The Small Press Conundrum

Ahh, the small press. It is the primordial ooze to which all game companies owe their origins. The RPG industry as we know it was built by obsessed minds, determined to see their particular fantastic vision of a reality brought to life with dice paper and pencils (little metal men optional). From TSR, to White Wolf, to even the Great And Mighty Wizards of the Coast, they all started small and got big. They had no huge marketing budgets, no sales projections, and no freakin' idea that they would make it as far as they have. I firmly believe that if you had told Pete Adkinson back in 1992 that in 5 short years he would own TSR, he would have fallen out of his chair laughing. These companies bootstrapped themselves up from basements and garages with good creative ideas, a heck of a lot of stubbornness and a metric ton of luck. And today they have become the industry leaders.

These days those who would follow in their footsteps, the small press publishers, are on the ropes. It seems that good ideas and persistance aren't enough to make it anymore. Is the small press doomed? And what does that mean to the average gamer?

First of all, a fundamental thing to understand is that, by the standards of the publishing world at large, almost all gaming manufacturers are small press. The print numbers that many companies deal with and accept as "good" sales would be sneered at by Bantam or Doubleday. If most companies are small press already, you can imagine where that leaves the companies THEY consider small press.

Aspiring small press publishers have a lot more to contend with today than in past years. The overall production bar has been raised industry-wide. Back when even the big boy's games featured pedestrian layout and mediocre art, any guy with a game design, some friends who could half-way draw, and access to a copy machine could produce new game. Those days are long gone, and any game that wishes to be more than a blip on the RPG gaming radar had better look at least competent.

Of course, looking good costs money. The economic investment required to get a game line up and running today is pretty steep. You can't hawk your game at GenCon and be confident that the masses will come flocking to your door. Art costs, print costs, warehousing, shipping, and the most neglected of all costs in this business, marketing, can push the initial starting capital necessary for a new company over $100,000. The advent of print-on-demand services like Lightning Print have offered a small flicker of hope in the doing-it-on-the-cheap department, but its still a tough row to hoe. The consolidation of the distribution system and the embryonic advent of gaming chain stores, while beneficial for the industry at large, has made it even tougher for a small press start up. Convincing a major distributor that your new game that he's never heard of is going to sell like hotcakes is not an easy task.

And a new game has to have a hook — something new and unique, like Feng Shui's take on Hong Kong action, or Deadlands mix of spaghetti western and horror. Another fact that any small press wanna-be should consider is that the days of innovation through system design are long gone. You'll have to excuse the bluntness of this next statement, but here's a news flash: the public isn't interested in your house version of AD&D. If all a small press game features is a new way to play elves, orcs and dwarves, it is doomed to fail, in my opinion. A strong world background can survive with a fairly uninspired game system. A brilliant game system with a lackluster world is doomed from the get-go.

This has some unfortunate effects for those who don't take a good hard look at what they are doing. Every year at the big summer shows I see at least two or three groups of people hawking their new game, hoping to hit it big. All too often, my thought is "Wow, they just threw away a whole lot of money." Its an uncomfortable but real fact the there are a limited amount of dollars floating around in gamer's pockets, and if your product isn't up to snuff, no one will buy it. Not only will no one buy it in stores, it'll never even make it there because the distributors won't touch it. These self starters with the best of intentions will walk away from their experience with self publishing with nothing more than a mountain of debt and a bruised ego.

So where does this leave the aspiring game publisher? Well, it doesn't look to good for 'em — and I have to say that this makes me pretty sad. I LOVE small press games. Ever since I first poked my nose outside of the well trodden fields of AD&D some 15 years ago, small press games have offered some of the most innovative and daring ideas. Some of these games, like Over The Edge and Big Eyes, Small Mouth have survived and managed to find enough of a fan base. Others like Skyrealms of Jorune and High Colonies have faded into the mists of RPG industry history. I would hate to think of a world without the small press games. The RPG hobby would seem a lot less rich to me without these often off-kilter publications.

But there is hope. Electronic publishing seems to be the natural next step for an aspiring small press game publisher. Adobe's PDF format is making it easier and easier to create great looking documents and distribute them on the cheap. With the growing power and ease of Internet commerce, I have high hopes that the RPG small press will survive, and perhaps even flourish, online.

-Hal Mangold is the Brand Manager for the Deadlands: Weird West RPG.