A blog about hobby gaming, in particular tabletop RPGs.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Future of the Hobby
There are always a lot of debates about where the RPG hobby is headed. Is it slowly dying out? Is there new blood joining the fold of gamers? Are video games replacing in person games? My quick take is that there will always be people who play tabletop RPGs and there will always be a high degree of overlap between those who play in person with those who enjoy video games, in particular games played online. The real factor here is the shared social experience. From an industry perspective though, I feel as if RPGs are going to fall into two categories: a collection of companies with well supported, high quality physical products with online support tools and a whole lot of fan generated, free or inexpensive PDF products. I think in both cases there will be an overall improvement in the quality and quantity of material, it's just the number of books you'll find in brick and mortar stores will gradually decline except for a few titles from big companies.
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For the most part, tabletop RPG hobbyists are a unique, fiercely loyal and very vocal demographic. All have their opinions about game titles that they love or hate or even just different editions of games they love or hate, haha. The point is that you'll never please all of them all of the time. The goal for companies producing games now days should be to make them as accessible as possible in the hope that you'll attract a new flock to the hobby while still maintaining your existing base. There is no doubt that it's an entirely different landscape from the mid-70's when our hobby was in it's infancy. I don't envy designers the task of keeping the uber- electronic and continuously plugged-in kids of today interested.
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