Have we already reached everyone?
Seth M. Drebitko:
Well I did not mean so much that it would not be hard to do but the indie “front” is really on the bleeding edge of “traditional” marketing and I have actually found it easier to introduce them to inde games than traditional games, or traditional gamers to indie games for that matter. For example my fiancé who refused to ever consider playing D&D was excited to play Universalis and was interested in mortal coil but is now playing D&D and very pleased with it.
I think it is just a matter of determining what types of people might be interested in your games design goals and socialize and chit chat with the about it as you get to know the community. Maybe your game has a wicca bend get to know some groups near you go to some of their events (I speak broodly because I don't know much about wicca) and generally socialize about what you do, if they start to get interested they may be able to better help get more wiccans interested.
Pelgrane:
Hell, I've had game designers contact me in the past couple of months who hadn't heard of any indie games! Also, a large proportion of IPR's customers are new customers every time, which might mean something.
Jake Richmond:
I've had a lot of luck finding new audiences by making games that do not focus on rpg layers as their target audience. Panty Explosion is very successful because it appeals to (or at least tries to appeal to) manga readers and anime fans, horror and suspense fans (or alternatively, fans of absurd comedy) and (I think most importantly) young women. I've ad similar success with my other games. It's obvious to me that someone who isn't into manga, anime or j-horror might not ever be interested in Panty Explosion. But since there are a huge, huge number of people who are interested in those things, making a game that targets that audience seemed like a really good idea.
greyorm:
No, we haven't.
We haven't reached everyone yet. I say this because there has been some talk that the indie scene has reached everyone interested at this point, and that there's no room to grow or new people out there who can or wish to benefit from what we've learned. This is nonsense.
I say it is nonsense because you can still find this sort of thing on the internet:
Quote
"Ergodika the Science Fantasy, Role-Playing Game (RPG) was a critical success, but a fiscal failure. After spending (1995-2005) over 10K attending conventions, hiring artists, printing books, consulting attorneries, advertising in magazines, as well as, renting and designing a website, Abbadon sold only about twenty copies of this game (<$300). Fourteen surveys were returned from Ergodika buyers; as rule the game was strongly received. In addition to these meager sales, about 100 print and electronic copies of Ergodika RPG were given away as promotions. Regrettably, it appears that electronic media (video & computer games) are eliminating table top or traditional gaming.
Face-to-face or pen-n-paper Role Playing Games have had flat and declining sales for years. It appears that Abbadon entered the industry at the WRONG time with a good product. For more detailed philosophical discussion on RPGs one can see the author’s columns in Alarums & Excursions trade magazine. For now, we will cut our losses and not pursue this financial sink hole. Traditional RPGs are being forsaken by such established industry leaders as Fantasy Flight Games and Games Designs Workshop."
The above is from a company (which looks instead to be an individual presenting himself as a company) that pulled its RPG off the market after they lost 10k trying to sell it, and did everything you shouldn't do when you try and publish an RPG as an independent. Sadly, their conclusions based on their experience and the results of their own business mistakes are just utterly wrong, especially in light of their idea that selling twenty copies of their game over ten years and a handful of glowing customer surveys qualify as "a critical success".
Now, the above is a small, unknown company with a poorly designed site that screams "unprofessional" -- which isn't an attack, just an observation for my next point -- but even small, professionally-conducted companies who seem to know what they're doing haven't been reached either, as evidenced by the same claims and behaviors coming from places like Red Spire Press, who recently announced:
Quote
"...the gaming world has changed a lot since the initial release of the Player's Guide. There's not much room for small publishers and the CRPG market continues to eat away at pen & paper products. Anyways, RSP is shutting down."
There are so many problems with claims like these.
Not much room for small publishers?
I see successful small publishers everywhere! From "indie" publishers associated with the Forge to "indie" publishers elsewhere. Just take a look at the list of publishers on RPGNow! Many of those are small or one-man outfits, and many of them quite successful. To say nothing of the one-man publishers associated in common perception with the Forge, and the success of the so-called "indie alley" at Gen Con. There is a thriving market of small publishers.
Other markets eating away at pen and paper gaming?
You know, I heard the same excuses over ten years ago when Magic:the Gathering came out and an RPG product failed. That CCGs were "eating the PnP market". And I heard the same sort of excuses back in the days before CRPGs and CCGs, when other reasons were found to explain the supposed end of the RPG hobby/market. Yet, "somehow", the hobby is still here, going as strong as ever, with numerous small press companies making decent money selling their games and products, existing in the black or better, year upon year, and doing better than basement start-ups have ever been able to do previously in such large number.
I further note there is clearly a thriving market for pen-and-paper games, and though most of that market is untapped by small press companies, many small presses do fine on the relatively small share of that market aware of them. But despite all this, small-press companies still find excuses for failures despite our knowledge that a creative can make money writing and producing gaming material, without breaking the bank and without needing to throw in the towel for bullshit reasons like "the gaming industry is changing and computer games are stealing our market share".
It isn't and they aren't. We know this. The numerous successful indie games that have come out every year for going on the last decade have proven that. CRPGs and CCGs only "steal" your market shares if a small press follows an out-dated, broken model of production and distribution. Which (clearly) many creatives are still doing!
Thus, equally clearly, we haven't reached everyone we can. There are still people out there dumping tens-of-thousands of dollars into a product, and upon failing to make that amount back or gain a break-out success that out-does D&D itself or even just pays for itself, declare the RPG scene is dying and that small presses can not help but be failures, blaming everything from video games to card games to current economic conditions or the price of tea in China.
First, if you're a small publisher, that isn't the way it has to be. Don't be the guys above, and don't do things that way. Second, if you're a small publisher, help others discover the way it used to be done is not the best route to success as a small publisher, and help explain how to succeed, starting with how success is not defined as how well a publisher does compared to the 800-lb gorilla in a niche hobby industry, nor especially by trying to do things the way the gorilla does them.
Consider: the fact that I, a relatively unknown creative, can pay my web-hosting fees and still have money left for a couple of RPG-related buys with what I am making from one product shows that small press games can and do sell and don't necessarily bleed the creative's bank account dry. The fact that my other product, which is again relatively unknown and isn't hawked at conventions or through expensive advertisements, sells enough every quarter to pay printing costs for itself shows the same thing.
Yet in the above examples I cite we have products, one supposedly professionally produced and cared for given the amount of money spent on it, the other an award-winning design crafted with professional detail and care, abandoned because they aren't making money for their creators. What?
How can I make money doing what I'm doing, and these guys not doing what they're doing? How can they NOT be making money in this market?
Clearly, we have not reached everyone we can.
guildofblades:
The existing games marketing is darn near infinitly large in relation to the marketing power that most any small press or indie company can wield.
Here is an example. Our leading board game, The War to End All Wars has now topped 8,000 sales (over several editions) since 1998 and all the games of the Empires of History game line are collectively hovering at about 80,000 sales. That's not shabby. Now, having opened the new retail store, right here in the Guild's virtual backyard, of all the customers who have wondered into the store, about 3 of them had even heard of the Guild of Blades previously and only 1 of them was familiar with the Empires of History line.
So at 80,000 sales collectively for games in that line, we've penetrated so little of the overall player base for games that only 1 customer who has walked in our store in over 6 weeks had any familiarity with the line. And we opened up in a metro area that has something like 4+ million people within a 30-45 minute drive.
That means 80,000 sales is barely scatching the surface of the overall active player base for games and the overall active player base for games has barely scratched the surface of the overal potential player base for games amng the broader populace.
Reached everyone that could be reached? I would bet every penny I own that would be impossible. But one might have to conceed that its possible a majority of people that could be reached easily may have been reached for a particular single venue. Which simply means its time to broaden the venues for marketing said product.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
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