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RE: Freelancing in the Tabletop RPG Industry
I think that one of the only ways to do well in the games industry is to get a following and a lot of exposure.
Part of the reason that I think that Waystation Deimos was so successful was that it was a variant of a game that was a variant of another game and I was able to acquire some of their community's interest. Compare this to Segira: 1985, which should by most metrics be an objectively better game, but had much less reception.
I think you've got it spot on... the question of building a following then becomes tireless work in promoting and running games?
Somewhat.
I'd imagine that some of it comes down to having promotions and being out there. I think that if you can get a decently sized podcast to highlight your game you can do pretty well pretty easily, or even a bunch of people like me who are very willing to recommend what we like and have a more modest following you might see a potential to get followings.
It takes maybe ten thousand sales of a game to hit break-even (assuming a somewhat expensive budget of $250,000 or so), after you account for the cut that DriveThruRPG takes. Compare that to "best seller" ranks on DriveThruRPG. They start as low as 250 from what I've heard, so that's not exactly a tremendously high yardstick.