Levels of Competition

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by S. John Ross at 2000-04-17 07:53:43
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"Most will fold when they realize they just aren't profitable enough to sustain that level of competition."

===>

First off, nice article. I love RPGnet, but the amount of belaboring-the-obvious that the other columnists indulge in turns me off. But you can always count on Sandy to shoot straight and write well ...

The line above concerns me, though, since I hold it as an axiom that the One Big Mistake that ANY venture in the RPG racket can make is to consider themselves "in competition" with anybody.

In short, I feel that the opposite is true - that the appetite of the consumer in this hobby is always - MUST always be - greater than any one company, or website, or author or designer can feed. And as a result, it behooves us to constantly aid and abet "the competition."

Now, I've always known that this attitude (like most others I hold) nets me funny looks from my colleagues, many of whom are downright paranoid, let alone cooperative, but I always got a much more cooperative vibe from RPGnet in the past. Was I just misreading things?

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Guy McLimore at 2000-04-17 09:27:57
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S. John Ross wrote:
-------------------------------
>... I hold it as an axiom that the One Big Mistake that ANY venture
>in the RPG racket can make is to consider themselves "in
>competition" with anybody.

I think that on one level all of us in this end of the gaming racket are competing for a limited pool of dollars and attention, and if you are going to be in business you have to recognize that fact. But I think that it is even more important that we realize we are competing as a group with a LOT of other pasttimes who want those same dollars and attention. Most notable among these are console video games and computer-based games, which strike right at our core audience.

Yes, as an adventure game publisher MicroTactix Games is competing with Steve Jackson Games, Wizards of the Coast, West End, Guardians of Order, Inner City, Crunchy Frog, Cheapass, etc. Even so, all of these companies have projects that I have nothing but good wishes for, and people at all of these firms have been exceedingly nice to us as an RPG industry startup. Why?

Aside from the fact that all of us are GAMERS who like to see good games hit the market because we want to PLAY those games, there are other very good reasons why most game companies have no problem boosting and helping along each other's works in the market. It's good business to do so.

First of all, the more people and money we can attract to face-to-face (and I include internet RPG play as face-to-face) adenture gaming, the bigger the pool of money will be for all concerned. That is why I applaud all efforts to increase the size of the adventure game market, from intro-level outreaches like WotC's Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game to concepts like the Open Gaming Foundation to genre-embracing products like Guardians of Order's Sailor Moon products which are selling heavily to young anime fans who ahve not previously been gamers. Every successful effort of this type grows the pool of potential customers, and is worthy of support and promotion by ALL of us.

Most companies realize this, which is why members of groups like GAMA and the GPA share information and good advice so freely with one another, and why good games from ANY publisher get publicly and freely lauded by industry professionals who are always happy to see someone in the industry do well.

Secondly, supporting each other builds a stronger sense of community -- one which benefits anyone who is seen to participate in it. If PYRAMID magazine (just as a f'rinstance) which is owned by Steve Jackson Games only gave good reviews to games from their own company, their credibility in the community would be shot, and their status in that community would suffer. As it stands, PYRAMID has been an enthusiastic booster of good games from companies large and small. That not only reflects well on PYRAMID, it reflects well on SJGames.

That spirit of community is VERY important because we ARE in a highly competitive market. I want people to see our brand of adventure gaming as an attractive alternative to the bigger and better-promoted alternatives they have in console games, computer games, etc. All of us together can make a far bigger splash than if we are all working at cross-purposes, squabbling over small crusts of bread.

Finally, it is to our benefit to promote as much diversity as possible because such diversity tends to come back around and benefit us directly in the long term. Cheapass Games is a great example. James Ernest and crew had a solid concept that went completely against the "conventional wisdom" of what "worked" in the game business. He produced good games, though, and the word spread. Some of what helped it spread were other companies and professionals who looked at this stuff and talked it up to gamers and distributors. "Hey, have you seen what these people are doing? It's really great!" In turn, James and his company created a recognized market niche for small, low-cost games that no one had previously been able to exploit -- one that many other companies have followed him into. In turn, James and crew have been generous with THEIR advice, support and praise, further encouraging the diversity.

There are a few grumblers who spend too much time putting down their peers and not enough making their own products shine, but they are exceptions in our industry, not the rule. I think many in the RPG side spent too much effort at CCG bashing (and vice-versa) and it cost us all. The spirit there is changing, though, and it is all to the good.

The adventure game industry is a small market, and it behooves us to help it grow in any way we can. I intend to be as big a part of that growth effort as I can -- and to support all good efforts in that direction -- because it is good business for MicroTactix Games, and it is good for me as a game enthusiast. And I know for a fact that Sandy agrees with that because we are (as he mentioned in a recent PYRAMID chat) partners in an effort that is making new moves to assist both startups and existing companies in our field. More about that very soon.

Overall, it is a great time to be in the adventure gaming market. And it is only going to get better.


Guy McLimore / guymc@microtactix.com
MicroTactix Games
http://www.microtactix.com

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by S. John Ross at 2000-04-17 23:37:31
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I think that on one level all of us in this end of the gaming racket are competing for a limited pool of dollars and attention, and if you are going to be in business you have to recognize that fact.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I agree with the spirit of your post, Guy, but the above line I disagree with partially.

I don't think in terms of that "limited pool." I think quality makes its own market. When TSR released Marvel Superheroes, it drew in dollars that had nothing to do with the existing "pool." When White Wolf came out with Vampire, same deal. Heck, they opened up their own reservoir. Neither of these were "first to market," really, since they didn't sell to the existing market. They created new ones, just as D&D did back in the beginning. It was first "to the market" (the wargame market), but it wasn't the wargame market that made D&D a hit.

Further, the spirit of community you spoke of genuinely _increases_ the size of the existing pool, as well as making it easier to create new pools entirely. Which, again, you also seem to agree with.

Now, of course, when Brand X TSR Ripoff prints out five hundred copies of "Dungeons of the Ugly Wizard, for characters of Level 3-5 of No Game In Particular, Honest It's For Any Fantasy Game," then yeah, they're trying to take part of the D&D pie.

And I certainly concede that there is a _theoretical_ limit to the ultimate size of all the pools put together. Not everybody wants to roleplay, and even if they did, there's a finite number of humans and a finite number of dollars to begin with.

Where I believe I depart from conventional thinking is the common (as I percieve it) belief that the adventure game market is anywhere near it's potential size. I think, rather, that even at the height of the mid-1980s D&D boom, it wasn't there.

Now, I don't know what the real limit is. I just know how many newbies I personally teach to game each year, and how enthusiastic they are, and how many of them never - honestly, never - had any idea the hobby existed before. And I'm just one guy. One energetic, very social guy, but just one.

And they're my customers, now.

So, what this boils down to is "Yes, it's a limited pool. But I don't feel the industry is anywhere NEAR those limits. And as a result, we're still at a stage of infancy, where competitive business models serve no good function, and where a minute spent enhancing the sense of community has, by contrast, dozens of very real and very concrete benefits. The kind you can take to the bank as well as the gaming table."

Or, if you don't buy THAT, at least that the minute spent on building community will get you FAR better dividends than spending that same minute darting your eyes left and right, making sure nobody's trying to muscle in on your turf.

This isn't to say we shouldn't compete on a CREATIVE level, of course :) I think we should always build on each others' successes and learn from our flops, and peer over one another's shoulders to try to outdo the other. But, honest and for true, I think that the naive ones are those who do business as if they had competitors.

But anyway, I KNOW I'm in the minority on this. But I also know I'm not alone ... WotC felt this way when they loaned Steve Jackson Games a pile of cash to get INWO off the ground. That move, and those like it, helped cement the legitimacy of the CCG, to give the market they'd created a keel and ballast (I leave it to the tastes of those reading to decides which games were "keel" and which were just "ballast!"). And everybody gained. There are other examples.

Including mine. This year I'm barreling deeper and deeper into selling things directly instead of to publishers, and I'll be risking literally _months_ of solid work-time on new ventures. And I guarantee you I'll be smiling all the way to the bank.

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Sandy Antunes at 2000-04-18 09:38:53
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Hi,

I do think there is competition. Two kinds, in fact. I'll cover it from RPGnet's perspective. For those who want to skip my usual verbosity, it summarizes as "the basic resource we're competiting for is 'free time', a malleable pool that increases as each competitor's quality increases."

<hr>

Friendly Competition

Pyramid Online, for example, is what I'd call "technically, a competitor". Which is to say that we're both in the same industry and thus, in a pure business sense, we're 'competitors' for the precious resource of "Our reader's time", without actually competiting in how we operate (else, why would they have invited me to do a chat, and why would I have accepted? Yay, Pyramid!)

Time isn't finite, nor quite limited. If Pyramid has a good week of content and we also have a good week of content, readers of both aren't going to skimp on either of us. So they make time to read both.

If either of us sucks on a given week, similarly, the sucky site won't get read independent of whether their competitors were up to snuff. So far, this indicates no real competition for time.

But... readers in general will only mentally subscribe (i.e. regularly visit) a number of sites equal to the amount of time they on average feel they can spend. So the buy-in for additional sites to become part of that precious "must visit" subset gets higher as more quality sites appear.

Thus being a great site can result in readers "making time" for you. There is a hard limit, though... most people will only flag a limited number of sites as 'must visit' before their brain explodes.

Ergo, we're competitors for being people's "favorite site".

<hr>

Ruthless Competition

There's a second class of website, that I'll call direct competitors. These are not so much fun for us. They are the folks who decide to do the exact same thing we do. And when I talk exact, in some cases that's included ripping off our content and passing it off as their own.

This is where being one of the top sites makes you a target. In such cases, their primary goal is to gain an audience by appropriating ours.

This type of competition generally consists of finding either a weakness in the 'source site', or else finding a new unexploited direction that can provide differentiation. We'll call those "predatory" and "evolutionary" models.

A 'predator' would be, for example, a site that said, "Hey, your site does News and Reviews weekly. I'll do News and Reviews daily!" If that's their sole differentiation, you can see how there'd be competition for an existing news-and-reviews hungry audience.

An 'evolution' may be, for example, 'Hey, RPGnet doesn't cover CCGs; if I add that, we'll be bigger and better than them and become the favorite site of more people". This is the usual way business progresses, and typically the two sites are fighting to be the fav of the same audience.

Side point-- this can often lead to friendly competition as sites evolve (particularly as a 'subtle' addition like adding CCGs would change the audience mix and hence the nature of the site enough that it likely would evolve away from being a clone site and establish its own focus and identity.

<hr>

Anyway, these are also known as "mumble mumble" and "zero sum" models (forgive my inexactness). I don't think the RPG market is a zero sum field and hence most competition can, indeed, grow the market and let all succeed. But there are mumble-mumble types out there who are less interested in making something new, and more interested in branding an existing concept as their own.

And when that happens-- when someone takes your great idea and starts to run with it-- you're in a race. And that's competition. It has all the energy-sapping effort of "anything you can do, I can do better". No fun.

But the joy of the industry is when someone comes up with their own way-cool concept, and you can think "Wow, that is soooo amazing" without also coveting it. That's what I love. And that's when you'll see one company say "Hey, wanna try this really cool game we're releasing at GenCon" and hear the response from their nominal competitors of "Yes, we wanna play it!".

So when a predator appears, you gotta deal with it. But the rest of the time, we'd rather play than compete, and we tend to associate with folks who feel likewise.

Sandy
sandy@rpg.net

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by S. John Ross at 2000-04-18 10:16:15
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Well, I agree with all of that.

I guess the part of the editorial that set off alarm bells is that my own philosophies lead me to exactly the same conclusions, for what I feel are entirely different reasons.

But, same conclusions and all of that :)

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Guy McLimore at 2000-04-18 10:17:14
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S. John Ross says:
>Yes, it's a limited pool. But I don't feel
>the industry is anywhere NEAR those limits.
>And as a result, we're still at a stage of
>infancy, where competitive business models
>serve no good function, and where a minute
>spent enhancing the sense of community has,
>by contrast, dozens of very real and very
>concrete benefits. The kind you can take to
>the bank as well as the gaming table."

>Or, if you don't buy THAT, at least that the
>minute spent on building community will get
>you FAR better dividends than spending that
>same minute darting your eyes left and right,
>making sure nobody's trying to muscle in on
>your turf.

I absolutely agree. Our efforts spent growing the industry in general will pay us far better than time spent wondering how to take the small chunk someone else has away from him. We're on the same page on this.

Sandy Antunes says:
>There's a second class of website, that I'll
>call direct competitors. These are not so
>much fun for us. They are the folks who
>decide to do the exact same thing we do. And
>when I talk exact, in some cases that's
>included ripping off our content and passing
>it off as their own.

Again, agreed. Being unque and visible makes you a target for this sort of thing. It's unavoidable. It seems to me the trick is to keep innovating and doing what you do better than any imitator. Imitators imitate because they can't innovate.

It is a sad truth, however, that an imitator with money and savvy and ruthlessness can prosper at the expense of innovators who are less well heeled and less savvy and less ruthless. (I can name that tune in one note..."Microsoft".)

This is why it behooves innovators to band together and find ways of heterodyning.

"Heterodyning" is an old hi-fi/electronics term. Basically, it describes the ability to combine (a radio-frequency wave) with a locally generated wave of different frequency in order to produce a new frequency equal to the sum or difference of the two.

In our industry, I think of heterodyning as taking things that two different companies or groups do well and using them together to create something better than either could do alone. This can be through a cooperative effort in which both share the expense of some sort of resource, or an agreement to cross-promote each other's complimentary products, or any other effort where two good things come together to make something truly outstanding.

This can also help both parties difference themselves from "me, too" non-innovative competitors who may have more money for promotion and development.

I believe in such cooperative efforts. S. John and I cross-promote each other frequently. He boosts MicroTactix Games' cardstock building kits. I boost his great SPARKS character figure font packages. I have similar relationships with many other companies and creators. It is good for EVERYONE's business. The more of this we do, the more we all have to gain.

Sandy and I are working on new ways to expand this concept and leverage what we do well for the benefit of a LOT of adventure game creators -- and to let them benefit from each other as well. More about that very soon.

Guy McLimore / guymc@microtactix.com
MicroTactix Games
http://www.microtactix.com