2022 review

If the last three years have taught us anything, it is that using literature and art as escapism is so important. At first my only plan was to give back to escapism.

Important definitions:

Actual Play – A streamed game of a TTRPG that is made for an audience.

International Industry

COVID 19 affected the TTRPG industry in a positive way compared to the rest of the literary industry. In 2020 Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) sales increased by 33%, continuing its upwards trajectory. They also D&D reported in 2020 that 39% of its player base are female and 1% are nonbinary or other. A massive increase from the male dominated industry.

Wizards of the Coast claim 4.3 billion minutes of D&D Actual Play content was watched on twitch in 2019 and YouTube D&D videos viewership increased by 59% between 2018-2019.

After the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, the industry started reflecting on its biases and problematic content, Black, Indigenous and people of colour having been given more opportunities to bring their perspectives on the industry in both publishing and actual plays. Livestream platform Twitch funded POC developed Afro-futurist TTRPG game and Actual play production, Into the Motherlands, a few months after the initial protests.

Australian Industry

In the keynote speech for the 2021 Australian Role-Playing Industry Awards (ARPIA) M.T. Black, best-selling TTRPG writer from Sydney, noted

“Australian stats are much harder to come by, as you'll appreciate, but Creative Victoria did a survey of Australian RPG game creators a few months ago. About 50 people or companies responded they reported a combined income of over 10 million dollars for 2020 and 2021. These numbers we probably couldn't have imagined 10 years ago in this industry."

The increase in Australia follows the increase internationally. Also following the international market, there is a greater demand for diverse stories and creators. A queer trans autobiographical journey, Logan, won the ARPIA award for Best PDF only TTRPG in April this year.

Australian content is also branching out and being noticed in overseas markets recently. Role to Cast, Adelaide-based Actual Play Podcast, won silver for Best Podcast at the ENnie Awards (An international community vote TTRPG Award) this month.

Ethan Lewis (@EthanAndDragons) a Melbourne-based editor and Game Master with over 7 years of experience, currently making streamed Actual Play content on Twitch and YouTube, sent me:

“We do exist and there are a fair few of us but the industry is so heavily focused on Europe and America that we do not see much Aussie TTRPGs being shown around or displayed. It feels a lot easier for someone in America to start up their games because of their general time-zone and the amount of people who are there as an audience.”

The future

The TTRPG industry is moving away from it’s white cis male dominated past. As a queer gender-diverse femme presenting person I am more likely to get my foot in the door now more so than any other period. While the industry is reluctant to change its ableist content and big publishers continue to ignore the concerns of racism still prevalent, big steps are being made on a smaller scale.

In Australia things are improving for smaller publishers and independent groups specifically. Brian Holland, Melbourne-based Marketing Director at TTRPG publisher Chaosium, told me

“There is a bit of growth in the independent game development in Australia, but as it currently stands I don’t think anyone can truly prosper in Australia without branding out to American audiences and companies.”

Reflecting Brian’s own journey into working and writing for TTRPGs was a departure that was from working in clothing retail to a game shop that took him to the American games convention, GenCon. There he was able to network and pitch himself to three TTRPG publishing companies.

“I was successful with all of them, and ended up doing freelance across all three companies in varying states until Chaosium offered me a full-time positon."

Actual Play streamers have higher hopes for an Australian market, but there is a lack of marketing in the Australian sphere. M.T. Black mentioned in his speech,

"The game designers have some of the highest levels of income insecurity of any group that I have actually seen. So, anything we can do to make the situation a bit better I think is a legitimate question so, and we shouldn't be embarrassed to talk about the commercial side of things"

There is still fear of judgement bringing up the topic of TTRPGs making it hard and the “stigma around marketing’ described by M.T. Black makes it harder to communicate with other audiences.

Rebecca Kuhlmann, known as @Zeit_Poltergiest on twitch, writing her thesis on Russian Literature at Melbourne University and Actual Play streamer told me,

“I myself always remember finding it hard to breach the subject of TTRPGs with my friends, because I thought I would be judged as a result. It’s not an easy topic to discuss or pursue. On top of this, I think that the Australian TTRPG in space has a definitive presence on social media, but again this is largely made up of people who aim to broadcast their games for an audience, and they do not specifically aim to prioritise Australian viewers, subject matter or identity in these broadcasts.”

Rebecca has made a series of Australian Road trip themed one-shot in the Vampire the Masquerade system that does very successful for the small streamer.

The judgement may be going away with the success of D&D as mentioned with the upcoming movie and representation in Netflix show Stranger Things. But marketing still needs to be a bigger focus. This is an opportunity for myself and others to help expand the industry reach in Australia. The larger the reach the more diverse and unique perspectives join in and make the games more reflective of the players. Advertising and Marketing needs to not only be about self-promoting but also uplifting other members of the Australian Industry. 

Ethan added,

“I hope in the future we can have our own companies and organisations for these games that are treated with the same gravity as a lot of the popular games are now. D&D is growing every day in popularity and it is becoming far more common to know people who play, but treading further into the spheres online we do not see as much [Australian] representation as I would like right now."

There is space now for more TTRPG writing, both in the sourcebooks and in articles, reviews, and short narratives. Australia already has games news websites that have incorporated TTRPGs into their coverage. Highlighting awards, new systems and opinion pieces will get new players to the bigger systems learning about the indie market.  

Reference List

 Black, M. Keynote speech for ARPIA 2021 by M.T.Black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPaqcmEyqQQ [Accessed 14 Aug. 2022].

Australian Role-Playing Industry Awards. ARPIA 2021 Awards Night Blog. http://www.arpia.org/jane-routleys-coverage-of-the-2019-awards/ [Accessed 14 Aug. 2022].

2022 Results – ENNIE Awards. [online] Available at: https://ennie-awards.com/2022-results/ [Accessed 14 Aug. 2022].

Whitten, S. (2021). Dungeons & Dragons had its biggest year ever as Covid forced the game off tables and onto the web. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/13/dungeons-dragons-had-its-biggest-year-despite-the-coronavirus.html