Indie Successes and Failures?

[Space Cowboy]

Hey guys,

First, I'd like to say that there is an absolute wealth of really useful knowledge here for aspiring game designers.

I think that an excellent place to learn about the industry is from those who have gone before.  Thus, can anyone have any name any particular indie successes or failures AND how they ended up that way, from design, production, business, and marketing points of view.

Many thanks!

[Michael S. Miller]

Hi! and Welcome the Forge!

In Ron Edward's Review of Orkworld he talks about how that game--which certainly made one of the biggest splashes of any indie game--can be counted as successful, and why it is dismissed as unsuccessful by others. That's the trouble with "success." One person's "successful" game doesn't even show up on the radar of someone else.

So, Cowboy, can you tell us what critera you're interested in discussing as far as defining "success" and "failure." Are we talking about profits, sales, long-term actual play, or something else?

[Nathan]

I'll bite.

1) Define success in your own terms.

With the indie market, you aren't going to sell a ton of games, but you will sell enough to be content. I set success for Eldritch Ass Kicking early on at 40 copies. I've more than surpassed that in a year since it has been released, and that was with some major goofups and gamer kindness.

Goofup #1: When I first released the game about a year ago, I had a mailing list with over 100+ folks who were interested in the game. By accident, I emailed out the COMPLETE game to the ENTIRE mailing list. I am positive that cost me some sales. One gamer was nice enough to go ahead and pay for his copy anyway.

Gamer Kindness #1: I promised from the get go a free upgrade to the "sweet", "color rich" version that was going to be released later, with art and cool layout. I could have required those gamers to buy a new copy, thereby netting me more cash -- but why? So, a bunch of folks got the free upgrade.

Still, I am successful. My friends and fellow gamers love the game I wrote, and they love to play it. It has sold over 50 copies or so (I've lost track) without a whole lot of P.R. or heavy push from me. I ran a game of EAK at a local con, and it rapidly became an underground success. I'm having fun... What more could you ask for?

(Plus there are other big announcements coming for EAK too.. muhahahaha)

2) Don't get caught up in the flash.

If you pay any attention on various messageboards across the net, you can get caught up in that whole fact that you need to make your game look great. It needs art and layout -- it has to dazzle. Don't buy it. If you have a great game concept, it will sell itself. If you can do the art and layout, fine -- go for it -- but it won't make a poor game any better.

That is the best thing about indie games -- your customers aren't always interested in the flashy stuff. They want fun games and good ideas. They don't mind paying for no artwork or a basic layout. If the idea is there, it's worth it.

Thanks,
Nathan

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Space Cowboy,

This is an excellent thread topic, although as people have pointed out, there are a hell of a lot of variables to consider. I have been brushing the caked lint off the industry essay that I began writing in 2000, and some of it looks good enough to be the chassis for a new big essay ... and glory be, a whole chapteris about this very topic. So my reply here is going to be pretty sketchy in comparison.

Let's talk about business success in the long term, and further specify the publishing mode to actual books, sold in game stores. So by "long term," that means, to me, that not only have books shipped off to a distributor, but the profits from them have been seen and banked by the publisher.

Situation 1: the game is pretty damn good, and people play it. They even continue to play it when the publisher goes bust or discontinues the book because the profit is insufficient or too late in coming, or some other money-management fuckup goes on. So the company and the line are discontinued, but the play of the game goes on like gangbusters indefinitely. My case study for this one is Marvel Super Heroes.

Situation 2: the game "vanishes," which is to say, not many copies are bought, actual play is minimal to non-existent, and the only degree of success the publisher can claim is that he did indeed see the book on the shelf at his local game store, like he dreamed of for so long. A few books trickle back up the chain, but no re-orders, and the book's second supplement isn't ordered in any quantity. This is the classic fate of the Heartbreaker game.

(There is a corporate equivalent, which shows a real initial spike of sales and usually lands the retailers with tons of books they can't sell for what they thought was a "hot hot hot" game, but I'm restricting my examples to independent publishing.)

Situation 3: the game gets bought, played a fair amount, and a community builds, just as in #1, but in this case, the company avoids going into the hole or otherwise messing up its finances. Several sub-options are possible - restricting the print run and simply never printing more (e.g. Orkworld), planning for eventual store-obsolescence to a "low murmur" of play and on-line support for that alone (Obsidian, possibly), and whipping up end-user support to power future projects/products as an ongoing, opportunistic process (Sorcerer, The Riddle of Steel).

Frankly, getting to Situation #3 and (unlike Wicked Press) staying in the biz is a damned tricky thing to do. I take some pride in what I've accomplished so far, and unfortunately, a great deal of my success rests on the fact that I don't rely on the retail-distribution system for my primary profits, except on the first spike of any release.

I'm not sure if this is really addressing your topic, Space Cowboy, so let me know whether I'm giving you what you're looking for or gassing about Some Other Thing.

Best,
Ron

[Space Cowboy]

Hey guys,

Thanks for replying!  Thanks everyone for noting that "success" is indeed a vague term.  To answer your points:

Michael- Thanks heaps for the welcome!  As an aspiring RPG publisher, I look at my project as a business, not a vanity press.  The biggest thing I'm worried about is spending a bunch of $$ and then failing.  Yes, the vast majority of new businesses go under, I want to learn all that I can to have the best chance of avoiding that fate.
     Thus, while it might be nice to get props for the design, etc., what I need by "success" for my (perhaps not quite so noble) goals is numbers of games sold, especially compared to costs.  However, it is also true that design, long-term actual play, etc. all affect numbers of games sold.
     From looking on the threads here and at rpg.net, it looks like even the most "successful" indie publishers only move a handful of games compared to, say, WotC.  However, I'd love to know how those indie publishers operate, and how the ones that have disappeared into bankruptcy operated.


Nathan- Thanks for the war stories, that's exactly what I'm looking for- hear about what worked and didn't work for RPG publishers.  Congrats!  Even one sale means that someone believe in your product enough to part with their $$.
    You have an interesting point about game success being fundamentally about the "idea".  Could you please elaborate more on what you and/or the market think is a "successful idea"?


Ron- Thanks for your insightful response.  Your reputation precedes you- I've heard that Sorcerer has a simple but innovative resolution mechanic.
    If you would be so kind, I would love to hear more about your three situations- what kind of "management fuckups" can/do occur to sink an RPG?  What sorts of cash flow problems bankrupt indie publishers and how can they, if at all, be avoided?  Is it possible to get reasonably accurate marketing data to avoid being stuck with a bunch of "hot hot hot" games in your garage, and if so, how?  What is "whipping up end-user support to power future projects/products as an ongoing, opportunistic process"?


Many thanks again!

[Mike Holmes]

There's a big perspective thing going on here.

When you say that you have to sell x amount of books, you mean in order to make y amount of money in z amount of time, right? Because who knows how much you'll be making per book, especially compared to overhead costs. It's not a simple matter.

But the way that Indie folks keep from going "bankrupt" is to never spend money you don't have. That is, publishing in the Indie world is a lot simpler than I think you think it is. The process might look like this:

1. I buy some art from someone. $500
2. I get a layout guy to throw it all in a book. $500
3. I send the PDF to a printer along with $3000 to print up 1000 copies.
4. I get the books and arrange to sell them somehow. Let's say I go with a Fulfilment house, and sell online.
5. I get $10 a copy after costs (like paying the fufilment house).

400 books later, I've covered my costs. If I sell out, I've made $6000 dollars.

If I start out with the $4000 in pocket, there's no going bankrupt, only the possibility of losing that money. Note these figures aren't at all realistic, just a rough idea of the sort of thing that happens.

Does "success" mean making enough money to quit your day job? If so, I think that you need to think about it again. There are very few people who make a living doing this. Ron is a Professor of Biology, for example, and I don't think he's planning on retiring any time soon to live off his Sorcerer earnings...

Also, note that I'll bet that Nathan, with his 40 copies sold has made money. How? Just go with no overhead. Get cheap art, publish PDF online from your website. Takes almost nothing to start, and is pure profit. Sell 40 copies for $5 a throw, and that's #200 dollars more than you had when you started.

Is that vanity publishing? If it makes a profit? And people you don't know buy and enjoy the game? I'd call it success. But that's my criteria.

How do you garuntee sales? If we knew, would we tell you? :-) Make the best game you can. What else is there you can do? How do you make a good game? See the fora here for a few thousand posts on how for a start.

Note, many of us here are of a mind that, "Write it, and they will play." That is, there's no silver bullet in terms of subject matter. Even a valuable license is no garuntee. Remember the Hercules & Xena game? No? Nobody else does either.

Mike

[Christian Walker]

For my print zine, success has been defined by the following:

1) I make enough money to cover expenses.

2) People enjoy the read

3) They write to tell me so

4) It's even better if the material gets used in play. One lady ran a PBEM campaign based upon my work and I was tickled pink.

5) Most important of all, I gotta have fun!

Take care!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Cowboy,

[]quote]what kind of "management fuckups" can/do occur to sink an RPG?[/quote]

Let me count the ways ...

1. The corporate way is to shoot for a very big initial sales-spike, driven by hype and rewarded by orders from retailers + distributors, and then to follow up with supplements, each of which is supposed to "boost" or re-spike the game's sales.

2. The independent way is twofold: either be strapped for cash when it's time to reprint your book (due to successful sales) or be stuck with a million extra books, and the debt from printing them, which you cannot move.

What sorts of cash flow problems bankrupt indie publishers and how can they, if at all, be avoided?

It's impossible to answer this briefly. The main problem is simply getting your books ordered by the three-tier system middlemen in the first place. The second problem is getting paid by said middlemen, which is a serious issue at present. The third problem is simply going too extravagant on unnecessary costs, especially those of promotion.

Oh yes, the Numero Uno, though, is printing on margin - which is to say, expecting your initial sales-spike literally to pay for that print run's own costs. This is insane. The cardinal rule of all independent business sense is only to spend money that you can afford to lose - never to sink actual production investment into credit that must be paid instantly.

Avoiding all of these problems is based on a single principle: knowing where your profits come from, and setting a reasonable goal for expecting what the rate of return will be.

Is it possible to get reasonably accurate marketing data to avoid being stuck with a bunch of "hot hot hot" games in your garage, and if so, how?

For a retailer or a publisher? Retailers should learn to monitor the actual play and word-of-mouth that operates among their customer base, rather than training their customers to agree with them ("always value what my distributor says is hot"), then wondering why the customer base shows such a rapid turnover. Publishers should learn not to throw good money away on the basis of sympathetic magic - i.e., if I spend a lot on it, the universe will respect that and make sure I won't go broke.

Marketing data, in my opinion, is a very shaky practice under any circumstances, and in the RPG so-called industry, it amounts to rumor-mongering.

What is "whipping up end-user support to power future projects/products as an ongoing, opportunistic process"?

Whipping up end-user support = positive feedback from me to customers for playing the game and continuing to buy stuff. It means listening to what they say and caring about it, and saying so, as well as being a mentor for people who don't grasp the game but want to. It means being willing to post their comments and admit when I messed up, as well as to help clarify things that I didn't.

Powering future projects/products = being open to people's suggestions and contributions. The mini-supplement program I run for Sorcerer is a good example. So is simply posting people's contributions, like links to actual play discussions or the rules for a LARP that someone makes up for fun.

Doing so in an "ongoing, opportunistic" way = not making my own schedule for mini-supplements and similar outsider-contributions, but rather taking them as they come.

Best,
Ron

[samdowning]

Excellent information here, and I'd not disagree with any of it.  Any small business is almost guaranteed to lose money for its first 5 years.  It's just the way of things.  Although we built our company slowly, we're working on the 5 year mark now and are just seeing some turn around in our profits & losses.  Cashflow is fine, and our profits are paying for what little debt we do have fairly evenly now.

Definitely keep the overhead low.  If you go to print, expect to keep your copies in the basement (or closet, or under your bed, or all of the above).  When you get them, expect to NEVER sell them.  If it becomes a game that people buy, and if you happen to be able to sell enough to cover the cost of printing it, pat yourself on the back, you did just fine.  If you expect to break even or even make a profit right away, forget it.

Also, with the way the market works, it's true that the majority of your distributor sales will happen in the first three months.  However, if it's something that sells over time, that's my definition of success.  As such, Arrowflight is quite successful, in that we've continued to have re-orders and it's been out for a year and a half now.  It's got a few problems, but it is our very first printed product and we've learned a lot since then about publishing and everything else that goes with it.

The biggest, most important piece of advice I can give is to never ever go into more debt than you can pay for out of your own pocket.  That's the way to lose everything you own, and even some things other people own.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I was once told the objective definition of success was how much money you made. this was by an ardent Randist who believed you could measure objectively the value of all commidities, even human beings. I was not making much money at all at the time, and beat myself up constantly in consequence.

I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but in that respect the guy was a jerk. You can;t objectively measure the value of a human being. Indeed, you can;t objectively measure success. Is Martha Stweart a success? She may be rich, but she's also under indictment and may go to prison. I sincerely doubt she is a happy woman, or indeed ever was.

Indie publishers measure success in a completely subjective set of temrs that have nothing to do with the bottom line. It's the only way to stay sane in this crazy business.

Are you doing work you can be proud of? If you are still excited about what you did a year after you did it, you are a sucess. I can't pick up a copy of my book, or open a PDF file I published, without a thrill going down my spine, a sense that I have somehow accomplished something important even if only twenty people ever read it. My business is very early in the five-year cycle, and may turn a profit someday, but I am doing what I love and can continue to do it.

THAT is success. why do I publish? Because there's something inside me that can't NOT publish.  That part of my soul takes great joy in what i accomplish. If I can publish my own ideas, if I can help others exprress their visions, and if I can reach an audience howveer small, then I am a success no matter what the world says.

[Space Cowboy]

Hey guys,

Thanks again for all the helpful feedback.  I've found a bunch of good general background materials about how to start an RPG company.  There's a good article here by Ron (http://indie-rpgs.com/articles/12/), Sandy Antunes has a good column at rpg.net:

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/collists/soapbox.html

I also came across a good article at Wizard's Attic, though I forget the internet address.

I guess now what I've looking for now is more specific information about what has "helped" indie publishers (whether from design, publishing, marketing, etc.) and more specific mistakes to avoid.

Also, how exactly does the "three tier" system work?  For example, if you ship a bunch of books to Alliance or Diamond, do you get paid for the whole shipment 30 days after shipping, or do you get paid for individual book sales 30 days after some retailer sells a copy of your book?

Many thanks!

[Pramas]

Hey guys,

I guess now what I've looking for now is more specific information about what has "helped" indie publishers (whether from design, publishing, marketing, etc.) and more specific mistakes to avoid.

I wrote a letter awhile back to a guy who wanted advice on starting a d20 company. Here are some of the points I made, with the d20 specific advice edited out (as that doesn't seem pertinent). My advice presumes you plan to do print products and offer them through the three tier system. There are, of course, other ways to do it, but there are other folks here who can give you better advice on alternate avenues.

1) Watch your cash flow. Seriously. This is one thing that can torpedo the best laid plans. If possible, try to have enough money in your war chest to completely fund your first two products. That way you are not reliant on sales of the first product to bankroll the second. You never know how a product will perform and if you rely on money you think will come in from sales, it can hamper your production schedule. Retailers and distributors want some assurance that you're going to be around in six months, that you'll be supporting your lines. They are reassured by companies with regular release schedules and wary of those without them. If you manage your cash flow and your release schedule well, it'll go a long way to proving yourself to the other tiers of the industry.
2) Go to the GAMA Trade Show. It happens every March in Las Vegas and is the only real industry trade show for gaming. All the distributors attend, as do 3-500 of the best retailers in the business. This is your chance to sell your stuff to them directly (and without the chaos of a consumer show like GenCon). There are also some handy seminars for new companies at the show.
3) Get decent art. Your product may be the best-written thing ever, but distributors and retailers won't give it a chance if it looks like your little sister did all the art. Good graphic design and cartography are also plusses.
4) Create a website and update it regularly. Make yourself available on places like EN World and rpg.net to answer questions about your products. A little customer service can go a long way to building fan loyalty.
5) Solicit your books properly. Most distributors want a cover shot and sales text three to four months prior to release so they can sell their accounts on the product. They are very resistant to shorter solicitation cycles, so it's important to play ball with them. If you print a book and give them a week to place their orders, you'll get an anemic response at best.
6) Print reasonably. It is very tempting to print a lot of your first game. After all, the more you print the cheaper each unit becomes. When starting out, I'd recommend printing no more than 1,000 to start. If you sell out and need to reprint, great. Better that than printing 10,000 and building a house out of unsold inventory (which ties up cash you could use elsewhere).
6) If you sell product direct to consumers from your website, don't discount it. Retailers hate that. They feel like you are trying to undercut them. If you feel your books are worth the cover price, you shouldn't be afraid to charge the full price in your web store.

Also, how exactly does the "three tier" system work?  For example, if you ship a bunch of books to Alliance or Diamond, do you get paid for the whole shipment 30 days after shipping, or do you get paid for individual book sales 30 days after some retailer sells a copy of your book?

You get paid for the whole shipment. Now this sounds great, but it means distribs tend not to order a lot at once. This is the era of "just in time" inventory. As the manufacturer, you are basically stuck taking most of the risk. Retailers will order one or two at a time, distributors will order sixes and twelves (even if it means reordering every week). You, of course, are expected to be able to meet all demand. Basically, you can expect to sell the most the month of releases, then sales will drop and drop until they eventually plateau. Ideally, the plateau will be at a reasonable sales level, but some products just die and sales cease.

[Malak]

I wrote a letter awhile back to a guy who wanted advice on starting a d20 company. Here are some of the points I made, with the d20 specific advice edited out (as that doesn't seem pertinent).

Chris, I was wondering if you could print the whole thing, D20 advice an' all?

Martin.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Yeesh, this thread is kind of expanding in focus ...

Chris, if you want to chisel that letter into an article, with or without D20 focus, please do - it'd be very welcome here.

Space C, here's one thing out of many to consider. You should choose which way you go with it carefully.

Mutualism vs. Isolationism. Mutualism is based on massive cross-referencing across your game title and others. Sharing links, exchanging free ads, providing services for others, sharing booth space and demo time at conventions, and more. Isolationism is based on building a play-community whose needs are served only by your game, essentially making a sub-subculture within the hobby.

Adept Press (me) is highly Mutual; the Apophis Consortium (Dav Harnish) is, or was, fairly Isolationist. Both strategies can work well.

What doesn't work is just "getting your game out there" with no attention to actual play (and positive feedback for it) at all. When you do that, you enter a competition for distributor and retailer attention based on production and promotion costs that you probably won't win, not without massive outside funding.

Also, how exactly does the "three tier" system work? For example, if you ship a bunch of books to Alliance or Diamond, do you get paid for the whole shipment 30 days after shipping, or do you get paid for individual book sales 30 days after some retailer sells a copy of your book?

That is a big topic and might do better in a thread of its own. Some people might even claim that the three-tier system doesn't work.

OK ... to answer your direct question, the publisher is paid by the distributor for the books shipped to them, period. There is no further reference to sales further down the chain of any kind, except in terms of re-orders. Therefore, a publisher could theoretically unload their entire print run into distribution and realize full and entire profits, even though if the books are rejected by each and every consumer in the store and never cross the sales counter.

Here are some reality-check nuances. Bluntly, some distributors are not necessarily quick about paying for the books they buy. Another is that who "eats" losses (i.e. ends up losing the money they spent on the book if it doesn't sell at the end of the chain) has varied greatly over the last thirty years.

Best,
Ron

[Space Cowboy]

Hey guys,

Once again, thanks so much for your replies.  I'm sorry that I haven't gotten back to this thread earlier, haven't been feeling well lately.

Chris,
     Thanks for all the good points.  If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a question- How important is it to use the three tier (manufacturer-distributor-retailer) system?  Right now, I'd like to retail my game directly to the consumer, without going through the three tier system.  Is this possible, or suicide?  I know that my sales would very likely be MUCH lower, but I would avoid all the discounts to the middlemen, and I wouldn't have to deal with all the hassle of going to GAMA (which, as you note, is for distributors and not consumers) and such.

Ron,
    How I'm conceiving my current approach for my project is "marginally mutual".  By that I mean, "haring links, exchanging free ads, providing services for others, sharing booth space and demo time at conventions" would all be things that I would like to do, but not something that I would actively push.  Rather, I would put the vast majority of my marketing time and effort on my project alone.  If I'm misusing or misunderstanding the term "mutualism", please feel free to correct me.

Many thanks!