Ryan Dancey and the Game Biz
For those of you that don't care about the game industry, skip this. You won't be interested.
mearls, a man who I like more and more as I get to know him, posted an outstanding message to an rpg.net thread. I want to post it hear for people to read in case they missed it in the bleck! of rpg.net.
Mike, if you want me to pull this (since it is your text), let me know, but I suspect you don't mind these words being spread...
Ryan's problem is that he's only interested in being right, as opposed to liked, or popular. You can't argue that the guy isn't smart. We have this entire d20 thing - you may have heard of it - thanks to him. He places a big emphasis on gathering data, putting together a picture of the problem at hand, and then attacking it. There are a lot of people in this business who owe him for their current income, I amongst them.
The problem is, he sometimes doesn't understand that there's a lot of resentment towards him. People are jealous, they hate that all the fringe games have been further marginalized by d20. Ryan would argue that that's irrelevant. Consumers have the final say in what succeeds and what doesn't, and an industry that ignores that is doomed to die. These are all very sensible business ideas.
The thing is, outside of GW, WotC, Decipher, and a few other companies, RPGs, TCGs, and minis aren't businesses. They're hobbies. Perhaps profitable hobbies, but hobbies nonetheless.
Realists don't do well in hobby industries. They're the habitat of idealists. A realist goes into business to make money, to create value from nothing, to fill a need. He pokes and prods the market, gathers data, and makes a plan. An idealist follows a business because it makes him feel good. Profits are nice, only in so far as they sustain the dream. The idealist would probably rather have good reviews than good sales. He'd rather be popular than rich.
Ryan the realist posts his proposals for the Origins Awards to gather feedback on them. He looks at the issue and thinks, we need to know what the public thinks about the awards. We need to find a bond or hook to make them relevant again.
The idealists don't see it that way. It doesn't occur to them to attack a problem that way. They see it as a political move. An idealist usually starts from the idea that he's right, and then proceeds to find things that tell him he's right. The realist starts with the assumption that he doesn't know anything, and then tries to find out how to be right.
It doesn't take much of a leap to see that realists and idealists don't get along very well. Realists have this disturbing tendency to say things that idealists don't want to hear. But sometimes, the idealists need to hear them. Someone has to keep a hobby industry from crumbling, from sliding down that slope to endlessly cannibalizing a small, aging, shrinking segment of the population.
Do you really think RPGs are doing that badly? Then I want you to pick up the latest issue of Locus and look at the circulation numbers for the literary SF magazines - Asimov's and F&SF. Their numbers are down by over 50% since 1990. Their subscriber bases are in their 40s. Yet, they keep churning out the same material, month after month. That's where RPGs could go if they fall back into the 90's pattern of design and production, games by and for a small slice of the market and a shrinking pool of designers.
I think 10 years form now, Ryan will be judged as the savior of RPGs. A lot of people will be very unhappy about that, because they much rather it have been Nobilis, or Exalted, or whatever RPG.net's flavor of the month happens to be, but that's the reality. We can only hope that a realist comes along to shake up the system every once in a while.
Ryan's problem is that as a realist, he's never going to be able to relate to the idealists who populate this business. They don't like him on a very primal level. Instinctually, they see a nasty, nasty suit who wants to make dirty, dirty money. He faces a losing battle, but he wants to be right, he wants to fix things, and he has the time and resources to attack the problem in any way he wants.
mearls, a man who I like more and more as I get to know him, posted an outstanding message to an rpg.net thread. I want to post it hear for people to read in case they missed it in the bleck! of rpg.net.
Mike, if you want me to pull this (since it is your text), let me know, but I suspect you don't mind these words being spread...
Ryan's problem is that he's only interested in being right, as opposed to liked, or popular. You can't argue that the guy isn't smart. We have this entire d20 thing - you may have heard of it - thanks to him. He places a big emphasis on gathering data, putting together a picture of the problem at hand, and then attacking it. There are a lot of people in this business who owe him for their current income, I amongst them.
The problem is, he sometimes doesn't understand that there's a lot of resentment towards him. People are jealous, they hate that all the fringe games have been further marginalized by d20. Ryan would argue that that's irrelevant. Consumers have the final say in what succeeds and what doesn't, and an industry that ignores that is doomed to die. These are all very sensible business ideas.
The thing is, outside of GW, WotC, Decipher, and a few other companies, RPGs, TCGs, and minis aren't businesses. They're hobbies. Perhaps profitable hobbies, but hobbies nonetheless.
Realists don't do well in hobby industries. They're the habitat of idealists. A realist goes into business to make money, to create value from nothing, to fill a need. He pokes and prods the market, gathers data, and makes a plan. An idealist follows a business because it makes him feel good. Profits are nice, only in so far as they sustain the dream. The idealist would probably rather have good reviews than good sales. He'd rather be popular than rich.
Ryan the realist posts his proposals for the Origins Awards to gather feedback on them. He looks at the issue and thinks, we need to know what the public thinks about the awards. We need to find a bond or hook to make them relevant again.
The idealists don't see it that way. It doesn't occur to them to attack a problem that way. They see it as a political move. An idealist usually starts from the idea that he's right, and then proceeds to find things that tell him he's right. The realist starts with the assumption that he doesn't know anything, and then tries to find out how to be right.
It doesn't take much of a leap to see that realists and idealists don't get along very well. Realists have this disturbing tendency to say things that idealists don't want to hear. But sometimes, the idealists need to hear them. Someone has to keep a hobby industry from crumbling, from sliding down that slope to endlessly cannibalizing a small, aging, shrinking segment of the population.
Do you really think RPGs are doing that badly? Then I want you to pick up the latest issue of Locus and look at the circulation numbers for the literary SF magazines - Asimov's and F&SF. Their numbers are down by over 50% since 1990. Their subscriber bases are in their 40s. Yet, they keep churning out the same material, month after month. That's where RPGs could go if they fall back into the 90's pattern of design and production, games by and for a small slice of the market and a shrinking pool of designers.
I think 10 years form now, Ryan will be judged as the savior of RPGs. A lot of people will be very unhappy about that, because they much rather it have been Nobilis, or Exalted, or whatever RPG.net's flavor of the month happens to be, but that's the reality. We can only hope that a realist comes along to shake up the system every once in a while.
Ryan's problem is that as a realist, he's never going to be able to relate to the idealists who populate this business. They don't like him on a very primal level. Instinctually, they see a nasty, nasty suit who wants to make dirty, dirty money. He faces a losing battle, but he wants to be right, he wants to fix things, and he has the time and resources to attack the problem in any way he wants.