Greetings All! I have said this before and I will probably say it again. "Roleplaying as a rule is too cheap to succeed in over the long haul". I think that roleplaying will at best be like it is today: almost, but not quite, ready to make the leap to the main stream. please note: I am making several sweeping generalizations to make a point. A large number of gamers balk at buying the d20 core books again for version 3.5 because they just bought the 3.0 books a year or so ago. A large number of gamers were upset over the treatment if IP by the people at TSR, they felt it was unfair that you couldn't publish your own module with TSR owned property. A large number of gamers were upset that TSR/Wizards/Hasbro are constantly bringing out new products to bleed the average gamer for more money. As I have stated before, a single person in another hobby can match the investment of an entire group of gamers. For example, my buddy plays recreational hockey, he spends on average $150-230 a year on equipment, repairs, ice rental, etc. With d20 and OGL a new group of 5 d20 gamers could buy buy 5 PHB, 1 DMG, 1MM, and 5 sets of dice for a total cost $195.44. They could also buy 1 PHB, 1 DMG, and 1 MM, 5 sets of dice, and 5 SRDs for a total of $132.66 (if they pay $7 for the SRD at RPGNow rather than print it themselves). The goalie will spend that much again next year, the gamers don't have to buy anything else ever to continue playing. Right now I think there are more people roleplaying, a lot more people. The barriers to entry have been greatly reduced by the d20 and OGL licenses, by Tri-stat dx, by places like RPGNow where you can get loads of free products and games. Right now I think the industry is in slow decline. There are a lot of smaller companies producing product, but at smaller prices. The flagships are shrinking, offering less and less. The 'open source' movement is also starting to take hold. More companies are releasing their core rules for free, hoping to get more people playing (that works) in the hopes they will then buy accessory products (that doesn't). If you look at the average group of gamers, 1 maybe 2 GMs and 5 to 7 players, a basic rule book would be purchased by everyone. That is 6 to 9 sales. An adventure might be purchased by one dm but rarely by both, that's 1 or 2 sales. Other types of accessories might be of interest to GMs and players but it is unlikely they will have the universal appeal to sell to everyone in the group. So, now that my rant is over, I would say that the industry is bigger than ever in terms of people, but at best no bigger than before in terms of money. I have no empirical evidence to back up these opinions, only observations about the number of stores and the products stocked in those stores. Shane shane.knysh at YonerDotCom "I think we can all agree on one thing: 'The Moos of Derision' would be a good name for a rock band."-Dave Barry ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
