The Business: Why Most RPG Publishers Should Just STOP

Thanks to Roll For Combat for actually talking about this, although not with the intent to dissuade.

Recap is here.

Far too many of you are complete incompetents that have no business publishing product at all.

I am no Entrepreneur Grifter. I will tell you flat out that you suck, you will always suck, that there is no demand for your crap, and you would be better off giving up and going back to a Big Corpo dayjob doing your 9-5 until you hit Retirement because the only way you will make this work is to do what the Pundit did and most of you will never even consider moving to a Third World country to play the geo-arbitrage game.

"But-"

It's not enough to put in the work. You can grind at it for years on end to hone your craft, and none of it will matter if you make Non-Games or other products that cannot justify their existence because they cannot address an unmet demand.

And buddy, every single viable niche has had it demand met SEVERAL TIMES OVER.

This is not only a mature and recovering medium, it is also wholly discovered and saturated.

What do you offer that existing products--real games--do not already fulfill? Rolemaster is a great game, but it still has no justification because AD&D1e existed and did all it offered just as well (or better) with a massively superior Network Effect going fo rit. All Flesh Must Be Eaten tried to carve out a space as Survival Horror, but it did not work because Call of Cthulhu satisfies that demand just fine and it had (and has) a superior Network Effect. The only reason Star Wars eclipsed Traveller is because the former had a superior Network Effect powering it before its original tabletop RPG adaptation, and even with the former's fading that remains the case (even though Traveller is a superior game).

You get the idea- which is why all would-be competitors to a Leader are better off being specialized alternatives to it instead, something TSR bumbled into with Gamma World vs. AD&D1e.

Remember that most RPGs are unfit for purpose and surplus to requirements; 99% of them could disappear tomorrow and no one would even notice, nevermind miss them.

You are wasting your time and capital trying to do what far better men, in far better times, failed to accomplish (barring the willingness and ability to copy the Pundit, and that is still no guarantee of success or worth). At best, do it as a hobby in itself; for all but a few of you, STOP NOW! You are not doing anything worth the effort; you are better off using one of the few real games and mastering it.

"But it could be a tax-"

No. That's pants-on-head retarded. Don't even finish that thought.

Do. Something. Else.