Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!

Aaod posted:

Thank you all for the replies and knowledge, RPG books still seem excessively expensive to me but that is for a variety of factors and now I see where the makers are more coming from.

What are those factors? It's also worth noting that RPGs, ostensibly at least, require playtesting which is something other books don't.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Also, keep in mind that RPG prices are pretty stagnant, because people routinely devalue the effort and cost of producing entertainment, doubly so in this industry. People praise Simbieda for continuing to turn out <$30 books for thirty years, but few people are similarly impressed with how the massive, art-stuffed tomes from FFG are only $60. When "top tier" books cap out around that price range, then the cheaper stuff lives shoulder-to-shoulder, regardless if it's FAE or an obvious Word doc filled with public domain nudes and poorly written, paragraph-long sexual fantasies.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
As books full of technical writing, with plenty of illustrations, and with a small expected audience, the best comparison I can see to RPG books is university textbooks. And if you've had to buy one of those recently, you'll know that RPG books are a loving steal by comparison.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
^^^To be fair college textbooks have a pretty sweet racket going because of the whole captive audience thing, also no small amount of under-the-table shenanigans if even half the stories I've heard are to be believed.

That Old Tree posted:

Also, keep in mind that RPG prices are pretty stagnant, because people routinely devalue the effort and cost of producing entertainment, doubly so in this industry. People praise Simbieda for continuing to turn out <$30 books for thirty years, but few people are similarly impressed with how the massive, art-stuffed tomes from FFG are only $60. When "top tier" books cap out around that price range, then the cheaper stuff lives shoulder-to-shoulder, regardless if it's FAE or an obvious Word doc filled with public domain nudes and poorly written, paragraph-long sexual fantasies.

And I've even heard rumors, nothing substantiated so I don't want to say this is definitively the case, that even FFG which is a big boy games publisher still underpays folks like their part-timer/freelance artists. Just some comments in passing, but in this industry my first reaction upon hearing that isn't "no, there's no way that could possibly be the case, not FFG!" but "well that doesn't seem so far-fetched."

Aaod
May 29, 2004

Countblanc posted:

What are those factors? It's also worth noting that RPGs, ostensibly at least, require playtesting which is something other books don't.

Wages stagnating in America and comparing it to similar entertainment, for 30 bucks I can get a video game that lasts me 30-40 hours. So if your average RPG session is five hours (a generous estimate) that means I would need 6-8 sessions to reach a break even point compared to a computer game. It is even worse when you compare it to things like netflix or god forbid a time waster mmorpg. Looking at my multiple book shelves of books I most assuredly did not play anywhere near that many sessions either.

edit: honestly I love pen and paper rpgs but I have no idea how they expect to compete with computer games to the normal consumer especially one that didn't grow up playing them. It is a very hard sell telling someone to pay 30 dollars for a book and then telling him/her to go through the effort of organizing and finding a group. I tried getting one of my friends into it and he goes why in the hell am I paying this much for something that only exists in my imagination compared to computer graphics?

Aaod fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Apr 23, 2016

homullus
Mar 27, 2009

Aaod posted:

Wages stagnating in America and comparing it to similar entertainment, for 30 bucks I can get a video game that lasts me 30-40 hours.

There are $5 video games that last 100 hours, too, but if you had been making the comparison in good faith, you would have been using the $60 AAA games that last 8 hours.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Jimbozig posted:

As books full of technical writing, with plenty of illustrations, and with a small expected audience, the best comparison I can see to RPG books is university textbooks. And if you've had to buy one of those recently, you'll know that RPG books are a loving steal by comparison.
I'd say big illustrated history books are a better comparison. Which are also in the 50-70 dollar range. College textbooks are straight up monopolies price gouging.

homullus posted:

There are $5 video games that last 100 hours, too, but if you had been making the comparison in good faith, you would have been using the $60 AAA games that last 8 hours.
AAA games are garbage made for a complacent audience. It's like telling me the value of a television show should be modeled on WWE pay-per-view prices.

Terrible Opinions fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Apr 23, 2016

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

That Old Tree posted:

People praise Simbieda for continuing to turn out <$30 books for thirty years, but few people are similarly impressed with how the massive, art-stuffed tomes from FFG are only $60.

Well, Palladium is also bad at paying freelancers, stealing the credit from them to force a pay cut, reusing significant chunks of text and art (with or without paying the artist possible dues, depending on what rumors you believe). Or, as I understand it, keeping most of the lights off to save on electricity and other miserly cost-saving measures. To their credit, they seem to pay regular employees alright from what I understand, but for some reason has a hard time hanging onto writers that aren't part of his original gaming crew... and some of those older employees have positions that are, at best, nebulous and at worst probably cronyistic. Also, "cronyistic" is a real word! How about that!

They're the bad old habits of the old school gaming business personified and deserve to be recognized as such.

Aaod posted:

Wages stagnating in America and comparing it to similar entertainment, for 30 bucks I can get a video game that lasts me 30-40 hours. So if your average RPG session is five hours (a generous estimate) that means I would need 6-8 sessions to reach a break even point compared to a computer game. It is even worse when you compare it to things like netflix or god forbid a time waster mmorpg. Looking at my multiple book shelves of books I most assuredly did not play anywhere near that many sessions either.

Measuring enjoyment of a piece of entertainment based on time for dollars is a poisonous notion, I think, especially when time is actually its own resource. Most 30-40 hour games are filled with grinding or fluff missions or whatever and the genuinely fascinating or engaging bits are separated by content that - while it may not be garbage - is rarely ever the high point of the game. Furthermore, it's time you could be spending enjoying something else new instead of just rescuing your twenty-sixth settler from super mutants. Of course, if one really based one's enjoyment by the amount of time squeezed out of entertainment for your gaming dollar, you could play free games or F2P games or watch cat videos forever at that point, and there's no point investing money in media, ever, without even considering piracy. That's the end point of that argument, but nobody bringing up game length seems to ever jump to that logical conclusion.

For me, I buy various game books because I like seeing new design, settings, and I even enjoy reading the darn things. Not every game has to explode into a year-long campaign to be worth your time, I feel, just like it's not a tragedy when you don't 100% complete a game's achievements.

homullus
Mar 27, 2009

Terrible Opinions posted:

I'd say big illustrated history books are a better comparison. Which are also in the 50-70 dollar range. College textbooks are straight up monopolies price gouging.

AAA games are garbage made for a complacent audience. It's like telling me the value of a television show should be modeled on WWE pay-per-view prices.

I am not saying it "should be modeled on AAA games." AAA games themselves have a lot of downward pressure on their prices despite absolutely soaring development costs, which is why we see so much DLC now. $30-$40 games that last 30-40 hours are not common enough to be a comparison to anything.

Illustrated history books also sell more copies than all but the most popular RPGs. RPG books "should be" about twice as expensive as they are.

moths
Aug 25, 2004

I would also still appreciate some danger.



I generally find tabletop PDFs to be over-priced because I'm generally not buying them instead of the book, I'm buying them to supplement the book.

It's nice being able to reference an army list or special rule on my phone, and great being able to read up on gaming stuff without lugging nerd textbooks around - but I'm absolutely hosed trying to live-play a game off the PDF on a phone screen. To me, the digital version has substantially less value as a gaming tool, but people always want to price it as if it were as useful as something I'd use while playing.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!
I disagree emphatically. I can't ctrl+f through a real book.

Aaod
May 29, 2004

Alien Rope Burn posted:



Measuring enjoyment of a piece of entertainment based on time for dollars is a poisonous notion, I think, especially when time is actually its own resource. Most 30-40 hour games are filled with grinding or fluff missions or whatever and the genuinely fascinating or engaging bits are separated by content that - while it may not be garbage - is rarely ever the high point of the game. Furthermore, it's time you could be spending enjoying something else new instead of just rescuing your twenty-sixth settler from super mutants. Of course, if one really based one's enjoyment by the amount of time squeezed out of entertainment for your gaming dollar, you could play free games or F2P games or watch cat videos forever at that point, and there's no point investing money in media, ever, without even considering piracy. That's the end point of that argument, but nobody bringing up game length seems to ever jump to that logical conclusion.

For me, I buy various game books because I like seeing new design, settings, and I even enjoy reading the darn things. Not every game has to explode into a year-long campaign to be worth your time, I feel, just like it's not a tragedy when you don't 100% complete a game's achievements.

I am not sure if I can agree with that argument yes you have the fluff missions and grinding in video games, but don't you have that in most rpgs as well? Try and count how many random encounters your average DND adventure has to try and draw the game out longer due to combat taking so long. I think a lot of DND players for example have killed enough orcs over the years to fill a small stadium. Obviously other games are different, but same is true in video games. As far as the enjoyment angle from new design, settings, and readings at that point why not just buy normal non RPG books? Chances are the quality will be higher and without rules taking up as much space you have a ton more content. I am in the same category of enjoying RPG books, but even I know it is a bad economic decision. This is the same argument you hear from games workshop about it being all about the models to excuse the piss poor at best game portion of the hobby.

JerryLee
Feb 4, 2005

THE RESERVED LIST! THE RESERVED LIST! I CANNOT SHUT UP ABOUT THE RESERVED LIST!

moths posted:

I generally find tabletop PDFs to be over-priced because I'm generally not buying them instead of the book, I'm buying them to supplement the book.

It's nice being able to reference an army list or special rule on my phone, and great being able to read up on gaming stuff without lugging nerd textbooks around - but I'm absolutely hosed trying to live-play a game off the PDF on a phone screen. To me, the digital version has substantially less value as a gaming tool, but people always want to price it as if it were as useful as something I'd use while playing.



Countblanc posted:

I disagree emphatically. I can't ctrl+f through a real book.

I agree with both of these-- as a customer, I'd ideally have both at my disposal.

I can accept the argument from a ways up the thread that PDFs shouldn't be more than ~$5 cheaper than the paper book, because most of the cost per unit sold is tied up in the writing, art and layout, and that $5 or whatever is all that goes towards the physical printing and binding. Fine. But is there any reason not to always give buyers of the physical book a free PDF download along with it? They've already bought into the rules, and at that point there's no extra marginal cost per customer for spitting a PDF in their direction as well. I think that this sort of effective double-dipping is where I draw the line.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!

Aaod posted:

I am not sure if I can agree with that argument yes you have the fluff missions and grinding in video games, but don't you have that in most rpgs as well? Try and count how many random encounters your average DND adventure has to try and draw the game out longer due to combat taking so long.

What in the world?

ProfessorCirno
Feb 17, 2011

The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

homullus posted:

I am not saying it "should be modeled on AAA games." AAA games themselves have a lot of downward pressure on their prices despite absolutely soaring development costs, which is why we see so much DLC now. $30-$40 games that last 30-40 hours are not common enough to be a comparison to anything.

Illustrated history books also sell more copies than all but the most popular RPGs. RPG books "should be" about twice as expensive as they are.

Yeah I was gonna say, video games aren't the best thing to look at, because they're suffering from basically a lot of the same.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Aaod posted:

I am not sure if I can agree with that argument yes you have the fluff missions and grinding in video games, but don't you have that in most rpgs as well? Try and count how many random encounters your average DND adventure has to try and draw the game out longer due to combat taking so long. I think a lot of DND players for example have killed enough orcs over the years to fill a small stadium. Obviously other games are different, but same is true in video games.

Yes, but few video games will have a friend trying to make stupid orc noises.

One is much more participatory than the other, they're not directly comparable anyway. It's like trying to compare the enjoyment of a hamburger and a sundae. Which do I want? Well, depends how I feel at the moment., but I'm not going to compare the ounces a of a burger and the ounces of a sundae and try and make some comparison of satisfaction units. Similarly, comparing hours of enjoyment between an RPG and a video game is a bit silly, I think. They're not equivalents, no matter what people say about 4e.

clockworkjoe
May 31, 2000

Rolled a 1 on the random encounter table, didn't you?
Tabletop RPGs also entertain a group of people, whereas most video games only entertain 1 person per unit sold.

If my group of 4 people plays 20 hours, that's 80 hours of total entertainment for the cost of one book.

If I play a video game for 20 hours, I get 20 hours of total entertainment for the cost of one game.

Also, playing a tabletop game is hanging out with friends. It's more like going out to a bar for an evening. It's a different experience and worth paying for a good game to make a more memorable night.

Kai Tave
Jul 2, 2012
Fallen Rib
It's a fair point that tabletop RPGs have more barriers to entry than other game. Most RPGs are more involved to learn than even heavy board games, don't have the play-for-an-hour ease of a video game, and organizing regular multi-hour campaign sessions gets increasingly difficult after a while. I couldn't even keep a Pandemic Legacy group going before one player stopped coming, one got super involved with the current election, and one spontaneously moved to Mississippi never to be seen again.

It's also true that video games can't really replicate the full RPG experience. Some campaigns are lovely and full of boring bullshit but so are plenty of video games, even AAA titles. Collaborative multiplayer improvisational video games with the degree of flexibility permitted by TRPGs don't exist and probably won't barring some Star Trek holodeck utopia.

RPGs are a niche hobby, I agree. I'm of the opinion that there likely isn't a way to bring RPGs "mainstream" the way some people fantasize about but I also don't think it's necessary to do so for the roleplaying game hobby to rock on mostly as it has for a while now. Crowdfunding, the rise of simple self-publishing, and social media allow game designers to create, market, and sell their own self-made games without having to work for laughable wages or for assholes like Kevin Sembieda, selling directly to interested fans instead of hoping and praying some bookstore will carry their baby. On the whole this is a better solution imo for letting creators do their thing and attempt to make a reasonable wage doing so, though of course it's not without its pitfalls.

Saying RPGs are a "bad economic decision" like there's some objective fun-per-dollar metric is silly, though.

MikeCrotch
Nov 5, 2011

I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese
To go back to wages in the major TG businesses, looking at the Glassdoor page for Fantasy Flight is pretty eye-opening.

Nuns with Guns
Jul 23, 2010

It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Aaod posted:

Wages stagnating in America and comparing it to similar entertainment, for 30 bucks I can get a video game that lasts me 30-40 hours. So if your average RPG session is five hours (a generous estimate) that means I would need 6-8 sessions to reach a break even point compared to a computer game. It is even worse when you compare it to things like netflix or god forbid a time waster mmorpg. Looking at my multiple book shelves of books I most assuredly did not play anywhere near that many sessions either.

edit: honestly I love pen and paper rpgs but I have no idea how they expect to compete with computer games to the normal consumer especially one that didn't grow up playing them. It is a very hard sell telling someone to pay 30 dollars for a book and then telling him/her to go through the effort of organizing and finding a group. I tried getting one of my friends into it and he goes why in the hell am I paying this much for something that only exists in my imagination compared to computer graphics?

The upside of tabletop rpg books is that you can keep them around for decades longer than your Xbox at least. And you don't have the problem of poorly-aging graphics/systems/writing or compatibility issues with modern systems. Tabletop gaming requires a lot more active participation than most video games though, and that's a pretty vital difference. Having to get up and travel to a friend's house or game store on a regular basis and physically engage with people is a lot of work. Even online you need to coordinate schedules with other people and remain focused on the game and interact with/play off of the real time reactions of other players.

If you're having trouble selling tabletop rpgs to your friends then maybe they're just not into them for whatever reason. Some people don't enjoy ttrpgs :shrug:. I've never had trouble finding people irl that are receptive to trying a game. It's true that it'd be hard to get anyone to commit to a months-long campaign, but even regular ttrpg gamers have that problem. Maybe that's why a lot of modern games focus on lighter rules and one-shot or short campaign story structures.

e-

Kai Tave posted:

RPGs are a niche hobby, I agree. I'm of the opinion that there likely isn't a way to bring RPGs "mainstream" the way some people fantasize about but I also don't think it's necessary to do so for the roleplaying game hobby to rock on mostly as it has for a while now. Crowdfunding, the rise of simple self-publishing, and social media allow game designers to create, market, and sell their own self-made games without having to work for laughable wages or for assholes like Kevin Sembieda, selling directly to interested fans instead of hoping and praying some bookstore will carry their baby. On the whole this is a better solution imo for letting creators do their thing and attempt to make a reasonable wage doing so, though of course it's not without its pitfalls.

There's no way that RPGs would ever hit a level of mainstream that there will be a PHB in every American household or something like that, but I think it's perfectly possible for tabletop gaming to hit a level of recognition where people think of more than D&D when they hear about it, at least in non-RPG-gaming nerd circles. That alone would be a healthy step forward for the hobby.

Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Apr 24, 2016

smug jeebus
Oct 26, 2008

Kurieg posted:

E: Also training for the higher levels of judge seems to be mostly about the kind of weird corner case events that come into play in a modern environment. Like what happens when Opalescence and Humility are in play and you drop an Ixidron.

So, what happens? This is killing me.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



... wait does Humility becoming a creature mean it negates its own ability? Thus un-negating its ability, which meants it again negates its ability and :tizzy:

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Zereth posted:

... wait does Humility becoming a creature mean it negates its own ability? Thus un-negating its ability, which meants it again negates its ability and :tizzy:

It's partially a trick question, regardless of the order in which humility and opalescence came into play, they will both be creatures. But as Ixidron comes into play it is still a spell so it's ability will still resolve, flipping them both face down. There is never a time where Ixidron is a creature on the field with a face-up Humility creature.

As far as what happens when Humility and Opalescence are on the field together...

quote:

This is the current interaction between Humility and Opalescence: The type-changing effect applies at layer 4, but the rest happens in the applicable layers. The rest of it will apply even if the permanent loses its ability before it’s finished applying. So if Opalescence, Humility, and Worship are on the battlefield and Opalescence entered the battlefield before Humility, the following is true: Layer 4: Humility and Worship each become creatures that are still enchantments. (Opalescence). Layer 6: Humility and Worship each lose their abilities. (Humility) Layer 7b: Humility becomes 4/4 and Worship becomes 4/4. (Opalescence). Humility becomes 1/1 and Worship becomes 1/1 (Humility). But if Humility entered the battlefield before Opalescence, the following is true: Layer 4: Humility and Worship each become creatures that are still enchantments (Opalescence). Layer 6: Humility and Worship each lose their abilities (Humility). Layer 7b: Humility becomes 1/1 and Worship becomes 1/1 (Humility). Humility becomes 4/4 and Worship becomes 4/4 (Opalescence).

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Kurieg posted:

It's partially a trick question, regardless of the order in which humility and opalescence came into play, they will both be creatures. But as Ixidron comes into play it is still a spell so it's ability will still resolve, flipping them both face down. There is never a time where Ixidron is a creature on the field with a face-up Humility creature.
Opalescence doesn't turn itself into a creature though, just every other enchantment?

quote:

As far as what happens when Humility and Opalescence are on the field together...

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
Right, but Humility still becomes a creature, then removes it's own ability... then removes the ability that removes it's ability.. If you have two opalescences then they all become creatures.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
With perhaps a couple of exceptions, nobody is making enough money writing RPGs for it to be worth their time compared to any sort of "real" job. We do it because we love these games and the games we want to play won't exist unless we write them. I would have written Strike! for free. Hell, I pretty much did - if the kickstarter had failed, I would have still had the game.

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



Aaod posted:

Wages stagnating in America and comparing it to similar entertainment, for 30 bucks I can get a video game that lasts me 30-40 hours. So if your average RPG session is five hours (a generous estimate) that means I would need 6-8 sessions to reach a break even point compared to a computer game. It is even worse when you compare it to things like netflix or god forbid a time waster mmorpg. Looking at my multiple book shelves of books I most assuredly did not play anywhere near that many sessions either

OK. Let's fix this comparison.

For 30 bucks you can get a video game that lasts you 30-40 hours.

If your average RPG session is four hours for five people (a not unrealistic estimate) you would need precisely two sessions to break even. That assuming you did no reading of the book or preparing for the session.

So the only question in terms of your own metric is is the RPG good enough to play a second session of. (And let's face it, some video games are terrible and you don't want to play more than two hours).

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

neonchameleon posted:

(And let's face it, some video games are terrible and you don't want to play more than two hours).

No! I won't face it! I'll never be as cynical as you! :argh:

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
roll20 just released its Q1 2016 report, although the fact that the data is pulled from what people tag as they're interested in and what people tag as games that they're looking for sessions of kind of makes the conclusions suspect.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Yeah, it's... better than no data at all I guess, but it's hardly rigorous or conclusive and doesn't really have any bearing on what's actually being played and how. On the other hand nothing really seems that out of place or surprising, so... eh. :effort:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
I'm mostly amused that an unofficial Pokemon game has such a comparatively large play base there.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Also people "playing" yogsquest, a youtube video series about RPGs that isn't actually one itself. :raise:

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Do they count whether or not games are active, come to think of it? Some of the numbers are curious, like there being roughly two unique people playing Pathfinder for every one Pathfinder game founded. Of course, games can cross-pollinate and it could be your average Pathfinder player is in two or three games at any given time. But it seems unlikely?

Having a hard time believing they have nearly a hundred active games of Maid, in any case, but who knows?

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



I think it's only active games because at least the Munchkin number went down from the last time we got a report.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Oh, the player count is just what people prefer playing instead of what they are playing. That's not terribly useful as far as numbers go.

Asimo
Sep 23, 2007


Yeah. It's interesting census data because it at least shows what people say they want to play (on that site...) but it doesn't really have any correlation to the numbers of what's actually being played. Especially since there's a notorious number of "bathroom reader gamers" in the hobby.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!
There's also some games that straight up aren't on the site, despite there being character sheets for them. Roll20 is a great place to play in my experience, but I don't know how useful those numbers are for, well, anything other than figuring out the digital ttrpg zeitgeist

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy
I've also never used the character sheets on the site at all ever, and if you need to "set" your session as using that game's sheets for it to count, then I probably don't.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Gotta weigh in on the vidya games vs. RPGs cost per hour of entertainment thing.

First, it's completely disengenuous to compare two different forms of entertainment on an "hourly cost" basis. The cost per hour of entertainment for attending a live show, going on a fishing trip, restoring vintage cars, hang gliding, listening to the radio, and meditating are all wildly different, and yet lots of people do all of them.

The price of something is not set by some kind of objective evaluation of its input costs. The price is set by the market, based on supply and demand. That doesn't mean input costs are irrelevant: if supply is high enough or demand low enough that the price the market sets on a product is lower than its input costs, producers of that product can't afford to keep making it, and the product vanishes from the market. More typically, "demand" is a curve where some buyers are willing to pay much more than others - and therefore, as price decreases, demand increases, until an equilibrium is met. In some cases, it makes more economic sense for a business to produce a product at a very high price, even though this severely limits demand, for various market segmentation reasons, various psychological/social reasons, etc.: poo poo like the willingness of wealthy people to pay a very high price for products that enhances their status.

Anyway. The issue with RPGs is that there supply is way too high for the demand. Why is supply so high? Because a lot of people are willing and able to make their products for free, or even at a loss. In other words, a large portion of the RPG market is essentially operating as a charity. The price of RPGs and RPG supplements are being subsidized by people willing to donate their time and money.

Why aren't video games just as cheap? Well, in some cases they are: there are lots of free games, and quite a few games that are true freeware: no payments, no micro transactions, no annoyware, no limits. Some of these games are "supported" by voluntary donations. Dwarf Fortress is a good example: anyone with a PC can play Dwarf Fortress absolutely free, with no obligation and no advertising model supporting it... but Toady's entire income comes from donations.

But even if you ignore all games that are subsidized in this way (and to be fair, if you do so you should also ignore all RPG supplements that are subsidized in this way too), you'll still find a critically important factor that makes computer games generally a lot cheaper than professionally produced and sold pen and paper RPG products:

Voooooluuuuuummmmeeeee.

The size of the computer game market utterly dwarfs the RPG market. A $50 console game that sells less 10,000 copies is an abject failure. A $30 RPG supplement that sells as much as 10,000 copies is a wild success! Professionally-produced computer games that charge 100% of their cost to the consumer up front (as opposed to games with subscription costs, DLCs, or especially those supported by advertising) can be sold profitably even when the wholesale markup over the per-unit production cost is very slim, because even a fairly unpopular title will sell many thousands of copies, and a big-name AAA title will sell hundreds of thousands or even millions of copies.

So, to boil it all down: RPG supplements "should" cost a lot more because they sell far fewer copies, which means the development cost per unit is far higher. Assassin's Creed sold three point five million copies in its first week.

RPGs are a small niche product in a small niche market, and as a rule, niche products cost more. The aberration is that RPG products are so cheap, because for a variety of reasons, a lot of people are willing (and able) to give away their labor for free or nearly free. Of course, the great majority of them are not professional level writers, and so the great majority of niche RPG products are not professionally written. By which I mean, to put it bluntly, they're pretty garbage in a lot of ways. RPG consumers are apparently willing to buy one $30 book after another despite their generally poor writing quality and often terrible artwork. I think the reasons for that are probably complicated, and beyond the scope of this already too long post.

So instead I'll just reiterate: point out the best values-for-a-dollar forms of entertainment out there, and you're probably pointing at the most popular. Volume reduces costs, and economies of scale are incredibly powerful.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.

Asimo posted:

Yeah. It's interesting census data because it at least shows what people say they want to play (on that site...) but it doesn't really have any correlation to the numbers of what's actually being played. Especially since there's a notorious number of "bathroom reader gamers" in the hobby.

I don't have either of those profile entries filled out. If you're a GM that has to use roll20's comically inept search system to find players then I'm not interested in being in your game.

Terrible Opinions posted:

I think it's only active games because at least the Munchkin number went down from the last time we got a report.

It's probably 'campaigns that currently exist'. If I wanted to play Muchkin I'd probably whip up a campaign instance and then destroy it when we were done playing because all you need is the card deck.

Actually, I'd probably just run it in my test campaign and not change the game type tag.

DalaranJ fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Apr 24, 2016

  • Locked thread