RPGNow and the competition . . .

[philreed]

Competition is a good thing. If things went as I wanted, there would be two or three sites out there similar to RPGNow operating at the same fees and providing similar services.

Sadly, this isn't so.

I have been recently approached by DriveThruRPG about a non-exclusive arrangement to sell Ronin Arts PDFs of their site.

"Non-exclusive sounds good," I thought to myself. "This is worth investigating."

Unfortunately, there are two points of going with DTRPG that is leading me to _not_ take their offer.

1. DRM. All PDFs sold through DTRPG are -- and will be -- DRM. This isn't to say that this will never change but it's how it is now. I personally don't like DRM and do not wish to support it.

2. Cost. DTRPG wants a much higher percentage than RPGNow and I honestly can't tell what they're offering to make this percentage worth the money. And for me, this adds up. For example, if we were paying RPGNow the percentage DTRP asks for it would mean a loss of over $250 for this month alone. And there's no guarantee I'll make that money back over at DTRPG. If there was some sort of guarantee that I would, in the end, be making more money then I'd jump at the chance to signup with them. e23, the Steve Jackson Games PDF site, gave me the exact same deal as RPGNow so I took it. When their site is up Ronin Arts PDFs will be selling there.

"So," some of you are asking, "Why not go with DTRPG anyway? It's extra money!"

Maybe it is, but at what cost? Do we really want to encourage more of these sites to pop up charging high percentages? Do we want to encourage RPGNow to increase their percentage?

I say no. Hell, no. I want more PDF sites out there (hell, Ronin Arts has one now) but I don't want them to be charging, what I feel, is too much for too little. And I don't want them to come in and disrupt the existing PDF industry. I owe a lot to James for RPGNow. Without his site Ronin Arts would not be where it is today -- I would not be where I'm at today -- and I feel it's my job to do what I can to help not only my own growth but the growth of RPGNow and the PDF industry overall.

The minute a new PDF site approaches me with a deal comparable to RPGNow I'll consider it. But I won't jump at a deal that has the potential to inflict harm upon the PDF publishers.

And if RPGNow raises their rates because several publishers take less than ideal offers? I'll decide what to do then. Who knows, maybe by posting this message I've done myself and my company future harm. But it's important to me and -- I think -- it should be important to you.

I'm calling on ALL of the PDF publishers to stick with RPGNow. Do what you must for your personal business but please think of what your actions could do to the PDF industry.

[Jonathan Walton]

I feel that, right now, DTRPG is a very different beast from RPGnow.  Their main sales come from OOP roleplaying materials from large or currently defunct companies.  They're not focused on selling new products by small indie companies.  Their products are, across the board, much more expensive than comperable RPGnow products, though the cost of creating these products, originally, was probably significantly higher than most indie games (more people involved, more expensive art, layout, and writing, etc.).  Still, since most of these products have already recouped their costs, it seems a bit odd that they're charging these prices this early in the game, when the PDF market is still growing and we want to encourage sales.

So, I agree with Phil that I don't think DTRPG is current a site that is supportive of indie games, designers, or upstart companies.  James created RPGnow partially to support the growing number of indie companies that emerged following the rise of d20/OGL and the indie RPG movement (spearheaded here on the Forge and elsewhere).  DTRPG was created by a large publisher (White Wolf/S&S) with very different goals in mind (get OOP material in gamers hands while making some money off of it, help build the PDF market and get a foothold there).  Phil's right that indie publishers should support competition in PDF distribution and anyone trying to support the electronic distribution, but I also feel that DTRPG is current not the best choice for most indie companies and their games.

[Jasper]

I'm quite happy with RPGNow, and also think it behooves me to support them.  I've heard various talk about competitors now: what other pdf distributors are there?  It seems to me that the market isn't big enough now to support very many. Does anyone know if many of the pdf vendors sell through more than one of these sites?  I can imagine the whole market fracturing, so that everyone needs to go to site A to get game A, and site B to get game B...though whether this is good or bad, I couldn't say.

[ethan_greer]

DTRPG actually kinda pisses me off. And it's not about the DRM thing. It's just their site, and everything they do, seems so obviously not designed with the customer's interests in mind. The whole thing strikes me (and maybe it is just me) as a big, self-serving, "let's see how much fee money we can make off of old crap we have lying around" endeavor on the part of the organizers.

By the way, I feel I should point out that according to Pinnacle, the PDFs they sell through DTRPG will not contain any DRM.

Edit: To the point of the thread, I guess I would say that I don't really consider DTRPG to be part of the competition. It's not even on my radar as I explore selling venues.

[DevP]

On the other hand, there are (I imagine) some folks who look around DTRPG but not necessarily RPGnow (frex, somebody who mainly heard about DTRPG through WW channels), and you might hope that when someone is putting in their $30 OOP PDF order, they'll consider your cheaper priced game on the side. So that's a thought; it is a slight increase in visibility.

BUt me personally it's probably not worth that effort.

[Steve Wieck]

Phil cross-posted this thread to several forums. I have responded here:

http://forums.rpghost.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=304413

to provide some information about DriveThru.

Steve Wieck
www.DriveThruRPG.com

[ethan_greer]

Thanks Steve, I appreciate the info. I'd like a clarification on Pinacle's claims that their DTRPG PDFs will not be DRM, and your claims that all DTRPG PDFs will be DRM. What gives?

[Jack Aidley]

"So," some of you are asking, "Why not go with DTRPG anyway? It's extra money!"

This strikes me as an obvious fallacy. I would assume (based on my purchase practices) that most sales of RPG products are driven not by impulse buys but by folks looking for a certain product. If you start selling at DTRPG and they take an extra bite of your profits then everyone who goes looking for that product and finds it on DTRPG first will cost you money. In other words, I'd expect not going with DTRPG to be the business wise option.

I'd be interested to know whether anyone has any data suggesting that truth of this?

[philreed]

"So," some of you are asking, "Why not go with DTRPG anyway? It's extra money!"

This strikes me as an obvious fallacy. I would assume (based on my purchase practices) that most sales of RPG products are driven not by impulse buys but by folks looking for a certain product.

Actually, I hear from many people who buy a few of my PDFs as "impulse buys." They often come back a week or so later and drop $50 on Ronin Arts PDFs but it's those first two or three that they buy on impulse that are so very important.

[Colin Fredericks]

I signed up with RPGNow initially because it was (basically) the only game in town. I signed up with DriveThru (non-exclusive; I'm still at RPGNow too) as soon as it popped up. I think of it this way: if I was still driving around to gaming stores and trying to get them to sell my stuff, would I skip one just because they want another 10 cents on the dollar from me? Not at all - I want as many people as possible to see my work. Like I'm gonna get angry at someone because they need startup money or pay their employees more. If I thought they were hoarding it all for a Scrooge McDuck-style money bath, that would be different.

I lose a whole whopping 20 minutes out of my day - on the rare days I release products - fiddling with PDF security, cover sizes, and data input to release on both sites. It costs me basically nothing.

My sales (not very sizable to begin with) haven't slipped at RPGNow, nor do I expect every customer I have to start buying at DriveThru. They're more restrictive on both the vendor and customer end of things. Many would-be customers (perhaps just a vocal minority, but customers nonetheless) have expressed their annoyance at digital security and their intention to stay at RPGNow. Others are only at one or the other for specific products, and still others shop both.

I won't lie to you, I think RPGNow is definitely the better site right now. DriveThru has just started up; things may change, but not if they vanish in a month and a half. I honestly hope that both of them will be out there competing for many years to come, because monopolies suck. I REALLY hope that both sites will learn something from the competition, and I think they already are. Hell, maybe we'll even get a merger and anti-trust legislation and the world will start taking gamers seriously, heaven f'ing forbid.

Both sites have treated me well so far, and I wish them the best of luck. I'm not going to try to make one of them fail. I'm going to "support" them both, if hogging their bandwidth and taking their money counts as support. :)

--Colin Fredericks
http://www.valentgames.com

[Jack Aidley]

But gaming stores are different from websites. Everyone with an internet connection can easily access RPGNow; only people who live in, or around, Coventry can go into Bishop Games (my FLGS).

If there were two gaming stores next to each other, would you sell your product for a 10% smaller cut in one of them?

[Colin Fredericks]

But gaming stores are different from websites. Everyone with an internet connection can easily access RPGNow; only people who live in, or around, Coventry can go into Bishop Games (my FLGS).

If there were two gaming stores next to each other, would you sell your product for a 10% smaller cut in one of them?

Yup. Have before.

--Colin

[Jack Aidley]

Interesting. Did it work out?

[Colin Fredericks]

Interesting. Did it work out?

Well, I have to say that trying to sell my books at my FLGS (or any LGS for that matter, F or not) was a real waste of time and money. It didn't matter how much they wanted to pay me; if no one buys it, I don't see any money.

However, there are gamers out there who are just plain too lazy or "loyal" to drive over and check out the other gaming store. If I had stayed with just a single store, I would have gotten just two sales instead of four. This doesn't count the two other stores where nothing sold at all, mind you, or the one who just took my stuff and never spoke to me again (fuckers - I should drive up there sometime this summer and get my money). RPGNow and DriveThru are both huge improvements over driving from store to store, hawking my wares and leaking money like a sieve.

Frankly, if DriveThru had started up first and RPGNow popped up afterwards, we'd be here having this conversation just the same and someone would be complaining about "They promote piracy with their unencoded PDFs and they're trying to lure people in with a better cut! Stay loyal to DriveThru! Think about what you're doing to the industry!"

--Colin wishes his sieve leaked money, that would be cool...

[xiombarg]

One of the things I find interesting about this discussion is no one has mentioned the Forge bookshelf... Does it not count for some reason? People distribute PDFs through it. I know I'm going to once I'm finally done with Unsung...