One of the big recurring topics of the RPG community has recurred yet again. Commercialism. Are hobbyist publishers getting too commercial? Should they be asking money for their products? Is their interest in producing a salable product dampening their creative process?
I think I'm finally ready to write the post I've always been tempted to write whenever this topic rises up to slay us. I'm going to write about noise. And the Sims. But maybe I'll just do noise in this post and save the Sims for later.
"Noise" is experimental music. That is, it's musical composition or performance that emphasizes sound and occasionally rhythm over melody or harmony. The noise community resembles the RPG community in many ways, with many factions, personality clashes, snobbish dismissal of people who perform the "wrong kind of noise", and so on. You've got your harshnoise people, your power electronics people, your circuit benders; you've got drone, percussive noise, free jazz, musique concrete; you've got people who look down on "laptop noise", you've the ambient electronic and lowercase people who get excluded by the harsher-than-thou crowd, and you've got the snooty atonal people who look down on everyone else and would simply spit if you referred to their stuff as "noise".
I'm not as active in the noise community as I used to be, but I could tell a few tales. But what I want to talk about are noise recordings. A lot of projects and performers release their stuff, mostly on tape and CD, but there's also noise on vinyl and DVD. There are comp CDs, for example the comp CD released every year for the Norcal Noisefest, a big festival I participated in for many years. There are a couple "noise labels" with pretty decent production values; for example, a couple guys I know started one that focused on harshnoise. But a lot of noise gets released on tape or CDR with homemade production values.
Why? For trade. A lot of noise people trade their homemade release for some other guy's homemade release. It's not like anyone thinks they will make a lot of money. Hell, if they were in it for the money, they wouldn't be doing noise. They do noise because they like interesting sounds and they like hanging out at shows with other noise people, and they sell tapes mostly for gas money and to support their noise habit. Hell, for several years, I performed at the Norcal Noisefest, videotaped other performers, and created demos for their grant applications mainly because it got me into the show for free. It's not like I was wildly popular.
My point here: a lot of the money that changes hands in garage "industries" like the noise scene or the RPG scene is not really *profit* and certainly doesn't count as commercialism. A lot of one-person companies operate at a loss, if you were to actually include the value of the owner's labor. They're doing it to support their habit. They like being a part of the scene. People who complain about self-publishing -- in noise or in RPGs -- are basically saying they don't want there to be a scene. They want the hobby to be restricted to tiny, isolated groups with limited interaction.
And people wonder why the hobby is dying.
Right on.
ReplyDeleteWell said.
ReplyDeleteI can agree with much you have said.
ReplyDeletePretty much in line of how I view my own involvement in metal bands and the OSR.
ReplyDeleteYour argument really only makes sense pre-internet. Anyone can be part of the scene now without operating a one-person company at a loss.
ReplyDeleteThere are good reasons for producing a product--synthesizing years of blog posts, for example, or spreading innovative ideas outside of our blog community, but I wish we could get away from this assumption that *selling* something is the way someone takes part in our hobby conversation.
We can defend folks' right to sell things without framing it like doing so is necessary and expected.
I don't see that I claimed it was necessary, from a community viewpoint, although it may be necessary from the individual's viewpoint... because yes, even in the internet age, it's at a loss. The materials and distribution costs may be free, but you have to value the creator's *labor*.
DeleteA creator can, however, donate their labor to the community, giving a product away for free. That even happened in the pre-internet days. But we can defend the right of people to work for free without framing it as if creative work has no value.
I'd say: "People who complain about self-publishing -- in noise or in RPGs -- are basically saying they don't want there to be a scene. They want the hobby to be restricted to tiny, isolated groups with limited interaction." pretty strongly assumes the hobby can't exist without self-publishers. And by self-publishers you seem to not be talking about blogging, but selling things to other hobbiests.
DeleteI think this is a false assumption and even ironic for a hobby that you can play for the rest of your life once you get the rules.
Telecanter wrote: Anyone can be part of the scene now without operating a one-person company at a loss.
ReplyDeleteNot if you want to create something which requires some expense (nice layout, nice art, higher quality physical production).
Also, having people interested enough in your stuff to pay for it is a special kind of creative reinforcement.
Those expenses are begging the question; you're already assuming a product.
DeleteYou could make a quality map or handout for yourself with zero cost but time. You could make a digital map or handout for everyone for almost nothing (just hosting it somewhere).
Only if you want to make a quality print map or print handout and distribute it to everyone would costs start adding up- in other words, you are making a product. Even there print on demand companies can minimize your investment.
No, I think you are misunderstanding me. Not everyone is good at everything that might go into an RPG product. Some people can write great prose, but not do layout. Being able to do quality art is obviously a specialized skill. Not everyone can do decent cartography. Companies developed historically so that labor, skill, and risk could be shared between multiple people. This need not necessarily be commercial (think Santicore), but paying for something is certainly the most expedient way to make sure it gets done. And if you pay for something, you're either eating that cost yourself, or recouping it by selling something.
DeleteI understand and agree completely. You are assuming putting out an "RPG product" which, whether you charge for or not, has the standards of something that could be for sale. Santicore is a great example. Do you remember what came before it? The Secret Arneson Gift Exchange took place on the participant's blogs.
DeleteSo you don't have to convince me that Santicore takes tons of effort, I understand that. My question is why SAGE wasn't seen as valid by the community in a way that Santicore is.
I understand convenience and having an artifact as benefits, but the idea that something isn't serious until it's up on RPGNow saddens me.
Oh I totally agree that a sold product is not the pinacle. But look at something like Barrowmaze. That is much better (and more usable) as a sold product than it would have been if Greg had decided to make it a series of blog posts or a free PDF. Compare to Halls of the Hidden Prince, on The Metal Earth blog. That looks like a fantastic dungeon, but the form it's in is just not very usable right now.
DeleteOK, my forum/G+/blog reading must be too narrow, because I missed the latest kerfuffle. Anything worth reading?
ReplyDeleteNot especially. It was mostly prompted by Kent getting banned from the RPGSite for breaking several rules. On the RPGSite. Where there are hardly any rules. And he broke several. That is worth a bit of comedic value in and of itself, but it prompted a discussion of Kent's ideas that people shouldn't charge for RPG material, and therefore those that do (like Zak S., James Raggi, or James Maliszewski) should be dogged mercilessly and labeled "cockgobblers" for failing to live up to his exalted expectations. There were a couple blog posts that also mentioned this, like Noism's post. But nothing really entertaining.
DeleteI'd rather focus on the general idea of the upside and downside of a hobbyist press than on Kent specifically. He doesn't impress me.