The Very, Very Basics of Pricing Your Game

[Brennan Taylor]

Ben has a good point about the free shipping, that does affect pricing on IPR. However, I think Tim is pretty much correct. So long as there is a significant discount from the mainstream, hard-bound, full-color glossies, small publishers are competitive. Once you approach those prices, consumers are going to expect production values to go up. That said, a lot of small press were viewing $20 as a ceiling, but creeping past it to $23 or $24 doesn't seem to affect sales at all.

[Ben Lehman]

Brennan and Tim:

1) Yup, you guys are right.
2) I think that we are deeply capable of competing with mainstream RPGs on production quality, especially with recent gains in POD tech.  Sorcerer and BW already do.  If I get my way, Bliss Stage will, and I know other folks have similar goals.

yrs--
--Ben

[Victor Gijsbers]

Ben has a good point about the free shipping, that does affect pricing on IPR.

IPR could actually be a good case study about breaking the 30$ mark. Given that non-US residents have to pay 10$ shipping costs + 5$ for each book after the first (and no free shipping applies, not matter how many books you order), a book like The Mountain Witch costs me 34$, breaking the 'magical' 30$ boundary. I have bought it, but I know at least one person who loved the game but thought 34$ was simply too much.

By comparing the ratio of US/non-US sales of IPR products that break the 30$ boundary when 10$ non-US shipping is applied to the same ratio for products where the shipping costs are not strongly differentiated towards geographical location, one could deduce what fraction of customers is scared away by prices higher than 30$. (This sentence is a bit convoluted, sorry.)

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Tim, I'm willing to put Mountain Witch up beside D&D or Vampire. Name recognition aside, we made something better in every single way.

It plays better. It looks better. It fits in your backpack better. It's got better user support (thousands of screaming D&D fans can't be right!).

I'm willing to leave the ring with a bloody nose and my arm in the air when tangling with them. I just gotta fix my stupid game.

[Josh Roby]

I think that we are deeply capable of competing with mainstream RPGs on production quality, especially with recent gains in POD tech.  Sorcerer and BW already do.  If I get my way, Bliss Stage will, and I know other folks have similar goals.

Yes, we can.

[Levi Kornelsen]

This discussion does raise a question for me, at least, and it's one that I think that Vincent has already said "yes" to and Roger has said "no" to.

So long as visible communications remain open between independent designers here and elsewhere, will a common perception of group branding connect them, desired or not?

[Josh Roby]

So long as visible communications remain open between independent designers here and elsewhere, will a common perception of group branding connect them, desired or not?

Sort of an "as long as there is a Forge, there will be Forge games" sort of thing?  Depends on how visible those communications are.  To a lot of gamers, the "industry leaders" are these big companies headquartered in different corners of the world, and are roughly antagonistic to each other.  Once you start paying attention to bylines (when they print them), you make the astouding discovery that the "industry leaders" are four or five companies of maybe eight full-time employees each, and a constellation of freelancers that work for whichever company hires them that month.  And most of the full-timers were full-timers at another company beforehand, and freelancers before that.  There are camps; there are historical divisions within the companies; there are groups of writers who habitually work together.  Once you start noticing these things, you do notice similarities in the products that they produce, but it's hardly a common insight.  Right now, the Forge is pretty public and visible; if the majority of discourse moves to personal blogs, I think recognition will drop right off the radar.

On the other hand, we -- or a subset of Forgey designers -- could easily decide to brand themselves communally.  Clinton would probably take issue with such a group running off with the Forge logo in the upper left corner, but they could make their own logo and brand identity as Story Now or whatever.