Quote from: SeanchaiViral marketing is tricky business and not appropriate to every product and service. Focusing on regular ol' marketing will probably have to do...

Moreover, the world has changed enormously since the 70s. Best to forget about the factors that might have made D&D and AD&D a success back then.

Particularly since the niche who would be most interested in RPGs now have other creative outlets, such as MySpace pages, CRPGs, etc..

I'd try to attract older folks who'd never played.

Seanchai

You could call it Elderly Novice Roleplaying Old-timers Network. There's a name to impire confidence!

-clash

Quote from: Abyssal MawOk, my belief is possibly offensive.

You know why everyone started playing Magic: The Gathering back then?

Because in Magic: The Gathering, you don't have to act.

You don't have to talk in character, or come up with stuff when your'e playing M:TG. It's "just" a game. It's also a game you can be good at, and there were other elements. People really focused in on the collectibility as the reason MTG took off, but I think that was only one factor. The other is, it was truly fun to play, and it didn't require you to suddenly become some kind of Master Thespian. I kinda sucked at it myself and I only had about 300 cards at my height.. but I always had fun, even when i was losing.

The real reason that M:TG is so popular is because it was the first of it's kind and is back with a lot of $$.  

 

QuoteIn any case, my idea is to deemphasize "acting in character" as a mandatory activity in roleplaying games, and refocus on the gaming part.

yes, as soon as people start requiring people to "act" at the table is when you scare off newbies. Lets face it, most people think what we do is weird to begin with.

Well, the rpg industry could stand to learn from others. So here's ten sales and marketing techniques a guy learned from strippers.

Quote from: JimBobOzWell, the rpg industry could stand to learn from others. So here's ten sales and marketing techniques a guy learned from strippers.

This link has pictures, right? I comprehend better with graphics.

Regards,
David R

Damn! How will I ever get rid of the picture of Gary Gygax twirling round a stripper pole?

Quote from: JimBobOzWell, the rpg industry could stand to learn from others. So here's ten sales and marketing techniques a guy learned from strippers.

Actually, its not a bad link.

Something to ad, though (and yes, I'll tie this in to RPG promotion in a sec), is when you go out to a strip club in Tennessee you can bring in a bottle of liquor. Now, if you choose the right liquor (a good vodka, Crown Royal, or Southern Comfort usually works), the strippers will come to you and offer customer service for a shot or two of the drink. Often the bouncers are watching this, so the strippers must flirt or give a lap dance so that it looks like they are actually working so the boss doesn't get mad. Then you get tipsy or drunken strippers giving you lapdances for the price of a drink (or free) which is much less than the going rate.

Now, apply this model to gaming.

Go to a coffee shop or wine/beer bar, sit at a table, and pull out a gaming book or two and start drawing a dungeon map. Pull out some miniatures and place them in strategic positions on the map and occassionally roll some dice. Write down the results. Pretty soon, someone is going to ask you about what you are doing - explain the game to them and invite them to play if they look interested. Voila! You've just began to create more gamers.

The best selling point for gaming is that it is a social activity, so go out and be social with it if you are that interested in getting new gamers. I'd recommend doing this in a chain bookstore with an attached coffee shop - that way, you can point the prospective gamer to the gaming book section of the store and increase their interest.

My own guess is that short of a re-introduction / re-invention capturing the public imagination from outside of the existing industry and hobby, we're pretty much stuck with what we've got.

Even if we manage to draw in more people we can't help but lose them faster to the ever more competitive and shiney alternatives.

Regarding bringing in new gamers. Perhaps it's best to wander of the reservation and bring in folks who don't have gamers taste....that's right. Non-geeks. I know quite a few people who have become gamers and are not interested in the usual gamer stuff like comics/sf etc.

Also I think there is good for the hobby and good for the industry. I recently met a chap online who I had introduced to gaming a couple of years ago. He and his group of five only play free rpgs they get of the net. I had not even heard of most of the games they play. I was surprised at the amount of free stuff out there. Hell, he sometimes even downloads homebrew campaign settings that he gets from forums etc.

So there's the hobby and the industry. I wonder if the former can survive without the latter?

Regards,
David R

I do think the existence of "the industry" - that is, people making their living from producing, distributing or selling rpgs - helps "the hobby." One encourages the other.

Taking the FLGS part of it, though it's often run by idiots and is a really terrible place for recruiting gamers, is a good place to encourage gamers. You go there and see all the shiny books and are filled with a mixture of nostalgia for old games and enthusiasm for new ones. For example, I'd had a break for a while from gaming, hadn't bothered to go looking for other gamers. One day I caught up with an old gaming buddy for lunch, and we visited the FLGS because we happened to pass it. He saw GURPS 4e on the shelves, we discussed it a bit, and I said, "look, I'll buy it if you agree to play it or GM it with me - even if it's just us two." He agreed to that, and that led to our current spell of gaming, running a group each and having given game sessions to about 20 people over the past couple of years (not counting people where we joined their existing group, just the individuals who came to games we ran).

I think that "window shopping" aspect of the FLGS is pretty significant in keeping actual game sessions happening. It's like how even if you closed down all the churches and temples and mosques, and lost all the holy books, people would still be religious - but the physical building and books help.

Don't underestimate the fact that for most people in wealthy societies, being able to go out and buy props, gear, etc. for your activity is a feature, not a bug. People like spending money on the things they spend time on.

So, there's a big plus to playing games that you can buy in regular stores, and a smaller plus to playing games that you can buy in specialty stores, for most people.

If the world economy really does crash at some point expect tabletop RPGs to get HUGE again; the other option is another pop culture connection like we got with D&D and Vampire. Those things are probably more important than rules in the end, RPGs are 'out there'.

I do think really good RPG products, like the D&D basic sets of yore (the current one is decent in terms of props but it should really go to level 2 or 3) should let non-roleplayers get their seats in butts and play within half an hour though.

Quote from: David RRegarding bringing in new gamers. Perhaps it's best to wander of the reservation and bring in folks who don't have gamers taste....that's right. Non-geeks. I know quite a few people who have become gamers and are not interested in the usual gamer stuff like comics/sf etc.

Also I think there is good for the hobby and good for the industry. I recently met a chap online who I had introduced to gaming a couple of years ago. He and his group of five only play free rpgs they get of the net. I had not even heard of most of the games they play. I was surprised at the amount of free stuff out there. Hell, he sometimes even downloads homebrew campaign settings that he gets from forums etc.

So there's the hobby and the industry. I wonder if the former can survive without the latter?

Regards,

David R

Same here. I've had creat success over the years bringing in non-geeks.

-clash

Quote from: David RSo there's the hobby and the industry. I wonder if the former can survive without the latter?

Well, I can't imagine the hobby existing without spawning an industry of some sort.  I mean ... people are going to make their systemss, and eventually somebody's going to say "Hey, I could charge money for this ... people would pay it!" and then you're back in the business of selling RPGs, in at least a small way.

Could the hobby survive if the way the industry was structured totally changed?  Sure.  It's done so before.  When was the last time you went to a model railroading store and rooted around the back to find their RPG section?  That's what I did in my youth ... it was all just "Hobbies."

Quote from: flyingmiceYou could call it Elderly Novice Roleplaying Old-timers Network. There's a name to impire confidence!

I get to be Sting. You can be Jagger.

Seanchai

Quote from: flyingmiceSame here. I've had creat success over the years bringing in non-geeks.

I've brought a couple into the fold, but it hasn't stuck. Sure, they play when I'm there, but give up gaming when we drift apart for whatever reason. The long term successes I've had bringing people into the fold have been with folks for whom gaming and its associated elements resonated - i.e., geeks.

Seanchai

Quote from: SeanchaiI've brought a couple into the fold, but it hasn't stuck. Sure, they play when I'm there, but give up gaming when we drift apart for whatever reason.

I've seen two standards for "Who is a gamer?"

One standard is:  If you say "Hey, let's play an RPG?" and they say "Cool.  I know how to do that, and it'll be fun," then they're a gamer.

Another standard is:  If you drop them in a new city, with no gamers to prompt them, they will have both the motivation and the skills to seek out (or start!) a gaming group of their own.


I honestly find that pushing the second standard as the "important thing" is one of the fastest ways to turn prospective people off of RPGs.  Folks are happy to learn to play a fun, new game.  They're not so happy to orient their lives (even in part) around RPGs.