Dogs in the Marketplace

[lumpley]

Anybody's curious, I've just put a graph of my online sales up on my blog, here. It's not as slick as Matt's map. I have envy.

-Vincent

[Judd]

The initial sales spike lines right up with the initial RPG.net post.  I'm not trying to break my arm, patting my own back here, I'm just kinda shocked.  Does a thread like that have that much of an effect?

[lumpley]

Yes.

Kenneth Hite's Outie sold 3, maybe 4 copies.

Have you noticed how we fall all over ourselves when we meet you, Judd?

-Vincent

[Judd]

Yes.

Kenneth Hite's Outie sold 3, maybe 4 copies.

Have you noticed how we fall all over ourselves when we meet you, Judd?

-Vincent

*shrug*

*kicks at the dirt*

Wow.

That's neat.

I knew I was saying what I liked out loud but didn't realize that folks were listening.  I'm a little stunned.

I'm a whole lotta stunned.

[Chris Goodwin]

I think the best way to sell games is to play extremely cool games with them then post the results.  Judd, your multiple postings on RPG.net and here about your extremely cool Sorceror games almost sold me the game; they would have if I'd had any money to spend.  Moose in the City sold me Primetime Adventures, and I had originally intended on not buying Dogs; the sheer weight of all of the total coolness of all of the towns and Actual Play threads got me there.

[lumpley]

Fun actual play is the backbone of the new industry! That's not just talk.

I don't thank you enough, Judd and everybody. Everybody who plays, everybody who posts about their play, everybody who has rules questions, everybody who runs demos and one-shots and campaigns - if lumpley games is anything at all, it's yours.

-Vincent

[Judd]

I knew someone was listening.  I mean, I see the tallies on the forums in the views section but I just didn't fully put it all together.

Hell, I even talked it over with Ron during lunch at last year's Gen Con.

It just didn't sink in fully.

Its neat.

[lumpley]

It really is! It's like, laugh out loud like a little kid neat. It's so ... it's so true.

-Vincent

[Brand_Robins]

I know you got me into the game Judd. If it wasn't for your RPG.net post I may never have found out about Dogs.

So I owe you a beer or something.

[Valamir]

I've said it before, small press games live and die at the grass roots level.  A couple of fans who really love the game will bring far more business than any number of press releases, banner swaps, quarter page ads in a trade journal or game mag, etc.

The absolute best thing any gamer can do for a small press game that they really love is to post / talk about it.  Not in an annoying fan boy way, but in a "holy cow, I just had huge amounts of fun playing this..." way.  Judd's posts are priceless in this regard.

And as much as we kid RPG.net for being a bear pit at times, they represent the single biggest concentration of experimentally minded gamers I know of.  Actual play threads here are fantastic.  But Actual play threads on RPG.net reach far more potential customers.

[Keith Senkowski]

I totally concur with Ralph on this.  I can directly attribute 5 sales (retail) to Judd talking the game up to a store owner.  Judd (and those like him) is a priceless commodity in the small press community and I wish we could clone his ass.

Keith

[Jasper Polane]

Oh yes. Actual Play sells these games.
Judd's threads on Mu's Bed made me buy Sorceror. The Dharma Thieves threads from a while back made me buy Primetime Adventures.

--Jasper

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

The initial sales spike lines right up with the initial RPG.net post.

I'd like to read or reread this (I can't remember). Do you have a link?

[Edit: Oh, that post!]

[Tobias]

This is a 'me too'.

Actual play got me to buy MlwM for 50%, Universalis, and Dogs.

Reviews and wanting to know about 'state of the art design' got me to buy Dust Devils and MlwM for the other 50%.

I haven't gotten to play Dust Devils or MlwM - they're too exotic for my current group of friends. (At least MlwM is, Dust Devils was bought mostly as a personal read). I've played the heck out of Universalis. I will play Dogs (either vanilla or my variant).

Actual play is selling me on Burning Wheel right now - the only thing holding me back is lack of immediate venue to play it in. (Tho that is changing with a Burning Wheel play-by-mail option).

But heck, I could just buy it as a 'book for myself', and if I get much more Actual play reading, I'll be sold.

[matthijs]

The RPG.net reviews probably also had an effect. They appeared on October 1 (2091 read), October 15 (1939 read) and November 1 (1701 read). This coincides neatly with the rise and peak of the second wave, which drops sharply 2 weeks after the last review.