/tg/ -Aspiring to Professionalism

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Aspiring to Professionalism Anonymous 01/02/19 (Wed) 00:28:00 No.404867

Hey fa/tg/uys. Originally I was planning on posting this in the homebrew general, but after thinking on it I figured it was probably worth it's own thread. I think this subject is probably relevant to other members of this board as it is to myself, and also important to think on given recent happenings with payment processors.

So I've been developing several tabletop games, all of which are coming along very well. Two of them I intend to talk to publishers in the industry about, while the other two I intended to post online on my own website, with some form of donation/subscription-payment system attached. My priority has been with the latter. Problem is, Patreon's gone full retard and the payment processors are protecting them by cutting off competition. I don't think I need to go into details, I'm sure almost everyone here is well informed.

Essentially throughout this past month, I've gone through these stages:

> "I'm willing to disagree with Patreon for the sake of business, as long as staff ideology doesn't impact the platform too much."

> "I cannot work with Patreon on the grounds of them being both unreliable and immoral, I'll either use Subscribestar or Paypal."

> "Paypal pulled out of Subscribestar, so I should open this thing called Stripe."

> "Nevermind, Stripe has AIDS and now Subscribestar is null."

> Rubin and Peterson's alternative doesn't seem reliable enough to wait on yet.

It seems like every time it becomes necessary to find new ground to stand on, the new ground gets pulled out from under creators' feet. I've been researching crypto-currency and also planned on setting up a P.O. box for accepting orders and donations via check. However, I'm wary that most people who might otherwise support my business would be reluctant or unable to do so through either of these means.

I've toyed with the idea of shifting my priorities towards the more market-oriented games that I would be pitching to publishers. It's probably a more reliable route to take, especially right now. The main reasons that this has been a secondary consideration are:

1) My friends in the vidya industry are bound by contract so any independent developments they work on become property of the company they work for. In the case I might find myself entering similar situations with tabletop, I'd like to have my self-published work secure.

2) My card game, which essentially relies on being free-to-print due to multiple design factors (both principle and mechanical), has so far tested amazingly. I really think I have something golden here.

However, I recognize the biggest priority shouldn't be with any one of these games in particular, but rather with making the total body of works itself viable. For this reason, my approach is in a sort of nebulous formative state. I don't want to be lost in that for too long. I recognize that there are routes that can be taken, but all of them seem to be either laden with AIDS or severely limiting.

So my question and focus-of-topic is this: How do we turn our hobby into a career? Is there anyone else here trying to find out how to navigate similar issues? Any related questions or concerns anyone here has? Anyone with experience have advice?

____________________________

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Anonymous 01/02/19 (Wed) 03:29:37 No.404876

First, paypal is cancer, but it's fairly popular cancer. Lots of people use it, and from what I understand is that even without a paypal account, you're still able to make purchases using their system.

Stripe is an alternative credit swipe system that gets used by many crypto sites and VPN hosts. This doesn't necessarily infer however that it's particularly safe. There's tons of shit running in the background of any stripe transaction, and amazon seems to be behind most of it.

Cryptocurrency scares normies. I mean, I don't even touch it and I'm using two VPNs, peerguard, umatrix, ghostery, cookieautodelete, noscript, ublock, and using a paid service that creates a dummy cc/phone#/unlimited fake emails that redirect to your real email and can be burned at any time. Once you go far enough down a rabbit hole, you only invite a very serious inquiries as to why you're doing something, or at least that's what the normie in me thinks.

The difficulty you're gonna be facing in regards to paywalls is what's gonna make someone on the fence back away from. No one's gonna send you a check in this day and age. Most folks won't second guess someone using paypal, and most people don't know enough scripts to question stripe. Don't use patreon if you can avoid it, but at the same time, just being on patreon is gonna get you visits whereas being away from any linked community of game development is gonna make it impossible for people to stumble onto your game. You'll need to bank on something going over really well with a publisher in order to get the community to find your other games, and that market will potentially be 5% of the publisher market unless your other games go viral. Your best bet in this regard would be to join some sort of cooperative game creation group. I'm quite certain they exist, but fuck if I know of them.

I'd say like any business it's not what you know, but who you know. Find an event local or close enough that'll bring in some content creators. Go to their booths and tell them honestly and sincerely that you're interested in publishing a game yourself, and ask them what it'd take. Offer to buy them lunch, and try to schedule something after hours. No one is gonna like talking shop for free when they're trying to sell, but there's a few who'd be kind enough to share what they know to someone aspiring, and a free lunch is a bonus. If you already have friends in the business or something similar, you can try to use them to get more info. They might have contacts you don't know of, or at least might have more ideas on where to look. You might even try emailing a creator to see if they know anything. You'd be surprised how much help you can get just by asking. I'm sure they get emails now and again for the same thing, but I highly doubt they're swimming in them. Be prepared to be ignored, but don't let it stop you.

In any event, I wish you luck in your adventure. Hopefully you make it.

Polite sage since I'm ignoring your topic focus.

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Anonymous 01/02/19 (Wed) 03:30:22 No.404877

>>404867

The problem with patreon is being well document by various internet detectives, and the short answer is that MasterCard is the blame. Basically, no bank wants to support any payment processes who will help "bad people". I can only imagine what trying to set up your own bank must be like, and that rival banks could (honestly and without hyperbole) escalate to murder to prevent a rival who isn't "in on the agreement" to rise.

As for the topic itself, I can roughly see several paths.

> Entertainer

You are charismatic enough to be able to hold people's attention. In short you become a youtuber. Because youtube is really reliable nowadays.

You can read /tg/ stories, but without animation you may struggle to be noticed. It doesn't have to be animated well (literally just a slideshow) but you'd need good drawings. You might even get some amateur voice work if you've got the pipes (abridged series and animations)- which can lead to professional voice work.

You could even just record you playing games if you feel your friend's adventures and interactions are entertaining enough.

In fact with stuff like Prequel and Awful Hospital, I'm surprised no one has done a community driven adventure. But that would certainly require lots of drawing and multiple VAs (no one likes it when a man does a woman's voice unless it's the pantomime ugly woman).

The bottom line is you create a "fake friendship" with the audience. They act as voyers and it fills their day, they even get to know you and could develop something akin to caring about you. Never mistake it for real friendship- they are always your consumer. You can be nice to them, of course.

Avoid if you have a fragile ego- a fanbase can quickly make it swell.

> Reviewer

There's a shockingly large number of people who play games and upload it. So, play a few rounds, then give your two cents. New creators are desperate for someone pointing them out, and big players are happy for another voice talking about them (just don't expect free shit or review copies until you're bigger).

> Advisor

If you feel you are good at explaining shit, you could help people understand the finer points of certain games. Not to let the unwashed masses be able to fake it of course, but presenting a fair explanation for those who want to improve. Advice on writing, how to DM, etc.

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Anonymous 01/02/19 (Wed) 03:53:33 No.404882

File: 4d26a4a1d9c545d⋯.jpg (1.42 MB,1170x1754,585:877,65926336_p0.jpg)

>>404867

>How do we turn our hobby into a career?

As far as I've been told by some of the pros, game design and RPG writing are not really careers. They are supplementary and can be profitable, but it's rare for anyone not directly working for one of the very few big publishers to make it a career.

That said, getting an independent printer to manufacture your game for you, so you can handle the sales and distribution on your own is not too far out of the reach of an amateur designer. Kickstarter ain't the best way to go about it, but if your games are done, ready to play, and able to be shown off, it's far easier to math out the amount of money to cover the personal labor, production cost, and shipping and have an up front charge. You take a small cut for yourself, as you are your own employee, and the rest of the money covers the actual production and shipping of the game. In this way, Kickstarters are effectively preorder storefronts.

Otherwise, your options are selling PDFs through something like DriveThruRPG, Amazon, or even Etsy. Etsy ain't too bad in my experience, but I'm not sure how well selling PDFs and the like works through the service. You could still pay for a production run of complete board games and then sell them yourself through an etsy store, for instance. Not sure how getting your stuff listed on Amazon would work, but that might be an option too.

>Is there anyone else here trying to find out how to navigate similar issues?

Honestly, I've run into a lot of the same concerns you have. Do I keep my head low and use these cancerous platforms anyways, hoping they don't fuck me over? Do I avoid them on principle? Since you're likely not going to start up and end up immediately on the radar or the patreon safety council, it's not really all that risky, but there's now the secondary problem that some people refuse to use patreon after the shit they've started to pull. Sargoy and the other big targets may not be of any concern to you, but when they got booted a lot of people canceled their accounts entirely, which cut out payment to other Patreons, who in turn are scrambling for alternatives. It's a domino effect which may mean it's not a great place to invest in right now.

Direct paypal donations are an option, but I hear paypal is trying to swing it's dick around for political reasons also. I have zero idea how some kind of production rights contract would work if you got in bed with one of the bigger board game companies, like Fantasy Flight or whatever.

>Any related questions or concerns anyone here has?

Honestly, I try not to let the blackpill bullshit consume me, but I've had plenty of times where I wondered if it's even worth it to get into the world of business and competition. More than wanting to sell my games, I simply want to play them and share them with my friends. The market is oddly crowded right now and it's getting kinda cliqueish. Furthermore, it's getting cancerous when it comes to the big conventions and expos and it feels like it's not worth the trouble to deal with that shit.

>Anyone with experience have advice?

Wish I did, but sounds like you're much further along than most of us.

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Anonymous 01/02/19 (Wed) 04:28:42 No.404889

>>404867

>How do we turn our hobby into a career?

Make settings that aren't trash

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Anonymous 01/02/19 (Wed) 14:40:25 No.404933

>>404889

WotC hasn't done that, but they certainly made a career out of it anyway.

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Anonymous 01/03/19 (Thu) 02:35:57 No.404994

>>404933

A large company with a number of products, QA, and economy of scale is very different from a "career."

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Anonymous 01/03/19 (Thu) 06:48:46 No.405020

>>404867

Why do I give a shit? You're no body, you have no background to fall back on and I have no way to discover your game, let alone a desire to pay for it.

I'm not going to print your shitty paper cards. It's too expensive and you could just make it a vidya game instead.

If you can't convince me you're wasting your time going solo. You're going to need to kiss ass until you find a company willing to take you on. The competition is hard and you're no one so good luck with that.

Yes I'm being a prick. Doesn't mean what I say is wrong/

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Anonymous 01/03/19 (Thu) 06:51:47 No.405021

>>404876

This fag has a good idea. People don't get if they don't ask. Contact magazines, podcasts, any e mail you can find and ask them nicely. I designed a concept for a game and contacted a podcast who viraled it for me. I didn't follow up on it but they were a niche podcast happy to give it a shout out.

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Anonymous 01/03/19 (Thu) 22:36:25 No.405069

>>404867

>So my question and focus-of-topic is this: How do we turn our hobby into a career? Is there anyone else here trying to find out how to navigate similar issues? Any related questions or concerns anyone here has? Anyone with experience have advice?

The first thing to understand is that RPG writers get paid jack and shit.

If you want to make money in the industry, the best place I can recommend is getting involved with LotFP. It's my understanding that Raggi gives out the best pay per word of any publisher, but do keep in mind that you'll be bound to work within the constraints of his company.

If you want to do more than that, and go full professional, you need a few things:

>something people have demand for

>to already be known

Once these things are done, you can launch a Kickstarter or something on those lines. That way you minimize the risk of the investment while still being able to put out your material.

To start selling stuff, slowly but surely:

Have a blog or some shit.

Publish stuff through DTR. Expect beer money at most.

Once you have enough money, maybe do some hardcovers.

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Anonymous 01/03/19 (Thu) 22:44:33 No.405070

>>405020

You're not wrong, but only because you haven't said anything of substance or made any kind of argument. You just defiantly stated your rejection of some games you know little to nothing about while ignoring the actual topic of the thread.

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Anonymous 01/06/19 (Sun) 12:31:07 No.405453

>>405070

>thinking that purchasing is swayed by arguments

<several rpg's ready to go

>be me posters really as evolving at a fascinating rate, glad you didnt post this bullshit in homebrew and please fuck back off to whereever you came from.

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Anonymous 01/06/19 (Sun) 14:47:36 No.405462

>>405453

What the fuck is this post? Learn english before you say anything in the future.

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Anonymous 01/29/19 (Tue) 05:07:38 No.408181

File: 94130e0f0875c41⋯.png (1.62 MB,1000x1000,1:1,ClipboardImage.png)

Howdy fuckers. OP here. I've been keeping up with reading the thread, but unfortunately I've been too busy (both with topic-related and a lot of other shit) to respond in a timely manner. I've been taking a lot of stuff here into consideration, researching upcoming events in my area where I might be able to scout the industry and talk to publishers. Conveniently I live in an area with a lot of conventions, but being a brokefag does make getting tickets a bit difficult.

>>404876

This was actually very helpful, and totally fit with the topic focus actually. You really helped clarify some of the concerns and issues with both standard and alternative payment processing. With this in mind, I'm really trying to get more comfortable with publishing the old-fashioned way. I might not avoid paypal like the plague until the next viable alternative comes, but I definitely won't be trying to build a business on it.

>>404877

>The problem with patreon is being well document by various internet detectives, and the short answer is that MasterCard is the blame. Basically, no bank wants to support any payment processes who will help "bad people".

That's kinda the worst part of all this, in my mind. How high up this shit potentially goes. I don't really see problems stopping until the gubmint gets involved, but hopefully time will prove otherwise. That said, I do wonder how much of the intervention in regards to current events goes that high. I've seen past intervention on the part of Mastercard, but it's almost like Patreon/Paypal are using that as a smokescreen to take some of the heat off of themselves and discourage attempts at competition.

>>404882

It really is difficult, when business needs and business principles come into conflict. I've been tempted to bite-the-bullet and suck it up, and a lot of my friends and family members are advising me to not let this hold me back. Still, I don't want to necessarily jump on that advice too fast. Especially if we do see some victories in the payment-processing front soon.

I've also got similar concerns with the industrial cancer, but I feel like if I don't play the industry I'm essentially letting them have it. I'm not saying you or anyone else should feel the same way, I get that it's a very complicated issue and there's a lot at stake when entering an industry like that.

>>405069

One piece of advice I've found in various blogs and Q&As since the original post is not to expect a full career. Still, it's something I want to do and if it only turns into half a career, that's half the load off of whatever else I have to do. Been doing a lot of setting up social media accounts, but now they're just kinda sitting unused until I can see what needs to be done about recent events. I'm also doing a bit of soul-searching on the branding involved.

>>405070

I actually do consider >>405020 to be valuable advice. I am, essentially, nobody. I'm confident in the quality of the games and the community-involving infrastructure I'm building around them, but if I don't have a pool of members ready to fill that community as soon as it's open then I'm relying on people to not care that it's empty at first. A recognizable name beforehand can help with that, can help attract testers who accept that the community needs to form along with them. Now, I'm not sure if that's how the post was intended, as I'm not certain whether or not >>405453 is the same poster. The latter comes off as a childish hostility over nothing and not understanding the actual thread topic. It should be pretty clear that this isn't a shilling thread.

...

I should probably go back and edit this post, but I've got too much else going on to worry about that (mostly good stuff). After I was almost done typing this up, it's come to my attention that Subscribestar is getting back up on its feet. In my case this reopens some doors, but I feel like I should really ponder some of the advice I've received here rather than just jumping on the path as intended before shit went south. Regardless, I consider this to be good news, and I hope it works well to the favor of other people here following similar goals.

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Anonymous 01/29/19 (Tue) 12:17:20 No.408195

>>408181

The problem with subscribestar is it never gets enough people on it to make a difference. Then when you start looking into these patreon alternatives they're sketchy as fuck.

The real world doesn't work how we want it to. You're not going to convince people to join a service just for you and they need a reason to get off Patreon. I don't know what that would be but it has to be done or it doesn't matter how many alternatives you set up. Patreon is known and trusted, normies (who you're wanting to pay you) will stick with it unless it suicides. Same way they stick with social media in general.

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Anonymous 05/18/19 (Sat) 03:47:35 No.419035

>>408181

Thought I'd touch back with ya OP on the whole paywall setup some more. The VPN I use utilizes a script called api.paymentwall to handle credit cards, and encrypts all data locally before payments are charged, meaning the third party charging has no idea about the circumstances of the charge, they just get a charge and do it. The charge is first checked by the staff, I believe. They also have a po box for sending cash, but don't recommend it (put it in a jiffy bag, they say; they check their po box once a week, they say). They do cryptocurrency, they take paypal, and whatever swish is. I think this sort of flexibility would help you out, as having multiple options doesn't put people on edge, and the more in the know consumers would appreciate a means with which to use safer/more anonymous payment methods. Wonder how your shit's coming along, or if you burned out like so many before you. Hopefully you're still chugging along.

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