James Mishler writes about the current state and future of RPG publishing and is pessimistic about it. I cannot comment on the economic crisis, but as far as the economics of RPG publishing go, I see a trend that I’ve seen in software, too.
James Mishler writes about the current state and future of RPG publishing
With many of the basic tools being released as free software it gets harder to sell operating systems and basic tools. Many still do, however. They use copyright, marketing budgets, and market position to sell to their customers because sales based on merit are getting harder to make. Others use free software under the hood, saving expenses and selling fancy user interfaces to ordinary tools. All of them also try to sell a little bit of extra that differentiates them from their competitors.
But guys like me, peole who like to do it ourselves and who love to share, we’re effectively driving down the price of things. What used to be an expensive commodity is turning into a dirt-cheap element of our daily infrastructure. Like hammers and nails.
For those who used to make hammers, it’s a sad story. But everybody else just moves on. The world changes and that’s ok.
The positive aspects are that more peole are contributing and sharing than ever before. The barrier to entry is much lower. Publishing on the web via blogs and wikis has finally allowed amateurs to join.
I still remember trying to contact people at Necromancer Games regarding a wiki for reader contributions to Bard’s Gate. I never got the reply I wanted from Clark Peterson. With a free license unencumbered by tons of “product identity” this kind of sharing would have been the default. I wanted to do it. I set up a wiki, wrote the first dozen pages, got a domain name. But it didn’t work out. Just saying. The old ways had their drawbacks, too.
We’re moving from a mass market culture to a remix and share culture (Free Culture). This means the end for some commercial efforts, but that doesn’t have to be a negative thing. I plan to join and embrace the low budget, amateur and semi-professional world of Fight On and others. I think that’s where the future of my segment of the gaming crowd lies, at least.
Free software projects like GNU/Linux, Apache, Emacs, and others have shown that we’ll end up with a world with more freedom to learn, participate, study, contribute, remix, and publish than before. It will also have its warts, but they will be different warts. They’ll be our warts. And it will be in our power to change them. I plan on enjoying it.
#RPG #Publishing