TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Mikan posted:

Hey, who wants to hear about some money stuff?
I experimented with DrivethruRPG's new Pay What You Want feature for a few months. Customers can purchase the content for any price, or even download it for free and pay what they'd like later. All of the Dungeon World content, the small games I've written, they went to the PWYW model.

It is the absolute worst thing. I'd wake up every morning with 60+ "sales" notification emails letting me know a bunch of people chose not to pay anything for the project. Over the course of the PWYW experiment, three people chose to download something and then return later to pay for it. Profits from those products were 1/2 or worse of what they had been before the PWYW change.

PWYW sucks, don't do it.

edit: the supposed benefit of the PWYW model, increased quantity of sales, has been useless too. It's not resulted in more people talking about the games, it hasn't given me any extra exposure and I haven't had a single person tell me about their experience playing the games. Nobody leaves reviews. It's terrible all around.

That loving sucks. I remember bands doing PWYW after Radiohead released In Rainbows and getting nothing from it, even buzz. Has anyone in the TG business had any success with the model? I don't know if the industry is big enough to support the kind of word of mouth to recoup costs with games, even games as cool as your Council games.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 02:13

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 22:40

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

The Council games have a way greater chance of being played around here than any of the cool RPGs I have, because "Take five minutes to see who's King Wizard Bastard" is appealing to a larger slice of people. They're games you break out for a group of people, not games you get a group together for.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 08:25

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Bieeardo posted:

It's not just tabletop RPGs. Hardcore MMO raiders rail at 'casuals' being given 'welfare epics'; WoW's designers learned at the knee of Everquest, the granddaddy bastard of godawful grinds and setbacks, and unlearned much of it when they realized that making content that only 2% of the player base would see was counterproductive. It happens all the time with other forms of gaming, pop literature, and music, anything with a perceived exclusivity. Most of those other industries and fandoms are far too large to be remotely affected by their grumbling grognards. Traditional RPGs might (probably) be the same, but we're a lot more conscious of its relatively tiny size.

It's always nerd poo poo. You have to suffer because we suffered, but we can't make you go back to middle school and feel how bad it was that Suzy Jenkins never talked to you so get in loving line and let us lord it up. If you're lucky you get to eat at the kids table instead of picking up our crumbs.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2013 03:01

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

inklesspen posted:

Golden Sky Stories somehow managed to convey what it was about without ever using the names 'Ghibli' or 'Totoro'.

Same with Ryuutama.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2014 21:21

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

I love this argument because it comes up for everything. Comic books, video games, minis, any sort of nerd poo poo. Why do people think "well being a shitlord makes more money, c'est le guerre" and shrug this poo poo off?

# ¿ Apr 20, 2014 04:37

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Nonsense, I'm sure it'll turn out as fine as Kindred: the Embraced.

Or Battletech: the Animated Series.

Or the Dungeons & Dragons TV...

_{Well, at least Doomtown is coming back.}

I think it has the potential to be better than those, if only because we're not in the mid 90's anymore. The actual quality of adaptions of nerd poo poo is way higher than it was nearly two decades ago.

That doesn't mean it'll be good. Just probably better.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 16:10

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Mors Rattus posted:

On the other hand, I remember the Deadlands metaplot.

Maybe they're using the stuff from the new Doomtown and nothing else? A man can dream of a spooky scary wild west without loving Stone.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 16:17

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Guys, it's a joke. A bad joke.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 22:17

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

BSS in general is a cool forum, post more in BSS.

# ¿ May 7, 2014 06:34

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

GrandpaPants posted:

I'm afraid to ask, but did WOTC do anything recently (I haven't been paying attention to 5e) to act as the negative contrast in this situation?

Let me tell you about Zak S.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 21:07

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Lemon Curdistan posted:

tl;dr, without dragging this into another derail:

WotC paid some really lovely people (we're talking "sic your fans on people you disagree with to send them IRL death threats, call for the death of all storygamers and use people's gender identity/sexuality to harass them" lovely) to "consult" on making their lovely grog game shittier and groggier. When some of the harassed people complained, Mearls asked for proof, which was emailed to him, then proceeded to email one of the lovely people to go "it's all good, I looked over the evidence and none of it is true."

Mearls in fact informed people that said lovely dude said that the complaints were by people who harassed HIM so obviously they weren't true.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 22:03

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Excelsiortothemax posted:

The lesson here is apparently stick your dick in everything and you'll be fine.

Hence the succubus!

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 19:10

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

yeah we're looking at a bit of a whizzard situation here.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2014 22:07

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Libertad! posted:

And I foresee many potential grognards.txt responses on message boards if you do it online.

On that note, people keep citing Monsterhearts as a good example of "doing it right," but cursory surface glances still give off a whizzard vibe. For one, a sample blurb describes the game about playing "sexy monsters," and given its likely high school setting means that the PCs will be underage can cause many potential "nopenopenope"s from prospective players.

So what's the scoop, why's it good?

It's not a whizzard thing because surely, surely anyone who interacts with Monsterhearts is aware enough to notice that sex Is A Thing in the game. Whether they are down with that or not is a personal opinion, but whizzard poo poo is when people get line breaking and veil tearing poo poo sprung at them without warning.

Monsterhearts is also really good at tastefully dealing with that sort of thing, but that's a different line of discussion entirely.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 06:17

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Alien Rope Burn posted:

And we aren't immune. I'd welcome Mikan back, and you can repeat that ten times for emphasis before I speak further. But at the same time my pledge for Last Stand: Reinforcement is gone on butterfly wings and I'd like an explanation. I don't expect to see it or get my money back, but basic communication would go a long way about it. I've never really understood why somebody like Gau becomes a pariah (I, for one, have never cared) while Mikan gets a pass. Maybe it has to do with private poo poo I don't need to know about, but from a backer perspective it's inexcusable. But on a personal level... meh? Meh.

Gau wasn't getting harassing phone calls to his place of employment or to his family, so that's where the pass comes from.

Mikan also got non Zak harassment for taking over that Gau Kickstarter because this hobby is poison.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2016 16:54

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Yeah all it really accomplished is having Zak redouble harassment on people who didn't even post in the threads.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2016 18:04

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Terrible Opinions posted:

Eh I find arguments between idiots on the internet, and was hoping for something like hbomb's videos making fun of internet "rationists". If it got real creepy, then my bad.

It was GBS, duder. Pretty sure right after they decided to 'detumblr the forums' and everything really went to poo poo.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2016 12:44

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

And there was the time Mikan among others privately contacted Mike Mearls about concerns with Zak being a special consultant for 5e, and Mearls shared all that information with him because the best way to identify possible harassment is to have the harasser verify it?

# ¿ Aug 29, 2016 23:11

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

I still think Technoir is going to be my go to narrative cyberpunk game, because man it rules.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 00:56

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm disinclined to believe that respectable high-minded video game punditry is a thing that exists.

So long as outlets like Waypoint and ZEAL exist there will actually be good actual discussion and criticism of games.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2017 01:59

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

To be fair, there was Fallout 3 DLC that was swamp based. It was just also garbage.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2017 05:16

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Both of those sound really cool though actually? I'm putting volcano bees in my next game for sure.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2017 13:58

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Subjunctive posted:

Is your point that Paizo's is the only sustainable business model in the RPG industry? That would be depressing indeed.

The point is that Paizo's business model isn't helpful from the standpoint of constructing a viable tabletop business because it has a near unique niche that it's expanded to fill completely.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2017 01:48

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

alg posted:

Are there any decent cyberpunk games that aren't story games? I like some crunch and am not a huge Fate or PbtA fan, which Technoir and Sprawl seem to be

Technoir is neither Fate or PbtA.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 01:49

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Also Snow Crash is like 90% genre parody so it's probably a bad example for either side of the argument.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 21:31

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

It might even be 95~98% parody if you assume the use of myth and human programming bits are Stephenson making fun of himself.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 22:48

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Peas and Rice posted:

Just out of curiosity, how much of that was Mearls' call versus, say, a brand manager or some marketing douchebag who wanted to make some cynical ploy to get these people on board with the new product? Also grogwhistling is brilliant, well done.

Mearls literally forwarded emails from minority customers who emailed to discuss the fact a known serial harasser was consulting on the books to said harasser during the beginning of 5E's lifespan so it's not exactly just marketing copy.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 21:51

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

I just remember an article from someone who was discussing the D&D license with some hollywood insider types who all seemed to think the brand is a pretty thoroughly poisoned well but that was back in 2013~14 so who knows now.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 23:28

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Exactly. This was from conversations before Hulu, Netflix, et al were engaged in putting out as much original content as providing existing media. It's a new environment entirely.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 23:45

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Let me tell y'all the good word on Last Stand, the game where you literally draft your character's abilities.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2017 22:52

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Bedlamdan posted:

It's a pretty good edition, to be honest.

I can't say much for Morke besides probably being a weird nerd with a lovely sense of boundaries, but that applies to a lot of people on SA in general, to be perfectly frank.

Indeed, who among us has not sexually harassed? Let them toss the first stones!

gently caress off.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2017 03:54

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Loomer posted:

Let the record show that forums user Plutonis is in favour of the Full rear end-Rape Stiffness edition of Vampire.

This has always been the extent of Plutonis' brand, now then and forever.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 15:36

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Evil Mastermind posted:

Brucatto really wants to be gaming's Grant Morrison, doesn't he?

No, Brucatto fully buys into his own hype.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 16:47

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Mr.Misfit posted:

Isn�t that partially what Monte was trying with Invisible Sun? (Except not on phones and still traditional and heavily whale-hunterish due to massive book and dnd-ish rules of course. But other than that )

You literally just said "didn't Invisible Sun try this, except it didn't do any of the things you mentioned"

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 22:04

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

I think once you accuse someone of beating their spouse and then block their spouse for calling you out about it you lose the right to simply be frustratingly centrist.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2018 08:07

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

gradenko_2000 posted:

There's that, and I do agree, but that wasn't in the RPPR post that I was posting about.

Oh yeah, that's totally fair. I thought we were discussing the thing in general and not specifically the response by RPPR.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2018 08:26

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 22:40

Mr. Maltose: Feb 16, 2011; The Guffless Girlverine

Cessna posted:

Note: This is not an exaggeration.

I can't imagine any online community that would be better served by not removing someone who tried to pull this poo poo.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2018 23:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG As An Industry - Past, Present, Future