Is There Hope for Game Designers?

Since I’ve spent a great deal of personal time designing over two dozen board games and a pen-n-paper rpg and campaign setting over the past 30 years, and have also done a fair bit of research, talked with others about, and banged my head against the wall regarding the game industry, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the topic. (Note: This discussion is mainly regarding book-length rpg’s, not micro rpg’s, which have some, but not all of the design headaches of bigger games like D&D, Pathfinder, etc.)

It has never been easy to publish a good, successful rpg, whether you are the 800 pound gorilla, a smaller, yet established game company, or a sleepy part-time designer working from home, staying up late at night trying to churn out brilliant game mechanics and fluff. It is a Herculean project, and not for the feint at heart nor the casual gamer. Heck, it’s not even for published designers, at least not by themselves.

It’s one thing to design a good homebrew game, it’s another matter altogether, to put together a professional, quality product, publish it yourself (or through a 3rd party) and make even a little money off of it. I’ve come across a fair number of game designers over the years who have attempted to make their own roleplaying game with the hopes of getting it on the market, and some who have done so, but are now hoping to make some money doing it, but in the vast majority of the cases, things just haven’t worked out.

One game designer I ran into at GenCon several years ago had been approaching companies to pitch his rpg prototype. He was pulling his rpg along on one of those luggage dollies inside a case, and I had one of my board game designs tucked under my arm. He was well dressed and friendly, if tired and frustrated-looking. He confided in me that his wife was fed up with how much time and money they’d been spending trying to get his game on the market. He proceeded to show me a rather unimpressive, clunky-looking rpg, and said that his wife pretty much told him he didn’t need to bother coming home if he didn’t have good news. I felt horrible for him, of course, but I wasn’t entirely surprised.

The thing is, this is not your father’s pen-n-paper game industry. Heck, this isn’t even your game industry. A lot has changed since the early days and even over the last couple years, with the state of the economy and a pile of rpg’s both good and many bad, saturating the market, many of which are wasting away on shelves and in garages or are only being played by the designer and a few close friends. Even the PDF market has been shaky for rpg products.

Then there’s WotC who drastically changed D&D into something completely different, but has the same name. That caused a ripple through the industry (Some like it, some hate it, but it’s certainly not for everyone and for those of you who didn’t know this, some people hate D&D and d20 games altogether).

There’s also Paizo of course, who saw the gaping hole left behind, and came out with their own spin, trying to stick fairly close to what had been done before, hoping to snag those gamers who weren’t keen on 4E. There’s still a few successful companies out there holding their own, like Steve Jackson Games, Green Ronin and some others, but it’s not been easy. Game companies that can’t handle the heat, are altering their business plans considerably or are getting out of the business altogether. Many smaller startups already have, and over the years, there have been many, many casualties. Those that are fairly strong or have other sources of income (such as Goodman Games), are constantly monitoring the industry, reviewing various factors such as distribution, production costs, profit margins, changing fan base and other factors. Game companies, like other segments of society, are tightening their belts, carefully considering each new project and are moving forward soberly and cautiously, working very hard to stay in the game and thrive.

There are no guarantees, not for WotC, and not for the rest of us. Some seem to be doing pretty well, but many, many others never made it out of the gate, and a large number of those that did, never made it very far down the track. I am NOT saying to give up designing your own games, nor am I saying that there’s a trick to going it alone and competing with the big boys. There isn’t. Sure there’s things you can do to increase your chances of success, but the odds are stacked against you, and stacked pretty high. But if you love designing games like I do, you probably aren't about to quit.

Is it possible to overcome these problems as a part-time or even full-time, game designer working from home? And what about established game designers who are chomping at the bit to design the next cool rpg, but are no longer with a game company in this difficult industry? Game design jobs are far and few between, and often require that you've already been working with another game company, and even for a veteran game designer, there’s only so much work and money to go around.

Furthermore, even if you can somehow manage to (and actually want to) get a job with a company like WotC or Paizo, you might not be keen on working on 4E or Pathfinder, one which you may feel went a bit too far, and the other that may not have gone far enough for your tastes; is there hope for you? Is it possible to design a solid, maybe even great full-blown rpg without working for one of the big name companies? Is it easier to get hit by a falling meteor than publish your own board or rpg, and are the odds better that you’ll get hit by a meteor two days in a row, than make money off your own published game? Well, I’m not a mathematician, but as near as I can tell, and from the research I've done, the answer is almost certainly no, or at least very highly unlikely - not without a team, and that’s what this blog is about.

Why didn’t I just say that in the first line? Because I believe there are a number of game designers out there (and I used to be one of them) that believe you can do it all by your lonesome, with maybe only an artist to assist you, and if you’re lucky, a good friend with both editing talent and time, and a bunch of friends to playtest it.

You'll want to check and see if you are wearing rose-colored glasses here, because I think I was at one point, and once you've been wearing them for awhile, it's hard to understand. I can't tell you how many times I've heard game designers (and probably heard myself say), "Yeah, but this game really rocks. This one's different. It's original/unique/innovative/way better than D&D/going to change the industry forever," etc. Almost everything's been done already. The best we can hope for is to put a fresh spin on things, try to be innovative (though innovative alone doesn't cut it - it also needs to be good), and realize too that innovation is only innovation till someone else comes up with the same idea and gets it on the market first. I can't tell you how many times that's happened to me, but suffice it to say, quite a few.

It took awhile before my eyes got opened all the way, and I’m betting there are many out there who are just like I was or who are recovering from the blow of reality setting in. But with all this in mind, I’m still not ready to give up. I guess I’m stubborn that way, but I can tell you this ... no matter how good I think Cosmothea is ... if I don't have proper team support ... one day I will set it aside and tackle a different project - one that can be done alone. I think Cosmothea has great potential, but that's not good enough. I need a team of devoted designers and writers working on it.

I’ve always known I’d have to take my Cosmothea RPG through rigorous playtesting, including blind playtesting, and multiple revisions before it was ready for the market, but I no longer believe you can compete, no matter how good you are, as the sole designer/writer of a book or multi book-length rpg. You may only see one name on the cover of a rule book, but you know as well as I do that there’s always a team (sometimes a big team), working on every professional-level rpg. Now a splat book or supplement to an existing rpg, that's doable, but that's not the focus of this blog. Sure there’s the lead designer on rpg's, but without a good editor and a full team of full time game designers and writers, how can you hope to compete?

Very simply, IMO, you can’t. I know that’s a hard pill to swallow for some, but I’m pretty sure it’s dead on. I may be wrong, of course, but look around you, do some digging on the internet, and I think you’ll agree. Now smaller projects like board games, and adventure modules are still doable, but some of the same considerations are at hand. When even the big boys can’t seem to put out a book without a long list of errata and mistakes, sometimes huge mistakes, you can see how it will take many minds working on your project.

Of course, I’m not saying that you have to be full time to make it in the industry either, nor that if you were, you’d have any guarantees of success regardless of talent. There’s something to be said for timing too, and if you’ve got a religious bone in your body, for prayer as well. Interestingly, if you are working on an rpg and don’t have any products on the market yet, you are actually more resilient than many established game companies as you have little to no overhead, just blood, sweat and tears to be concerned with.

So, you can take your time and do it right – again, as part of a team, or you’ll likely never make it. There’s an exception to every rule, but just how bad do the odds have to be before you call it quits or join or form a team and do it the right way? Leave out the team and you might as well be spitting in the wind on any big rpg project.

If you are just out to have fun and don’t care if you ever get published or make a dime, you have nothing to be concerned about. There's much more to successfully publishing and actually selling your rpg than having a team (and by team, I’m of course assuming you have talented people on your team – they need not be professionals, but they do need to be talented and committed).

There are many other factors to consider as well, but this blog post has already overstayed its welcome , so perhaps we’ll tackle some of those in another blog post. I know I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve made my decision. I’m forming a team to finish development on the Cosmothea roleplaying game.

I created QT Games with the intention of producing quality rpg products and board games, starting with Cosmothea, but hopefully other products as well in the days ahead, including perhaps some of yours if all goes well and you’re interested. Those of you who have your own projects, after considering all the factors, if you still want to press on, I wish you the best of luck and hopefully you’ll be able to assemble a team of talented, enthusiastic and committed people, and do well.

Those who are interested in hearing more about the Cosmothea rpg and possibly joining the team, please contact Bob Whitely at: info @ QT-Games.com (dump the spaces and you’ll have my email address) or PM me. You can also reach me over at QT Games. I’d love to hear some of your own experiences in the game industry, research you’ve done, and your thoughts on other factors at play, such as market dynamics, purchasing habits, print vs. PDF, distribution, etc. Thanks!