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Making a living at gaming

9 replies [Last post]
Wed, 03/05/2003 - 21:11
Anonymous

Ok... so I finally hauled my butt into the chat room Friday night... and had an enormously good time. BUT Darkehorse was a bit brought down by the whole affair. He discovered that my annual salary, as a guy that has dozens of games in print AND in stores... is under 20k. Such is the harsh reality of gaming for a living.

So why do I keep doing it? Its not just because

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Sun, 03/02/2003 - 09:24
#1
Dralius
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Joined: 07/26/2008
Making a living at gaming

I would have thought that RPG

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Sun, 03/02/2003 - 09:42
#2
Anonymous
Making a living at gaming

That risk ordering just seems all outta whack ... miniatures are less risk than cards? say it aint so!

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Sun, 03/02/2003 - 15:53
#3
hpox
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Making a living at gaming

I could not make it Friday :-[

Did anyone log the discussion ? It seemed very instructive... I understand the low salary but like you said, if you keep aiming for the "golden bullet" it might be worth it. Do you have another job aside from game designing ?

Can we get some numbers on how many we must produce.

How many books do you have to print ? Are you talking about soft cover or hard cover books, thin or thick ?

Are you suggesting that cards games are an higher risk because you have to produce more because of the fact that they sell for less ?

The point about miniature is shattering all my preconceptions :-o . Is it again, as I suggested above, because of the fact that they sell for much higher you can recoup your costs faster ?

Thank you!

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Mon, 03/03/2003 - 01:37
#4
Anonymous
Making a living at gaming

Let me try to answer all the questions posed here... at least to my abilities. These answers may not provide insight of a realistic nature, but they will at least allow a peek at my reasoning.

On Development Time...
Its funny, but I have written rpgs in a week, and card games in two, and board games in three hours... and board games in six months. Its all fairly relative. When you produce that first game (commercially - I

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Mon, 03/03/2003 - 11:35
#5
Anonymous
Making a living at gaming

hpox - I have logged all of the ones that I attended (all of them really, as far as I know)

I

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Tue, 03/04/2003 - 12:11
#6
Scurra
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Joined: 09/11/2008
Making a living at gaming

Quote:
02-03-2003 at 21:37, XXOOCC wrote:
Cards are a special animal, if done correctly, and can

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Wed, 03/05/2003 - 03:11
#7
Anonymous
Making a living at gaming

Quote:
(Alien Menace/CheapAss - even Winsome falls into this group)
**********************
Hey now! Thats our bailiwick too! :-) We actually have a total of 20 titles out in that venue, and they sell pretty well... its certainly paying our bills here.
I

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Wed, 03/05/2003 - 08:43
#8
Scurra
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Making a living at gaming

I understand that even Carta Mundi seem to be willing to work in those low quantities these days. I can

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Wed, 03/05/2003 - 21:11
#9
Anonymous
Making a living at gaming

Its ok... if you tell me you cabn always kill me later. Its also possible thatthe card market has dried up to the extent that folks like Carte Mundi (perhaps the best known card printer in the biz) is actually hungry enough for business that it has brought down minimums... that would, indeed, but great news.

...just to full circle the discussion here... it costs us about $500 to launch either a new book or micro-game... I would love to hear that its only about twice that to launch a card game.
XXOOCC

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