Sandy's Soapbox

Who Will Get .RPG?

by Sandy Antunes

The recent ICANN decision to open new top-level domains (TLDs, alternatives to .com) brings prospect of a landgrab (for specs, see the AP article at Wired)

To create one, an entity needs to cough up (estimated) $100,000 to 250,000, plus be able to administer it. Ignoring that even companies like Microsoft can blow domain registration ( "Microsoft forgets to renew hotmail"), it's pretty clear that ICANN is looking to rubber-stamp the creation of many, many new top level domains. With their ad budget, obviously '.disney' will be an early one, but we're not a Disney site.

Who, then, will create, own and manage .rpg? Will it go to the computer realm, to tabletoppers, to both... or worse, to the graphic reproduction business or arms merchants?

A little history, back when we created RPG.net, we named it because RPG.com was taken. It was, quite legitimately, already taken by a Repro Graphics firm (who are still in business), so there wasn't much clash. We also purchased our domain when .net was a harder appellation to acquire-- you had to actually show you did networking. In our original launch plan, we provided web hosting, so we fit the definition. By the time we stopped doing hosting, ICANN stopped caring whether .net really were about networking, or .orgs really organizations. None of which stopped some plunkers from grabbing rpgnet.com, just to keep things confusing.

Now, I'll admit grabbing 'RPG' wasn't the most creative 21st century branding around, but in the early web days, it made sense. Had we launched in the past decade instead, perhaps we might have chosen something more recognizable, like Gleemax, but we're simple folk. And basic names still have value, even though I can't quite think of any I myself frequent. Hmm... pets.com: no, business.com: no, xkcd.com: okay, that's one common name that matches its purpose. Generic domain names still sell for a lot, but current wisdom (and certainly my buying habits) suggest they are harder to brand.

Neverless, I think .rpg will be claimed once ICANN finishes their plan. When you get a domain these days, typically you scarf up the .com, .net and .orgs in one swoop, just to prevent someone from hijacking your name and concept. I see no reason the new TLDs will be different. There will be much positioning and pre-emptive registration with the new ones.

Tabletop RPGs are already the redheaded stepchild of the word RPG-as-game. Computer RPGs and MMOs have taken over the term, by virtue of having more players, a more lucrative market, and 80% less satanic accusations than tabletop. So a naive guess would be that tabletop will, once again, probably be left out.

However, one ICANN condition of interest: "An application will be rejected if an expert panel determines that there is substantial opposition to it from a significant portion of the community to which the string may be explicitly or implicitly targeted." Few tabletop RPG companies have the clout to contest, but it only takes one to invoke this clause.

Further, in my computer game work, I've found a huge and friendly crossover between tabletop and computer. Not only do IP get swapped like spit between the two, but also staff. Most notably, a lot of tabletop writers move to the better-paying computer industry after building a rep in tabletop. Although the business can be cutthroat, the cultural connection is very warm. So my prediction is that someone in the computer RPG industry will try to set up .rpg, and that they will accommodate tabletop within their plan.

That said, I think a .rpg top-level domain could end being very interesting. In some ways, new TLDs is an inefficient recreation of the old Usenet hierarchies. Instead of having rec.games.frp.dnd and rec.games.frp.gurps, we can have DnD.rpg and GURPS.rpg. And probably D20.rpg and 4thED.rpg and 3.5Rulez.rpg, but hey, I gotta be me and you gotta be you. It'll be our own little universe.

Once built, someone will have to meta-index it, and I can think of no better group than this very site. I hope rpg.net.rpg isn't taken yet.

Until next month,
Sandy (sandy@rpg.net)