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Emmett Plant Talks About the Paper-Based RPG Game Business (Video)
Emmett has a good rep as a video game music composer, and he's worked on a number of Star Trek-related projects, including the recently-released audio book, How to Speak Klingon: Essential Phrases for the Intergalactic Traveler. Emmett freely admits that he has no experience with RPG games. The closest he's come was running a major D&D meetup some years back. But he has experience and contacts developed from many years working online not only within the Star Trek community but (years ago) on Slashdot and as editor for Linux.com. And, he says, when he was a teenager he ran comic book stores. So is Emmett suited to run an RPG company? Possibly. He's actively looking for games to publish. Sales aren't going to start for six months or so, so there is no website for Arrakeen Tactical quite yet. Until there is one, you can contact Emmett about his game venture by emailing angelaATclockworkjetpack.com.
I run a profitable media production company called Clockwork Jetpack, and I've been on the business side of video games for more than the past decade. I understand your point-of-view completely, and I agree that working in a market is a hell of a lot different than *playing* in a market. For instance, working in video games makes it almost impossible for me to enjoy video games.
I like RPGs, and I've played a lot of them. Ultimately, I try to hire people smarter than I am. This means that part of my job is hiring those people, but another part of my job is keeping them interested and excited about doing stuff. If they feel like they're wasting their time, they're going to haul ass and work somewhere else.
Starting this company was a really weird way to connect a lot of them together. They like new things, they like games, they share an interest. They enjoy open-ended problems. We bounced the idea around, and here we are.