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hyphz posted:It's not a conspiracy because it's not deliberate, any more than the gym owner who didn't try to get people in the door and made more money might have just been lazy. But I would say it's a potential market failure. Look over at your bookshelf. Not your RPG bookshelf, any bookshelf. Have you read every book on that shelf, cover to cover? Doesn't that feel bad that you haven't? And that's why writers are monsters. Wouldn't it be better if you had to pay for every page you read, instead?
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Dec 27, 2018 21:11
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hyphz posted:It's not a conspiracy because it's not deliberate, any more than the gym owner who didn't try to get people in the door and made more money might have just been lazy. But I would say it's a potential market failure. You need a new hobby because every solution you find to this "problem" is somehow worse than the last. You're suggesting that the RPG industry does more work for less money just so you can find it slightly easier to get games that the entire TG forum have offered to run for you. Please stop trying to make market solutions to non-market problems. This isn't a market problem. This is a people problem.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:15
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Look over at your bookshelf. Not your RPG bookshelf, any bookshelf. I have read all the books on my bookshelf. Is that weird or something?
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Dec 27, 2018 21:15
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Look over at your bookshelf. Not your RPG bookshelf, any bookshelf. Have you read every book on that shelf, cover to cover? Doesn't that feel bad that you haven't? And that's why writers are monsters. Wouldn't it be better if you had to pay for every page you read, instead? What, you mean like libraries do? And bookstores actually encourage via browsing? Neither of those seem to have killed books... The Lore Bear posted:You're suggesting that the RPG industry does more work for less money just so you can find it slightly easier to get games that the entire TG forum have offered to run for you. No, I'm suggesting a change in responsibility. Maybe it involves doing more work, but as I say, the money should increase because people (or those people who didn't just want to read) would be prepared to pay more money for RPGs if the non-play rate was lower. And I have no idea which forum you're reading to have gotten that.. hyphz fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 21:16
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hyphz posted:Like, the thing that's bad about gym memberships in industry terms isn't that people are lazy. It's that that model means that the most profitable gyms are the ones who get the most people who buy memberships and don't work out. As in, if there are two gyms who get the same number of members, and one manages to get them in the door and the other doesn't, the one that doesn't will be more successful because its costs are lower. It might even get more renewals, because people who have actually worked out can find it's not for them, whereas people who don't but believe they will in the future will pay to maintain that belief. And it might not be malicious, the second gym owner might just have been clueless, but when he's the one who stays in business that "cluelessness" will propagate. One article estimated that some gyms actually depend on only 18% of their members actually showing up; if more did, they'd run out of capacity, and if they couldn't sell that number of memberships, they wouldn't make money. More people in a gym means more wear-and-tear on the gym, sure. Machines get broken, stuff gets dropped or worn out, showers get clogged. More people playing a game does not wear out a game. If anything, it gets more people interested in a game.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:18
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hyphz posted:What, you mean like libraries do? And bookstores actually encourage via browsing? Neither of those seem to have killed books... ah i think i found your main problem with RPGs, you can't read
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Dec 27, 2018 21:18
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Cessna posted:More people in a gym means more wear-and-tear on the gym, sure. Machines get broken, stuff gets dropped or worn out, showers get clogged. No, but it a) finds flaws, miswordings, etc in the game that can build bad press if not corrected, and b) means those people are not buying other games. a) is a cost to the author and b) is a cost to the market. Alaois posted:What, you mean like libraries do? And bookstores actually encourage via browsing? Neither of those seem to have killed books... UK libraries at least have PLR payments that are paid to the author when the book is lent, not merely looked at. Being able to browse books in the bookstore means that you're only likely to pay for the ones you want to take home and read in detail. Kindle Unlimited actually does exactly what Alien Rope Burn suggested - it pays per page read!
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Dec 27, 2018 21:22
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hyphz posted:I mean, I used to feel hope about this stuff, but the feeling that it was all a lie is seriously tempting at this point. i agree. time to find a new hobby and go post about it instead
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Dec 27, 2018 21:26
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hyphz posted:No, but it Yeah, that's what drives people away from this hobby, the miswordings in rulebooks.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:28
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...how, exactly, do you think libraries work? e: like all of your proposed solutions are things that are dystopian hellscapes 'game companies should give away their games and only get paid when they get played, authors should be paid per page read' what the gently caress? Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 21:29
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Kindle Unlimited does pay authors based off of pages read but charges a monthly fee to readers and is mostly crap
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Dec 27, 2018 21:32
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it is not a game designer's responsibility to find games for you your problem is entirely on you, you are awful at communicating and refuse to play games that are available to you
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Dec 27, 2018 21:33
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Cessna posted:Yeah, that's what drives people away from this hobby, the miswordings in rulebooks. Who said anything about driving people away? If nobody ever plays your game, you don't have to fix the broken systems. If you know no-one's going to play your game, you can faceroll the rules. Mors Rattus posted:it is not a game designer's responsibility to find games for [anyone] And pretty much any other designer of a social experience would not get paid if nobody turned up. It's not some "dystopian hellscape", it's how pretty much everything else works.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:34
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Meinberg posted:Kindle Unlimited does pay authors based off of pages read but charges a monthly fee to readers and is mostly crap this is not a service to either the consumer or the author, it is entirely to the benefit of amazon, see also dystopianism
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Dec 27, 2018 21:34
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hyphz posted:Who said anything about driving people away? If nobody ever plays your game, you don't have to fix the broken systems. If you know no-one's going to play your game, you can faceroll the rules. those nefarious game designers, knowingly making bad games because they know they'll never be played but will get paid anyway!! curse those fatcats, living like kings on the dime of rpg players!! what the gently caress is wrong with your brain
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Dec 27, 2018 21:35
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hyphz posted:Who said anything about driving people away? If nobody ever plays your game, you don't have to fix the broken systems. If you know no-one's going to play your game, you can faceroll the rules. no one is setting out to not have their game played
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Dec 27, 2018 21:35
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hyphz posted:And pretty much any other designer of a social experience would not get paid if nobody turned up. It's not some "dystopian hellscape", it's how pretty much everything else works. no, it really isn't it is not a director's job to find you a theatre it is not Milton Bradley's job to find you a chess partner it is not an author's job to find you a bookstore this is on you, and you are an entitled, whiny baby e: an entitled, whiny baby who refuses to use any of the opportunities to, say, do online games, because you demand to have all work done for you and will accept nothing short of your personal dream
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Dec 27, 2018 21:41
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Serf posted:no one is setting out to not have their game played Ok, sorry, I can accept that. But it still has the gym membership effect: in an environment where authors are paid for sales not plays, and where they know their game probably won't be played if it is not D&D, the market can end up rewarding authors for facerolling the rules because their sales are not automatically lower and their development costs are. (Hey, didja notice how Roll20 sells gym memberships too?)
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Dec 27, 2018 21:42
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Even the people who are making lovely d20 hacks to run hentai anime in are doing it because they want to use those rules to play a game. e: literally what is this argument, 'i can't find a game in [indie system], therefore indie systems are bad and the authors don't want people playing them'? How the gently caress much do you think rpg writers make? Leraika fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 21:43
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Mors Rattus posted:it is not a director's job to find you a theatre If nobody turned up to a play then the author would be blamed for writing a bad play quote:it is not Milton Bradley's job to find you a chess partner Chess doesn't have an "author" per se, so this isn't really the same example, but we don't say that (say) Lanrick is a great game even though nobody plays it quote:it is not an author's job to find you a bookstore If nobody reads a book then the author would be blamed for writing a bad book
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Dec 27, 2018 21:45
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this would only work if no one played games this is manifestly untrue, many people do, even obscure games! you don't, because you are insufferable and no one wants to interact with you personally further, your entire argument hinges on D&D being the best, because it gets all the plays and therefore has the most reward for rules design. if that isn't true, the relationship between getting paid and rules design does not work
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Dec 27, 2018 21:50
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hyphz posted:Ok, sorry, I can accept that. But it still has the gym membership effect: in an environment where authors are paid for sales not plays, and where they know their game probably won't be played if it is not D&D, the market can end up rewarding authors for facerolling the rules because their sales are not automatically lower and their development costs are. except no one is doing this. what you're proposing is insanity, because creators want to have their games played. that's why they're making them. you're looking for conspiracies and ulterior motives where there are none
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Dec 27, 2018 21:50
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I have played many indie RPGs online and in real life. Sometimes with SA people! Sometimes not. I hope to play more. They are fun games.hyphz posted:If nobody turned up to a play then the author would be blamed for writing a bad play Definitely not how that works, my good person. Many, many, many good things have failed commercially and were not subsequently labeled bad things.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:55
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I'm sorry, I just got home from work and I'm pretty tired, so maybe I just don't have good focus right now, but what the gently caress is going on here? e: I mean, it sort of looks like someone's saying that RPG authors should be paid based on games played rather than sales? But that's self-evidently one of the dumbest ideas of the year, so, that can't be it.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:56
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I’ve been following it the whole time and I have no clue either.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:57
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Sage Genesis posted:I'm sorry, I just got home from work and I'm pretty tired, so maybe I just don't have good focus right now, but what the gently caress is going on here? hi, meet hyphz
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Dec 27, 2018 21:57
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Sage Genesis posted:I'm sorry, I just got home from work and I'm pretty tired, so maybe I just don't have good focus right now, but what the gently caress is going on here? hyphz is posting and somehow people are still too stupid not to take the bait.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:58
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Hey! This is a thing I know something about! In school I actually helped with a grad study about the digital version of the gym membership problem - it's basically the Spotify problem: you charge a flat fee to use your service but pay per use, so strictly speaking (from the outside) the ideal customer is someone who never uses the service. We obtained data from some big digital players (and signed some hefty NDAs). It turns out that analysis is (unsurprisingly) overly reductive. The ideal customer uses your service as much as possible. This is because the more they use it, the more likely they are to talk about using it. The vast majority of referrals come from people above the mean engagement level. How does this relate to trad games? Because like with any product, you want your players to be running games. If I buy a copy of Edge of the Empire and just read it, that's just one sale. But if I run a game, the players are going to want a copy - as EotE (much like D&D 4) requires either ability cards or a copy of the book to play. That's at least two sales - not to mention potentially more when a player buys Force and Destiny to play a Jedi or whatever.
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Dec 27, 2018 21:59
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Mors Rattus posted:this would only work if no one played games Alas, D&D also gets reward for bad rules design because its customers are so locked in they won't move if they're bad.  Plus even if folks don't like me (a bit chicken and egg there though) it's nothing to do with me that the Roll20 indices show nothing but D&D. Zurui posted:It turns out that analysis is (unsurprisingly) overly reductive. The ideal customer uses your service as much as possible. This is because the more they use it, the more likely they are to talk about using it. The vast majority of referrals come from people above the mean engagement level. That's very interesting, but is there more detail on the nature of the referrals? The cynic in me says that it's possible the only reason the referrals are valuable is because they will be the types that use the service less, essentially subsidising the overuser; that if the service reached saturation with all eligible people using it, they would go back to depending on the low users.
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Dec 27, 2018 22:09
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Zurui posted:Hey! This is a thing I know something about! This is crucial, and is one of the reasons why piracy can actually be pretty good for your bottom line – because a pirate still needs other people to actually play the game, and there's every chance those people will like what they see and buy the game themselves.
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Dec 27, 2018 22:13
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truly, there is no part of the game industry that does not reward bad rules design
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Dec 27, 2018 22:20
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hyphz posted:It's a fair consideration. But again, there's the underlying trend. My god, you've cracked the code. All those times when game designers put forth their rules and redesign it after getting feedback...John Harper altering the rules for Blades after it got funded, the Bakers and Avery Alder making the second editions of their respective games, hell every game that opens up for playtesting...they'll all just trying to make it so the games get played even less! A lot of those games were way too close to having people enjoy and play them, but then the designers began to work on the rules more so that people wouldn't want to play them! Amazing work, Agent Buffoon.
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Dec 27, 2018 23:00
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The real secret to playing all those dusty games languishing on your shelf is to just run them yourself. Grab starter kit instead of all the core books to begin with, look for quickstart rules, or just get some free adventures online. Offer up a game, teach people the rules, and you'll never have to have a gameless night again. If word gets out you are running games, or better yet you run them in public at your FLGS, you'll have so many prospective players you'll have to chase them away with a broom.
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Dec 27, 2018 23:07
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Keeping people like Hyphz out of games like WTF or Chuubos is a core function of the industry and now that they've noticed you should all stop pretending that it isn't. Still don't let them play though, we wouldn't want the rules to wear out. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Dec 27, 2018 |
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Dec 27, 2018 23:17
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Mors Rattus posted:those nefarious game designers, knowingly making bad games because they know they'll never be played but will get paid anyway!! curse those fatcats, living like kings on the dime of rpg players!! My god, they could make dozens of dollars.
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Dec 27, 2018 23:21
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It took a lot of work to top someone claiming their English degree made them more qualified to criticize RPGs for the dumbest thing posted to the TG As An Industry thread before the end of the year but congratulations everyone, we pulled it out at the last minute.
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Dec 27, 2018 23:27
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Kai Tave posted:It took a lot of work to top someone claiming their English degree made them more qualified to criticize RPGs for the dumbest thing posted to the TG As An Industry thread before the end of the year but congratulations everyone, we pulled it out at the last minute. 2018 never disappoints.
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Dec 27, 2018 23:43
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hyphz posted:That's very interesting, but is there more detail on the nature of the referrals? The cynic in me says that it's possible the only reason the referrals are valuable is because they will be the types that use the service less, essentially subsidising the overuser; that if the service reached saturation with all eligible people using it, they would go back to depending on the low users. Well, yes. Referrals follow the standard usage distribution. The key here is that everyone has a competitor and so you're always going to be moving customers out and in; your situation where "all eligible people" are using it isn't really possible in any market, ever. It's not really a case of subsidizing the high-consumption user. In a very basic example, if most of your referrals come in at the 80-100% range then four out of five referrals will cost you less and bring in revenue you wouldn't have had otherwise.
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Dec 28, 2018 00:15
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I personally believe that RPGs aren't made to be played because I can only get friends to game with me by offering to buy pizza, and I've never had an RPG book come with Pizza Hut coupons. This logic is flawless and I have an English degree, too, so minimal people can debate me on this.
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Dec 28, 2018 00:39
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I would like to see a mock up of how one could enforce a pay only when you play system. Not because it's a good idea, but because its a crazy idea that would likely require absurd amounts of effort and possibly legislation.
remusclaw fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Dec 28, 2018 |
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