The Business: The Only Viable RPG Business Going Forward Is A Premium Service Model

(Following from yesterday's post.)

The business model for fantastic adventure wargames--what most of you consider "RPGs"--has been busted for generations, and since no later than 2000 obsolete.

What is that model?

The business model is to acquire a prospective player as a customer, sell him a gimped product that creates a problem of disatisfaction with the experience and then sell him the solutions to that disatisfaction through supplementary product releases.

That was not the intention early on. It arose as an emergent development when two events occured: the serial publication of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition and the utter incomprehension of how that game worked by people who lacked a wargame background and adult reading comprehension competency.

The idea, like the misunderstanding of a World War 2 Cargo Cult, was that if they blindly copied a model that was a historical accident then they could please the Business Gods and be rewarded with prosperity and popularity.

That's was always known to be a disfunctional model. The proof is that there is a term--"Product (or Edition) Treadmill"--that one company (Stupid British Toy Company) is notorious for outright weaponizing into a core part of their business practices. Too much product out there turns off prospective players, so the publisher resets the model like the Architect resets the Matrix and the cycle repeats because no one bothered to consider how users used the product.

This Is Not A Product Business

A rules manual is a set of instructions that tells the reader how to use a widget. That widget is the game. By now the veterans out there can tell you how to make a small fortune selling game product: start with a large one.

That's because selling product is not where the money is. I have said for years on this blog that the money in this hobby isn't in the product; it's in the network. The game is just the facilitator for people to join and make use of that network, just like golf is about the social interactions in the clubhouse and on the green- not about selling clubs.

You are not doing this:

Or even this:

You are making this possible:

The proof that the money is in the network? Remember that video where Pat explains how Magic-Users is going digital with Current Edition as part of the transition to locking up Current Edition behind a subscription-based paywall riddled with predatory microtransactions? There is your proof. Magic-Users got the memo; they are monetizing the network because that's where the value in the hobby lies.

As I have said over this past week, you can't do that. That, specifically, being the adoption of mobile-style Free To Play business models complete with predatory levels of microtransactions. You don't have the capital, the brand strength, or the lawyers, or the deep pockets to do that and not get crushed.

You can, on the other hand, pivot your business to that of a private club- like you see in that Dr. No clip above. You are not selling the product; the product is there to draw prospects into your network, and what you then sell them on is a secured invite-only user network where all members are vetted before acceptance. Hobby publishers have no means to enforce standards of behavior; private clubs do, and this means that you're looking to attract players with money who are willing to spend that money on someone else who will take the time to sift through the sand to find the golden nuggets.

Yep, that's right, you're selling the ressurection of the original club environment that the hobby came from. Furthermore, this is a private club where members are not only free to network among themselves (like people making deals while playing golf), but are able to speak candidly about whatever in the lounges away from the game tables- and as this is now a international hobby, with players around the world, that is not a trivial benefit.

And this is a club that needs no physical plant, not in the Internet Age. I am already aware of this model's existence, and success, in other pursuits. Sure, you're going to need more than a well-run Discord server to make this work, but not much more and you won't need a massive employee footprint either.

The Role Of The Game

You don't play tennis at the golf club.

The game exists to provide context to the club's activities and an event to focus attention around. That is a big reason for why you don't waste time bundling your Setting Bible with your rules manual. The Setting Bible is a separate and distinct property to itself, through which you can (and some have, successfully) established a brand-focused business. You do not tie a brand-focused business to a specific medium.

The rules manual, and thus the game, is an entirely different business. A competent game will produce entirely different campaign experiences even if everyone plays the game exactly as-written, something that your private club business has the means to enforce. Your fat sacks of cash come from making a secured environment wherein the people who buy your game can run campaigns, and you benefit from having a venue wherein you can directly observe how your customers use your product.

I'm not going to talk details on how to do that here (that's for another post), but I will say that this isn't a RPGA replacement; you're charging a lot for this.

I will state that letting the game do the talking, not a Setting Bible, is going to be far more profitable because the players shape the campaign environment and not you- all you do is secure the club and ensure that the rules are obeyed.

This is why you get rid of all the flash, the fiction, the unnecessary art, and focus instead on producing a clear, concise, and consistent rules manual that's lean and mean. The manual is there to draw players into a network of players, get into reading newsletters and blogs, and become aware of the private club. The lack of supplementary product is a bonus for you, as the barrier to joining the hobby is low and only those who need the private club premium service will bother with that option.

Or you can do the far more realistic thing, given that most of you publishing these games neither want to nor have the ability to run that sort of business, and just keep the game as a self-funding hobby like Chris Gonnerman does with Basic Fantasy.

That's your option: cheap hobby pursuit psuedo-business for a cheap hobby pursuit, or high-end premium service for those willing and able to pay for secured play environments online. It follows the overall trend in the global economy where the middle's been gutted. If you want to make a living in this hobby going forward, the premium service will be the only viable model; everyone else will either go Gonnerman's route, go out of business, or become leeches sustaining themselves off Magic-Users or British Toy Company.

That's how it is. Make your choice.