thread: 2005-06-16 : Craft and Innovation
On 2005-06-21, Ninja Hunter J wrote:
Geez, you don't check up on a thread for a couple of days...Anyone who thinks the RPG industry is going to collapse isn't paying attention. There's WotC selling D&D, WoD selling their things, whatever the hell they are, and that's, what, like 30 people? And they come out with a couple of books a year? And how many people does Steve Jackson employ? Like 4?
I am assured by the proprietor of my FLGS (a freelance writer for D20 stuff and frequent Pyramid contributor) that no one's making more than stale peanuts, and usually losing even that, writing RPGs with a D20 license.
And how many indie games are being sold at GenCon at the Forge Booth? Isn't it like 15? And how many of them are good at what they do? Let's say 1/3 are good. That's 5 good games this year, more next year.
We have resources that didn't exist when those companies started. To think that that's insignificant is to stare into the face of the whirlwind and wonder why there's no breeze.
Independent publishing - in any medium - is a huge thing right now, and it will become huger because people like Vincent don't need to sell 10,000 copies of something to make a profit with the model we're using. There are so many fewer people involved in the process, the dollars actually start to look good.
I'm hoping to break even at GenCon with Under The Bed. If anyone wants to help me toward that goal, awesome. I don't have too much doubt that I'll break even within a month or so of the end of the Con, and I'm sure I'll turn a profit over the course of the year. This on my first game, which is flawed but at least innovative and, I'm assured by my female, non-gamer friends, is fun to play.
We have tremendous power at our fingertips. Graphic designers, Print On Demand, and Judd all contribute to our viability as a source of revenue (which, if anyone tells you isn't what it's about, doesn't ever have to worry about eating and paying rent). If we're selling enough to make money, that's all we need. If we're selling enough to make a whole living, that's excellent. Getting rich, well, I'll leave that to those of greater design talent and marketing savvy than have I.
This makes Judd go "Me? Ha!"
