So there has been some effort on behalf of the Gaming Den recently to show how, without having the actual data, we can fairly conclusively prove that the number of sales for Fourth and Fifth edition Dungeons and Dragons were way below what Third edition had. This got me to thinking: which games are actually the most popular? Like, I know that Vampire and Champions and Shadowrun have some amount of market share, but what's on top? Is there any way we could get a comparison between all the different front runners to see who sells the most product?
Edit: excluding Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder.
Most popular RPGs?
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spongeknight
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Most popular RPGs?
Last edited by spongeknight on Tue May 05, 2015 4:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
A Man In Black wrote:I do not want people to feel like they can never get rid of their Guisarme or else they can't cast Evard's Swarm Of Black Tentacleguisarmes.
Voss wrote:Which is pretty classic WW bullshit, really. Suck people in and then announce that everyone was a dogfucker all along.
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Username17
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Current sales aren't a great indicator of popularity. RPGs can and do last for decades and there is nothing stopping people from starting a new campaign of Powers and Perils tomorrow. The big games of the 90s and 2000s sold way more than the big games of today. It's like not even a little bit close. Pathfinder has been churning along in the #1 or #2 slot for a long time, and it's still basically the tail sales from an edition that is old enough to get a driver's license.
Back when D&D and Vampire were the big noises, they each sold millions of books. No game in the teens has replicated that feat.
-Username17
Back when D&D and Vampire were the big noises, they each sold millions of books. No game in the teens has replicated that feat.
-Username17
Right now storygame filth (take this epithet with as many grains of salt as you like), taken in aggregate, your *World, your FATE et al. seem enormously popular, a very crowded bandwagon full of some truly wretched shit. Evil Hat is the big dog in this arena.
D&D whatever-the-fuck (5E, old OGL shit, and Pathfinder: 4E still seems to have a fair bit of antipathy towards it in the market, which goes to show how badly they fucked it up) is doing well. As Frank says, not as well as they were doing in the early 2000s. But well. Obviously still the major players.
The entire OSR is a small niche but a small niche full of dedicated fans throwing lots of dollars in that general direction. Also probably the only demographic in any danger of literally dying off. Like from old age. : P Anyway whatever people are buying into OSR, that pie is getting split a lot of ways. Goodman Games seems to be doing alright, and to make pretty good stuff.
Literally everything else is small potatoes. Shadowrun to me is clearly the biggest of the small potatoes, and the only one of the small potatoes big enough to mention by name. Which is a shame because SR5 is by far the worst edition of SR ever conceived of.
Of course I have to say I'm speaking anecdotally: I don't have access to sales data because fucking no one does. That said, I've been going to the major US gaming cons for the last few years trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to sell my own games. So I've been in a good position to observe trends, to assess at a glance what SEEMS to be doing well. Still, though, I'm talking about "cultural market share". Not actual market share.
Short of doing a shadowrun on every gaming company to steal their financial data, I don't know how provable any of this is.
D&D whatever-the-fuck (5E, old OGL shit, and Pathfinder: 4E still seems to have a fair bit of antipathy towards it in the market, which goes to show how badly they fucked it up) is doing well. As Frank says, not as well as they were doing in the early 2000s. But well. Obviously still the major players.
The entire OSR is a small niche but a small niche full of dedicated fans throwing lots of dollars in that general direction. Also probably the only demographic in any danger of literally dying off. Like from old age. : P Anyway whatever people are buying into OSR, that pie is getting split a lot of ways. Goodman Games seems to be doing alright, and to make pretty good stuff.
Literally everything else is small potatoes. Shadowrun to me is clearly the biggest of the small potatoes, and the only one of the small potatoes big enough to mention by name. Which is a shame because SR5 is by far the worst edition of SR ever conceived of.
Of course I have to say I'm speaking anecdotally: I don't have access to sales data because fucking no one does. That said, I've been going to the major US gaming cons for the last few years trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to sell my own games. So I've been in a good position to observe trends, to assess at a glance what SEEMS to be doing well. Still, though, I'm talking about "cultural market share". Not actual market share.
Short of doing a shadowrun on every gaming company to steal their financial data, I don't know how provable any of this is.
For a minute, I used to be "a guy" in the TTRPG "industry". Now I'm just a nobody. For the most part, it's a relief.
Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.
hogarth wrote:As the good book saith, let he who is without boners cast the first stone.
TiaC wrote:I'm not quite sure why this is an argument. (Except that Kaelik is in it, that's a good reason.)
These are games that are being discussed, presumably irrespective of whether the discussion is positive.silva wrote:Top 10 from ENWorld "Hot Roleplaying Games" of April 2015:
(Excluding D&D and PF)
1 Old School Revival (OSR)
2 FATE
3 Savage Worlds
4 World of Darkness
5 Call of Cthulhu
6 Dungeon World
7 Traveller
8 Shadowrun
9 Star Wars (Fantasy Flight Games)
10 Mutants & Masterminds / DC Adventures
I thought it was funny how they combined 160+ games under the heading "Old School Revival" to make it look more impressive.
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RelentlessImp
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I should have known that the Gamers had good reason for shunning the nameless system, the ruleset told of in strange tales but grokked by no living man, yet I defied them and went into the well-trodden books with my glasses. I alone have seen it, and that is why no other face bears such hideous lines of fear as mine; why no other man shivers so horribly when the die-roll rattles the tables. When I came upon it in the ghastly stillness of unending sleep it looked at me, chilly from the rays of a cold room amidst the bookshelf's heat. And as I returned its look I forgot my triumph at finding it, and stopped still with my horror to wait for the dawn.TiaC wrote:"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die"OgreBattle wrote:RIFTS is eternal
CoC is still shambling on as a living fossil.
How possible is it for someone to make a Lovecraft game to replace CoC without being Chaosium?
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spongeknight
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Lovecraft stuff is common domain now, right? Anyone can make a CoC game if they want, and in actual fact there are bunches of card and board games out there. So go nuts.Meikle641 wrote:How possible is it for someone to make a Lovecraft game to replace CoC without being Chaosium?
A Man In Black wrote:I do not want people to feel like they can never get rid of their Guisarme or else they can't cast Evard's Swarm Of Black Tentacleguisarmes.
Voss wrote:Which is pretty classic WW bullshit, really. Suck people in and then announce that everyone was a dogfucker all along.
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Username17
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Lovecraft is public domain. The King in Yellow is public domain. Lots of Mythos material from the 30s and before is public domain. More recent material is not. Chaosium has the rights to use the Cthonians from Lumley. So if you want to use Brian Lumley monsters, you need to get permission from Chaosium. Or from Brian Lumley himself, like I already did, because he's still alive.
Chaosium has very little that it actually owns. It owns the literal drawings (but not the designs) of these symbols:
[img]data:image/png;base64,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[/img]
So if you want to have pictures of those symbols, you have to draw them yourself or pay Chaosium money. Actually, they might even own that design of the Yellow Sign, meaning that you might only be protected in drawing it yourself if you are making parody like Nyaruko-chan. In any case, Chaosium very definitely does not own the design of the elder sign (and has no claim at all on the alternate elder sign that looks like a Romuva tree), and the name "yellow sign" for the symbol of the King in Yellow was public domain before HPL started writing, so if you want to design your own Yellow Sign like True Detective you are in the clear.
Bottom line: you can go back to the well and make whatever you want just like Chaosium did. They don't own their source material and they haven't really contributed much you'd care about appropriating. Sentai Fhtagn has almost exactly the same licenses to source material as the entirety of Call of Cthulhu.
-Username17
Chaosium has very little that it actually owns. It owns the literal drawings (but not the designs) of these symbols:
[img]data:image/png;base64,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[/img]
So if you want to have pictures of those symbols, you have to draw them yourself or pay Chaosium money. Actually, they might even own that design of the Yellow Sign, meaning that you might only be protected in drawing it yourself if you are making parody like Nyaruko-chan. In any case, Chaosium very definitely does not own the design of the elder sign (and has no claim at all on the alternate elder sign that looks like a Romuva tree), and the name "yellow sign" for the symbol of the King in Yellow was public domain before HPL started writing, so if you want to design your own Yellow Sign like True Detective you are in the clear.
Bottom line: you can go back to the well and make whatever you want just like Chaosium did. They don't own their source material and they haven't really contributed much you'd care about appropriating. Sentai Fhtagn has almost exactly the same licenses to source material as the entirety of Call of Cthulhu.
-Username17
Popping in to correct some misconceptions about (U.S.) copyright law here.FrankTrollman wrote:Lovecraft is public domain. The King in Yellow is public domain. Lots of Mythos material from the 30s and before is public domain. More recent material is not. Chaosium has the rights to use the Cthonians from Lumley. So if you want to use Brian Lumley monsters, you need to get permission from Chaosium. Or from Brian Lumley himself, like I already did, because he's still alive.
Chaosium has very little that it actually owns. It owns the literal drawings (but not the designs) of these symbols:
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So if you want to have pictures of those symbols, you have to draw them yourself or pay Chaosium money. Actually, they might even own that design of the Yellow Sign, meaning that you might only be protected in drawing it yourself if you are making parody like Nyaruko-chan. In any case, Chaosium very definitely does not own the design of the elder sign (and has no claim at all on the alternate elder sign that looks like a Romuva tree), and the name "yellow sign" for the symbol of the King in Yellow was public domain before HPL started writing, so if you want to design your own Yellow Sign like True Detective you are in the clear.
Bottom line: you can go back to the well and make whatever you want just like Chaosium did. They don't own their source material and they haven't really contributed much you'd care about appropriating. Sentai Fhtagn has almost exactly the same licenses to source material as the entirety of Call of Cthulhu.
-Username17
1. Your distinction between "drawings" and "designs" is misleading (assuming you mean "design" in the artistic sense). You can't avoid infringement just by drawing it yourself, if you're still copying the design. If you mean "design" in the literary sense, such as Derleth describing the Elder Sign, then no, Chaosium doesn't own that. If it is owned by anyone (and I don't think Lurker in the Threshold has entered the public domain, so it likely is), it's owned by Arkham House.
2. It is extremely likely, if not a certainty, that Chaosium owns that particular Yellow Sign design (the triskelion-style one), though as you mentioned (correctly), they don't own the concept of "yellow sign," which, even if it wasn't in the public domain, isn't copyrightable anyway, either as a name or a concept.
3. Parody isn't the only way you might be able to use the design anyway; parody's just a subset of fair use. It's often claimed as a defense without understanding the underlying rationale, as if "parody" is a talisman against an infringement claim that doesn't require any further elaboration. Which is inaccurate.
4. The status of the Elder Sign is tricky; I wouldn't go so far as to say that Chaosium definitely does not own it. However, there are probably a sufficient number of alternate ways to design a "warped, five-pointed star with a burning eye in the middle" that don't infringe on Chaosium's design.
The usual disclaimer: this should not be taken as legal advice, don't assume that it's completely valid, if you have any questions perhaps you might wish to consult an attorney, so on and so forth.
Last edited by Gnorman on Tue May 12, 2015 9:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
CoC 7th Ed PDF only
Yes, but Chaosium hasn't bothered with a printed version of Call of Cthulhu, 7th Edition.
Why would they?
Smeelbo
Abuser of BBCodes
Why would they?
Smeelbo
Abuser of BBCodes