Publishing pencil & paper games on CDs

[JSDiamond]

This is more of a thread grown out of my answer in the New Distribution thread in another forum.  It seems to fit here.

Jeff Diamond once told me that the saddest, loneliest booths at any SF, comics, or gaming con he attended were the CD products. I'm not sure whether cons are a valid test market, but there's a nasty ring truth to his observation.

     -quote from Ron Edwards

I did say that. It's true, the cd booths are lonely places, desolate in spite of the fact that beneath the glow of their two or three monitors each displays some good flash animation or other form of display of some good games, comics, etc.

So what's the problem?  I'll tell you, it's not the format, it's the game designer/publisher in the booth and the sales people and pitch that's crippling what should be successful.

CDs are a good idea. But I think that the best way to market them at a convention is by having more than a few actual printed out versions for thumb-through viewing (and a choice to buy one of them).   Surprisingly, this is hardly ever done.  It's almost like the publishers want to remain purists about their chosen format; as though having hardcopy around would remind you of what you're already used to and make you back-pedal away. That's just the vibe I get from it.

Now, to make games for print out from CDs viable and successful, here's what I think would work (it would appeal to me anyway).

1. First make sure the game is under 100 pages. Because burning out even one b&w ink cartridge is at least a  $25 investment, -you might as well have printed the thing.  And I won't even mention the artwork effect!

2. Have hardcopy in the booth available to look at.

3. Rent two (2) fast printers for the weekend and offer the option of selling a CD or printing a copy RIGHT THERE in the booth for the customer! It's *their own* copy.  This choice will make any sale easier and everyone who is passing by will SEE IT actually working. YES you can print out a game! YES it looks good! YES it's cheap and easy! Now, how many would you like?

Do that, do it right, and I say let's have CDs!    

Jeff Diamond
http://www.geocities.com/allianceprime">6-0 Games

P.S.
Ron, that's why I didn't go with you-know-who, because they practically promised me that no effort to sell or promote my game would be made.  Not even hanging up a poster on the back wall.  Yeah, 'we're proud to have you on our label' -yeah, right.

   


[ This Message was edited by: JSDiamond on 2001-05-21 14:53 ]

[james_west]

Jeff -

Just a note that what Poppocabba likes to do is give away free copies of his game on CD (the CDs are twenty cents, a lot cheaper than printing costs) to playtesters at conventions. I don't think he's talking about  marketing on CD, but using it as a means of distributing free/cheap games.

Having said that, I think you're probably right, in that at a booth what you really need is (a) visual interest and (b) something that they can look at during the convention if they buy it.

                               - James

[Dav]

Jeff:

One of the problems I've had in convention experience is the lack of lightning at our booth.  No juice.  

Therefore, before committing to the "print at booth" idea, which would be a great idea all around, I would make sure you have the electricity.  At GenCon, there was (and maybe still is) a surcharge for electricity, something expensive (no numbers off hand, but more than you're using in electricity, trust me).  

Dav

[JSDiamond]

My low opinion of the convention sHytstem is another thing altogether. (sorry, -don't mean to rant)

You're right, of course.  It would be prudent to check *all* costs before committing to such a plan.  Perhaps one of us will have the opportunity to try it out.
Id certainly share a booth and promo other indie games.

Jeff Diamond



[ This Message was edited by: JSDiamond on 2001-05-23 01:54 ]

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I love the idea of a CD with several, perhaps even ten small independent RPGs on it. I love the idea of accessory materials on it, like graphics files, maps, character portraits, cool PC-sheet macros, and music. I love the idea of buying such a thing and holding all that coolness in one hand.

None of my comments about CDs so far are aimed toward squelching the idea. But somehow, some way, it doesn't seem to have the "grab" power of a book ... I am convinced there is some solution, and this thread is a good start.

The more ideas Forge members can pour into it, the better.

Best,
Ron

[Dav]

I think CD's have an adequate "grab" potential so long as the slip cover art (or CD art) is good.  You can get one of those CD labelers for about $20, and print onto a CD any art you want.  Combining that with some good slipcase info/art, I think you'd have a damn fine piece of work.  I just don't think people will spend more than $5-10 on it.  

Which is fine.  My friend Jason Gunn and I keep thinking of doing games and burning them onto those "business card" CD's.  They hold 40mb, so there is plenty of room.  Anyway, I think it is a good idea.  You could even have cool animated intro's and links to websites and all sorts of fun stuff.

Dav

[Nathan]

Howdy, howdy,

Publishing on a CDs is a wonderful idea. I bought the Earthdawn rulebook (html) for a buck from FASA a while back. I've seen that LivingRoomGames has included that CD with their first module. That is unbelievably sweet.

There are a ton of technical issues with cds for one. You have different formatting for different operating systems. You have file formats. Having different versions of the same rulebook might also help - someone with a dot matrix printer might not be interested in a beautiful pdf version of the game - but they may like the thought of a text-only version. Often, it can also be daunting perhaps to "hear" the promise of all these cool games, but not actually see them. I love the idea of selling printed versions or demoing it right in front of them. That is wonderful!

On the other hand, if the cd is in a gamestore, that may not be possible. I think a cd case would be the next best thing - including a good rundown of every game. A good rundown may equal a paragraph or more.

The beauty of a cd is all the cool extra stuff you can include with it. Single-handedly, the coolest thing for me about D&D 3E was the cd that came with it. That character generator saved me and my first players a ton of time. Plus, it was done well. Rather than your customers getting a bunch of stand-alone independent games (that may or may not have a ton of source material), they get a bunch of games with a bunch of adventures/utilities/etc.

Going back to the Earthdawn CD... here is how it rates:
-HTML rulebook (fine for printing, not best but fine)
-Extra Material (one extra adventure I think)
-Utilities:
--WebRPG (Mac, PC compatible.. cool. Java = ugh)
--Character Generator (PC compatible yuk, DOS-based = HELL)

Not bad, but not the best use of the cd. But it was one measly buck. Kindah makes all the flaws okay.

I would love to see an application based roleplaying game. You buy a CD, load the app on your 'puter, and pay some subscription fee for it. Depending on the subscription fee, anytime there are new supplements/etc they are downloaded to your computer - heck, you could even fix typos by submitting a new version of your game and it would immediately be downloaded and updated. Sweet stuff.

Ahh but I digress....

Sorry for the long post.

Nathan

[Clay]

If anybody is interested in putting a service like Nathan described together, let me know.  The technology to do something like this is readily available.

It seems like there's no reason that this couldn't be done via a web site as well.  Pay a subscription price that gets you in to the site, and you've got access to all the new goodies that come out.

RedHat offers a service like this for their Linux distribution.  Pay about the price of one and a half single distributions from them, and you get any new releases during that year.  Given their release schedule, it usually saved about $30 a year.

Clay