- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Recently Jake Richmond, Ben Lehman, and some other story gamers from the area went to Kumoricon (a local anime con with attendance of a bit under 5,000) to run various anime-themed RPGs. Ben and Jake have both posted about their experiences, and they’re encouraging to say the least. Between them they ran seven different sessions of a wide range of games–the Atarashi Games line, plus Bliss Stage and Maid RPG–and all were a resounding success. At a relatively small con, and with minimal promotion for their anime RPG track, they still had sessions overflowing with enthusiastic players. Not only that, but these folks were in many ways more open-minded than typical tabletop RPG players. No one was turning their noses up at playing anime maids or Japanese schoolgirls, or at having sexual content in Bliss Stage, much less getting turned off by anime/manga style art.
I haven’t been nearly as ambitious as those folks, but I did run sessions of Maid RPG at FanimeCon and Anime Expo last year, and they were likewise met with enthusiasm. At Fanime, even the guys who came off at first as being run of the mill D&D players jumped into playing maids without any hesitation. One gentleman was already a fan with a copy of the book who’d been talking it up on DeviantArt, and a couple more went ahead and ordered the book online before the con was even over. At Anime Expo I got an enthusiastic group, a first-time role-player, and one guy even went so far as to commission Persona to do a sketch of the PCs.
Interactivity at Anime Cons
There are a lot of different things at work here, which I’m trying to unravel a little. There is a very definite overlap between RPG and anime fandoms, but as is often the case, gamers on the whole are very mixed (and in some cases outright hostile) in terms of their opinions of anime. No game can please everyone of course, but while anime art is a turn-off to many gamers, good anime art is a huge draw for anime fans. Most cons have an Artists Alley where artists have tables to sell prints and commissions and such, and they’re generally packed. At conventions especially, anime fans are always looking for things to do. Every anime con has a big schedule of anime showings, but apart from stuff like the AMV contest, Anime Hell, etc. that you can’t get off of BitTorrent, they aren’t the real draw. Things like karaoke contests, maid cafes, panels, workshops, and, yes, tabletop gaming rooms, are what get people interested.
One major issue I’m pondering in all this is how to go about making things happen. Running games is relatively easy, though even where an anime con has a bustling tabletop gaming room, it’s likely to be dominated by CCG tournaments. The folks who ran games at Kumoricon lamented that they could’ve easily sold 10 or 20 copies of each game if they’d had them, but for the larger cons a dealers room booth costs something like $600 to $1,000. For a smaller con it’d be closer to $200, though I’m not entirely sure how the costs would line up with the money made in either case. I do have a contact with a local anime store that goes to what seems like every con ever (“Didn’t I see you last week in California? Why are you in Texas?”), but I’m not sure that having some Maid RPG books getting lost in a sea of plushies and trading figures would be all that effective. On the other hand, it might be possible to persuade a con to let people sell self-published RPG books through Artist’s Alley, which is dramatically cheaper, but not something I would expect to be able to do consistently, depending on each con’s policies and the attitude of whoever’s running their Artist’s Alley.
Expanding to Other Realms
This is also just one example of how RPGs can potentially reach a new (and more targeted) audience. People were also running games at PAX, and I can’t really think of a nerdy subculture that doesn’t have at least some room for tabletop gaming. The only thing that makes anime fandom a bit different is that in terms of published RPGs it’s one of the more underserved, especially considering just how big it is. Companies are having a hard time monetizing the actual anime content–not a few DVD publishers have closed their doors over the past few years–but sales of just about everything else to do with anime are still relatively strong (even if the state of the economy has been a problem for those dealers like everyone else).
Although this goes without saying, I’m talking about small press/indie RPG stuff here too. I would be more than a little surprised to hear that anime RPGs are catching on so much that Wizards of the Coast needs to take notice, but as I’ve said before, if Maid RPG is any indication, by small press standards a good anime-themed RPG can be a resounding success. Maid RPG’s sales have been competitive with the very top tier of indie RPGs, on par with the likes of Vincent Baker and Evil Hat. While it does have its share of adherents from among the indie gaming crowd, I highly doubt it would’ve been so successful without the anime fandom demographic. On the other hand, that makes me a little nervous in that without anything resembling a marketing plan we’ve still had a hell of a time keeping Maid RPG in stock. While turning a profit, however modest, is nice, not being able to consistently get the books to people who want them just bugs me, and I don’t really feel I have the tools to properly gauge the extent to which addressing this new fanbase will elevate demand. Being able to print books in greater volume has benefits for everyone involved of course (cheaper per-unit cost, and at a certain point traditional rather than POD printing becomes more feasible), but the up-front investment from the publisher can still get impractically large. I know Gregor Hutton has said that it was basically a financially fortunate situation that let him print enough copies of 3:16 to meet the unexpectedly high demand.
Conclusion
Regardless, I definitely intend to work more on promoting the RPGs I like through anime conventions. At the very least, I know for sure that the con closest to me (FanimeCon) has an ambitious tabletop gaming department as a decent number of role-players. Admittedly, my skills and personality are better suited to the writing/translating side of things, but wherever one falls in the equation, there could be exciting times ahead.
In any case, in the near future I’m going to be recording a podcast with Jake Richmond to discuss these issues, his experiences at Kumoricon, and more.
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Yaruki Zero Games 
I can’t speak for any large cons like AX, but I know it’s a very large trend in the medium to smaller cons around to feature/host sellers in their Artist’s Alleys that don’t officially sell “art” but “other goods.” Other goods being costumes and accessories for cosplayers, various goodies for Ball Jointed Dolls, jewelry, bags, various crafts—the list is pretty endless as long as the product being sold is self published or “fan” made. I don’t see how getting a table to sell indie anime RPG’s should be too much of a problem, though I could also see how there might be hostility, as well.
If worse comes to worse, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with sharing a table with a person who is already selling in AA. In that case, you could document your sales, and if good, you could take that to the staff as evidence that they can give you your own table/that there’s a need for such a thing. On that same note, I think it’d be worth talking to both AA and the Game room staff (at any con) to set up tables for a game selling space–perhaps separate from AA if need be and in the gaming room (though personally, I think selling anime RPG’s in AA would be neat to see….and a nice change of pace).
Again, if they balk at it, say it’s a “trial” run. :)
Whatever the case, though….even though I don’t know much about it, I’m ALL FOR seeing self publishers (of whatever medium) succeeding~! So go you~!!! :D
I’d see tackling the artist alley as an easier task than asking the gaming room to give you a table to sell stuff.
Dealer’s room is the 800lb gorilla of most shows, and they don’t cotton to other retailers getting free space when they had to pay 400-800 for the same square footage. When I ran a tabletop gaming area, I could NOT let people sell stuff there. Even we had to properly word events that required sealed product, justifying the sale of said product as “Equipment Fees”, under the allowance that players were allowed to bring their own product and the price tag couldn’t be jacked up from retail, lest we have some dealer’s room managers (not the dealers) worried about people complaining.
On the other hand, No one really complains about artist alley or swap meets, because hey, that’s just biting the hand that feeds you. The general rule I seem to find is “If its something you made, and it can’t be found in stores, then it’s allowed.”
I also wouldn’t be worried about the product being “lost in a sea of plushies” – as long it’s there where people can pick it up and not hidden in a bookshelf or a box under the table or worse yet, not there at all, is fine by me, regardless of what other products are being sold.
Heck, you’d got to admit that it would be pretty sweet if an anime dealer set up Maid RPG around “He is my Master” plushies and “Maid Guy” posters.
I know that at the Double Exposure conventions in New Jersey that there is a special area for Indy RPGs, and that they have an area for folks to sell their games just outside the section of the venue where the games are played.