10 questions to ask Joe Fugate

[jfugatesr]

Flynn,

Yes, Traveller seems to be coming back to it's roots again, which I applaud.

If you remember, the main reason I started DGP was to get to know the background so well it became second nature to me to adventure in it.

Now they wanted to trash it all in TNE, which completely destroyed my whole reason for doing DGP in the first place. Time to exit Traveller licensee stage left, which is what I did.

Seemed like RPG genocide to me. What better way to kill your game than to build up a following with one background, then destroy that background?

Could backfire and come off as a betrayal to your following.

Sure, there might be the "loyal at any cost" crowd, and the new blood attracted to the different background. But I bet those represent the fringes. Your core following will probably see it as betrayal and leave the game entirely.

I know I did.

 

[Malenfant]

And yet, despite that, Traveller is still here. It seems to be doing surprisingly well for a game that was supposedly "killed" ten years ago. Evidently the CT setting wasn't as fragile as people made it out to be back then.

 

[jfugatesr]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
And yet, despite that, Traveller is still here. It seems to be doing surprisingly well for a game that was supposedly "killed" ten years ago. Evidently the CT setting wasn't as fragile as people made it out to be back then.

But to me, the question is how is Traveller doing in overall RPG market share, not how is it doing compared to its prior self?

Resurrection is one thing, growth is another. If the game has grown, it certainly doesn't seem to have been a result of moving permanently to the TNE setting and sticking with it, but instead going back to the more CT-based roots that got the core fan base in the first place. Sort of a "sorry, didn't really mean it" stance.

That's the telling statistic - overall RPG market share. How's Traveller doing in that regard?

Anyone know?

 

[clementk]

Perhaps this part of the thread can move to say the TNE flame war thread or a new thread so this thread can mostly stick to direct answers to questions?

Just a thought on a fairly good Friday.
Casey

 

[jfugatesr]

I'm okay with that, although you did want to know my opinions on why DGP folded, etc.

I would like to know how Traveller is doing marketshare wise these days, if anyone knows.

Has the RPG market grown, shrunk, or remained about the same, since about 1990? I know in the early 90s it was shrinking, or so it seemed.

Or is it okay for me to ask questions on this thread too, as long as we don't stray for more than a few posts?

 

[Flynn]

I have to agree with Joe on this one: the direction of Traveller product markets after TNE (such as T4, GT and T20) do indicate that there's more money to be made in a more CT-style setting. I'm just glad that 1248 is starting the OTU timeline back towards recovery.

I also agree with Casey, and suggest that this discussion attempt to remain on task in regards to answering questions posed to Joe.

EDIT: Oh, and so Joe can ask questions, too.

Mr. Fugate, what is your favorite region of Charted Space? Why do you like it so much? And would you consider playing the occasional game in that region were the option made available to you? (No sinking back into writing or anything, just playing and enjoying the game you love.)

Thanks in advance,
Flynn

 

[mike wightman]

Hey, we've reached page 14 relatively on topic.
That's unusual round here

Can I ask about the Droyne again, though, please.

Did you have any plans for their development or were they a victim of the change to TNE too?

 

[Flynn]

Joe,

I think the best people to answer your questions in regards to marketshares and such would probably be Hunter or MWM. (Steve Jackson would also be a good bet, too, I'm sure.)

I think the RPG market has grown since the 90's, but I also think the landscape has changed significantly as well.

Enjoy,
Flynn

 

[jfugatesr]

Permit me one more brief observation about TNE, then I promise I'll move on.

My bet is those who most favor TNE (Malenfant?) got into Traveller about that time, so that's the game *they* fell in love with.

Okay, my next post will be my answer to the next question from the offical list.

 

[kafka47]

Originally posted by JoeFugate:


Has the RPG market grown, shrunk, or remained about the same, since about 1990? I know in the early 90s it was shrinking, or so it seemed.

Or is it okay for me to ask questions on this thread too, as long as we don't stray for more than a few posts?

Of course, it is ok for you ask questions on this thread. The problem is: if you are really wanting an answer you might want to post it elsewhere with a heads-up to Hunter, Loren (who represents SJG) or Marc (aka Avery). Although, the last two are infrequent posters.

As I am sure more than one will be interested in the replies and this way we can keep questions directed toward you and what was DGP on this thread without straying too far.

 

[aramis]

Joe: you're holding a (due to medium) very slow discussion... it's a two way street. We really welcome two-way discourse. Especially from great old ones. (Heck, Even the frequently despised Dave Nilsen or Rodger Sanger would be engaged in two way discourse if either showed up.)

Now, in my hometown, RPG's have not gained nor lost market share; they have, however, become concentrated to four sources, down form a peak of 6; this counts chains as a single source.

Bosco's went from one store to 4, and is down to two.
Hobbycraft went from a small ammount in every store to only in one of their stores, and I think they dropped the number of stores to 3 from a peak of 6. Recently pruned their inventory to Hackmaster, D20, Palladium, GURPS, GW and WWG.
Game Keeper pulled out entirely.
BDalton pulled out; they had a decent game section.
Waldenbooks still has a small WOTC/TSR and WWG section in most of it's stores in town; since 1990, they've shhut down two stores.
Barnes and Noble, recently here, isn't locally stocking anymore. But they will order.
Borders has a small WOTC & WWG; they carried WEG as well until WEG folded.

So more places have come in, and more books are available, but what is out there is less diverse than the 90's.

As a substitute teacher, I can say the scene in the high scools is still low key, but still about the same 1% or so as it was when I attended here. Disproportionately drawn from Musicians, Artists, and ROTC's... Still.

(there were four active RPG croups at CHS in 1986-87 school year. I asked last year, and the gamers told me that there were 4 or 5 games running at lunch last school year... That CHS hhas always had 45-50 minute lunch periods helps.)

 

[T. Foster]

Here's the text of a very interesting post Ryan Dancey (former exec at Wizards of the Coast, the guy who devised/championed the "d20" license/system/movement) recently made at EN World (the biggest "d20" fan-site) regarding the size of the Hobby Gaming industry (and RPGs as a subsection of that industry) over the years. I can't verify that his numbers are accurate, but as former treasurer of GAMA I suppose he'd be in as good a position as anybody to know. Executive summary -- the RPG industry today has about the same $ amount in annual sales today that it did in the early 80s, and nowhere near the amount that it did in the late 80s-early 90s; unit sales volume peaked in the early 80s and has been in decline ever since:

You could divide the history of hobby game retailing in North America into 4.1 phases.

The ".1" is the part when Avalon Hill boxed wargames and similar products were sold in diverse outlets (book stores, toy stores, "hobby" stores [places where you might by RC models, knitting supplies, macrame, etc.], etc.), miniatures games were dominant in terms of dollar sales, and RPGs were proliferating via mimeograph machines and illicit photocopies. Call this period 1975 and before.

Phase .1: Total size of the hobby gaming market was less than $10 million/year. (RPG sales accounted for about 1/3 of this total by the end of the period.)

From the mid '70s to the mid '80s, most hobby gaming products were sold through book stores, toy stores, and "specialty" stores catering to the target demographic, like Spencer's. Starting in the early '80s, the toy store channel was consolidated by Toys R Us and its siblings, and the "toy store" as a small, independent retail outlet mostly ceased to exist. Some RPG sales migrated to Toys R Us, but the experiment was not successful over the long run. These were the years when RPGs had the highest unit sales volumes in their history (+1 million units of the Basic D&D boxed set sold per year in the early 80s, for example).

Phase I: Total size of the hobby gaming market was less than $30 million/year. (RPGs accounted for about 2/3 of this total [$20 million] on average throughout the period, rising near the end to a height of perhaps $40 million.)

In the mid '80s to the start of the '90s, specialty retailing for comic books and for hobby games took off. Consolidation in the book channel converted about half the existing book stores to empty store fronts, and forced the remaining independents into niche marketing. This period was marked by the rise of a large number of RPG publishers who competed effectively vs. TSR for marketshare. Even as unit volumes declined, unit prices increased (as did production values). During this time TSR also branched out successfully into novel publishing, essentially doubling its sales.

Phase II: Total size of the hobby gaming market was less than $50 million/year. (RPGs accounted for about 3/4 of this total [$37.5 million] throughout this period, rising to perhaps $50 million total by the end of the period.)

In 1993 Magic released, and in 1995, more than 100 CCGs were marketed to the hobby gaming channel. At the same time, Games Workshop's annual compound growth rate took it past $50 million ($10 million in North America). Sales of hobby gaming products had consolidated primarily into hobby gaming speciality stores, book stores and some comic book stores. As TSR stumbled from '94 to '96, the growth in CCGs and GW more than made up for the negative trend in RPGs. This period saw fairly continuous growth through 1999.

Phase III: Total size of the hobby gaming market was less than $100 million/year in '95 and about $250 million/year by '99. (RPGs accounted for about 10-20% of this total, between $25 and $35 million annually throughout this period.)

In 2000 Pokemon was successfully launched in the US, followed in 2002 by Yu-Gi-Oh. GW continued to grow at its normal annual compound rate, taking it above $100 million ($30 million in North America). The hobby gaming market diversified with an increase in collectible games of many kinds, and high-end board games. Increasingly large amounts of money were spent to bring a mainstream audience to hobby gaming products - but only by a handful of large companies. Smaller companies saw a general downsizing over time and were squeezed by challenges in the distribution and speciality retailer segments of the channel.

Phase IV (now): Total size of the "hobby gaming" market which now includes mass market products fluctuates between $500 million and $1 billion annually, depending on the sales cycle of the mass market products. (RPGs account for about $25 million of this total annually, with occasional "spikes" of up to $30-$35 million.)

(originally posted in this thread at EN World)

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by T. Foster:
Here's the text of a very interesting post Ryan Dancey recently made at EN World

Along those lines:
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0

Since the release date is February 07, 2000 it is a bit outdated now but it's the only info I've seen of this caliber. I think that's before the FFE reprints and definitely pre-T20 as the report was a factor in the creation of d20. There's no mention of Traveller (it may not have been a choice) but Gurps gets 3% of "what games TRPG players play monthly...with multiple choices allowed".

Casey

 

[Malenfant]

I'm not raising points about TNE to start flamewars, I'm just pointing out that Traveller IS still alive today, and that's all that really matters, no?

(oh, and Joe, you'd be wrong about me there - I got into Traveller just before MT came out, I bought some LBBs from a friend of mine at school. I liked MT, really liked the DGP material, and loved the TNE material. T4 just didn't appeal to me one bit so I skipped that. I like GT for the detail it goes into, and I think the T20 material is pretty good too. So the timing doesn't really come into it, I just like TNE because I like that sort of thing ).

But anyway... I earlier pointed out a list of the top 5 companies and their market share, so that gives you some picture of what the market is like.

But Traveller isn't really high on people's radar. It seems to be a pretty closed community - a few new people are trickling in via GT and especially T20, but it seems to appeal largely to the same old crowd who were always into it, rather than the "core gaming market" which is in the 15-30 age bracket.

Although probably not all that reliable, I started some surveys here about how old people are compared to what game they first got into, and the people whose first experience with Traveller was with T20 and the people who first started with CT are in the same age bracket - 31-45 years old (with a strong peak between 36-40). That age bracket is not the core market that RPGs are aimed at (Which is more like 15-30). So that indicates that either the same people are buying Traveller that always have done (given the amount of "collectors" here who like to buy everything ever written for Traveller, this wouldn't surprise me at all), or that Traveller just appeals to the tail end of the RPG market, which in itself is much smaller than the core.

In other words, I think Traveller is doing well enough to support itself, but it isn't getting the core RPG market excited about it anymore.

Why not? Could be any number of reasons. Bad reputation could be one reason (the first thing people I talk to say when I mention Traveller is "yuk, isn't that the one where people die in character generation?" or "that's the one that old guys play, right"?, even though this isn't true anymore). Changing tastes of the RPG market is most certainly another - roleplaying "average joes" in any setting has always appealed to only a small portion of the market anyway. Most people just want to "kick butt and take names" in a heroic manner. There's nothing wrong with that, but one has to accept it as the way things are - otherwise D&D wouldn't be so popular, since that is primarily aimed at exactly that group of people. Exalted is another very popular game, where people play demigods in a chinese-action-movie-fantasy setting - again, because it appeals to the "cinematic", high action, high heroism crowd. These games are popular for a reason, and it's not because their fans have no taste as some people here would undoubtedly say .

Ideally, it'd be nice to attract people to Traveller again in their droves. I don't think the current tropes of a CT-like setting will do that, unless perhaps it's touted as "Firefly, the roleplaying game". Certainly, that TV series got a fairly big following before it was cancelled, and there are probably a significant number of people who would love to play in a setting like that - but there's arguably too much baggage from the OTU to really pull it off and get the same feel, without changing things a lot.

Another thing is that there are other games around that do it better. CT was touted as a generic scifi RPG game, but now we have things like GURPS Space and Star Hero and D20 Future to do things like that, and they're specifically engineered for that purpose, and to be current in the modern market. There isn't really much interest nowadays in using in a "generic" background that limits the GM to certain assumptions (no biotech, no nanotech, jump drive takes a week and is limited up to 6 pc etc), which is what CT does (FF&S rectified this by providing a lot more options, but that was associated with a less popular version of the game).

That's what I've seen anyway, by keeping my ear on the ground at places like rpgnet where industry pros do show up to talk about such things. We just had some very lengthy discussions about why Traveller isn't more popular, and how to make it more so - but always the problem boiled down to the fact that the existing Traveller community was very reluctant to see the necessary changes to the game that would make it that much more popular. And if there's that much inertia there against change and evolution, then Traveller simply won't be able attract new people in large numbers. TNE was a step in that direction, but it was probably too big a step, and ended up causing a lot of friction in the community (which still lasts today) - but that doesn't make it wrong to try to change and adapt to the current mores of the market.

It would seem that Traveller has enough fans to sustain it, so long as it stays pretty much as it is. Personally I think it's better for it to evolve if it's to become competitive in today's market.

 

[Hyphen]

Originally posted by JoeFugate:
Regardless of what Virus was, the notion of destroying all the tech in charted space is again a rather heavy-handed thing to do, and seems just too convenient.

As I said in another thread:

...the then-GDW staff did not believe that any one faction deserved to "win" the Rebellion. Adding in their desire to support only one ruleset led to the decision to wipe the slate clean and begin again.

Virus was simply a means to do this.

Note: if they hadn't wanted to be clever and actually reuse part of their canon (ie. the Signal GK adventure, married to the already-canonical transponders) to do this, they would have used something else instead. In other words, [everyone is] criticising something that was just a game-background mechanic...

But I agree with the heavy-handed nature of the thing... <WHOMP!> and there goes the last 15 years of background development...

Can you comment on this: TSR created one rules system (well, 3½ by now but many different worlds to use it with; GDW created one "world" but with many rulesets. TSR seems to have been more successful with their approach. In hindsight, what do you think GDW could have done differently, if anything?

 

[whartung]

This has been a fabulous thread. I stumbled upon it by fluke luck. What luck for me.

I wanted to talk about TNE a little bit and observe upon what it must be like to develop and maintain a galaxy of information.

I played Traveller very little, but I bought as much material as I could get my hands on. I bought it because I was fascinated by the developing back story. I will never forget when JTAS #9 came out with WAR! on the cover.

OMG! I was literally stunned and shocked.

For some reason, Traveller seemed very "real" to me. I think it's perhaps because reading about The 3rd Imperium was much like reading about the world today. Little snippets of information, some long articles, but all about places far away. Like keeping up on Soviet politics. What do I know about Soviet Russia? Sure I've seen photos, seen news reports, but I haven't been there so its in many ways as real or unreal as any other far off place.

So, any "news from the Imperium" was interesting news to me. It was the kind of thing that while obviously it was being contrived out of whole cloth, it was dynamic enough to sound very authentic.

I find it interesting that someone like Joe wanted to learn as much about the Imperium as he could, but in the process ended up creating the history himself. Does that bother you? That you go out in quest for some specific knowledge, get to the guru at the top of the hill, and ask him "What is the meaning of life?", and he responds "You tell me, I haven't fleshed that part out yet, would you like to??".

We have millions of pages of text talking about the highs and lows and adventures and disasters of just we few billions on this planet, with a short history. Yet, here's a task that has to deal with thousands of planets and trillions of beings.

Yet, because of the scope of the story, you need dramatic change to push the story forward. Perhaps it could of been timed better, but as human beings it's pretty hard to envision huge scopes of time. Think of how short the time span between the 5th Frontier War, a major event, and the rise or the Rebellion and collapse of civilization. As if it was a bad bio-rhythm, in a historical context, this all happened at once.

The problem, I think, is that Imperial History was running in "real time" with the players of the game, and the creators of the game. It's exciting to see events unfold quickly, as it created interesting content, and interesting content is what Game Worlds are all about.

But how convenient the the pinnacle and downfall of the 3rd Imperium happened pretty much in lock step with the real time of the life of the Traveller product.

We can look back 20 years in our own history and see amazing things that have happened, and the changes they brought. How bedrock, "immortal" institutions have collapsed, how implicitly simple concepts and systems change society.

I think change happens on a "generational" time scale, and only specific people get everything in line to affect change, and they're only really capable of it for the time span of a generation. In that scope, the turmoil of the 3rd Imperium makes sense.

But, you have to add to just the generational pressures of a society to the marketing and production pressures of a company that is actually creating that society. While there was certainly more than enough "raw material" that could have been fleshed out, it seems that GDW was more interested, perhaps obligated, in pushing history forward.

It also seemed that as the Imperium filled up with planets and people, and as the technology was fleshed out, there is little motivation for new content. How much information does one need to operate a starship for example? It gets to the point that you have to advance the overall story because backfilling the story results only in more detail, rather than anything "important". If it were important, we'd have heard about it already.

Since they chose to work at the very high government level within the Imperium, you have to have something that disrupts it at enough of a level to make a note in the History. So, issues have to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

For example, the recent US election is "historic" in all sorts of ways, mostly because of the Interesting Times surrounding it. But, for example, the '96 election is a blip in comparison. Having the Moot work on a comprehensive Welfare Reform package would not make a very interesting Traveller module.

So, something Big on a Imperium Wide scale had to happen, I think. Now, we can argue about the Virus and what not, but I think the Rebellion was a worthy "adventure item" that fit the bill.

Maybe Joe can comment on the pressures of having a time line to advance, rather than just episodic events (ala D&D modules) that are very loosely, if at all, related. He's already talked about how the "canon" was filling up making it more difficult to add things and still be consistent. That seems to provide pressure to expand the scope into new history to make new content.

 

[Hyphen]

Originally posted by Aramis:
(there were four active RPG croups at CHS in 1986-87 school year. I asked last year, and the gamers told me that there were 4 or 5 games running at lunch last school year... That CHS hhas always had 45-50 minute lunch periods helps.)

As in Craig High School, Prince of Wales Island, Alaska?

 

[Hyphen]

Originally posted by Aramis:
(there were four active RPG croups at CHS in 1986-87 school year. I asked last year, and the gamers told me that there were 4 or 5 games running at lunch last school year... That CHS hhas always had 45-50 minute lunch periods helps.)

As in Craig High School, Prince of Wales Island, Alaska?

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Flynn:
I think the best people to answer your questions in regards to marketshares and such would probably be Hunter or MWM. (Steve Jackson would also be a good bet, too, I'm sure.)

Well, considering that SJG is giving serious consideration to letting its Traveller license lapse, I don't think you want to ask Steve Jackson how Traveller is doing.

 

[T. Foster]

Originally posted by daryen:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Flynn:
I think the best people to answer your questions in regards to marketshares and such would probably be Hunter or MWM. (Steve Jackson would also be a good bet, too, I'm sure.)

Well, considering that SJG is giving serious consideration to letting its Traveller license lapse, I don't think you want to ask Steve Jackson how Traveller is doing. </font>[/QUOTE]Is this based on reliable information or just wild internet speculation? And if so, would the "Interstellar Wars" project be scrapped or is that covered under a separate license (and only the "alternate history" line would be discontinued)? Although I've pretty much given up on buying new Traveller material (I decided I just don't like it as much as the Classic and MT stuff), it still warmed my heart to know new Traveller material was still being published and I'd be sad if that stopped (admittedly there's still FFE and QLI/T20, but the former is only reprints (of material I already own) and the latter, well, out of deference to our hosts I'll follow Thumper's advice...).