CD Publishing

[Nathan]

That is a HUGE point, Ron.

If this is a FOR-PROFIT deal, how do we divvy it up? I say, if we do it, profit should go to a charity or organization or something. We might be able to check with a company out there and see if they would be willing to be the sort of go to people in charge of the nitty gritty. Or maybe, an indie company like Key20 or something would be interested in handling the business stuff - as long as we pay for the print run...

I'm not sure yet.... Let's keep shooting ideas about this.

And to add : a CD to me, while less "lovely" to a gamer, reduces a ton of the problems a book has. I would be willing to compile the games on to a test cd, make sure it is windows and mac compatible, and even run an anti-virus check on it.

But for a book, do we not have art? Do we give up specific pages to each contributer and let them design their section layout wise? What sort of book?

I could see this as a thicker book in the quality of "Kobolds Ate My Baby!". But, we could do more as well....

Anyway.. more ideas...

Thanks,
Nathan

[ This Message was edited by: Nathan on 2001-11-13 13:28 ]

[Jack Spencer Jr]

The only way I could see a compliation like that happening is if someone buys the other games outright.

"Hey, Ron, I'll give you $500 for Elfs."
"Jared, I'll give you $600 for InSpectres."

or whatever and whoever and for how much ever.

I don't see this happening since no one would pay the prices the creator/owners would want for the outright purchase of their game.

Best way I can think of is if a bunch of designers were hanging out together and after too many wiskey sours they each fess up that they each have a game idea that they like, but is too small or too narrow in appeal to even bother trying to publish.  The one of them can suggest they each write up their games and he'll buy 'em off of them and publish it, with detailed info on each of them and their other project/companies.

The idea is not to promote the game in question but to promote the author.  That game is given away, more or less, as advertising.

This'll mean that if the author decide they want to publish the game themselves after all, they'd have to buy it back or else just stop worrying about that game.

That is the rub, isn't it?  Selling it outright for peanuts.  Well, it's more money that giving it away for free on your webpage.

[unodiablo]

This is more easily solved than you think... Bands do this all the time, putting together compilation CD's. Hell, there are even people who charge bands money to be on a CD, and then all the band gets is a few copies. And there have been gaming fanzines that use this collective approach as well.

Games: each person has x amount of pages to fill, for x amount of dollars, which gives each person an equal share of the books printed. You retain your copyright to your game. It's a one-time printing, all parties agree to that ahead of time. Any reprintings require a new agreement. That way if some company comes along as says "Jared, we'll give you $500 to write up a bigger version of InSpectres for SuperX Games", he's free to do so. Each designer is responsible for their own art.

Promotion or for-sale: Up to each designer. If you want to make your money back, sell them. If you want to give them away, do so. If you make a profit, yippee, if you don't, at least you didn't spend the entire amount of $$$.

I think the games should be "full versions".

[Laurel]

The idea is not to promote the game in question but to promote the author.  That game is given away, more or less, as advertising.  This'll mean that if the author decide they want to publish the game themselves after all, they'd have to buy it back or else just stop worrying about that game.  That is the rub, isn't it?  Selling it outright for peanuts.  Well, it's more money that giving it away for free on your webpage.

I'm not interested in selling my games, just copies of my games.  What attracts me to the Indie RPG movement is the innovation and the author=owner.   Once you sell your game, rather than selling copies of it, you've gone back to being wageslave, and might as well hang out your freelancer shingle.  Not that I'm saying that being a freelance writer is bad, its just not the same.  I'd rather make no profit and keep ownership than rake in a couple hundred bucks.  

For a group project like this to ever work, I think you'd need:
1) Funding up front
2) No concern for profit- arrangements made that any actual profits would be donated to charity or whoever provided the funding.  So that everyone was very clear they were giving away their game, nothing more.
3) Authors maintain their respective copyrights
4) A lot of volunteer work

As a gimmick to promote game designers so that people who'd never even heard of them would now know the URL to their webpage... it could work.  But it would be a lot of work, more being invested in time & money than it might be worth.  I think the arguments being made against such an endeavor by Ron and others are pretty sound, especially since they're talking about past experiences with similar models.

[Nathan]

Thanks, Laurel.

I agree with the negatives against this sort of project. Certainly, if we were to do something like this, it would require some legalities to be put in place. I also think in the spirit of it - it could not be a money making deal. For one, I don't think it could make any money. I don't know if I would buy such a collection of indie games if I saw it on a shelf (actually, I probably would... *sigh*).

A similar example might be shareware computer software. I still remember how good it was to open up the latest issue of MacAddict and pull out a CD containing the latest shareware, demos, and nifties. Occasionally, free versions of software were given away. Mostly, there was a smattering of shareware work, combined with limited editions and demos of commercial products. This was helpful because some of the software would take a while to download on a 56k modem back then.

Of course, indie rpgs don't face a similar bar. They are quick to download on most any modem. Even if the file is a large PDF, it rarely weighs in more than 2.5 MB. So in the end, the idea of a "shareware" CD of indie games may be shot to hell.

Thanks,
Nathan

[JSDiamond]

I still like the CD version.
Just no obnoxious advertising and you will have cleared a gigantic hurdle.  As mentioned previously, a link to a webpage is understated and quite enough.

It's portable and can be given away easily at any convention or game shop (if you're savvy enough).  This format is perfect for pure promotion.  Cheap to produce, robust on info and flashy on presentation.  The point is not to convince every gamer that role-play games on CD are just as good as hardcopy; the point is to let them know that our games are good.

It's a good idea.
So, watcha' wanna' do now?

J



   

[Nathan]

Just so we know about pricing... Here is one of the best price quotes I have found with just some quick doodaddling. There are plenty of other places, and they offer other benefits or whatever. I even considered those Business Card CDs, which would be pretty sauve...

---------------------
1000   CD-ROMs   $710.00   ($0.71 per disc)
Paper envelope w/ window   $130.00   ($0.13 per disc)

TOTAL   $840.00   ($0.84 per disc)
----------------------

Of course, the more you want, the cheaper it is. I think it gets down to .45-.53 per CD in areas like 10,000... What would we do with 10,000 cds? I could probably give away 1,000 if I just handed them out constantly.. but 10,000? Wow...

Still, $840 is not bad with a little art on the CD and the nice paper envelope w/ window. If we got 10 indie game designers to go in together on this, it would roughly be $84 apiece to pay for it. Obviously, if we get 20 folks to contribute to it and fill out the CD a bit more, it is more around $42.

But, 20 game designers mean each game designer gets 50 CDs sent to them... 10 game designers get 100 CDs apiece...

What sounds good out there?

Obviously, the amount of material we could include on the CD could be staggering. HTML, images, PDF, text, and music files alone would be very nice. The disc would be both Mac and PC compatible (therefore, LINUX too.. I suppose). I think it would be best to organize games in a "genre" or "category" approach - "Fantasy", "Weird", "Weirder", or whatever. As well, I would throw in some articles and reviews (with permission from the authors...)...

Well, I need more feedback..

Thanks,
Nathan

[kwill]

in terms of putting everything together, I'd guess the CD would end up being a website-on-a-disc (as well as being simply browsable)

I'd suggest putting up the lighter content (ie, the HTML, not the binaries) somewhere where Forge members could test the pages on a variety of browsers and systems

using stylesheets would mean printing HTML files wouldn't be such a bad idea, if that's what a user wanted to do (for an example have a look at http://www.alistapart.com/stories/narrative/">an article from A List Apart with "Miracle Print")

of course, there are a variety of web design concerns; I'd suggest getting a team/leader/editor behind that aspect of things

[Matt Gwinn]

I think an important factor that has yet to be brought up is this.  There are a lot of "free" RPGs out that that were never created with the intent to make money.  If I'm not mistaken, Jared hasn't (nor does he plan to) sold a simgle one of his games.

I think handing out a free CD at CONs would give some recognition to some games that will never see print.  I never intend to publish my cat game (partly because Wick beat me to it), but it sure brightens my day when I get an email from someone who played it and liked it.

Not only would the CD give recognition to not-for-sale games, but it would be a good way to make people aware of games that "will" be for sale by directing people to the game designer's web site.

The whole idea, of course, hinges on people being willing to give their games away for free which I know Ron is  against.

Does this sound more reasonable?

Ok Ron, now you can tell me how misguided I am :smile:

,Matt

After Post comment
Damn, how did I miss the whole second page of posts?

[ This Message was edited by: Eloran on 2001-11-17 12:38 ]

[Paul Czege]

Hey Matt,

If I'm not mistaken, Jared hasn't (nor does he plan to) sold a single one of his games.

Schism is for sale. I think he has plans for InSpectres and OctaNe as well.

I think handing out a free CD at CONs would give some recognition to some games that will never see print.

Didn't Scott say he generated exactly one email from the 100 or so copies of WYRD he gave away at GenCon? And that was a great print ashcan. I have to assume a CD would generate even less interest. Don't you think?

I'd gladly give away copies of The World, the Flesh, and the Devil in pamphlet form. But I think it would get entirely lost in the shuffle on a CD.

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

Matt,

I believe you are arguing against a constructed person in your own mind, who happens not to exist.

I have no objection whatsoever to giving games away for free. Hell, we gave away hundreds of them at GenCon off the Adept Press booth. Sorcerer began on the shareware model.

A compilation of such games - whether Soap, or InSpectres, or who knows what other fantastic free games - on CD or otherwise would be a great boon to role-playing culture.

Please make sure you know other people's positions before swinging into assault mode.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Gwinn]

Sorry Ron, I just recall hearing you say (or hearing second hand) that Jared shouldn't "give" his games away.  If you didn't say that, or if that was an issolated case, please forgive me - no offence intended.

Good thing I was weraing my chocolate flavored shoes today.  The taste ain't so bad :smile:

And Paul,
Moose may have only gotten one email, but that's one email he wouldn't have received otherwise.  We only had 50 copies of the ashcan to had out anyway.  Plus, we have no idea how many of the people who picked up an ashcan went to his web site to look at his other games.  Besides, I don't think Wyrd is the best example of the benifits here.  WYrd is unconventional to say the least and I can see a lot of people not getting it.  Put 50 games on a CD and everyone is bound to find at least one game they like.

,Matt