In this thread, Dancey repeats a contention he made some time back after leaving WotC. That RPGs as we know them are dead. MMORPGs are taking over, they have vast growth and are improving constantly. In contrast RPGs are a shrinking market.
At its core, there's nothing new here. Dancey see's sales figures and new technology and much like many before him thinks that grants him insights that never occurred to others. Like those who said TV would replace books... oh wait, books are still around and sell well enough to have made Amazon into a Internet power house. Well, maybe its cars and horses. That one did take a common item and reduce it to a niche (if a niche that people still spend a good amount of money on). But this isn't really the point I want to make.
The point is the rather strange justification he gives for believing this. He takes the WotC study on Gamer Segmentation and tries to mold it into matching his opinion. You see he thinks that two of the five player types are the ones leaving RPGs for MMORPGs because in his mind, it makes sense. He feels the goals of those two groups (Power Gamers and Character Actors) are better met by MMORPGs, and thus this is the major drive for the drop in the RPG market.
He's said this same thing before, but what makes this thread more interesting than before is a slip he makes on post #49.
The MMO was too embryonic for us to study it in 1999. I wish I had the money to repeat the survey today though...
In this one throw away comment Dancey admits something critical. He has no data that actually indicates this true. He's just making it up, much like anyone else online who is gazing into their crystal ball and telling us the future of the hobby.
Except that in so doing, he's asking us to change that hobby into something completely different. One that is based upon GNS and Story-Gaming offerings that don't support the missing player types at all.
In doing this, he runs counter to two very important findings from in the original study. From the link speaking of the Study:
In other words, even the players who enjoy a "Tactical Focus" still want to be challenged to use Strategic Thinking; likewise, even the Combat Focus player wants a Strong Character and Exciting Story.And
We also found no additional segmentation based on what games people identified as their "favorite"; in other words, there are just as many Power Gamers as there are Storytellers who like Vampire, and just as many Thinkers as Character Acters who like D&D.
Both of these indicate that not only is Dancey acting without data, he's acting against what data he originally collected. Bad business, and worst science.
Why is he doing this? Beats me, I'm not a mind reader. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's more ego driven than anything. D&D is shrinking, MMORPGs are growing- and it would be cool to be the man who explains why and offers a vision for the future. If he's right, he's golden. If he fails, well he's no more forgotten than he is now is he?
But if he's making wild unfounded guesses, I can play the game too. I'd put money that a repeat of the study done today would produce the same results (if fewer gamers).
Why then the drop in the RPG market and the growth in MMORPGs? Here's my wild guess
- The OGL weakened the primary RPG brand making it one of many.
- The OGL to a significant extent prevented the original owner from driving new versions or its future (as old versions remain supported)
- The 4th edition of D&D was poor design
- Most RPGs are poor design
- MMORPGs are quick and easy, and quick and easy wins out over a hobby hit by the above four factors
- There would be a natural migration to MMORPGs from those who previously played RPGs due to common factors. These include the fact that RPG gamers have always consider the overhead high, many have lost their groups, etc. Switching to a MMORPG is just easier than dealing with those issues.
- Just like more kids watch TV and movies than read books, more kids will be playing MMORPGs than RPGs. This should be expected.
IMO, it will continue as a smaller hobby even unto the days of holodecks. Sort of like books (even if they're all on a Kindle).
So who's right? Me or Dancey?
The only way to tell is for the hobby to go whole hog for Dancey's suggestions. If it dies, then we know he was wrong.
Oh wait, Dancey's accounted for even this. He suggests that by 2020 (only ten years) MMORPGs will reach the point where they able to meet all RPG goals. So in the time it would take for his theory to kill gaming, it will have died anyway. So he can't be proven wrong if his idea is accepted.
In the end he's not offering a new vision or path- just something that can make him a few bucks before the whole things dies. And if it doesn't die, well he'll still make a few bucks on the side if enough people buy into his predictions.
How cute.
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17 comments:
Great post.
"He suggests that by 2020 (only ten years) MMORPGs will reach the point where they able to meet all RPG goals."
I think he's wrong here, too. But then I don't believe that the internet can completely replace actual face-to-face social interaction. I maintain that the simple act of gathering in a circle and looking people in the eye still has value. The holiday season pretty much proves my point. How many folks teleconference their Christmas celebrations? Sure, soldiers overseas might phone in their Christmas but in general people value getting the tribe together, even when the don't much like the other members.
And if face-to-face interaction was as unimportant as Mr. Dance seems to assume we would have stopped have conventions a long time ago. What is a site like RPGnet but a nonstop virtual convention?
I agree that he's wrong about how quickly MMORPG techology and design will advance. That 2020 date reminds me of the moonbases and flying cars of past fortune tellers. People always think things will happen quicker than they do.
Oh, we'll likely get there. But it won't be quite like we imagine in either effect or outcome. And I'll (old man than I am) will likely be dead by then. It's nothing to plan my gaming around.
I think the one thing we must keep in mind about Mr. Dancey is that he's a business man- with something to sell. He'd likely like that to be a good product, but a bad one that he can convince you is good will work just as well.
His posts in that rpgsite thread remain me greatly of a salesman or politican always staying on message. He's good at it, if one doesn't look behind the curtain.
Taking his statements at face value, I would have to conclude that he doesn’t play RPGs and possibly never did. Or—at least—he never found the magic that makes them worthwhile. Only someone looking at data instead of playing can assume that MMORPGs will meet all RPG goals at anytime. It really has nothing to do with technology.
I can believe that the RPG industry might effectively die. Even in my lifetime. But not the hobby. In the last year I’ve seen new players—from 10 to 40—find interest in this hobby. Even in the face of the best the supposed competition has to offer. That has renewed my faith that its end is not at hand.
Dancey completely ignores the aspect of exploration. The ability to create whole worlds, full of life and color, at a speed that would make the programmers and designers of the most potent procedural generators weep, is not to be dismissed. It is this that got me hooked as a kid, and brings me back to it time and again.
Dancey's basic point--that MMOs stole away large segments that used to be TRPG loyalists, and that it is better to make new/revised TRPGs that better cater to the remainder--is sound. As usual, the specifics are the sticking points that complicate things.
I think that moving to a West Marches model as the default mode of campaign play, focused upon the exploration of an unknown frontier, as was once commonplace is in fact the solution.
Your post is absolutely spot on. Good stuff, Brian.
While I agree with what you say overall about Dancey, I don't follwo your point about this quote:
We also found no additional segmentation based on what games people identified as their "favorite"; in other words, there are just as many Power Gamers as there are Storytellers who like Vampire, and just as many Thinkers as Character Acters who like D&D.
After all, the general agreement is that D&D and Vampire are "generalist" games that work well for everyone. Probably by not being too specialized to begin with, but also by being easily customizable.
We don't have data that say exactly why the RPG market is shrinking. But if the overall balance of "player types" in the remaining market is changing, then I think it would make sense to rebalance the game as well, so that it sits on the new center of gravity.
However even if you take all that as given, Dancey's initial forays into a proposed rebalancing of D&D didn't really have anything to justify them. He just assumed that Forgey mechanics would be naturally attractive to some of his "clusters". I doubt very much that they are. If you tested them on the remaining existing market, you'd probably see the clusters "segment" along loving & hating them. And there's no data whatsoever on the potential market (that is, non-gamers).
Dancey's second go is more promising, but it's a bunch of reinventing the wheel--basically dialing back the level of tactical detail required to play D&D to levels last found, I'd guess, in RC and core 2e, and encouraging a less railroady style of DMing.
Elliot Wilen said...
I think what that quote is saying is that the system focus doesn't in the end alter it's player makeup. It can be a highly tactical game like HERO or GURPS, or it can be a lite system like Fudge. All well have the same percentage of players types.
The quote only references D&D and Vampire because at the time they were the top- and were viewed very differently by the hobby. But the data covered other games and no exception to this was noted.
As to why this is the case- See this post from a year ago:
http://whitehall-paraindustries.blogspot.com/2009/10/equilibrium-of-complexity.html
So there is no 'center' as such. There is only a style and level of detail that appeals to the largest percentage of gamers. This used to be D&D, but that may be fading...
I should be a bit more clear...
Basically for some people Fudge is all the tactical detail they need and/or can use. Thus they play Fudge for their tactical fix. Others may require GURPS for D&D 4th.
It's like the difference between players of checkers and players of chess. They are alike in the study, but have vastly different games even so.
Where do you get that other games (or which other games) were covered? Did I miss something? Otherwise for all I know, all they asked about were D&D, Vampire (their major competitor), and a couple other games like Palladium and Shadowrun.
They didn't offer the breakdown, but the study was in 1999 when games like GURPS and HEROs were part of the market.
It would be incomplete if it didn't cover such major titles, and thus grounds to dismiss the whole study. Obivious and clear grounds.
So I assume that they were there, even if not mentioned directly in the high level summary.
About your other comment, I see what you're saying, but without knowing which games they asked about in the study, I don't see how we can use it to support that conclusion.
So without reference to the study, while I can appreciate that "lite" tactical gamers might choose a "lite" tactical game while "heavy storytellers" might use the same game, I doubt that the "lite" tactical gamers will play long campaigns in that mode--because as you suggest, they'll quickly exhaust the tactical possibilities. At that point, they'll either move on to another activity entirely, or they'll start to enrich their play by focusing on the non-tactical elements of the campaign.
Heavier tactical games can maintain interest in tactical play longer, and they don't preclude focusing on other elements of play unless the tactical detail uses up too much time. (Note, this is a product of both the speed of the tactical system, and how often the group likes to do stuff that requires using it.) But if there's a high learning curve or maintenance cost, then I think people would prefer to avoid that.
Finally, I think it's wrong to even suppose that each "type" of play would demand more complexity in the areas of interest to it. You're not saying that, but you're arguing against that (rather Forgey) claim. In my opinion, most people aren't interested in complex social mechanics, even if they're playing a game that focuses more on social interaction than on combat. This can be problematic, since it's harder to get "bite" on an element of play without some mechanical support, but I think it's a fundamental asymmetry of RPGing.
The upshot is that I believe if there's less interest in combat & tactics, and more interest in storytelling or character acting (or whatever buzzword), then the right game-design response is more to dial down the complexity (or should I say required complexity) of combat than it is to dial up the complexity of other stuff.
Good to see you Gleichman, you always post good stuff. I agree with you. Though I do think that Tabletop RPG's have evolved past the tabletop in some ways - though they are still horribly simple. People game over e-mail, and over instant messanger, and some even attempt to game over visual chats like Second Life and such. These things may or may not enhance the experience, but they do help in removing certain barriers to entry that TT games might have. (No players in immediate area, nowhere favorable to hold a game etc...)
MMO's have greater accessibility and thus they will always have a greater consumer base, but they don't offer the same experience. (Your horse vs car example was pretty awesome btw.) Though I think that TTRPG's have and always will influence computer games and drive innovation, so really, in that arena TTRPG's aren't as dead as Dancey's trumped up stats would indicate.
I do wonder though if he knows something that we don't. He's working for CCP now, and they're working on a World of Darkness MMO. Which I admit gives him an interesting perspective in that he's working for a company that absorbed a major RPG publisher, and is now developing their primary game line into an MMO. CCP is also pretty much the only MMO developer that has successfully delivered any sort of innovation in gameplay in the past 10 years, so there is the off chance that they might be doing something that could be a game changer... maybe. It would be nice anyways.
Oh wait, Dancey's accounted for even this. He suggests that by 2020 (only ten years) MMORPGs will reach the point where they able to meet all RPG goals.
Neverwinter Nights I was the closest software that allowed traditional tabletop gaming with MMORPG technology. This was due to DM Mode where a player can become a god like DM and create things on the fly and even take over directly individual monsters and NPCs.
And it had major issues that are still present today.
The major limitation is content flexibility. The palette of object and tiles were a lot but did not even begin to cover the range of possibilities that a DM uses in a campaign. If it wasn't in the palette then you need specialized technical knowledge to produce it. I.e. be capable of using 3D Modelling software.
And you need to be knowledgeable of NWN beyond a normal user to use such customized content.
The advancement that Ryan Dancey are only going to make the situation worse. First of all easy tools to create 3D Content lags behind the bleeding edge. Look at the difficulty of making custom content for NWN 2 over NWN 1.
Second MMORPG company at best going to be highly restrictive on custom content. Unless another NWN comes along.
All of this means that MMORPG are going to be their own "thing'. Like LARPS are their own "thing". And tabletop will remain their own "thing" as well.
Elliot Wilen As is typical, you make good points.
I think we're on the same page with respect to complexity (i.e. that it matters more to the tactical player than it does the social or story player).
There is however at least something of a complexity dail even there. I refuse to use any mechanics aimed at 'story' or 'role-playing'. Others add CoC Sanity and others require a DitV approach.
But that's still minor compared to the wide range of tactical complexity you can bring to a game.
As for players moving on with the more story-focused games, IME that's exactly what they do. And they do it often. I think it's almost a requirement of the mindset. I don't see that as changing, and as a result I don't ever see a story focused game lasting long enough to become a new "D&D" in relation to the market.
Helmsman:
Dancey does have access to good information at CCP that I wish I had. He knows their sales in the MMORPG realm, and he likely would have access to the WoD RPG world as well.
But all he has is sales figures. They'd need to repeat the study to get more data than that- and that is not the claim he's making.
As for EVE Online, I judge it as one of the worst MMORPGs out there. It's market share is low (but loyal) and the type of players it attracts are those who were pushed out of the rest of the market (Player Killers to use the proper term).
The very thing that people think has destroyed the TRPG is actually what has saved it.
The industry is nose diving straight into the ground by trying to tell people what to play. Numbers that WotC have admitted to is that they went from 24 million players to 1.5 million players.
Meanwhile, the hobby is stronger than ever, being propelled by the OSR and OGL/CC licensing scene via the Internet.
Has anyone looked at Eclipse Phase? That may be the single best new kid on the block and the quality and production is mind blowing.
The OSR is growing everyday. The Swords & Wizardry Complete launch the other day just proves that the hobby has a lot of life in it.
If I ever thought it was dead it was in the mid-late 90's when everything went dark.
Now, the sky's the limit and I don't know about the rest of you guys but I'm having a blast! :)
Brian, I just want to note that there is some data on the games people were playing (according to the survey), since we talked about that further up in the comments here: http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html
Here are the numbers:
D&D: 66%
Vampire: The Masquerade: 25%
Star Wars: 21%
Palladium: 16%
Werewolf: The Apocalypse: 15%
Shadowrun: 15%
Star Trek: 12%
Call of Cthulu: 8%
Legend of the Five Rings: 8%
Deadlands: 5%
Alternity: 4%
GURPS: 3%
I'm not sure how that relates to the "no segmentation by game system" issue.
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