I’ve been reflecting on this subject all morning, after reading and responding to a community call to develop some alternate settings for Paranoia.  I have come to the unsurprising conclusion that I will never get stupidly rich designing games.

This isn’t exactly news.  The odds of this happening to anyone are astronomically low.  If I wanted to get rich I’d do better trying to write predictive algorithms for the lottery.  If you are really good, diligent, and lucky, you might be able to make a living writing games.  More likely, you’ll end up with a hobby that may sustain itself, or at least not cost you too much money on the side.  More often than not, you’ll labor in obscurity and die poor of a drug overdose in Warsaw.  At least, that’s MY plan.

But it’s not my focus issues, lack of discipline, poor execution skills, lack of connections, absence of free time, dark past, criminal history, wrist problems, fear of failure, lack of experience or wildly optimistic estimates that keep me from getting stupidly rich by designing games.  In spite of all those things, one might still manage to crap out that One Great Idea.  One Great Idea can just takes off, raising you into that elite group of game designers who get their name on the box in prominent bold print:  Sid Meier, Will Wright, Gary Gygax, John Carmack, Steve Jackson, Richard Garfield, David Hargrave, and so on.  I know I’ll never join this group, but it’s not for any of the reasons listed above.

I won’t get there because I my ideas are just too weird for mass consumption.

I don’t think my ideas are all that weird.  I may track a bit ‘out of the ordinary’ compared to the world at large, but hell, so does every gamer and game designer I’ve ever met.  Let’s face it, we’re a weird bunch.

But we tend to be the same KIND of weird.  We like to role play, we like fun toys for our characters, and we like to be immersed in the plot, either dramatically (in role play) or functionally (by-the-numbers hack and slash).  We like mediums with which we are familiar – pseudo medieval settings with monsters, modern settings with lots of creepy, flying through outer space, defeating hidden horrors and alien races.  Steal the loot, get the girl, defeat the bad guy.

When I saw the call for alternate settings for Paranoia my absolute very first thought was:

“Ok, you’re a bacteria. Anti-bodies are constantly trying to kill you, other bacteria want to eat you, and your only hope is to Evolve!”

Let’s face it – nobody wants to play that game.  Maybe a few of you – maybe enough to make it worth doing a short run of books I printed on the back sides of discarded laser-printer paper.

So I tried to broaden the concept, and floated the possibility of setting Paranoia in an Ant Hill, a Bee Hive, a Rabbit Warren, or a Coral Reef.  Any of these are somewhat more playable, and could even be great fun.

But that game isn’t going to sell 100,000 copies.  Or 10,000 copies.  Or 1,000 copies.  It would be a huge stretch to sell even 100 copies.

That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t write it.  But it sure means I’ll never be able to quit my day job.  If I was wired to get stupidly rich designing games, I’d at LEAST have jumped to some crappy Steampunk Paranoia setting.  That wouldn’t make you rich, but it would sure sell better than a game set on the Alpha Reef.