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State of the Pen and Paper Industry
Syberghost writes "Kenneth Hite's annual 'State of the Industry' report has been released in his online column Out of the Box for gamer news site http://www.gamingreport.com. Among other interesting bits; Margaret Weis Productions is the sixth-largest RPG maker, on the sales of their sole RPG product line, the Serenity RPG. Sales overall were down, again; the RPG industry as a whole isn't doing well." Sad but not surprising.
I'm a big fan of the GURPS game system, but everyone around here just wants to play D&D. I bought two new basic set biooks, but they just sit there.
The big, glossy, expensive games may not be doing so well. And if you're taking total revenue as a measure of health then maybe the paper&pencil gaming scene isn't doing so well. As the subject says, meh. A drop in Britney Spears sales does not indicate a crisis in music.
What TFA mostly failed to mention was the extraordinary progress in indie RPG design over the last few years. The indies may not be raking in money hand over fist, but that hasn't stopped them creating some very good games (Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard and Matt Wilson's Primetime Adventures, f'rinstance) and, more importantly, getting a solid theoretical handle on what RPGs are about and how they work. What Lajos Egri did for playwriting and Robert McKee did for screenwriting, these guys are doing for RPGs. I've been following the industry since the early 1980s, and the last few years have been a real eyeopener. No, the GM is not God. Yes, system does matter. No, throwing together a huge heap of rules and expecting fun to magically fall out is not going to cut it.