Anecdotally at least, people are more likely to engage with a product they’ve paid for than one they’ve been given. So if you want people to play your stuff, charging for it makes that more likely in my experience.
Measure of Success: Publishing, Cons, etc
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I can answer for myself: I spend money to make my products and I’d like to break even at least. Further, though, it’s a business and I need to make a profit.
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(I realize now that “why charge” / “because it’s a business” is a sort of circular argument, but sorta isn’t, too.)
I agree completely! I would argue that this is more than anecdotal. The sunk cost fallacy is real. It is a major reason that Gloomhaven is ranked # 1 on boardgamegeek.com. Who spends $120 on a board game and then doesn’t get it to the table? Very few.
In my personal version of this, I feel like I waste money if I pay for $15 or more for a game (tt-rpg or board game) that I have never played. Meanwhile, if I do not use free material, I think “Who cares? It was free anyway.” I also feel like a lot of the free stuff on drivethrurpg.com is ashcan stuff. It may not be true but that is the feeling you get from free stuff.
In addition, I can always re-sell physical games and books I don’t use for at least $5 and charge shipping. If it was a PDF, I can’t re-sell it, so if I bought it for more than $10, I am going to try to get this game played.
I also see examples that if you have the reputation for quality games and books, then you can sell them for $100+ sight unseen and do fine. My example is Monte Cook’s Invisible Sun. Until that game was sold, no one knew anything about it except the writer and that they were beautifully bound books, and yet he sold out. Maybe it is great but no one knew that when they pre-ordered it.
Here are some hints I heard at a drivethrurpg.com seminar a few years back that:
- free stuff gets more downloads (but not necessarily more plays)
- paid stuff gets more money
- PWYW on this site gets you less downloads and less money.
PWYW may work well if you have built your own site and reputation up but maybe not great on the biggest download site.
In addition, it was suggested, when you launch your game offer a limited time sale…perhaps even for $0.00. This gives people the perception of value and scarcity. Then, if your product is good, word may spread by word of mouth, and then the regular price can be supported.
I would also personally add, that this approach also gives game developers a chance to reward playtesters and friends that have followed and supported your work without completely devaluing the work on the game.
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Am I insane in thinking I can get both if I offer an adventure module with enough rules to play for free and have it direct people to a core rulebook that costs money?
yep i’m with Adam, I spent $300 on stock art and i’d at least like to break even.
On that topic, some people act like stock art is bad, i disagree. drivethru has some great stock art, ranging from $2 to $150 each.
The key is finding several pieces of similar style so you give your product a style and tone.
The other side of charging for products is they have funded me buying other games.
Money from Don’t pay the Ferryman has bought me Impulse Drive, The Veil, Warhammer 4e, The Dark Eye, Monster Hearts, Vagabonds of Dyffud and Blades in the Dark.
Buying those helped the community, and reading those helped me define what I want, what I can adjust and what I don’t want-in my game.
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Good question. The main speaker at the seminar was the guy that created Eclipse Phase. He pointed out that products directed towards players always sell better than products directed towards GMs. I took this to mean that for more trad style games the priority is something like this:
Player handbooks > complete rulebooks > DM guides > modules / settings > add-on rules. Quick start rules are generally given away free to generate interest so I am not sure where they fall into this.
It seems to me that you would be modeling Quickstart + mini- adventure for free and then rules for purchase. It seems like this could work but I always wonder how anyone cuts out enough of the Quickstart to be worth buying the full rules while also leaving in enough to make it work.
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We are deviating a bit from the main topic, which is ok.
To maybe help:
@Adam: would you have spent the money on art of you had no chance of recouping the cost?
My guess is the real answer is yes, and that you build games not for the extrinsic reward of money, but for intrinsic motivations.
Let me know if that is correct.
I probably wouldn’t if I had no chance of recouping the cost. I treat those published products as business and do not buy art that I cannot pay for with the gross revenue. It’s irresponsible as a business owner and I take that part of it seriously.
I’ve spent $50 on custom art for my personal D&D character though. So I do that kind of thing occasionally.
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Over the years my games have become prettier and prettier as I get to combine long tail sales from more and more stuff to fund the artwork for each new project. Artwork being the only thing in publishing I can’t do reasonably well myself.
From my point of view Wilhelm’s Games is a highly successful undertaking. It has reached its goals ten years running. The definition of success for Wilhelm’s Games is:
- Give me an audience for my game writing.
- Make enough money to support the publishing of the games I write, including the purchase of artwork.
- Never turn a profit.
- Never have a revenue in excess of ~$3000 in a year.
The bottom two combined allow me to skip taxation and book-keeping as the Swedish revenue service considers it a hobby.
Since I have that revenue ceiling I haven’t made anything a kickstarter, which would give me more conventional success. Managing the financial side of things would take the enjoyment out of it for me.
I wouldn’t feel comfortable intentionally running my game design projects at a financial loss, even if I know people who do. But having the games pay for themselves is fine.
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I would argue that someone underpricing their games is bad because it generates an expectation about the viable cost of games in general, and the knock on effect of that is that it becomes much more difficult for people who are trying to make a living from it.
Consider the impact of phone AppStores, which have driven down the price of software so that customers shy away from paying more for their software than a coffee chain charges for their take away coffee. Some developers get viral success and make a business, some move to a subscription model, some find that they can’t justify it as a full time job.
Whether or not someone is producing and selling ttrpg material as a full time job, setting prices is something that can impact people beyond yourself, and is something that shouldn’t be done lightly.
Cheers
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For the record I 100% disagree with this assertion. What is toxic is to try to make one size fit everyone.
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@Radmad and @Alex seem to have very different views here, and I’d for sure love to tease out what they both think the other is saying.
If we do that, I want to make sure all of us follow the principle of charity – that is, that we assume our interlocutor is a decent person, and try to make sure we understand what they mean.
To that end: Can both of you explain your views? Are you both interested in determining why the other persons view is so far removed from your own?
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I will try to summarize without repeating myself. I don’t think there is anything wrong or shameful without choosing not to monetize your pastime. I am aware that when you add “making money” to your hobby formula it changes it, and for a lot of people that would take the joy out of it. But if we want ttrpgs to be more than a cottage industry (yes there are a few large scale companies, but they are not anywhere near the norm) we need to encourage and reward creators. There have been amazing strides in improving the social culture of ttrpgs, but not nearly as much in the way of the economic culture (Patreon and Kickstarter are the most notable, I would also nominate DrivethruRPG/itchIO but I don’t think they’re driving the ttrpg culture in any way close to what Steam did for videogames).
IMO I don’t think creating more business around ttrpgs will taint the culture in nearly the same way it has for videogames. ttrpgs have far less anonymity shielding and most of the industry leaders are far more conscious of maintaining a safe and inclusive culture. There will certainly be growing pains, but it won’t be the first or last time ttrpgs have to deal with culture problems.
To address @Alex comment, I’m not really sure how he’s getting that I’m calling for a standardization of creation/distribution practices. I am trying to be as straightforward and literal as I can be when I say “anyone should be able to make a living wage from making ttrpgs”, not everyone needs to.
I stand by my comment that a culture of “success is personally defined” is subtly toxic. It’s a statement that maintains the current status quo of providing the greatest affordance to those who already have a stable income and sufficient leisure time to create zero sum to value negative art. I get that that is not what is intended when people state it, but I don’t think it’s the kind of philosophy that encourages someone who can barely make ends meet to sacrifice their minimal or nonexistent free time on something that will lose them money. The suffering artist is a romantic notion but it’s not fair to inflict it on others or insist it’s more honorable than being a slave to your audience.
I also think it’s a false dichotomy to state that if you’re against completely decentralized defintions of success you’re for only one kind of success. I’m all for letting people pursue their passion as they see fit, but there should be a minimum viability and that viability should be a living wage.
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FWIW the primary reason for the predatory characteristic of (AAA) video game landscape seems to be the systemic elimination of authorship. You no longer have “faces” of games created, instead you have vaguely defined teams of studios. This doesn’t seem to be the case with ttrpg and even commercial endeavors of largest publishers are associated with a well established designer or few.
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This is a fantastic point!
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Thank you @Radmad! That’s a well put together position.
@Alex: Do you have questions about Radman’s position? Do you disagree with it? If so, can you tell us why?
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The element that I disagree with is the assertion that ‘success is personally defined’ is toxic. I think that is taking an offensive potshot at an alternative position to his own.
The person who has been procrastinating at getting a game published because they feared failure? For them success is legitimately getting it done. The person who has produced a game about a subject they care deeply about even though they know it will have limited appeal? For them success is getting it to their tiny audience. The person who just wants to create some things that some other people may enjoy? For them success is knowing that other people are playing and enjoying it.
By saying that their personally defined success is toxic is invalidating them. I think it is a gatekeeping attitude that is bad for the hobby as a whole and personally damaging to people in those kinds of position.
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I’m not sure where confusion stems from. My reading is that Radmad 1) agrees that there are modalities of success (this is what Alex talks about above) but 2) measurement within each mode is not subjective or personal.
This second part is a pretty sound argument if you consider the topmost mode of success: ttrpg that pays all you bills and then some. In current climate it is super hard to get from being unknown to being sustainable through ttrpg if you don’t have something that pays your bills along the way. In other words: if you don’t have the money already I guess it sucks to be you. Personal measure of success here really boils down to saying “you need monies to make monies” which is sadly true but reinforcing this may be labeled toxic indeed.
IDK if I agree with him 100% but talking about modalities of success really only hides the fact that success is not for everyone and we should focus on figuring out how to change that.
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I think I am failing to distinguish between if we are talking about success as a personal factor or success as a cultural one. I’m not trying to shame anyone’s personal choice, but as a community/culture/industry we should have a definition of what success looks like, and I feel at minimum it should be a living wage.
So when someone states their personal definition of success, be it publishing, homebrewing, hacking, just making a functional game, etc. I don’t see anything wrong with that. What irks me is when people respond negatively or try to shame others for trying to/being excited about monetizing their work. I think we should respect and encourage anyone’s effort to try and support themselves with their art (this is not the same as someone trying to maximize monetary gain from their art).I think that if we want the ttrpg creator community to grow , we need some kind of measure of who is and isn’t succesful so we can focus efforts towards helping those who are struggling.
When I use the word “toxic” I am not trying to insult any individual’s choice. What I am trying to say is that when “success is personally defined” is the majority definition of “success” in this industry, it doesn’t allow underprivileged creators in, it doesn’t encourage a tighter knit community, and it doesn’t protect the community from bad actors. That is not to say that community members aren’t actively doing all these things, but I feel the overall culture is agnostic to these issues because it values Independence over Community
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