Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for September 28th, and the episode title is “It’s just a game versus search foo”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #255]
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Tin Star Games won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.
Steve Dee teaches classes to people who want to be successful game designers. I thought I might as well ask him what the answer was, and while he says that those publishers need to define success for themselves, he also points out that these days, people can get good games for free.
You can read the whole interview on the blog but the “for free” is a good point well made and it hovers over this episode as it does tabletop industry economics.
Since it’s nearly the end of the month let’s recap who might be in the RPG Publisher Spotlight next month. They are;
Patrons get to vote and can do so on the Geek Native Patreon page.
There’s more Patreon news, too. It’s a good one, as we have a Patreon gift to give away. Thanks to Cannon Otter Studio, current patrons and anyone who joins in the next day or so will get a free digital copy of Teenage Oddyssey.
Teenage Oddyssey is a Mark of the Odd game where you play a young teen in the 90s having wild adventures.
There’s another reason why we’ve been writing about Cannon Otter Studios this week, and that’s Skin City.
Skin City is another Mark of the Odd game, and it’s about a world where the last few humans live in isolated cities. There’s one city where a skeleton cult from outside the walls tries to infiltrate it, and in Skin City, player characters are those skeletons. In meat suits, your PCs will try to infiltrate human civilisation.
Skin City is coming to Kickstarter, and the alert page is live.
https://www.geeknative.com/168740/ars-magica-rpg-embraces-open-license-through-crowdfunding/In more mundane, but perhaps just as unexpected news, Ars Magica is probably going creative commons.
The deluxe edition of this important game is also heading to crowdfunding, and if stretch goals are met, albeit early ones, then both the world and rules will move to ShareAlike 4.0 licenses.
Why is Ars Magica important? It introduces troupe play, with different types of PCs for different games and time spans.
Sticking with RPG surprises, let’s talk about Titmouse. Okay, that’s a weird brand name but you might have heard of it. The company is an animation studio, and they’ve done some famous shows, including Vox Machina.
Titmouse has announced that they’ll publish their own RPG. It’s a drinking game. It’s called Drunkards, Druggies, & Delinquents. Characters are powered, or enabled, by their vices.
Well, I never!
In more sober news, last week I did some research and concluded that 2024 D&D did not look like a great sales success. I could point at mixed reviews with Amazon ratings around 3.5/5. I could point at some sales trend data such as the badge system on DMsGuild and Amazon UK’s best selling league.
I did say it was a bit early to tell, though.
Wizards of the Coast released a press release to say that D&D 2024 Player’s Handbook was the best selling D&D book in history.
Okay, I’ll admit I made a mistake. Last week’s podcast’s title was based on me making a mistake. It feels appropriate.
There’s maybe just one gotcha, written up by Tabletop Gaming News and based on research by Roll For Combat is that BookScan a data provider for official publishing sales volume, D&D 2024’s Player’s Handbook has sold fewer than 4,000 copies. The 2014 Player’s Handbook sold 500 copies in the same week.
Okay, it’s possible and likely that Wizards of the Coast are counting D&D Beyond sales. Only they know those. Furthermore, Wizards of the Coast, part of Hasbro, are a listed company with shareholders. It’s no small thing for them to mislead markets. I suspect they can back up those record-breaking sales volume numbers in the Player’s Handbook. They’re not lying.
Whether they’re satisfied with physical book sales volume is another matter. I also see that review stars are creeping upwards; the last time I looked at Amazon UK, the Player’s Handbook was up at 4/5 stars.
It’s still early days.
This story, so much of it rooted in desk research and my search foo skills, is the first touch on today’s title. Search foo is like Kung foo but with more Google.
Here’s another story from this week when my search foo let me down. The news is that the ENNIES have a hall of fame and the first RPG to list in it is Dungeons & Dragons.
All this makes sense. I think the hobby is old enough to have a Hall of Fame, and the ENNIES, which are independent and held at Gen Con, is a strong candidate to run it.
My eyebrows quirked at this phrase in the press release from the ENNIES, which reads;
The ENNIEs are pleased to induct Dungeon and Dragons into the ENNIE Award Hall of Fame! Dungeons & Dragons is more than just a game; it’s a cultural phenomenon that has sparked imaginations and created a community of storytellers, adventurers, and dreamers for nearly half a century.
In particular, “more than just a game” stands out to me because I’m sure I’ve read that very phrase used by Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro officials in some interviews and articles recently.
I couldn’t dig up those articles for the podcast, so perhaps I’m imagining it. Even if I’m not, it is no crime for the ENNIES to have collaborated with Wizards of the Coast’s PR team to get the language right. No crime but a little, well, lacking in independence.
My main grumble is that it’s nonsense. D&D is just a game. It’s still a vital organ in a community of storytellers and a cultural phenomenon. Still, it’s not a kidney transplant, a code of ethics for judges, a bill of equal rights or nuclear fusion. D&D is not worth crying over. It is just a game. In my opinion, it’s unhealthy to suggest otherwise.
Okay, shall I get off my soapbox and move on with the news? I shall and I’ll tell you what I’m getting up early on my Sunday morning for. It’s a cultural phenomenon, thirty years old and has well over 270 million copies sold worldwide.
I’m going to see Case Closed. That manga and anime series is also known as Detective Conan, and this weekend, Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram is on at cinemas. The feature-length is the best-selling film of the year in Japan, where it spent six weeks at number one and sold more than 10 million tickets.
Weirdly, it’s a Chinese sponsorship deal that’s taking the series to the big screen for the first time in the UK. I’ll see it anyway. Sorry to say, I doubt I’ll find time for a review, but you never know.
Bronwen has spent the week prepping for another art exhibition, and opening said exhibition but still found time to share some trailers and a cracking review of Michelangelo.
We are, of course, talking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In particular, we’re talking about a Holdem figure that she took to the art studio and put to the task of looking after Apple AirPods, pencils, yarn, and even an acetate slide.
I think we can all conclude that artists have a load of stuff in their studios!
There are no bundles from us this week but there are two more headlines to mention and the first is a new one. On the blog we’re serialising the first three chapters of Entromancy: Book One of the Nightpath Trilogy.
That’s a fantasy cyberpunk story set in the same world as the 5e-powered Entromancy TTRPG. If you’re an audiobook fan like me, there’s even a sample of the story on DriveThruFiction, which is in audio form. You need to head to Amazon to get the entire book, though.
Lastly, and as a heads up, Modiphius have released the Discworld: Adventures in Ankk-Morpork quickstart and it’s free.
It’s the first taste of the new rule system created for the game and there’s a oneshot included in which you’ll be saving dragons.
On that note, it’s only a podcast, and see you next week.
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