thread: 2005-06-16 : Craft and Innovation
On 2005-06-18, ludisto wrote:
I'm saying that I'm not convinced there's a critical mass of newcomers to the hobby, and that would be helped by an honest to gosh, well designed, breakthrough game.*
...
*I so want to be able to walk into my local Wal-Mart and see a shelf devoted to games like Dogs, Sorcerer, MLWM, Dust Devils. That'd be cool, is all I'm sayin'.
—Jason L
Ever seen the How to Host a Murder series of games? They're roleplaying—actually LARPing, really—and found a very successful following for a space of five years or so. The people who bought and played these games weren't gamers: they were people like my Mom. Potential customers need not already be gamers to buy and play that breakthrough game when it comes—if it's really that good, Joe Anybody off the street will be able (and willing and interested) to pick it up off the shelf.
Like many I always use the term "RPG Industry" in scare-quotes. It isn't an industry any more than personal computing was an industry in 1980. Sure, there are some companies that are barely making a living off of it, and lots and lots of hobbyists, but until S John Ross doing full-time freelance game design isn't an experiment, we do not constitute an industry. Losing the handful of companies and their ten or twelve full-timers would not be a crippling blow to the hobby any more than losing sword replicator companies would end the SCA.
