The Business of RPGs

I've read with interest the thread on Dark*Matter. It highlights a problem companies have with figuring out what to release. Here's some rules I've made up for my own publishing endeavors: 1) If it's a new game, go with what seems cool to you. Asking people what they want in a new RPG is not a good idea, because they'll probably just give an answer based on what's already out there. They can't ask for something that they don't know about. True story: the auto company that first designed the minivan (forget which one) shelved the design because no consumers were asking for a minivan in their surveys. Obviously, the consumer can't ask for something they don't know about. New games have to innovate. 2) Existing game lines should depend on customer feedback to chart their growth. Your users know what they want. Give it to them. They're the ones in the trenches, out there using your product. Cater to their needs, and you'll have happy customers. Supplements don't need to innovate. They need to expand on your game and serve as tools for your users. 3) Eat your own dog food. Play your own game, use your own website, whatever. If you don't like it, the consumer will not go for it. I would highly recommend a nifty little book called Rules for Revolutionaries, written by Guy Kawasaki. Lots of good advice in there. A lot of it applies to the RPG field, since everytime you make a new game, your basically trying to create a revolution. You want users of old games to change their habits and play your new game. Check it out. - Mearls

Ah. Someone once said that nothing new is ever invented. And it's so true! This is all basic fundamental business. I was exposed to it in the MYTHICAL MAN MONTH for Software Engineering some years ago. It's like the style of business of every other project on the planet: - A good product requires a fundamentally good _concept_, usually gained by personal feedback or from feedback from peers. CERN and NCSA needed to serve technical documents back and forth, and LaTeX was a pain in the neck. Now here we are, 6 years later, and typing in responses about games into handy little textboxes. - Survey your users. Listen to your users. Form focus groups. Ask the users what they want. Find out what your users want in a next release. You are there to serve _them_, not serve yourself. Your users buy your products. Your users buy your upgrades. Your users stick with your company if they're happy. - Continue to be creative. If you _just_ cater to your users without giving them something more, eventually your products will start to lose a certain spark. They'll become dull and bloated. Worse, your engineers/writers will get bored of the product, and it will show up like a blaze of fire in their performance. Sort of like Netscape before it finally got eaten. It's pretty much the same everywhere, in gaming, in software, in cars. It's a damn shame that no one in gaming learns this. ------------------ The Ubiquitous Aleister - The Cat in the Hat