Need your help and your thoughts

[Bankuei]

True, PDF's are still a hard sell.  From a few polls I've done on rpg.net, I figure that folks basically break down into 3 types regarding PDFs
-People who will buy it if the concept sounds good
-People who will buy it only if they've seen it before/know what's in it(D&D reprints)
-People who will never buy a PDF

Price is fairly irrelevant in changing these folks from one category to the next.

I just figured that it makes more sense to cover both ends, and not worry about PDF's eating your sales.  At whatever point in the future Universalis reaches the point of being worth the effort to pirate, you can drop a "brand new 2nd Edition!" with the tons of art, etc, and charge $40  hardcover :)

As a minor aside, if I had just seen Universalis sitting on the shelf somewhere, and new nothing about it, the cover art would not have caught my eye.  You might want to consider something with a little more pop! to it to catch folks eyes.

Chris

[Paganini]

My feeling is that conventions are going to be the way to push Universalis. Actual play is really the only way to understand how special the game really is. Reviews, web adds, etc. are all great, but descriptions of the game just aren't going to convey what its really about. I'm in favor of a "convention edition" print run... fixed typos, appendices with addons, etc. You take these to conventions and run demo games. Word of mouth is the best sales method, so I suggest encouraging it by offering a modest discount to word of mouth purchases. IOW, keep a list of all your demo participants. Tell your demo participants that their friends will get 10% (or soemthing) off cover price if they mention the demo participant's name when they buy the game. ("Yeah, my buddy Joe was in one of your demos and said it was really cool!")

These convention copies would have a relatively small print run, because of costs, I understand. Suppliment them with a PDF edition. Make the PDF really cheap (No more than $10, $5 would be better). If you do, people will be more likely to buy it *as well* as the printed version.

[ejh]

"These convention copies would have a relatively small print run, because of costs, I understand. Suppliment them with a PDF edition. Make the PDF really cheap (No more than $10, $5 would be better). If you do, people will be more likely to buy it *as well* as the printed version."

This echoes something I posted to Ralph in private messages -- I think that offering PDFs for a small price would allow people to check out the game for cheap, and if they're really strapped for cash, they could live with the PDF -- but I think that people really value a physical object, and if there were an "upgrade path" where a purchaser of a PDF could get a bound copy a bit cheaper, people would be likely to take it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ralph,

I've been thinking, and here's the short version of my conclusions.

1) Print 1000 copies (or whatever number gives you a nice break-point on costs).

2) Alter the format slightly, specifically, include an ISBN, a bar code, a price listing, and anything else that makes it bookstore-order-friendly.

3) Come up with a Quick-Start PDF for the website.

4) Sell the book direct from the website and let the bookstore-sales model bake for a while.

5) Promote like a bastard through conventions, using volunteers such as myself. (I have every intention of toting Universalis, along with The Pool, to every public gaming event I ever attend.) Sell copies there too.

All of this presupposes that you are willing to take a loss on the printing in the short term. However, *if* you get the game into stores (say eight months to a year from now), then you'll be working from a profit base from the interim sales, and you'll probably recoup all costs (and possibly then some) from the first store-order. You'd almost certainly need to be working with someone like Woody or Liz by that point, to ensure a meaty 300-to-500 copy initial order.

Some things to do as well: establish Sole Proprietorship status for Ramshead Publishing, get a business license, and get yourself an accountant.

Best,
Ron

[Tony Irwin]

3) Sell Uni going forward as a PDF, but (sales permitting) do a Revised Printing for next year's GenCon where we take alot of the Add-ons and essays that are currently on the site, clean them up and include them in an expanded game book.

Obviously the least expensive way for us is to go the PDF route, but what I'd like to hear from you is how much of a benefit that cool little perfect bound book is to your enjoyment of the game and how much of an enticement was it when you made your purchase to have an actual book.

Also, do you see any value added in an expanded Revised Printing as suggested in option 3?  If so, what would you want included to make it worthwhile?Thanks.

PC Add-on
I think the PC add-on really shows off one of the incredible strengths of this game, there comes a point where you identify so closely with certain characters that you find you start playing as a "traditional" rpg. The difference is that you're playing in the rpg that you and your friends have  always wanted to play. You know that because you're the ones who have been building it (perhaps unwittingly) while you play. Remember Dungeon Keeper? Its like that - you build your world and then suddenly you find yourself playing inside of it. I'd be keen to see the PC add-on given serious treatment with examples of play and what-not.

RPG conversions
One of the scary things about Universalis is that you can rebuild any RPG on the market from the ground up. I know because my group keeps doing it! One of the most useful threads I've read on this board has been the one where Mike & Ralph give tips on converting character classes and skill levels into Univeralis concepts. A treatment of that would be really useful.

On the other hand...
Both of my comments are about anchoring Universalis to traditional RPGs in some way, and Universalis doesn't really need that. Its the perfect story-telling game and doesn't depend on the existence of other games (or an experience of them) to be understood. In fact am I right in thinking that the word role-playing isn't mentioned anywhere in the main body of text? I like the stand-alone nature of Universalis, you don't get the feel its "made by role-players, for role-players", even though I guess it is ;-)

Tony