Quote from: Insufficient Metal;412353Kinda has Bitter-Ex-Gamer written all over it. But sure, I guess we just can't handle his facts and stuff.

Sure. If you read into their respective blogs, they seem to have this very RPGNet sort of contempt against "gamers". They have constructed themselves a strongly negative stereotype about their audience, and by default, that's how they see almost everything in the hobby. Hence, the obsession with "transmedia" as a means to exit the market and find a similar one that's seen as unpolluted. It is kinda understandable, since being a game designer exposes you to the nastier side of people without even being well compensated for it, but it also means their opinions should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;412409PS: I was referring to his claim that most of the stores he knew *five* years ago, are now shut down. The recession fits nicely into that timetable.

That helped some of them along, I'm sure. RPG's are a luxury item, and I suspect they are one of the first things removed from the budget when times are tough.

With regards to Hasbro and WotC, I remember reading sean reynolds stuff about how no matter how great WotC thought their sales numbers were, the beancounters from Hasbro didn't think they were very good.

Quote from: danbuter;412468That helped some of them along, I'm sure. RPG's are a luxury item, and I suspect they are one of the first things removed from the budget when times are tough.

With regards to Hasbro and WotC, I remember reading sean reynolds stuff about how no matter how great WotC thought their sales numbers were, the beancounters from Hasbro didn't think they were very good.

The world would be a better place if people spent a lot less time listening to bean counters. They have here uses, don't get me wrong. But driving a creative hobby like role-playing games is not one of them. If you don't love the hobby, I don't want you involved in the business.

As far as disposable income and RPGs are concerned, they are the first thing to get the axe in a tight budget. I can live without new RPG books more than without food or a roof over my head. Though I still want them mind you.

Quote from: Tetsubo;412474As far as disposable income and RPGs are concerned, they are the first thing to get the axe in a tight budget. I can live without new RPG books more than without food or a roof over my head. Though I still want them mind you.

There are a lot of things I'd dump before RPGs if money were tight. I'm not referring to essentials like shelter and food, but for most of us there are a lot of other things to cut first. For my money, RPGs are the most dollar/entertainment efficient items I spend money on.

Quote from: Bobloblah;412488There are a lot of things I'd dump before RPGs if money were tight. I'm not referring to essentials like shelter and food, but for most of us there are a lot of other things to cut first. For my money, RPGs are the most dollar/entertainment efficient items I spend money on.

And I could game for several lifetimes with the RPG books I already have on my shelves. I have 60+ feet of shelf spaced dedicated to RPG products. When things get tight, I cut out *all* unnecessary expenses. My non-fiction reading pile is 300+ books. I could read for years and never buy another book. I am very good at entertaining myself.

But you are correct, RPGs are a good value per dollar.

Quote from: Bobloblah;412488There are a lot of things I'd dump before RPGs if money were tight. I'm not referring to essentials like shelter and food, but for most of us there are a lot of other things to cut first. For my money, RPGs are the most dollar/entertainment efficient items I spend money on.

Game playing, yeah. Game collecting, probably more of a luxury (although going out on Friday night is still bound to be more expensive).

Quote from: Tetsubo;412492And I could game for several lifetimes with the RPG books I already have on my shelves. I have 60+ feet of shelf spaced dedicated to RPG products. When things get tight, I cut out *all* unnecessary expenses. My non-fiction reading pile is 300+ books. I could read for years and never buy another book. I am very good at entertaining myself.

But you are correct, RPGs are a good value per dollar.

Okay, yeah, I've got nothing on that.  I have perhaps a quarter of that for all my non-computer gaming stuff (RPGs, boardgames, ccgs and miniature games). I'm not sure whether to think you're nuts or be green with envy. Maybe both.

First of all, let me point out that the standard by which to measure the hobby is not whether or not people are still playing a lot, but whether or not (and how many) NEW people are playing. In that sense, the hobby and the industry are very tied together. The Industry should be, by all rights, what brings new people into the hobby.  Part of the problem is that the industry has become so incestuous that its done a shit-godawful job of bringing new people in for something like the last 15 years.

Second, regarding GMS' blog entry.  I draw parallels here to the environmentalist movement.  Whenever an environmentalist doomsayer claims "ITs already too late! In 5 weeks the earth's temperature will rise 100º, the seas will eat Baltimore, and toxic algae will choke out all life on earth and/or toxic algea will die out leading to the extinction of all life on earth!!!!11!!!1!", often presenting no solution (or no solution aside from "we have to wipe out 95% of the population and go back to hunter-gathering, its the only eco-responsible thing to do!"), it makes things harder for those of us who do agree that there are serious problems but want to try to focus on finding pragmatic innovations to save things.  That's because people tend to think dualistically, so if option A is "the world will end in 4-8 weeks", option B is going to be "everything is just fine and EVERYTHING the green-pinkos are saying is a lie".
Its the same here; every time that someone says "the hobby is dying", it makes things much harder for those of us who want to point out that the hobby is not in healthy shape, but who want to focus on how to make a healthier hobby.

I love how Skarka seems to use the D&D Essential line, the first serious attempt (however misguided or flawed some elements of it might be) to introduce an RPG to regular mass-market outlets (toy stores, wal-mart, whatever) instead of specialty shops, as evidence of how bad things are; when really that's the most optimistic development in fucking AGES. I suppose to Skarka, healthy would be if there were more uber-specialty shops dedicated to uber-nerds who will pay $50 a book for stuff Skarka writes. Maybe what he's bemoaning isn't so much the death of the hobby, but the fact that primma donna writers will be having an increasingly hard time of actually making a living as RPG "auteurs".  Its a case of the old line about the comedian "Is he dead? No, but his career is".

RPGPundit

In my experience game stores close because they are run by people that know nothing of the hobby nor how to cater toward their intended customerbase.

Others however close because said customer base comprise fickle assholes.

Travelling Man was (is?) a chain of hobby/memorabilia/comic stores that existed since the 80's. I recall seeing ads for them in White Dwarf! They opened a shop in Bristol in the mid part of the last decade and went bust about three years later because, IMO, they just had no idea what they were doing. Importantly they had no idea of how to compete with the Forbidden Planet shop just up the road. They could have coimpeted: FP is not really a gaming shop, though they sell rpg's. FP are also notoriously expensive. TM refused to hire staff that knew games and refused to give local gamers what they wanted. When they first opened the entire back end of the shop was wal to wall rpg's. When they closed that was reduced to a pair of small shelves and replaced by comics - the one thing they couldn't possibly compete with FP (FP are owned by Titan books).

Sad.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;412786In my experience game stores close because they are run by people that know nothing of the hobby nor how to cater toward their intended customerbase.

Others however close because said customer base comprise fickle assholes.

Travelling Man was (is?) a chain of hobby/memorabilia/comic stores that existed since the 80's. I recall seeing ads for them in White Dwarf! They opened a shop in Bristol in the mid part of the last decade and went bust about three years later because, IMO, they just had no idea what they were doing. Importantly they had no idea of how to compete with the Forbidden Planet shop just up the road. They could have coimpeted: FP is not really a gaming shop, though they sell rpg's. FP are also notoriously expensive. TM refused to hire staff that knew games and refused to give local gamers what they wanted. When they first opened the entire back end of the shop was wal to wall rpg's. When they closed that was reduced to a pair of small shelves and replaced by comics - the one thing they couldn't possibly compete with FP (FP are owned by Titan books).

Sad.

We had a local game store. Now they're comics. I might add that, in the same location, a guy had been running a use book store for years until he decided to retire. He said he could make more money driving a cab; I think there was a definite difference between the profits they were making and the profits they thought they "should" be making.

I also think that, if they had actually done such things as put up, keep and maintain a schedule of games, instead of saying "it's on the website" and then never updating said website schedule, it would have gone better for their store.

Also, not keeping a regular schedule of hours of operation. Or even, AFAICT, making one.

Yes, at all levels, the industry is full of rank amateurs who think they can run a business just because they vaguely like some part of the hobby.

Including more than a few gaming stores (though they never last very long) that get started by some guy who seems to think that owning a gaming store, an actual place of business, will be the same as hanging out at his college lounge gaming with his buddies, only he'll also be making money at it.  Its sad to see the process as they realize just how wrong they were, and the inevitable collapse when they are in no way ready or willing to do the vast amount of actual WORK that it takes to keep a small business afloat.

Shit, you even see it in forums.  How many idiots split off from RPG.net, or even from this site, thinking "if those fuckers can do it why can't I"?  And it turned out that they inevitably couldn't, because of horrifically underestimating how hard it is to keep a major forum up and running and not turning it to an empty wasteland.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Benoist;411754I don't "hate" GMS. I just think he's a douchebag.

The funny thing is that in-person he's a pretty nice guy.

Met him and chatted with at Gen Con two different years. Last year he was talking up Ennie winners or nominees. The time before that he was more like "Hey! Good to meet you!"  

Only posted this as a contrasting view.

I'm sure he does seem like an ass quite often online.
Many people do, and yet in person they might be quite agreeable and even share a drink.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;412911The funny thing is that in-person he's a pretty nice guy.

Met him and chatted with at Gen Con two different years. Last year he was talking up Ennie winners or nominees. The time before that he was more like "Hey! Good to meet you!"  

Only posted this as a contrasting view.

I'm sure he does seem like an ass quite often online.
Many people do, and yet in person they might be quite agreeable and even share a drink.


- Ed C.

I would not be surprised if he's also one of those guys (i.e. most people) who are basically affable unless they get switched onto the particular topic that turns them into an asshole.

That doesn't surprise me. Another good reason not to get too serious about blog rants. The incendiary stuff always gets more attention, anyway.

Original Tabletopocalypse post: 81 comments
Follow up "you just don't get it" post: 15 comments
Negative brand post: 5 comments
Subsequent post: 0 comments

If you want to get lots of traffic, just honk people off. I only started posting here because I enjoyed (although rarely agreed with) Pundit's blasts of vitriol.

I know nothing about Skarka as a person, save that he was perfectly polite to me when I emailed him about HKAT years ago. I don't care for how he comports himself on his blog, but whatever. I've found that's generally a poor indicator of what someone is really like -- it's fairly trifling to affect a persona online.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;412922If you want to get lots of traffic, just honk people off. I only started posting here because I enjoyed (although rarely agreed with) Pundit's blasts of vitriol.

That's basically what it amounts to, IMO. Now, I dislike Skarka's online persona because he's always acting with such condescension as to make him utterly distasteful in any gaming related discussion, and because he just interacts with any sort of disagreement like a complete asshole. He's just not willing to take a clue, so I treat him like the asshole he wants to be. Fine by me.