What is Success in the RPG Industry?

[aramis erak]

There are a lot of prognostications about the success of new games... but what does it mean for a game to succeed? For a game company to succeed?

I don't think there are concrete answers to either, but I'll note what I consider them to entail.

For a company to succeed, it means, to me, that it's the primary income of its employees and owners. I know that this is not even close to current corporate US standards of "more ROI per year each year, every year"...

For a game to succeed, I consider this the requirement: It has enough players to justify it's continued supplementation and retention in print, for a period exceeding 3 years. I may need to revise that soon, as even I don't buy dead tree most of the time anymore. SO, broadly, let me revise that to a steady continued growth for at least three years...

I'm curious to see others' takes on the two terms.

 

[Parmandur]

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, to hear the lamentations of their players.

 

[Autumnal]

As per Spock, a wreath of pretty flowers that smell bad.

 

[Jd Smith1]

From what I've read here, to generate enough money that the owners are not homeless, but not enough to allow them to to bring them security in their old age.

 

[Yora]

I say breaking even.

Making and distributing an RPG does not have to be a full time job. It can be done as a hobby. If you're not paying more of your own money to get the game to people than you get back, that seems pretty successful to me.

Though then, almost all hobbies cost money, so creating a game can still be a success without breaking even.

In the end, it comes down to why a game was being made in the first place. What did the creators set out to accomplish? This is different and specific to every single game, and can usually not be identified from the outside.

Treating any activity that involves receiving money as a vehicle to get someone rich is one of the evils of capitalism. If someone wants to make an RPG to get rich, or just make a living, that's on them. But that's not the purpose of a hobby.
Hobbies are successful if you enjoy your time spend with it.

 

[MNblockhead]

It depends. If someone already has a full-time job and publishes a game out of a labor of love and people buy it, that is a success for that person.

But in general, the hobby isn't going to be healthy if people can't make a decent living creating and selling the products. So few games are going to bring in enough money for that, however, that any game company that can support its creators is a major success.

 

[GamerforHire]

I tend to agree with OP, in that “success” of a publisher/company in this particular industry means being able to support yourself with the product you are publishing. That is different than “success” as it relates to a particular product/game, which would be defined as selling enough copies such that you make net profit (equal to what a normal job would have earned) over the time/effort you put into it. I don’t think many people in the hobby would impose a requirement that the financial success hit a “ten+ full time employee-level” as the litmus test for “success”, let alone TSR/WoTC-level financial success.

By my weird metric above, companies like Chaosium, Paizo, Kobold Press, etc., would constitute “wildly successful“ and no longer part of the discussion when measuring others. TSR back in the day, or WoTC’s D&D division now, are also not part of the discussion; comparing yourself to TSR or WoTC would be like opening a store and making Walmart the standard against which to judge your success.

Of course, many in this hobby/industry aren’t even aiming for financial success, so for them “success” just means favorable reviews and a relatively-decent number of people playing their game (compared to other games in their niche). But even these people, once they achieve a certain level of this personal satisfaction, will start to dream about selling enough to make game design their full-time job, which brings them to the first definition (above).

 

[DarkCrisis]

From what I've read here, to generate enough money that the owners are not homeless, but not enough to allow them to to bring them security in their old age.

So modern life in America.

 

[dragoner]

I feel successful enough, and that is what counts for me to keep doing it. By no means is it my main income, though from the messages from people how much they love it, to looking at the drive through sales, and I can see someone starting a game, by watching them have got the books, and four more people downloading the character sheet, it makes me happy. In business terms, I think WOTC is the most successful, and the second tier is moderately successful. The amount of work it takes to support oneself, one could do elsewhere and make a better living. I never really complain about other publishers, I know what it takes to do what they do, and I'll either buy it or not.

 

[Shardstone]

Breaking even with enough to put forward towards your next project (at least in part) and people in a Discord server who love to talk about your game.