Bad news from RPGNow

[andy]

OK, last post on this one.

What Clinton said.

I'm a decent, repeat customer of RPGNow (probably in excess of $200/year). I've picked up some great stuff, and I've picked up some real crap...and I dearly love it all. The idea that a customer/prospective customer would avoid future purchases because they bought something that they didn't like is an insult to brainy game geeks everywhere (this humble author included). Surely we alpha-geeks are capable of understanding that products from different producers could be of varying quality.

I may be wrong, but I don't think that your point about "basic marketing" (as you put it) is correct Gareth. Basic Marketing 101 is "know and understand your customer." RPGNow's ideal customer is not the occasional curiosity-surfer who buys a product every blue moon and who might be put off by a lemon.

RPGNow's ideal customer is me.

Think about it.

Rant concluded.

Andy

[GMSkarka]

I'm going to go ahead and get all moderator-like here. "Amateur wanna-be" is name-calling and flaming. [/list]

I'm not referring to anybody other than the hypothetical publisher of a hypothetical product.   Can one "name-call" an imaginary person?

Try putting down the grudge for a minute, OK?

[GMSkarka]

I may be wrong, but I don't think that your point about "basic marketing" (as you put it) is correct Gareth. Basic Marketing 101 is "know and understand your customer." RPGNow's ideal customer is not the occasional curiosity-surfer who buys a product every blue moon and who might be put off by a lemon.

RPGNow's ideal customer is me.

Sorry, but that's just not what our data indicates.

[Valamir]

I'm a little bit lost here.

RPGNow is a business.

It isn't a hobby website.  It isn't a charity.  And it isn't a community dedicated to the promotion of indie publishing.

Its a business.  Dedicated to the proposition that the people running it want to turn a profit.

They've decided that their business will be in the arena of distribution of PDF games some from indie publishers and some from major publishers.  They're required dedication to, support of, encouragement of, or interest in indie publishing is in direct proportion to how much profit indie publishers can bring them.  My guess is: substantially less than distributing Pinnacle/Great White PDFs bring them.

Whatever judgement one is going to make on RPG Now's business decisions can only take 1 of 2 forms.

1) You disagree that their business decisions will actually accomplish their goal of greater profits.  Which could be an interesting discussion in itself, and one I'd gladly participate in in order to get a better view behind the curtain of how their business model works, but unless they've hired you as a business consultant your opinion is just that.

2) Your own goals and personal mission statement conflicts with theres at which point you simply stop doing business with them.  If enough of that occurs to effect their bottom line they'll have to reevaluate said business decisions.  If not, they'll likely (and rightly from a business perspective) appreciate the culling.


So are posters here disagreeing with aspects of the new RPGNow policy on the grounds of #1 or #2?


I will note that hope that not too many critical business decisions are being based on "data".  Marketing Data is notorious for being worth somewhere between jack and shit.

[GMSkarka]

They've decided that their business will be in the arena of distribution of PDF games some from indie publishers and some from major publishers.  They're required dedication to, support of, encouragement of, or interest in indie publishing is in direct proportion to how much profit indie publishers can bring them.  My guess is: substantially less than distributing Pinnacle/Great White PDFs bring them.

Allow me to interject here that we're not talking about culling "indie publishers."   At all.

What we're specifically talking about are sub-standard products that fail to meet professional standards of presentation, editing, etc.  Most of the "indie" product I've seen meets or exceeds the standards.

So this isn't about Major Publisher vs Indie Publisher.   This is about Quality Product vs Sub-standard Product.

[greyorm]

Because if someone's first purchase is something that's been slapped together by some amateur wanna-be, they're not likely to return as a customer.

As this started with a complaint about the fee, should I assume this is a response to that?

As already noted, the $40 fee does absolutely nothing to provide a solution to this problem in particular. I can scrape $40 bucks together to put up something I slapped together on a whim.

Don't think I (or other people) would? How many games (frex: computer titles) are put out by some guy(s) who had a little spare cash (or a rich backer) and decided they wanted in on the act, too? The non-electronic market is rife with high-production-cost crap, while some truly brilliant concepts and programmers are relegated to the backwaters because they aren't able to step-up with the funds necessary to enter the shark tank of modern business.

This is exactly ass-backwards if the goal is producing higher quality product.

The fee, in itself, is not a barrier to the types of folks you may think it is, and does nothing to solve the "slapped-together amateur publication" problem. The only person the fee is a barrier for is the guy on the shoestring budget who doesn't have the funds to spend producing his (possibly otherwise brilliant) product: spending $40 (or $40,000) does not prove whether or not one is, nor weed out one from the other, a professional or an amateur.

Or to put it simply: the ability to spend money (in actuality, the simple ownership of money to spend) does nothing to guarantee a superior or more professional product.

However, I'll also point out that my own or anyone else's bitching about a $40 entry fee is exactly like complaining that WotC won't license and print my product. Boo hoo.

As such, and if this is not a response to the issue of the fee, then all I can do is say a product review by the business owners, before deciding to distribute said product, is the better solution to the problem of amateur vs. professional, and a step I can agree with taking from the standpoint of a business-owner. I've no complaint there, in fact I'll echo what Ralph said at this point.

In fact, I've no real complaint anywhere with any of this -- it is James' business, he can do what he wishes. He can hire Latin-speaking Italian monks to run the whole damn business if he wishes. That is his business, not mine, and unless and until his business decisions seriously and irrevocably impact my own business, I don't need to say anything. Even then, I'd best be savvy enough not to tie my business so tightly to his, such that if his ship sinks, my own is not inarguably dragged down with it.

Thus, in the interests of (again) trying to salvage this thread from a "If I ran RPGNow..." bitchfest, and making something actually useful to the community out of this discussion, I point out the questions we should be asking and answering once more.

Quite simply, everyone can bitch about a problem they have with "X": what are you going to do about that problem specifically? Unless you have an answer to this, there is no reason to bother opening one's mouth.

What are your other options, folks? What other options can you make? (There are literally bucket loads of untapped resources out there for you just waiting for someone desperate -- and clever -- enough to grab ahold of and wring potential out of. I believe the vast majority of authors on this board qualify for the "clever" part at the very least. Now go do something with that.)

The answers to those questions is what the rest of this thread should be dedicated to the pursuit of.

[Valamir]

Granted, Gareth.  I understand that point and that that's the angle you're promoting this as.  But my point is 2 things.

a) at the end of the year, after you've removed or rejected 3 or 30 or 300, products for quality are the majority of those products likely to be from indie publishers or major publishers.  I think its pretty much a given that more indie publishers are going to be effected.  I doubt very much Shane Hensley's going to get an email indicating that his latest Savage Worlds PDF has been rejected.  So targeted or not, it very much comes down to indie vs major lines.  I'm quite open to you posting the list of companies you had quality issues with at the end of next year if you want to demonstrate that that's not the case.

b) but that's ok.  Because any expectations that people have that you are there to cater specifically to the needs of indie publishers are wrong.  Your only obligation to indie publishers is to the extent that indie publishers make up a significant portion of your revenue and you thus need to cater to them for business sense reasons.  I don't have access to your numbers obviously, but it doesn't take a great genius to figure out that as more major publishers like Great White start distributing more product via PDF that major publishers will become an increasing fraction of your overall revenue stream.

[GMSkarka]

As this started with a complaint about the fee, should I assume this is a response to that?.

No, this was specifically in reference to the Standards document, which was also part of Michael's complaint.

[GMSkarka]

Granted, Gareth.  I understand that point and that that's the angle you're promoting this as.  But my point is 2 things.

a) at the end of the year, after you've removed or rejected 3 or 30 or 300, products for quality are the majority of those products likely to be from indie publishers or major publishers.  I think its pretty much a given that more indie publishers are going to be effected.  I doubt very much Shane Hensley's going to get an email indicating that his latest Savage Worlds PDF has been rejected.  So targeted or not, it very much comes down to indie vs major lines.  I'm quite open to you posting the list of companies you had quality issues with at the end of next year if you want to demonstrate that that's not the case.

b) but that's ok.  Because any expectations that people have that you are there to cater specifically to the needs of indie publishers are wrong.  Your only obligation to indie publishers is to the extent that indie publishers make up a significant portion of your revenue and you thus need to cater to them for business sense reasons.  I don't have access to your numbers obviously, but it doesn't take a great genius to figure out that as more major publishers like Great White start distributing more product via PDF that major publishers will become an increasing fraction of your overall revenue stream.

Self-fulfilling prophecy is fun, I guess.

Our problem is with amateurish product.  Obviously, there are going to be more amateurs in "indie" publishing than in "major", but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

But then again, you keep using a sole proprietor, owned-and-operated publisher as an example of "Major", so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.

I'm done.   I was just here to clear up some misconceptions, not to beat my head against the "indie" wall.

[greyorm]

No, this was specifically in reference to the Standards document, which was also part of Michael's complaint.

That's cool with me, Gareth. As I said, it isn't the business of anyone here what RPGNow does or does not do regarding its business policies. If it affects anyone in some major way, well, they need to find an alternate method to achieve the same (or their previous) results (exposure, sales, etc).

[Asrogoth]

Gareth,

I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to respond on the boards to the concern raised about RPGNow.  I've been contemplating getting some stuff up (God Lore, specifically), but have not had the time to do anything more with it.

I appreciate your candor and, although I agree that a steeper entry fee into RPGNow won't necessarily affect the overall quality, I can see where it might very well impact some of the would-be rpg creators who simply think "ooo, wow, what a neat idea I have, I'll post it for sale on RPGNow!".

So... I think there is nor reason to be upset about Gareth's decision so much as to evaluate our needs and appreciate the fact that he has an outlet we CAN use, if we CHOOSE.

Regards,
-Kenny

[andy]

Although it might have started that way, I don't think that this is a "bash RPGNow" thread. To the contrary, many of the Forgers (me included) are big fans.

I am a fan of the site because it's fun and interesting, and has unusual games and game-related materials that are not readily available elsewhere. Yesterday I bought a PDF for the old DnD adventure "Castle Amber," arguably an amateurish dungeon in the best of old school traditions. I didn't need it, will probably never run it again (I ran it once in the 1980's), but it was a hoot to read last night. Call me nostalgic, but I like old games.

I like new games, too. Even games that are "amateurish," games with ugly covers and games without pretty pictures. Sometimes I buy a game that I don't like. This doesn't make me mad at RPGNow--to leave RPGNow because I bought a lemon there would be analogous to leaving Borders because Anne Rice's last book was a lemon--I won't do that, and I suspect that I an not that unusual in this respect.

I may be wrong, but I think a lot of gamers who frequent RPGNow are like me. I don't object to "culling" games on moral grounds because no one has standing to raise such an objection--RPGNow is a business, and its owners can run it however they damn well please.

But I would hate to see it lose the lunatic fringe products, not because I think that such products have some sort of intellectual right to exist, but because if these "amateurish" products disappear, I won't be able to evaluate them, and perhaps buy them.

As for the validity of marketing data, the 80/20 rule is a cliche because it is true--20 percent of your customers provide 80% of your business.

RPGNow is a great site because it carries a multitude of innovative, fringe, amateurish products, not in spite of that fact.

Andy

[rpghost]

Allow me to interject here that we're not talking about culling "indie publishers."   At all.

What we're specifically talking about are sub-standard products that fail to meet professional standards of presentation, editing, etc.  Most of the "indie" product I've seen meets or exceeds the standards.

So this isn't about Major Publisher vs Indie Publisher.   This is about Quality Product vs Sub-standard Product.

Coming a bit late to this... but I have to agree with the above statement. Too many people are being paranoid about this. The new standards will probably remove about 10-20 products from our 3000. Anyone taking publishing seriously isn't at risk by this.

Clinton, what do you mean by your comment of how we treate people? We've (as far as I know) always supported the indies far more then most in this industry and have contributed to this forum in the past when we thought we had something to add. I don't understand this induendo (sp)...

James

[rpghost]

As already noted, the $40 fee does absolutely nothing to provide a solution to this problem in particular. I can scrape $40 bucks together to put up something I slapped together on a whim.

Maybe not, but it will certainly cut down on the average of a new vendor per day that causes us work and agravation. Or the 10+ publishers I removed for not ever even releasing a product months after signing up.

Hopefully it'll make someone who wants to put their PDF up for others to see, think twice about wether it's worth the $40 investment or they should just post it for free on their website.

Maybe you don't feel that the ePublisher Guides are going to help anyone signing up? We have packed in over $48 worth of products (that are 2/3rds or 3/4th useful for the non-d20 publishers) into the $40 setup fee. All good business sense info. PDF generation and layout help. Contracts. Budgeting issues, etc.  Is that not going to help things?

James

P.S. You guys keep bringing up Shane Hensley of Pinnicle. Let me tell you this, he was hit with a 5% increase in his rate. He has choosen to stay with us. I'm sure that 5% amounts to more then most will make on their products. In fact, many publishers had to take a hit, we have not lost one as we did it in a way that ads value to everyone. We do care you know...

[greyorm]

Maybe not, but it will certainly cut down on the average of a new vendor per day that causes us work and agravation. Or the 10+ publishers I removed for not ever even releasing a product months after signing up.

Heya James, no argument from me there that the fee may be helpful in curtailing certain problems (such as the above). My response was directed specifically at the idea that the ability to pay an entry fee is tied to the quality of a given product, as outlined above. And as I said, your business choices for your business are ultimately your own, and my main concern here (for this thread) is for those who have problems with such to simply suggest or develop their own or other venues rather than simply complain or engage in an ultimately useless argument about the benefits/drawbacks of the policy.

(For those wondering, I say "ultimately useless" because doomsaying, complaining, or criticisizing the policy are by their very nature gestures bereft of constructive results.)

Maybe you don't feel that the ePublisher Guides are going to help anyone signing up? We have packed in over $48 worth of products (that are 2/3rds or 3/4th useful for the non-d20 publishers) into the $40 setup fee. All good business sense info. PDF generation and layout help. Contracts. Budgeting issues, etc.  Is that not going to help things?

Sounds like an excellent packet of business material, James. I note that I was unware of this added benefit for signing up with RPGNow, as I have not yet looked into the distribution of my product. That is mainly because I would like to have a finished product to worry about before I add any more work (or worry) for myself.

When ORX is finally finished (and, yes, I can hear people yelling at me right now about that), my plan is to do some of my sales business through RPGNow -- fee or no fee -- so expect me to be in touch before the end of the year.