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OK, this debate is worth some actual data. If I’ve got this right, to figure out how many TTRPG creators are full time vs. “have a day job” we need to define a few things, starting with: - the scope of what we count as “working in TTRPGs” - when a freelancer counts as “full time” in TTRPG

Matt Colville?@mattcolville.bsky.social

That's absolutely not true. And it's less true now than at any point in the last 50 years. Look at crowdfunding.

I just scratched together this somewhat suspect semiotic square comparing "full time day job" and "full time game job". I don't think it's very productive and it certainly wasn't made with any sort of data-based input.

I don't quite get semiotic squares in spite of my perverse enthusiasm for them, so humor me if I'm getting this wrong: "Omnipresent people" is me trying to describe the folks who are seemingly at all the game events/online discussions/etc but who aren't game makers.

They don't design games but they spend their time and resources time around games to the point where they can't help but become part of the larger discussion. To the left of them I'd put "volunteers who run game events at cons". Square updated below. Who else might be missing from the square?

Interesting! I think there's an interesting blurry space here of commentators, academics, critics, bloggers- people who often do have a day job which allows them lots of free time (left side the square), but who use that free time for games-related work which is not making games.

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"blurry space" is the perfect analog for the amount of squinting that has to be done to shape up a square. I think that academics/critics/actual play people either don't fit on the list or they align perfectly as if they game designers.