I agree with Rob at Bat in the Attic that if a quality and innovative product is created then it will sell. A profit can be made. What I am having a problem with is all the prognostication about industry booms 'once in a generation'. There's not enough information to make such a comment. Gaming has been around a little over thirty years, that's not even two generations. Yet I hear this comment over and over again. I think we need to get a real perspective of how long this hobby has existed. The once every generation seems a bit dramatic to me.
The problem and the asset for RPGs is the majority of the players are capable of producing their own campaigns and supplements. This is self-evident with all the people who blog who are putting out their own independent projects.
And I am guilty of this as much as anyone, but it seems so many of us are looking to the past of the industry instead of the future. We can only milk the past for so long. I'm a huge fan of the Old School Resistance, but I am also looking for that new project out there that's going to excite me. Something I've never seen and not something I get because it reminds me of days gone by.
Will it take 20 more years for the gaming industry to see another 'boom'? I doubt it. The boom will take as long as it takes for someone to create it.
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Good point!
ReplyDeleteI think far too many "industry insiders" look at the past and see that it can't continue, so it's easy to feel the doom and gloom.
But, honestly, I'm really jazzed about the future of RPGs. With something like DDI taking RPG/computer integration" mainstream, we're on the cusp of some incredible leaps for the game. People out there still thinking "RPG publishing = how TSR did it for so long" are missing all of the opportunities!