Publication Control Concepts

[Mike Holmes]

Andrew has pointed out what seems to be the most coherent argument against the policy. Basically if people have to pay the $20 extra to play, they might not do so. A co-ordinator can pass this on to his people, but that jacks up the cost of an event. What may have cost $5 before for participation - a nominal fee to cover expenses, is now much more substantial. Sure you only have to do this for people who are not already members of the Camarilla for that year, but lots of people attend LARPS only once a year.

I'm particularly thinking of the large game conventions, where, in fact, it does cost extra to get into an event. I think these are affected by the policy. So the LARPer is paying $20 to get into the convention already for that day, $7.50 to play the LARP (or somesuch) and now also has to pay an additional $20 to be eligible to play legally.

No other event at a convention will cost that much. Even True Dungeon is cheaper (and their overhead is astronomical).

Yeah, gamers are cheap. Whatchagonnadoaboudit?


Luke, yeah, I think that's the biggest problem with the subscription model. You sell your entry product for the same amount, and then don't charge for further stuff.

That said, I think that they are at least promising more than what you offer (delivery is yet to be seen). That is, I'm betting that they figure that the thing will grow somewhat virally. That players will add to the Wiki somewhat like Doyce's Wiki (random.average-bear.com) grows, or more. I probably shouldn't say this, but I'd pay a nominal fee to have access to the data there - and not just my own, of course.

But I think that what they want is more than nominal. We're looking at at least $80 in the first year. Stay on three years to maturity and you're looking at a $200 investment. Of course, that's not any more than you'll pay to play D&D 3E...

Perhaps only time will tell. I wish them well in their endeavor, but I won't be purchasing their IPO.

Mike

[jdagna]

I'm particularly thinking of the large game conventions, where, in fact, it does cost extra to get into an event. I think these are affected by the policy. So the LARPer is paying $20 to get into the convention already for that day, $7.50 to play the LARP (or somesuch) and now also has to pay an additional $20 to be eligible to play legally.

A fee like this at a convention would classify the event as a one-time thing, which means only the event organizers have to be members of the Camarilla.  This one-time rule would also cover events like GenCon and Origins where all gamers pay an extra fee for every event.  I think you'd only run into needing registration for players if you were doing something with a tournament format at a con (since that would by definition not be one-shot), though they didn't specifically discuss that.

[Mike Holmes]

A fee like this at a convention would classify the event as a one-time thing, which means only the event organizers have to be members of the Camarilla.

Ah, I see. So it only applies to "campaign" sorts of events? I do believe that some groups simply have their ongoing LARP show up at a con. But in this case only the people intending to play more than once in it would need to pay?

Now we're back to difficult enforcement. I was thinking that these games would be the ones which they'd be able to catch. With local games, they can just ask for money at the door or something to defray costs.

I think that's the key thing, however. I don't believe anyone is making money off of their ongoing LARP. All costs they pass on to the players are merely to enable the event to happen in better surroundings or with better props, etc. So, basically, if you run a crappy LARP, then your players don't have to pay the membership fee?

If, in fact, they were taking a cut of profits from some venture, I could see it more. But I think that they're not going to make any real money off of this. And I think they know that. Which is why I suspect that there is some other motive behind protecting the use of their IP this way.

Or, maybe they're just trying something new. Again, given the potential damage to the major goodwill that they get from their players (which translates to more players and more sales), I think it's probably not going to work. But we'll see.

Mike

[Andrew Morris]

I don't believe anyone is making money off of their ongoing LARP.

That's usually the case, but not always. I was an assistant GM in a Vampire LARP that made enough money to buy us all gifts every game, like RPG books and related stuff. At one point, the core people all received gold watches. It wouldn't shock me if they were keeping a good chunk of cash, as well. For that particular game, they had to close to new members when they hit around 50 regulars, I think. The entry fee was $20. So that's $1000 every other month. The site they most commonly used cost $250 to rent. That's $750 to cover ink, paper, snacks, etc. So, there can be money in it if you run a good game with a large player base.

Also, I believe the WW policy specifically exempts convention games.

[Edited to add:]
Sorry, I just realized this is all pretty off topic for this thread.

[Mike Holmes]

That assumes they're packed every time, and no other expenses occur. And even so, we're looking at $3000 a year maybe in profits? For a whole crew?

My point is that nobody is doing this as a full time job, or to make money. If you looked at the hours of work that went into this, it's not a good investment. People do it because it's fun. Nobody is quitting their day job (not even the True Dungeon people, I don't think, and they're subsidized by Peter Adkison) to run LARPs.

So trying to "rake off" money from what it a hobby activity, even if the organizers come out with a few bucks for their efforts, still seems petty to me. If every branch of the Camarilla ran regular events that were truely business propositions, then I could see them wanting to take a bite out of that apple. But I'm just not seeing it as a cash cow.

Again, it seems like it has to be something else.

Mike

[jdagna]

If, in fact, they were taking a cut of profits from some venture, I could see it more. But I think that they're not going to make any real money off of this. And I think they know that. Which is why I suspect that there is some other motive behind protecting the use of their IP this way.

Or, maybe they're just trying something new. Again, given the potential damage to the major goodwill that they get from their players (which translates to more players and more sales), I think it's probably not going to work. But we'll see.

It will be interesting to see.  I also suspect some ulterior motive, like trying to pad the Camarilla's size to make them look more impressive.

However, looking at the money from WW's perspective, it might be worth it.  I don't know what their sales numbers are, but a $40 hardcover grosses them only about $16 from a distributor, from which you deduct shipping and printing even before organizational and production costs.  A $20 membership is almost pure profit before the organizational costs.  Thus, the $20 membership probably makes WW more profit than a $40 book, with less risk.  And the membership has to be paid for annually, providing a steady stream of income.  That's a pretty attractive proposition if you're a CEO trying to improve the bottom line.

Still, they better not forget their core business or offend their core customers, because a few sales of any sort just isn't worth it.

[Mike Holmes]

Good points.

Mike

[Andrew Morris]

Just a quick update on this. Apparently, a White Wolf representative showed up at DexCon to try and enforce this policy. The GMs running WW LARPs got together, and told the rep that they wouldn't go along, and would explain to all their players that it was the WW policy that killed the LARP. At which point, the rep backed off and explained that there was a miscommunication, and that WW would be releasing a revised version of the policy soon.

Admittedly, this is from someone else who was there, and I didn't see any of this go down personally, but I find it interesting. I couldn't find anything about this on the WW website, though. Anyone hear anything?

[Adam]

Not going to comment on that DexCon account, but WW has officially withdrawn the policy -- see http://www.livejournal.com/community/whitewolf_lj/11129.html for Phil's post regarding it.