[freeroleplay] Re: Opportunities for Free Gaming?
- From: Ricardo Gladwell <president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:32:26 +0000
Jamie Jensen wrote:
> I like profit. It pays well. ;-)
>
> I guess I kind of see Free Gaming as a way of eliminating the boundary
> between "for-profit" and "amateur" gaming, allowing both to grow in
> amazing ways. Maybe it's a bad way to look at it, but "for-profit"
> role-playing businesses encourage more widely useful (and more
> attractive -- we need new blood) role-playing material in more
> convenient, higher quality packaging.
I can see where you're coming from, James :)
I would argue that, according to most independent publishers out there,
professional, "for-profit" publishing is not actually profitable. On the
contrary, according to most publishers the various rising costs involved
(hiring artists, printing books, etc.) means that most publishers
struggle even to break even: that is, publishing RPGs is generally a
labour of love and, in most situations, a game has only one print run
before its publishers decide to close shop in the face of rising debts
and poor sales.
Aside: Of course, I take what many small publishers say with a pinch of
salt: after all, it is in their interests to make claims of lack of
profitability for the purposes of claiming underdog status and avoiding
criticism.
The for-profit model simply isn't working in the RPG industry any more,
and my suggestion is that the industry move to adopt an amateur,
non-profit, free-content model as a means of competing with the industry
heavy-weights, such as Wizard's of the Coast and White Wolf, and
ensuring the longer-term survival of smaller gaming concerns.
But, I think a free-content, "amateur" outlet, such as the FRPGC, could
produce the kind of accessible, high quality products you see published
by various professional outlets - perhaps, through means of an open
development process, they can create higher quality products. Similarly,
by claiming non-profit, charitable status, money for artwork, design,
etc. can be gathered by a process of donations, contributions and grants.
>>I was thinking about starting a publishing company for the FRPGC which
>>would create cheap, quality hard-copy RPG books for retail in shops and
>>sale on-line. Profits would be driven back into the FRPGC to fund the
>>development of other books, purchasing free-content rights for artwork,
>>etc. I was going to publish FRINGE through this method. Sound like a
>>good idea?
>
> Sounds good to me. Hard copies are always better than PDFs.
I also think such a project would be worthwhile. I'd be interested in
ideas for forming such an organisation to start collecting donations so
that we can then start putting together some financing for a small,
publishing project. I think the FRPGC would have to form itself as some
sort of legal entity before it can do things like claim copyright over
works and request charitable status. Anyone have any knowledge of this?
Kind regards...
--
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free Roleplaying Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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