will be a plus in sales, but the main cash flow, people who like a pretty bookshelf, should see a decline in spending. Owners and Readers are the whales of the RPG world.
In the short-term I expect sales to flatline for a bit, then steadily climb to levels below pre-pandemic, but much higher than all the closed industries.
Your job isn't as secure of law enforcement, healthcare worker, farmer, or grocer, but better than others as people get more bored and need cheap social things they can do from their homes.
Healthcare jobs are not as secure as you might think. Systems are losing millions of dollars each day right now as the money-making procedures are delayed and cancelled. As a result, systems are cutting back on a lot of future plans and burning reserves. While there is a lot of crisis coverage right now, there will be a sharp dip in healthcare work following the crisis phase until systems recover. During this time, workers will be overburdened and hiring freezes will be likely. Then, when they lift, those eager for jobs will have little bargaining power and may have to take much poorer offers than they otherwise could have.
Quote from: HappyDaze;1125506Healthcare jobs are not as secure as you might think. Systems are losing millions of dollars each day right now as the money-making procedures are delayed and cancelled. As a result, systems are cutting back on a lot of future plans and burning reserves. While there is a lot of crisis coverage right now, there will be a sharp dip in healthcare work following the crisis phase until systems recover. During this time, workers will be overburdened and hiring freezes will be likely. Then, when they lift, those eager for jobs will have little bargaining power and may have to take much poorer offers than they otherwise could have.
Not only have they frozen elective procedures to save PPE, but they're building capacity to support anticipated demand, before it arrives. They're being forced to spend a lot of money, without any immediate increase in income. People are also skipping routine visits. At one practice, providers have dropped from more than 30 patients a day, to 4. And one of reasons people become general practitioners is the field is traditionally very stable -- while they don't make as much as some specialists, they typically get a very steady paycheck. So they're hurting because they're not used to their income fluctuating that much. And while the practice is just starting to do telehealth, they don't accept Medicare, and it's up to each private insurer whether and what they're going to reimburse for online services. So they won't even know if they're making money for a couple months. They've refused to do it so far, but they're eventually going to have to furlough most of their nurses, MAs, and support staff. And while many of the big hospital systems are looking for healthcare workers, the jobs are going to come with a high risk of exposure, so there's a strong incentive just to take unemployment and stop working, especially among those who are older. Which isn't good for the scale-up.
This is an exogenous shock to the economy. Even in the fields where overall demand is increasing, resources are being reallocated, it's hard to predict the demand, and resources spent to meet peak demand will be wasted if it's not sustained. Companies across the economy are being forced to act as entrepreneurs despite being ill-suited to it, and are making big gambles on the future. There will be some winners, but a lot of losers, and everything is very uncertain.
Quote from: Pat;1125510Not only have they frozen elective procedures to save PPE, but they're building capacity to support anticipated demand, before it arrives. They're being forced to spend a lot of money, without any immediate increase in income. People are also skipping routine visits. At one practice, providers have dropped from more than 30 patients a day, to 4. And one of reasons people become general practitioners is the field is traditionally very stable -- while they don't make as much as some specialists, they typically get a very steady paycheck. So they're hurting because they're not used to their income fluctuating that much. And while the practice is just starting to do telehealth, they don't accept Medicare, and it's up to each private insurer whether and what they're going to reimburse for online services. So they won't even know if they're making money for a couple months. They've refused to do it so far, but they're eventually going to have to furlough most of their nurses, MAs, and support staff. And while many of the big hospital systems are looking for healthcare workers, the jobs are going to come with a high risk of exposure, so there's a strong incentive just to take unemployment and stop working, especially among those who are older. Which isn't good for the scale-up.
This is an exogenous shock to the economy. Even in the fields where overall demand is increasing, resources are being reallocated, it's hard to predict the demand, and resources spent to meet peak demand will be wasted if it's not sustained. Companies across the economy are being forced to act as entrepreneurs despite being ill-suited to it, and are making big gambles on the future. There will be some winners, but a lot of losers, and everything is very uncertain.
Very much so. It's the result of the odd situation of having healthcare shifting to a "wartime" stance. The mercenaries are making out big (right now), but the strain on the system will felt for a long time afterwards.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1125489Worry when DriveThru goes under.
I think DriveThru will do fine. High Street game stores are fucked, as are mid-tier games companies dependent on giant lavish Kickstarted boxes of stuff from China - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/conan - I think this will hit boardgames harder than RPGs. But high-cost Minis makers like Reaper will certainly suffer.
As a financially viable market it's effectively dead. And if things go as I'm predicting people won't have time to engage these hobbies because they'll be too busy
surviving. The state will no longer be there to take care of anyone, and the folks with the time to engage this hobby won't have the funds to invest in it. And hurricane season is right around the corner.
Quote from: S'mon;1125514High Street game stores are fucked, as are mid-tier games companies dependent on giant lavish Kickstarted boxes of stuff from China
Ironically the Chinese company which screwed me over contacted me recently eager to finish my 'case' and send me the 'generic' dice I (didn't) ordered.
In the meantime the company which stole my design (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/674003445/dous-dice-of-unusual-size-d21-d36-pulse-and-alphab) continues to botch delivery. They've now gone through 3 manufacturers. #ShockedPicacuFace
Honestly, if this kills the physical market I might wind up in better shape and not even need to do a kickstarter; most of which was going to cover the cost of printing and shipping an initial run. As an artist with a degree in graphic design I was already doing my own art and layout work.
If I went all digital though; well, I've already been producing bookmarked PDFs optimized for viewing on tablets for my play testers, so it'd really just be a matter of filling all the blank spots I left for artwork in the layout and calling it done. With no printing costs, the sales needed to break even gets much smaller.
Also helping me is that I'd always intended my game to have an impulse buy (<$20) cost of entry. It's why I chose to split my book into separate Player's and GM's Guides. Even in bad times the gamers I know set aside a small amount of money for game-related purposes and I'm offering a complete system (hundreds of character options adding up to tens of thousands of combinations, mass combat, vehicles, structures and rules for building new monsters and traps/hazards are all included) for less than a trip to the movies.
This could actually be a great opportunity for me; doubly so if the economy bounces back strong afterwards.
Since the SBA loans will pretty much keep a business afloat for a couple months, if this crap ends soon any viable retailers will be fine. The ones that are poorly managed (95% of them from my estimate) will probably go out of business regardless. For whatever reason, FLGSs seem to be mostly run by people who have no business doing business. There have been four gaming stores in this area that closed relatively quickly, and uniformly they had no fucking clue what they were doing. One flat out refused to keep anything in stock..."We can order it for you!" Okay, fine, then it took like a couple weeks to come in, and it was 2x the cost of getting it from Amazon in two days. Refused to offer even a small discount. Refused to turn the fucking heat on when it got below freezing. Etc., etc.
RE: WotC, they're part of a megacorp, so that's up to Hasbro. I would not doubt for a second Hasbro lays everyone off and just turns D&D into a licensed property. Or they could keep everyone on staff. Who knows...smaller companies are probably doomed if, like the gaming stores, don't know WTF they're doing or have no backup plan.
Even in an economic downturn - which I expect to be deep but relatively short this time, a classic V-shaped crisis - there is a need for entertainment. People are not automatons; they need their comforts and distractions when times are hard. More than ever, they will want to be happy, and live their lives to the fullest.
Gaming will be fine: tabletop and VTT games are a cheap, fun form of entertainment where you don't actually need much buy-in to start playing. The segments of the hobby where gaming actually happens will do fine, and may actually pick up new enthusiasts. After being stuck home, there will be an explosive, pent-up need for socialisation and getting together when the dreary business of quarantines and curfews is finally over.
The game collecting hobby will probably suffer a contraction until better times return: like S'mon has said, elaborate Kickstarters with Chinese-manufactured components are the most likely to be hit. People will decide which book they are buying out of genuine interest, and which out of habit. It may turn out you can conduct miniature battles using generic figures... or pieces of cork, buttons, and whatever else. It may turn out you can do a lot with paper, pencils, some simple rules, and your imagination. Radical thoughts, but these are radical times.
Quote from: Melan;1125530It may turn out you can conduct miniature battles using generic figures... or pieces of cork, buttons, and whatever else.
At the very least you can do it with 2D colour printed standups - even with an inkjet you can do hundreds of 30mm figs for a few £, say 6p for a nice plastic base (https://em4miniatures.com/collections/game-components/products/20mm-round-high-grip-card-stands-x-20?variant=21031206289526) and 6p or so for the ink. There are some great looking 2D standups coming out currently, possibly a sign of things to come!
Of course nearly all RPGs are fine as theatre of the mind anyway.
Edit: Here's a paper minis Kickstarter I was thinking of - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tabletop-tokens/gtg-minis-for-tabletop-rpgs?ref=9n5wrf - personally I have thousands of minis, but I still find I like being able to print stuff for eg obscure monsters I don't want to spend £25 on for a 3D mini. Those are die-cut printed so still expensive, but Printable Heroes has a bunch of cool free stuff, eg https://printableheroes.com/minis/396 or https://printableheroes.com/minis/78
Quote from: S'mon;1125535At the very least you can do it with 2D colour printed standups - even with an inkjet you can do hundreds of 30mm figs for a few £, say 6p for a nice plastic base (https://em4miniatures.com/collections/game-components/products/20mm-round-high-grip-card-stands-x-20?variant=21031206289526) and 6p or so for the ink. There are some great looking 2D standups coming out currently, possibly a sign of things to come!
Of course nearly all RPGs are fine as theatre of the mind anyway.
Or 3D printable. Probably in reaction to the coronavirus, Humble Bundle just started a 3D printed terrain bundle. (https://www.humblebundle.com/books/3d-printable-dungeons-dragon-lairs-terrain-books) (The plague doctors can't be a coincidence.)
But I much prefer theatre of the mind. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but a thousand words can create a million different pictures. I think painted minis and photorealistic printed battlemaps constrain the imagination.
Quote from: Brad;1125526Since the SBA loans will pretty much keep a business afloat for a couple months, if this crap ends soon any viable retailers will be fine. The ones that are poorly managed (95% of them from my estimate) will probably go out of business regardless. For whatever reason, FLGSs seem to be mostly run by people who have no business doing business.
In some respects, they have to be. There are some markets where you only find people in business that actually love whatever the interest is. Business people that seek dollars only go for better returns.
We have a lot of amusement focused retailers in PDX, FLGS, weird food pop ups, craft beer local chains and book sellers like Powell's. They often cheer about how progressive they are, but the fact is that they live on such tiny and transient margins that they are one pat on the back away from bankruptcy even in fairly good economic times.
I got an email the other day from Troll Lord Games talking about Kickstarter fulfillment. In the email was an explanation of how they're not actually seeing much business operations disruption because they've always used US-based printers, own some of their own printing equipment, and bought some additional supply runway when they saw COVID-19 becoming a crisis in Asia. That might be an interesting compare/contrast point versus the other companies/Kickstarters being disrupted by supply chain issues.
Quote from: Lynn;1125543In some respects, they have to be. There are some markets where you only find people in business that actually love whatever the interest is. Business people that seek dollars only go for better returns.
We have a lot of amusement focused retailers in PDX, FLGS, weird food pop ups, craft beer local chains and book sellers like Powell's. They often cheer about how progressive they are, but the fact is that they live on such tiny and transient margins that they are one pat on the back away from bankruptcy even in fairly good economic times.
I wanted to open a bar at one time, so I did a massive amount of research. Something like 80% of all bars close in 6 months of opening. 80%! Because the people opening bars think they can run a business and have no idea how. I decided to shelve that idea for a while until I got more business acumen and experience. So while I get where you're coming from (you're right, obviously), I just wish some of these people who were REALLY passionate about RPGs, for instance, would realize they should maybe spend 6 months or a year learning about finance, logistics, management, etc. Or at least fucking hire someone with that experience to run the damn thing. Myself, for instance, I took some MBA classes as electives as part of my current PhD just to learn how to do accounting properly. Probably gonna save myself from wasting $100-$200k.
Quote from: S'mon;1125514I think DriveThru will do fine. High Street game stores are fucked, as are mid-tier games companies dependent on giant lavish Kickstarted boxes of stuff from China - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/conan - I think this will hit boardgames harder than RPGs. But high-cost Minis makers like Reaper will certainly suffer.
Agreed. If the Kung Flu does cause a deep recession, Monolith will be toast and CMON is going to take a severe hit. Makes me wonder about how Asmodee proceeds during the mess. However, the Conan boardgame is good stuff. Fun game on its own plus a gazillion minis that are great for any Sword & Sorcery RPGing.
Quote from: Chris24601;1125523If I went all digital though; well, I've already been producing bookmarked PDFs optimized for viewing on tablets for my play testers, so it'd really just be a matter of filling all the blank spots I left for artwork in the layout and calling it done. With no printing costs, the sales needed to break even gets much smaller.
I highly recommend checking out how SineNomine does his Kickstarters. He prints nothing. Instead, he sells POD codes for DriveThru and everyone gets their dead tree and PDF combo. You will make less money, but no risk of capital. Most gamers want a dead tree copy so you get those sales to increase your break even chance.
I personally prefer all-in-one book games, but the separate Player Guide + GM Guide concept is heavily ingrained in the market so I don't see that holding back your sales.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1125561I highly recommend checking out how SineNomine does his Kickstarters. He prints nothing. Instead, he sells POD codes for DriveThru and everyone gets their dead tree and PDF combo. You will make less money, but no risk of capital. Most gamers want a dead tree copy so you get those sales to increase your break even chance.
That was basically my pre-existing plan. Write the book, do the Kickstarter for cost of artwork resources, sending the whole thing through a professional copy editor. Pledge awards would be various levels of PDF plus POD and a draft copy of the rules for immediate play (and to prove the product isn't vaporware for those pledging money to it).
What remains to be seen is how much the market impact will change the model from that. I'd like to keep that model, but if it ended up going all digital I'm already mostly set up to take advantage of it.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1125561I personally prefer all-in-one book games, but the separate Player Guide + GM Guide concept is heavily ingrained in the market so I don't see that holding back your sales.
I would have done an all-in-one, but I really wanted to keep the player facing material as close to a $20 price point as possible. I want players to be able to get all the options they'll ever need (my planned supplements are all of the World Book/Adventure Site variety) for a trivial cost of entry.
One part of that was that you can save significantly on printing costs if you use the 6x9 format (which also removes the need for separate PDF and printed layouts; though I do plan to include a free printer friendly PDF with every PDF copy that will remove all the artwork and put the contents of two of the 6x9 pages onto a single landscape 8.5x11 printer page).
That does limit your page count a bit if you want it to open properly (the Player's Guide clocks in at 350 pages and the GM's Guide should be in that ballpark... 700 pages in a single book at that size would have been problematic), but it does have the added benefit of reducing table space needed for the books and makes it super easy to lug them around.
While 350 pages sounds like a lot, the only rules players may need to reference in play are all in the first 20-ish pages and on their one-page character sheets. The rest of the book is all the options for building a character that only need to be referenced while creating and leveling a character. I'd go into detail, but that's quite a bit off-topic.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1125466If the Chinese Virus nonsense panic continues...
How can you still be this deep in denial? You're sounding like the black knight from the Holy Grail by now with this "it's just a flesh wound" silliness. Dude, it wasn't nonsense. It wasn't panic. It wasn't basically the flu. You were wrong.
Quote from: Lynn;1125543In some respects, they have to be. There are some markets where you only find people in business that actually love whatever the interest is. Business people that seek dollars only go for better returns.
Nailed it. I happen to have an MBA from a very good school. Anyone who's even been through the first semester of the program can see all the reasons that he wouldn't want to own a FLGS or a game production company. If I were to do it, it would have to be in addition to a corporate job, and because I love it, 'cause I couldn't support my family on that. I'd be pleased just to break even.
Quote from: Mistwell;1125578How can you still be this deep in denial? You're sounding like the black knight from the Holy Grail by now with this "it's just a flesh wound" silliness. Dude, it wasn't nonsense. It wasn't panic. It wasn't basically the flu. You were wrong.
I'm guessing the conservatives in the US won't admit it was a problem until 600,000 or more are dead. Since that is 10x some annual flu death estimates or roughly 200 9/11s worth of casualties.
Of course it still won't be something Trump had any control over. Only Democrats are responsible for mismanaging disasters /s
ASIDE: I voted for Trump. I regret it now.
Quote from: Mistwell;1125578How can you still be this deep in denial?
How can you still be falling for the laughable bullshit?
Kung Flu is the biggest scam in human history. It's a nasty bug (especially vs. those with weakened immune systems), but the media induced panic is the real disease. We've shut down the world for the sniffles. We are forced to cower in our homes because the TV scared everybody into submission.
Annually, the flu (which nobody ever cares about) kills 290k to 650k worldwide. We lose an average of 36k in the USA from the flu every year and it never makes the news. Just imagine if every TV station had a running total of the millions who got the flu, the hundreds of thousands hospitalized and tens of thousands dead...and if that tally was run every year. You'd have a totally tweaked out populace...just like today!!
If the mighty Corona Chan whacks 700k worldwide, it simply qualifies as the high end of bad flu years. And be honest, anybody offhand remember which years in the last decade were "bad flu years"?
Wanna hear about really bad flu years? In 1958 and 1968 the flu killed a million worldwide and 100k plus in the USA, but we didn't shut down the world. Difference? TV brainwashing wasn't dominant yet and the internet wasn't invented.
Quote from: Mistwell;1125578How can you still be this deep in denial? You're sounding like the black knight from the Holy Grail by now with this "it's just a flesh wound" silliness. Dude, it wasn't nonsense. It wasn't panic. It wasn't basically the flu. You were wrong.
It's way less deadly than the Spanish Flu (really the American Flu) - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html - which had a 10% death rate, killing 50 million of 500 million infected. OTOH it's at least 10 times more deadly than regular seasonal flus (1% vs 0.1%); parts of Italy and Spain have seen major mortality spikes.
(https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-03-at-4.38.09-PM.png)
So, 10 times less deadly than the 1918 flu; 10 times more deadly than regular flu.
Quote from: Mistwell;1125578How can you still be this deep in denial? You're sounding like the black knight from the Holy Grail by now with this "it's just a flesh wound" silliness. Dude, it wasn't nonsense. It wasn't panic. It wasn't basically the flu. You were wrong.
Corona-Chan told me not to worry.....
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4244[/ATTACH]
Quote from: S'mon;1125589It's way less deadly than the Spanish Flu (really the American Flu) - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html - which had a 10% death rate, killing 50 million of 500 million infected. OTOH it's at least 10 times more deadly than regular seasonal flus (1% vs 0.1%); parts of Italy and Spain have seen major mortality spikes.
From what I have heard the major mortality spikes in Italy or Spain could be because the Hospital system was completely over whelmed and essentially patients were left to either die or recover on their own.
There have also been rumours that Health Professionals directly caring for infected patients who catch the Chinese Wuhan Flu have a higher death rate for unknown reasons that may relate to the viral load that they are infected with and/or possible mutation of the virus from muliple sources.
Quote from: Shasarak;1125605From what I have heard the major mortality spikes in Italy or Spain could be because the Hospital system was completely over whelmed and essentially patients were left to either die or recover on their own.
Most of the dead in Italy were never even diagnosed with Coronavirus BTW, they presented with eg Pneumonia and were sent home, where they died. So they don't show up in the Coronavirus official figures, only in the monthly total-mortality figures.
Quote from: Shasarak;1125605From what I have heard the major mortality spikes in Italy or Spain could be because the Hospital system was completely over whelmed and essentially patients were left to either die or recover on their own.
That's why you need lockdowns.
80.9% of infections are mild (with flu-like symptoms) and can recover at home.
13.8% are severe, developing severe diseases including pneumonia and shortness of breath.
4.7% as critical and can include: respiratory failure, septic shock, and multi-organ failure.
in about 2% of reported cases the virus is fatal.
Risk of death increases the older you are.
Relatively few cases are seen among children.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
No healthcare system can bear 5% of the population needing critical care at one time. Lockdowns will even out the load on the system but currently we are waiting to see how the dice roll when we get it. Comorbities here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/#pre-existing-conditions
Conclusion & oblibatory gaming content: Not good news for fat old gamers (Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension) - but we are quite good at not going out.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1125488More people can play RPGs right now than ever before.
I haven't done any tabletop gaming since the whole quarantine started because I can't have friends over to the house. OTOH, I've gotten some old modeling projects done and been practicing my airbrush.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1125588How can you still be falling for the laughable bullshit?
Kung Flu is the biggest scam in human history. It's a nasty bug (especially vs. those with weakened immune systems), but the media induced panic is the real disease. We've shut down the world for the sniffles. We are forced to cower in our homes because the TV scared everybody into submission.
Would you like to come up to Milan, Lombardy, where I live, and see, sir? Unprotected, of course - because after all this is a scam. I will then offer you a nice tour: from the Army trucks bringing hundreds of corpses every night to the crematory, to the filled wards where 50 people die every day (and their beds are quickly prepared for the next 50 infected).
By going around unprotected you will be able to demonstrate an important scientific fact: that the Coronavirus hits two targets - lungs and stupid people.
Quote from: S'mon;1125589It's way less deadly than the Spanish Flu (really the American Flu) - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html - which had a 10% death rate, killing 50 million of 500 million infected. OTOH it's at least 10 times more deadly than regular seasonal flus (1% vs 0.1%); parts of Italy and Spain have seen major mortality spikes.
(https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-03-at-4.38.09-PM.png)
So, 10 times less deadly than the 1918 flu; 10 times more deadly than regular flu.
Problem with stats. If 2/3rds of those deaths could have been prevented with the iron lung, then the death rates come closer together.
COVID-19 deaths are much lower because of modern medicine, which is about to be over burdened.
Even with a perfect healthcare system, a 1% fatality rate globally with a highly infectious disease with many silent carriers would be over 60 million dead. If it only infects a 10th of the world, we are still looking at more than 6 million dead.
Quote from: Brad;1125558I wanted to open a bar at one time, so I did a massive amount of research. Something like 80% of all bars close in 6 months of opening. 80%! Because the people opening bars think they can run a business and have no idea how. I decided to shelve that idea for a while until I got more business acumen and experience. So while I get where you're coming from (you're right, obviously), I just wish some of these people who were REALLY passionate about RPGs, for instance, would realize they should maybe spend 6 months or a year learning about finance, logistics, management, etc. Or at least fucking hire someone with that experience to run the damn thing. Myself, for instance, I took some MBA classes as electives as part of my current PhD just to learn how to do accounting properly. Probably gonna save myself from wasting $100-$200k.
Unfortunately, 'genius syndrome' persists - that is, people thinking because they are creators in a vertical market that they can easily know and master the business framework around it. I deal with that in the tech market and sadly saw some wonderful tech products crash and burn because the creator thought he understood business better.
Quote from: S'mon;1125589It's way less deadly than the Spanish Flu (really the American Flu) - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html - which had a 10% death rate, killing 50 million of 500 million infected. OTOH it's at least 10 times more deadly than regular seasonal flus (1% vs 0.1%); parts of Italy and Spain have seen major mortality spikes.
[snip graph]
So, 10 times less deadly than the 1918 flu; 10 times more deadly than regular flu.
It'd be cautious about ascribing a 10% case fatality rate to the 1918 flu. The standard answer is 2.5%, and there's certainly evidence it was higher, but there just isn't good enough documentation to draw a solid conclusion. The estimates for how many people were infected and how many died are all over the place. Though there's no dispute it's a lot worse than COVID-19. Another important distinction: The 1918 flu killed the young, coronavirus kills the old.
The 1% case fatality rate for the coronavirus is the best guess at the moment, but it's still just a guess. With ambiguous symptoms, a large number of asymptomatic cases, and no population-wide testing, we know we're missing a lot of people who had the disease, and recovered. That means the official CFRs are inflated, probably massively. The CFR in South Korea (1.33%), where they did extensive testing, is probably the closest to the actual CFR.
Calling the 1918 flu the American flu isn't particularly accurate, either. There are multiple theories with evidence (French flu? Chinese flu?), but none are conclusive:
https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/18/5298310
Quote from: S'mon;1125607Most of the dead in Italy were never even diagnosed with Coronavirus BTW, they presented with eg Pneumonia and were sent home, where they died. So they don't show up in the Coronavirus official figures, only in the monthly total-mortality figures.
Good article here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/italys-coronavirus-death-toll-is-far-higher-than-reported-11585767179
Quote from: Shasarak;1125605From what I have heard the major mortality spikes in Italy or Spain could be because the Hospital system was completely over whelmed and essentially patients were left to either die or recover on their own.
There have also been rumours that Health Professionals directly caring for infected patients who catch the Chinese Wuhan Flu have a higher death rate for unknown reasons that may relate to the viral load that they are infected with and/or possible mutation of the virus from muliple sources.
When some people began describing a loss of taste and smell, it made me think we already had a variation.
What also concerns me is the growing evidence that the Commies are lying about the number dead. We still do not know for certain that you can't get it again or even when someone is likely to be contagious. With all of that in mind, I think with all then numbers we have so far, we simply don't have enough information to make really accurate predictions.
Quote from: Lynn;1125624Unfortunately, 'genius syndrome' persists - that is, people thinking because they are creators in a vertical market that they can easily know and master the business framework around it. I deal with that in the tech market and sadly saw some wonderful tech products crash and burn because the creator thought he understood business better.
One of the more ironic examples was Lenin, who wrote in
The State and Revolution:
Quote from: Chapter 5, Section 4Accounting and control -- that is mainly what is needed for the 'smooth working', for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens becomes employees and workers of a single countrywide state 'syndicate'. All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay; the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations -- which any literate person can perform -- of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.
He was firmly convinced that running a business was simple and anyone could do it, which of course led to repeated economic disasters.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1125618Problem with stats. If 2/3rds of those deaths could have been prevented with the iron lung, then the death rates come closer together.
It looks now like ventilators only postpone C-19 death, rarely prevent it and enable recovery - https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/Ventilators-aren-t-a-panacea-for-a-pandemic-like-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR1uke7bBEUeXNW1J110ds0W_pLYTReAD1bQDUW8nOAF6oO8fbvKku_4_X0 :(
There is an interesting article in "The Guardian". Some experts from various fields answer the question "How the World Will Change?" Here is the part about retail:
When the world comes out of this, more and more people will be converted to the new economy, how everything can be bought online, and how we won't need the high street. If you are in retail today, you are done for.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/apr/04/coronavirus-business-finance-work-property
Quote from: Lynn;1125626When some people began describing a loss of taste and smell, it made me think we already had a variation.
What also concerns me is the growing evidence that the Commies are lying about the number dead. We still do not know for certain that you can't get it again or even when someone is likely to be contagious. With all of that in mind, I think with all then numbers we have so far, we simply don't have enough information to make really accurate predictions.
Have to agree here. Believe the Chinese are lying. Don't believe they have less than 4,000 deaths with three months of additional exposure when we have over 6,000 here in the U.S. Also saw some leaked videos last week of riots erupting in Chinese subway stations where communist goons with masks and disinfecant were unsuccessfully attacking crowds in subway stations trying to force them to disperse and hosing them down with irritating disinfectants, however this was seven months out of date and were really about riots occurring in Hong Kong. Counts I am receiving though, of fatalities, are including revised estimates of infected up to 40x and more than the official fatality and infection rates being supplied by the (lying) communist government in Beijing.
Documents from the
Wuhan Health Commission - 95% of new cases being concealed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoMxG165_Rg
Shandong Province Official Reports under reported cases - 52x more positive cases being reported
Some cities and towns not testing patients
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwbsw8BWmhQ
Quote from: Reckall;1125615Would you like to come up to Milan, Lombardy, where I live, and see, sir? Unprotected, of course - because after all this is a scam. I will then offer you a nice tour: from the Army trucks bringing hundreds of corpses every night to the crematory, to the filled wards where 50 people die every day (and their beds are quickly prepared for the next 50 infected).
Not at the moment, Thank You. I never knew you were living in Milan. Are there any good local gaming stores there?
Quote from: GameDaddy;1125684Not at the moment, Thank You. I never knew you were living in Milan. Are there any good local gaming stores there?
There were. If and how much will survive the pandemic, I can't tell.
Quote from: Pat;1125625Calling the 1918 flu the American flu isn't particularly accurate, either. There are multiple theories with evidence (French flu? Chinese flu?), but none are conclusive:
https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/18/5298310
Well, if you're going to name a bug after the first major outbreak, then "American Flu" is arguably appropriate for the so-called Spanish flu. At least as appropriate as calling covid the "Chinese Virus." And certainly more appropriate than it ever was to call it "Spanish." The only reason that ever happened was because the Americans (and other WWI combatants) suppressed reporting and downplayed the scope of the epidemic until the cat was obviously out of the bag. Much as China is accused of today. Stones, glass houses, etc.I
Drawing back to rpg industry I doubt the blame game will be fully resolved, it is too politically charged. And I doubt the fallout will be as simple as "can't outsource printing to China anymore." I suspect the fallout will be much more complicated, with globalization finding some major setbacks, while growing emphasis on digital and virtual production make globalization of production even more attractive. Hard to predict how that balances out for publishers.
Quote from: Zirunel;1125725Well, if you're going to name a bug after the first major outbreak, then "American Flu" is arguably appropriate for the so-called Spanish flu.
Did you read the recent peer-reviewed paper in the link you quoted?
Because there were major outbreaks at a British army encampment in France in 1916 and 1917, followed quickly by some cases in southern England, all of which have been which have tentatively assigned to the pandemic. The same is true with a whole series of outbreaks in northern China in 1917 and 1918. Even in America, there is evidence of the disease spreading in New York City in early 1918, well before the the Kansas outbreak. And even the Kansas outbreak came in two phases, with the first documented outbreak among the rural population. The outbreak at the US Army Camp that received all the attention was months later, and hundreds of miles away. It's just an accident of circumstance that it's been pointed to as the origin point. Not only that, but the Kansas outbreaks had different symptoms and morbidity patterns than the pandemic virus -- they might not have been the same disease.
So naming the pandemic after the Americans, British, French, or Chinese would only be slightly less silly than "Spanish", because ultimately nobody knows where it came from.
Another thought: If this pushes companies to digital distribution more, one of the things I'd hope to see is e-ink friendly versions of RPG books start to be a thing. A substantial reason I buy paper books still is that PDFs on a backlit traditional screen are much harder to read comfortably, and PDFs generally render poorly in e-ink. I have no idea if this is the opportunity to make that happen, but it could go along with a trimming of production costs, partly since heavy background graphics and templating make e-ink rendering worse. Pretty art is nice and all, but ultimately it's about the mechanics and rules, and I'd much rather read and play than look at art.
I have heard people speculate it might affect the ability for print RPG books to be a thing in the near future (but I don't really know one way or another). Alliance shutting down (even if it is temporary) is a big deal. So there is uncertainty. I would imagine Drivethru RPG will always be an option for PDFs, but I believe their print books are handled through Lightning Source (I could be wrong as I don't do print books through them). If so, however LS is impacted, Drivetrhru would be too I imagine. It is definitely making me think about options and alternatives for the things I have going on. Hopefully the industry manages to survive okay. Like others have stated, the hobby will be okay. The hobby may even benefit from an increased do-it-yourself and social media sharing of resources. I imagine lots of gamers are keeping occupied with online sessions. And I am sure people hunkering down together are playing more games.
I think if the entire commercial side died, the hobby would be fine.
And that's a black swan scenario. Even in the worst case worth considering, businesses with little overhead and physical presence will continue. That includes print on demand and digital providers. People can play with the same set of books for decades until they fall apart, and huge back catalogs of products that have already been scanned and in many cases even reprinted will remain available, so there's no end of old material. And no end of new material because this is fundamentally a creative and fan-driven hobby; every campaign you create, every adventure you GM, and every monster or character you design is something you can write up and put on the web.
Quote from: S'mon;1125628It looks now like ventilators only postpone C-19 death, rarely prevent it and enable recovery - https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/Ventilators-aren-t-a-panacea-for-a-pandemic-like-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR1uke7bBEUeXNW1J110ds0W_pLYTReAD1bQDUW8nOAF6oO8fbvKku_4_X0 :(
The back of the envelope evidence I have been seeing is that the vents are stopping about one death in three. An NNT of 3 isn't bad for a medical intervention. A lot of the issue seems to be the hypoxia requires a hospital and many hospital systems run at 100% capacity. Places with reserve capacity (Germany) are posting rather reassuring numbers. We also see this in data where everyone gets treatment (like Iceland and the Diamond Princess) where we also have something like broad levels of testing.
It's a shock to badly designed healthcare systems as much as anything else, so far as I can tell, who discounted the risk of a surge in demand.
Quote from: Lynn;1125624Unfortunately, 'genius syndrome' persists - that is, people thinking because they are creators in a vertical market that they can easily know and master the business framework around it. I deal with that in the tech market and sadly saw some wonderful tech products crash and burn because the creator thought he understood business better.
Speaking of tech...my current program is CS. Part of the program is a commercialization aspect. That is in the actual description of the program so we're expected to take some business classes. Who would have suspected a bunch of CS PhD students thought that 1) finance and business is easy, and 2) struggle in finance and business classes. I've seriously never met a group of more educated idiots in my life.
Quote from: Brad;1125526Since the SBA loans will pretty much keep a business afloat for a couple months...
They are a broken joke.
You know how many people have gotten them so far? Zero.
You know how many banks got their shit together enough to even attempt to accept loan applications by the due date? One. And it's unclear if that one is just chucking the filings.
The SBA has essentially shut down. Maybe eventually they will be able to process loans, but right now it's just one giant shit show that many expect won't deliver a dime for a month or more.
Quote from: Mistwell;1125775They are a broken joke.
You know how many people have gotten them so far? Zero.
You know how many banks got their shit together enough to even attempt to accept loan applications by the due date? One. And it's unclear if that one is just chucking the filings.
The SBA has essentially shut down. Maybe eventually they will be able to process loans, but right now it's just one giant shit show that many expect won't deliver a dime for a month or more.
Why are you so mad?
The program LITERALLY was ready to go yesterday, which means no one will get any money until probably the end of the week. I think you might actually be mentally ill if you think a bank loan is some sort of instantaneous thing rather than a process that takes a few days.
Quote from: Brad;1125774Speaking of tech...my current program is CS. Part of the program is a commercialization aspect. That is in the actual description of the program so we're expected to take some business classes. Who would have suspected a bunch of CS PhD students thought that 1) finance and business is easy, and 2) struggle in finance and business classes. I've seriously never met a group of more educated idiots in my life.
It is surprising they'd offer those courses but it is a positive.
tabletop.events is in trouble, and hosting a virtual con to try to stay afloat: https://tabletop.events/conventions/con-of-champions
3 1/2 years ago; I jumped back into RPGs, after a long hiatus. I've since filled up a large bookshelf, and I have accumulated enough miniatures and figures to play "D&D" for the rest of my life.
I'd like to see all of this stuff remain available for generations to come.
Quote from: Brad;1125785Why are you so mad?
The program LITERALLY was ready to go yesterday, which means no one will get any money until probably the end of the week. I think you might actually be mentally ill if you think a bank loan is some sort of instantaneous thing rather than a process that takes a few days.
End of the Week? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
You have no idea, do you. You have no idea what's going on with that.
It was NOT NOT NOT ready to go yesterday. ONE MAJOR BANK IN THE ENTIRE NATION even managed to accept applications. None of the others got their shit together. Wells Fargo accepted two days of "fill this out if you are interested in reserving a spot to eventually fill out a form some day to apply" and then they shut THAT down too.
The entire program imploded. The SBA had no idea how bad it would be.
There is no hope of 95% of the loans happening any time even vaguely soon. They're talking MONTHS. Not a week. LITERALLY MONTHS. Which, of course, makes the program pretty useless as it was supposed to be providing payroll during the quarantine, not after it!
Why am I so mad? Because guys like you hear on the news there is a payroll protection program and then the businesses actually trying to apply to it can't even apply to it but the message is out there that there is a payroll protection plan so why worry right?
I am lucky I switched my company to make masks so we have some small amount of revenue still coming in. Businesses that cannot do that will be dead long before they get any payroll coverage.
Quote from: Mistwell;1125936End of the Week? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
You have no idea, do you. You have no idea what's going on with that.
It was NOT NOT NOT ready to go yesterday. ONE MAJOR BANK IN THE ENTIRE NATION even managed to accept applications. None of the others got their shit together. Wells Fargo accepted two days of "fill this out if you are interested in reserving a spot to eventually fill out a form some day to apply" and then they shut THAT down too.
The entire program imploded. The SBA had no idea how bad it would be.
There is no hope of 95% of the loans happening any time even vaguely soon. They're talking MONTHS. Not a week. LITERALLY MONTHS. Which, of course, makes the program pretty useless as it was supposed to be providing payroll during the quarantine, not after it!
Why am I so mad? Because guys like you hear on the news there is a payroll protection program and then the businesses actually trying to apply to it can't even apply to it but the message is out there that there is a payroll protection plan so why worry right?
I am lucky I switched my company to make masks so we have some small amount of revenue still coming in. Businesses that cannot do that will be dead long before they get any payroll coverage.
Literally fake news. The owner of the company I work for applied and is getting the money April 20th at the latest.
Location: Los Angeles, CA
That explains everything...
So how stable is the market? Well therpgsite.com is asking for money to stay afloat
during a pandemic.
Quote from: Brad;1125526Since the SBA loans will pretty much keep a business afloat for a couple months, if this crap ends soon any viable retailers will be fine.
And how exactly do you expect to pay off those loans when you're not generating revenue?
Quote from: Melan;1125530Even in an economic downturn - which I expect to be deep but relatively short this time, a classic V-shaped crisis - there is a need for entertainment. People are not automatons; they need their comforts and distractions when times are hard. More than ever, they will want to be happy, and live their lives to the fullest.
Doesn't matter
if they can't afford it.
Quote from: Rhedyn;1125586I'm guessing the conservatives in the US won't admit it was a problem until 600,000 or more are dead. Since that is 10x some annual flu death estimates or roughly 200 9/11s worth of casualties.
Of course it still won't be something Trump had any control over. Only Democrats are responsible for mismanaging disasters /s
Stop making this political.
Nobody is admitting there's a problem until the bodies are right in front of them, and I'm watching New York's Own Cuomo mismanage this disaster. The state is even confiscating medical supplies destined for other states!
Quote from: Spinachcat;1125588How can you still be falling for the laughable bullshit?
Kung Flu is the biggest scam in human history. It's a nasty bug (especially vs. those with weakened immune systems), but the media induced panic is the real disease. We've shut down the world for the sniffles. We are forced to cower in our homes because the TV scared everybody into submission.
Unless you're proposing there's a one world shadow government, then nobody has the power to shut down the entire world's economy or plan a scam on such a scale. America saw how other countries were reacting to the disaster, and they did nothing.
Quote from: Anselyn;1125610That's why you need lockdowns.
80.9% of infections are mild (with flu-like symptoms) and can recover at home.
13.8% are severe, developing severe diseases including pneumonia and shortness of breath.
4.7% as critical and can include: respiratory failure, septic shock, and multi-organ failure.
in about 2% of reported cases the virus is fatal.
Risk of death increases the older you are.
Relatively few cases are seen among children.
I suspect a connection between immune system mutations and the number who need to be hospitalized. Cytokine Storms are not new, and there's a significant body of research behind them.
Quote from: Lynn;1125624Unfortunately, 'genius syndrome' persists - that is, people thinking because they are creators in a vertical market that they can easily know and master the business framework around it. I deal with that in the tech market and sadly saw some wonderful tech products crash and burn because the creator thought he understood business better.
Important Lesson: Just because you create something doesn't mean you're the expert on it.
Quote from: S'mon;1125628It looks now like ventilators only postpone C-19 death, rarely prevent it and enable recovery - https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/Ventilators-aren-t-a-panacea-for-a-pandemic-like-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR1uke7bBEUeXNW1J110ds0W_pLYTReAD1bQDUW8nOAF6oO8fbvKku_4_X0 :(
If you need a vent you're as good as dead.
Quote from: Reckall;1125648There is an interesting article in "The Guardian". Some experts from various fields answer the question "How the World Will Change?" Here is the part about retail:
When the world comes out of this, more and more people will be converted to the new economy, how everything can be bought online, and how we won't need the high street. If you are in retail today, you are done for.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/apr/04/coronavirus-business-finance-work-property
If the internet doesn't crash, then Crypto Currencies will finally be a viable option.
Quote from: Brad;1125946Location: Los Angeles, CA
That explains everything...
Yes, let's dismiss statements of fact based on where people are located.
Speaking of which, I'm in Nassau county NY, on Long Island, just outside the frontlines of the current hotzone, and have correctly predicted everything regarding this pandemic so far. If shit gets bad I will literally be isolated from the rest of America. NYC is currently using Central Park as a mass grave. Crime is skyrocketing. The entire government has been shut down, and I can't even get a death certificate for my father, which I need to acquire the funds necessary to survive. EMTs are on order to not take cardiac arrest patients to the hospital unless they can be resuscitated on site.
Guess that makes me a fucking expert.
Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1126088And how exactly do you expect to pay off those loans when you're not generating revenue?
Oh hey, look, someone else who literally has no idea what's going on.
QuoteYes, let's dismiss statements of fact based on where people are located.
I generally dismiss people from LA and NYC because 95% of the time they're assholes.
QuoteSpeaking of which, I'm in Nassau county NY, on Long Island, just outside the frontlines of the current hotzone, and have correctly predicted everything regarding this pandemic so far. If shit gets bad I will literally be isolated from the rest of America. NYC is currently using Central Park as a mass grave. Crime is skyrocketing. The entire government has been shut down, and I can't even get a death certificate for my father, which I need to acquire the funds necessary to survive. EMTs are on order to not take cardiac arrest patients to the hospital unless they can be resuscitated on site.
Guess that makes me a fucking expert.
So you live in a literal cesspool and are wondering why things are getting worse. Don't blame me.
Quote from: Pat;1125733Did you read the recent peer-reviewed paper in the link you quoted?
Because there were major outbreaks at a British army encampment in France in 1916 and 1917, followed quickly by some cases in southern England, all of which have been which have tentatively assigned to the pandemic. The same is true with a whole series of outbreaks in northern China in 1917 and 1918. Even in America, there is evidence of the disease spreading in New York City in early 1918, well before the the Kansas outbreak. And even the Kansas outbreak came in two phases, with the first documented outbreak among the rural population. The outbreak at the US Army Camp that received all the attention was months later, and hundreds of miles away. It's just an accident of circumstance that it's been pointed to as the origin point. Not only that, but the Kansas outbreaks had different symptoms and morbidity patterns than the pandemic virus -- they might not have been the same disease.
So naming the pandemic after the Americans, British, French, or Chinese would only be slightly less silly than "Spanish", because ultimately nobody knows where it came from.
Yes, I read it. Yes there is clearly a lot of uncertainty about how the Spanish flu became what it did. And given the passage of time, there will probably always be uncertainty.
It does seem that there were bad flu seasons in the preceding five years or so especially in Europe (and, notably, in America) but it is not at all clear that they were the same virus. This paper treats that theory with some scepticism. Can't say they werent, but the connection is tenuous. Even more tenuous is the Chinese origin theory, which this paper treats very, very sceptically.
The one piece of non-historical, modern, genetic, data on the origins indicate that the "Spanish" flu originated as a North American avian virus. This has not (presently) been falsified. When it comes to the blame game, whether that origin, and the first major outbreak, is to be found in New York or Kansas, in a rural area or on a military base, is a bit of a red herring. The earliest major outbreak(s) clearly assigned to the Spanish flu were in America. So yeah, I stand pat. If (if) you are going to name a pandemic after the first major outbreak, then S'mon is right, the "Spanish" flu would more plausibly be called the "American" flu.
EDITED TO ADD: anyhoo, getting back to the op and rpgs, I think it is hard to predict just what the repercussions may be when it comes to the the rpg "industry." I do think the process of globalization will take a hit, and that will affect Rpg production. I also suspect existing trends toward more digital and less physical product may be exacerbated (which might paradoxically increase globalization!). In my case, I'm cool with that. For a while, my wife and I have been really cutting back on physical books. We just have so many books already, we have adopted a book in, book out policy and even that is just holding the line. Maybe it's a time of life thing, but really we want to downsize the old library substantially. Digital books that don't affect the shelf-space are just more attractive to us now, and that was true even before the whole covid hoo-hah.
Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1126088So how stable is the market? Well therpgsite.com is asking for money to stay afloat during a pandemic.
And it got it in a matter of mere days.
Our clients who had active SBA loans got their support extensions. The Flu Manchu has proven interesting for online marketing. We have two restaurant clients who are making record sales during CoronaChan. Funnily enough, I heard about a Chicago pizza joint giving away a toilet paper roll which each delivery which was a huge hit. Jeff Bezos of Amazon has made $24B during the ShamDemic (not Amazon, just Jeff) and I've read several author blogs who claim they've seen an uptick in Kindle and audiobook sales.
Anybody know how RPG sales on Amazon have been?
Palladium has been doing several "viral sales" and according to Kevin's newsletter, they've been successful in clearing out inventory which is now out of stock. Anybody hear about sales from other RPG publishers?
Also, I haven't been on Kickstarter in a couple months. How are the RPG and boardgame Kickstarters doing? I had wondered if this was a Good or Bad time for a launch.
Quote from: S'mon;1125535At the very least you can do it with 2D colour printed standups - even with an inkjet you can do hundreds of 30mm figs for a few £, say 6p for a nice plastic base (https://em4miniatures.com/collections/game-components/products/20mm-round-high-grip-card-stands-x-20?variant=21031206289526) and 6p or so for the ink. There are some great looking 2D standups coming out currently, possibly a sign of things to come!
Of course nearly all RPGs are fine as theatre of the mind anyway.
Edit: Here's a paper minis Kickstarter I was thinking of - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tabletop-tokens/gtg-minis-for-tabletop-rpgs?ref=9n5wrf - personally I have thousands of minis, but I still find I like being able to print stuff for eg obscure monsters I don't want to spend £25 on for a 3D mini. Those are die-cut printed so still expensive, but Printable Heroes has a bunch of cool free stuff, eg https://printableheroes.com/minis/396 or https://printableheroes.com/minis/78
Hell you can make some bang up 6mm to 10mm miniatures with knitting mesh and some elbow grease.
Quote from: Arkansan;1127303knitting mesh
Huh? How does that work?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1127273Our clients who had active SBA loans got their support extensions. The Flu Manchu has proven interesting for online marketing. We have two restaurant clients who are making record sales during CoronaChan. Funnily enough, I heard about a Chicago pizza joint giving away a toilet paper roll which each delivery which was a huge hit. Jeff Bezos of Amazon has made $24B during the ShamDemic (not Amazon, just Jeff) and I've read several author blogs who claim they've seen an uptick in Kindle and audiobook sales.
Anybody know how RPG sales on Amazon have been?
Palladium has been doing several "viral sales" and according to Kevin's newsletter, they've been successful in clearing out inventory which is now out of stock. Anybody hear about sales from other RPG publishers?
Also, I haven't been on Kickstarter in a couple months. How are the RPG and boardgame Kickstarters doing? I had wondered if this was a Good or Bad time for a launch.
I ordered some takeout Mex a while back and it came with a free roll of toilet paper. Gimmicky, but you should have seen how packed the parking lot was.
No idea about Amazon, but I bought $40 worth of RPGs the past two weeks.
Also backed two Kickstarters that both took place in the middle of this mess (Castle Keepers Guide, Monsters Monsters) and they were funded at 312% and 476% respectively.
So I'll stand by what I said before: this is a bullshit psyops campaign, and if the protests around the US are any indication, I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Quote from: Zirunel;1127304Huh? How does that work?
This thread has some excellent examples of late Roman infantry done in this fashion.
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=116838.0
Quote from: Arkansan;1127321This thread has some excellent examples of late Roman infantry done in this fashion.
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=116838.0
Well fancy that!
Amazon will come out of this fine. The lasting economic wounds I dont see healing fast at all. In another month Snake Plissken escape tours may become a real thing for NYC. I feel politically the country has some seams showing. I forsee problems, the sort nations do not come back from. I think rpgs have a better shot of being fine as a thing than the USA.
Quote from: oggsmash;1127328Amazon will come out of this fine. The lasting economic wounds I dont see healing fast at all. In another month Snake Plissken escape tours may become a real thing for NYC. I feel politically the country has some seams showing. I forsee problems, the sort nations do not come back from. I think rpgs have a better shot of being fine as a thing than the USA.
The USA was destined for Balkinization. It's easy to hold together an empire composed of disparate regions with conflicting mores, social outlooks, and ethnic backgrounds during periods of growth and prosperity, it's another thing entirely when things are rocky. Our economy has been deteriorating for decades, wage stagnation, outsourcing, the proliferation of the service economy, fuckery in the financial markets etc. Combine those factors with an media/elite class that is increasingly out of touch with the man on the ground and frequently hostile to them and you have a recipe for acrimonious divorce.
Quote from: Arkansan;1127345The USA was destined for Balkinization. It's easy to hold together an empire composed of disparate regions with conflicting mores, social outlooks, and ethnic backgrounds during periods of growth and prosperity, it's another thing entirely when things are rocky. Our economy has been deteriorating for decades, wage stagnation, outsourcing, the proliferation of the service economy, fuckery in the financial markets etc. Combine those factors with an media/elite class that is increasingly out of touch with the man on the ground and frequently hostile to them and you have a recipe for acrimonious divorce.
It hasn't always been a picnic over the last 243 years. I agree that there are some perpetual negatives that have lasted over decades, but those can be fixed without a 'divorce.' It just may require some form of very uncomfortable social transformation. Chances are good a whole lot of triggering will ensue.