State of the Industry Editorial

[Valamir]

And when possible, game companies minimize this through the use of freelancers and telecomuters. But the simple fact is, there are many advantages to having as many people as possible - especially the production team - in a single location.

Don't take this as a snarky challenge.  But name them.

Writer writes in writers own home.  Sends file to editor.
Editor edits in editors own home.  Sends file to publisher.
Artist illustrates in artists own home.  Sends file to art editor.
Art editor approves art in art editors own home sends file to line editor.

Line editor approves final text and art in Line editors own home and sends file to layout guy.

Layout guy prepares layout in layout guys own home and sends file back to line editor.
Line editor approves final layout and sends file to line manager.

Line manager gives final approval and sends file to printer.

Printer prints work and sends cases to consolidator.

Where in here is there any need what so ever for co-location.  There is nothing that can't be done by phone, email, chat, or if one really wants to get advanced, interactive web conferencing.  Whatever small advantage there might be for people to be sitting side by side is vastly outweighed by the cost of having them sit side by side.  It just isn't necessary.

For the most part its the myth of "real companies have offices, and we want to be a real company, so we should have an office".  

Of course most game publishers have way more people than they need involved in the project anyway diluting the profits.

However, that's an entirely different topic, so I won't stray too much.

Its an interesting topic.  And certainly relevant to any discussion on the "state of the industry"

[Adam]

I don't have time to write up more detailed replies today, but I'd just like to mention that obviously, the "real business" bit was tongue in cheek, and I wasn't trying to piss on businesses that don't have or don't see the need for some centralization of resources.

Best,
Adam

[AdAstraGames]

My take on this issue (and I commented to Ryan directly when the letter cited in the original article came out) was that Ryan is aiming for following the herd, even more so.

On the other hand, here are some realities of the three teir distribution engine.

There are roughly 3000-4500 retail game stores in the US, depending on whether you count "Well, we stock magic, but mostly we sell comics" to "We carry and support RPGs."

There are, effectivly, three distributorships in the US.  Diamond/Alliance (which has had more to do with front-listing than anyone else), ACD and pretty much everybody else.

There are nearly 1000 manufacturers based on GPA and GAMA Manufacturers listings.  This translates into something akin to 800 new product listings in the games field per month.

The average game store buyer thinks about next week's purchase on Thursday night or Friday night -- after a long week of trying to sell things rather than dust them, managing employees, dealing with customer special orders, and trying to make enough retailing revenue to keep the lights on.

Most game stores fold inside of 5-7 years.  They fold because they either go broke, or start losing money (for really inept ones), or because after 5 years, the owner is realizing that working on a salary of 25-30K a year with no pay raises on 65 hour work weeks is burning him out.

Love isn't enough in the retail side of this business.

It frequently IS on the manufacturing side, and there's the dichotomy.

Distributors cater to the people who pay them money.  This is the fundemental nature of capitalism.  They don't cater to the people who provide them product, because, quite simply, the game you spent 4 years writing is another colored box that they have to sell to their existing customer base.  

Distributors look at products and go through a mental check list.

1) Is the cover dark?  If yes, this is a down-side.  Lots of game manufacturers do black or very dark cover art, which blends with everyone else's black or dark cover art, and they all give mutual bonuses to their Hide on Shelves Camouflage Roll.

2) Is the title of the game in the top 3" of the cover?  Can the title be read at 6 feet?  Is it in some font that's damned hard to read?

3) Underneath the title, in that top 3", does it tell you What The Game Is About?

4) If you put it on the shelf like a book, can anyone read the spine?  Does the spine stand out?

5) Is there a place on the cover with the stock number and where a retailer can put a price sticker?

6) Is the cover art interesting?

7) What does the back of the cover say?  Does it make the game sound fun?

8) Is it a wierd size (tm)?

Now, that's what the distributor buyer is going to want to know.

The distributor sales reps are going to want to know the following:

"What's it like?"

"Which stores do I sell this to?"

"If it takes off, when is the next supplement due out?"

"What kind of advertising support is there for this?"

To everyone else in the industry but your game's rabid fans, your game is a book or box that came out with 800 books or boxes.  What makes it worth the store's while to try to sell your game rather than everyone else's?

I'll give an example of how I'd pitch Jake's most excellent Riddle of Steel:

"What's it like?"  "George Martin's Song of Ice and Fire as an RPG"  

"Who do I sell it to?"  "Anyone who buys Fantasy Flight Games' Song of Ice and Fire products.

"When is the next one coming out?"  "Next supplement is due in..."  (I don't have an answer to this.)

"Is there any support?"  "Yes, Jake's loyal fan base is willing to run demo games at conventions and game stores.  The combat engine makes a good 15 minute demo that people can try between MageClix Dark Age rounds."

(No, I don't know if Jake has a demo team...but if he does, he should use it.)

Remember, most retail clerks are fan boys who love their favorite games and work for the ability to get the store discount.  They cannot and will not take the time to learn YOUR game well enough to cater to the two guys who want it.  You have to do that work for them and give them enough info to fit on one side of an index card that links your game to something they already know.

We're on the declining side of a FRPG glut and on an RPG glut in general.  d20 is cresting and the d20 market is cannibalizing itself.  In essence, it's a smaller version of the CCG collapse.  There are two major fantasy franchises out there with licensed product (LoTR and Harry Potter), and one minor (Song of Ice and Fire), all trying to catch the same boom.  (Wizards has as much as admitted that they timed relaunched D&D 3e to exploit the Peter Jackson LoTR movies...).

The industry went through a similar cycle 5 years ago with SF titles (Trek, B5, Wars), and smothered that in a glut of new product.  Then after the peak in 2000, no new ones came out (and I'm trying to fill that void with my product line next year).

After this tidal wave crashes, and the tide recedes, there will be a short lived market for "Fantasy, but not d20".  It's not a huge market; you won't make 20k unit figures.  But 2-4K is possible, and getting your fan base started on your products is doable.  My guess is that the d20 Fantasy market is going to flush itself down the toilet this summer, and d20 will recede back to the old TSR settings (or the WoTC house setting), and by spring of 2005, the "Fantasy, but not d20" will have a chance again.  (This means you should gear for Christmas of 2004, which means press dates of mid September 2004).

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Moderator comment: Adam, tongue-in-cheek replies aren't recommended here. The internet medium doesn't convey them well, especially not with smilies, which do not work. Please try to say what you mean, and let that be that.

Adastra, those are all excellent observations. They add up to exactly the reasons that distribution and retail act as a selective process on available games which has nothing whatsoever to do with the game book's quality and usability for play.

And that, in turn, is why publishing through the three-tier system is largely a matter of X convinces Y, Y convinces Z, and Z convinces X of something, all without any input whatsoever from the end-user customer.

That customer's input is silent because sales of a role-playing game (by which I mean the core book, indicating new users) over the long run are simply not monitored by anyone at the retail level, barring maybe a handful of stores.

The time it takes for a given game to be used, and used long enough for its quality to influence another person to buy it, clocks in at least six months, sometimes considerably longer. By that time, the retailer has flushed it - it "didn't sell," not in the 2-4 week period that he looked at his books for last month's order and decided what to order next time.

Without SKU monitoring - again, practiced by maybe a handful of retail game stores - even the repeated sales of a given game will go unnoticed by the store owner, as long as his worried attention is focused on whatever he sunk money into in the last order-period.

Under these circumstances, a publisher has two choices.

1. Make use of the cognitive confusion and make as much money through front-ordering as possible. Befuddle the retailers at GAMA with flashy promo, reassure the distributors with the very features you've described, adastra, and do so in such a way that all these people begin repeating the same catch-phrases to one another. Properly-seeded repetition, in a big-enough group, looks like independent corroboration to an individual member of that group. Also, if you can, spot and hop onto whatever the current fad-sensation may currently be among the customers.

2. Largely ignore the three-tier system, or use it to a limited extent as long as the expenses involved are outweighed by the profits. (This is what I do - I make a small amount through the three-tier, to the extent that I keep a nice contact with a few stores and keep the distributors' tiny space reserved for Adept press full. But that's it.)

I hopped onto this thread to make a larger point, however. It is this: "Industry" is best understood as a commercial situation in which people besides the manufacturer are able to profit. That would mean, say, the illustrators, at the production end; or, say, a retailer at the sales end.

What "industry" actually exists for role-playing? Bluntly, we are in a situation in which the term barely applies at all. Distributors profit because they can off-load titles onto retailers in bulk, while paying rather small amounts (and usually late, I might add) to manufacturers. Publishers can profit again by producing in bulk, in a kind of fire-and-forget fashion. Retailers eat it, routinely - the books do not flow straight into customers' hands, based on use and enjoyment of the books.

RPGs aren't like comics and CDs. You don't open it and enjoy it, on the spot. Publishers like White Wolf and many others try to produce books which are, for the most part, like these other products. The games aren't meant to be played, but to be purchased and owned, like gear. If you keep pumping out (a) supplements and (b) new titles, then you can sort of make RPG publishing more like comics or music-album or magazine publishing.

This tactic works to a limited extent and for a limited time, mainly because the consumer base keeps feeding in new generations of naive purchasers, each of which gets burned in its turn and then decides to do something worthwhile with its time. It's awfully hard on the retailers in particular, and for a while, since distribution held retailers' debt through returnability, that could be staved off ... until distribution recently felt the long-term pinch such that now only one national distributor (Alliance) functions in the U.S.

So, "industry"? I don't see an industry. I see a stumbling, failing, and confused set of debt and delusion. The so-called big publishing companies are sustained mainly through external feeds - in some cases investors (who should be checking their ROI's about now, and those who've done so have pulled the plugs already), and in some cases personal inheritances or bleed-offs from some other career. Looking at the games most represented on the stores' shelves, I see no evidence at all that customers' use of the games provides enough profit for the publishers to continue publishing them.

The only real RPG industry I see is composed of small publishers who:

a) self-publish, meaning the author controls the company,
b) pay the people who work for them on time (e.g. artists, printers)
c) conduct promotion directly to end-use customers and also deal with those customers' rare hassles directly
d) set up mutually profitable arrangements with the few retailers who are committed to moving those particular books
e) provide a venue for customers to interact with the publisher and with one another

It's smaller, yes. But it's broader, and it's reliable.

Best,
Ron

[AdAstraGames]

Ron wrote:

Adastra, those are all excellent observations. They add up to exactly the reasons that distribution and retail act as a selective process on available games which has nothing whatsoever to do with the game book's quality and usability for play.

While I agree that the three tier model as presented in the industry as it exists is fundementally broken, every requirement they put on you as a potential publisher is something they think will help generate sales.   Do they know, definitively, what will always generate sales?  Not quite.  Do they know what will prevent your game from selling?  You betcha.

And I have a heretical statement for you.

For the current, and forseeable industry, beyond making your game not suck (and if you're making a game that sucks, your playtesters will tell you this), quality doesn't matter.  

Market timing, good cover art, and making it sound fun to play matters.

Market timing means "Are you releasing Yet Another Fantasy Game" during the high tide of "Quintessential Left Handed Red Headed Halfling Prestige Classes" books?   Is there something out there that's hitting the same demographic you are?  Is there something that's similar to your product?  If so, delay your publication.

Good cover art:  Detailed in my previous post.

Making it sound fun:  Settings sell.  Do a setting that isn't like anything else out there, but sounds like it's got good stories to tell.  

If there is a literary or media property that's reasonably close to the feel of your game, send a letter off to the publisher and try to talk to someone about licensing.  The most disposable fantasy novel ever written will reach more potential customers for your game than any amount of marketing polish you put on your game.

Ron and I are both in agreement that the current three tier system is due to suffer a meteoric impact in the near future.   Where we disagree is on "how one prepares for the new ecosystem that will result."  I'm hedging that the glut of d20 products will result in a growth of smaller distributors (like Blackhawk or Gameboard).  Ron is hedging in favor of direct sales to customers...and I'm guessing that a mixed strategy for both is appropriate, coupled with keeping ones ears open for an opportunity.

Ken Burnside

[Ben Lehman]

(warning: bit of a ramble follows)

Whoa.  Someone forgot to send me the bloody memo.

As an RPG consumer, I've still been buying "backlist" style -- I tend to buy about one corebook a year, plus a supplement if it looks like I would have a specific use for it (In the last five years I have purchased Sorcerer, Nobilis, Godlike, Little Fears, Heavy Gear and Riddle of Steel, so that's about right.)  I often wait a couple of years before purchasing a game (Universalis and MLWM are on this list right now, along with Exalted and some other stuff), just to make sure that it isn't an impulse buy.

My friends think that I'm a bit of a spendthrift (they tend to only buy games that I have bought and liked), and I think that they reflect the vast majority of RPG buyers.  We are all still used to "backlist" style publishing, and our style of play supports that much better than this "frontlist" business.

I imagine part of the reason that there is a giant crash right now in the "industry" is that the corporations are expecting people to buy frontlist style (sales of corebook only exist to sell supplements) whilst most gamers play "backlist" style (use the corebook and drift it to the point where you like it.)  No wonder publishers are so screwed.  Damn.

Come to think of it, I think that supplements might interfere with the natural drift process of RPG play...  But that's a post for a different forum.

In short -- I suddenly realize why everyone says the sky is falling.  Thanks for posting the article.

yrs--
--Ben

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

This is a very interesting discussion.

Ken, I greatly appreciate your comments. However, I need a litttttle clarification about this:

For the current, and forseeable industry, beyond making your game not suck (and if you're making a game that sucks, your playtesters will tell you this), quality doesn't matter.

1. What, exactly, are you referring to as quality? You've specified that cover art, some kind of "grab" as well as originality for the setting, and "not sucking" do matter. So what quality-thing does not matter, in your statement?

2. Mattering for what? I presume that you mean, getting books ordered by retailers and hence ordered in distributor warehouses Is this correct?

I'm asking these because it's quite likely that your statement isn't heretical at all, depending on certain answers to my questions. So I really need to understand exactly what you mean in order to respond.

Looking forward to it,
Best,
Ron

[Paul Czege]

Hey Ken,

If there is a literary or media property that's reasonably close to the feel of your game, send a letter off to the publisher and try to talk to someone about licensing. The most disposable fantasy novel ever written will reach more potential customers for your game than any amount of marketing polish you put on your game.

I don't want to derail this thread, so just a link: Greg Costikyan http://www.costik.com/weblog/2003_09_01_blogchive.html#106329031206675602">disagrees.

Paul

[AdAstraGames]

Your game meets the minimum requirements to sell if the mechanics don't interfere with the portrayal of the genre chosen.  They don't even have to SUPPORT it terribly well -- they just have to not interfere with it.

Sorcerer, from what I've seen, beautifully matches mechanics and genre.  TROS matches mechanics, genre, and mind-numbing amounts of research into something that's incredible.  (TROS was written by a guy who seems to have read my mind, and then done it better than I could have myself.)

Both are, for the genre chosen, roughly two to three orders of magnitude better than D&D.  That quality difference doesn't matter to the commercial retailer.  He wants to know why it will sell better than an equal amount of money and shelf space devoted to D&D.

Making them what they are is, from a purely time in/money back perspective, is wasted effort.   If they took 2-3 years to write (which looks to be the case), and the "6 month draft, with typo fixes" would have sold just as well, from a commercial perspective, in the time it took to write Sorcerer, you could have done 5 other products and probably made about 3-4x the money.

My question to you:

What do you tell a distributor to make them pick up Sorcerer, or TROS?

Who do they sell it to?  

What existing, defined, customer bases that patronize game stores would it sell to?

Why should they carry it (from their perspective, not yours) when the same amount of money in d20 products has a much more stable rate of return to the retailer?

====

Here are the answers for my game.

"You pick up AV:T because there hasn't been a new spaceship combat game on the market since 1999 or so, and three of the old standards have left the market.   It's a boardgame, which are selling better now, and are an underserved market niche."

"The stores you sell it to are the ones that used to carry B5Wars, or Star Fleet Battles while they were available.  If you have any stores that carry Traveller stuff in any of its incarnations, you can pitch them on this.  If you have stores that carry GURPS: Transhuman Space, it doesn't have a space combat engine, and they have as much said that this is what they're recommending to their customers."

"The people who buy grown up wargames will probably want this.  The people who buy space games in general will buy this.  With in store demos, the people who play MechWarrior: Dark Age might buy this.  We have people who can come to demo the game all over the country."

"You should carry it because it's a big enough product that'll return on change up like a hardback book.  Same price, same profit when it sells.  You should buy it because there is nothing currently on the market in its genre, and you should carry it because the kind of science fiction authors these customers read have written blurbs for the box."

===

In terms of licensing, I respectfully disagree with Greg Costikyan.  He is comparing apples to pomegranates, and is talking about the video game industry to boot, and mentions that most of the licenses out there that suck are ones where the parent company is ramming the IP down the game company's throat.

You want to do both licensed and unlicensed products.  Your licensed products will sell more copies faster; they'll get your company name and identity out there.

Most novels that go direct to paperback are printed in about 50,000 to 100,000 unit printings (and sometimes more).  Something that sold well in hardcover usually gets a quarter-million copy print run.   The author gets about 30 cents for each paperback book that's sold, and gets paid an advance against royalties.

From my own experience, I'd guess that about 1% of those readers play RPGs.  I'd guess that somewhere around 3-10% never play RPGs, but would buy anything related to their favorite fantasy setting.

So, we'll call it 2% as a split.  If the author is getting a 100k copy print run, that's 2000 customers who will likely buy your game that wouldn't otherwise.

Most game companies going the commercial distro route do 2,000 to 3,000 copy print runs.  A minor licensed product could justify a 5,000 copy print run and still make more money per book due to reduced printing costs, even after paying the royalty.  

I personally think the really BIG licenses have priced themselves out of the market at this point.  (I know the B5 license cost 30k/year in licensing fees, plus a truly exorbitant percentage of MSRP.  When the show went off the air, it stopped being cost effective to pay the license fee.)  For that, I blame the electronic gaming industry, which is rapidly mainstreaming itself into the Hollywood Blockbuster mentality.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

... whereas it would NOT be viable today to still be reading the same novel you bought at the same time, battered or otherwise.

Bull. I have a collection of old books and I have read and re-read several of them.

But your point was more that you can't keep reading the same book over and over, even if it is a well-loved favorite. Eventually you'll want to read something else. With an RPG you can play something else using the same game.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ken,

If I'm not mistaken, you're referring to success as being picked up by distributors and, in their warehouses, being routinely available to retailers' orders. I was able to achieve this goal a while ago, and whenever Alliance or whoever runs out, they order some more. I'm in the "re-order when it's empty" category in a number of stores, and don't expect to branch out from there very much. So it's a little hard to imagine pitching myself to these fellows again; I did it once, when times were a little different, and the thought of doing so now is fairly alien.

In fact, to answer your question (now that I think of it), I would do no such thing. I don't perceive the current three-tier situation as stable enough to support any degree of success for anyone except a fire-and-forget publisher. And those fellows, I don't think they enjoy the fruits of their tactics for more than a few months, maximum.

I think I'll expound (gasp, gasp -- one of my spells coming on -- quick, gran'chil'ren, fetch my pill!). My current advice to anyone about to publish a role-playing game is rather different from that advice I gave out two or three years ago.

Two or three years ago, here's what I told anyone who'd listen: After generating a loyal customer base with PDF sales and a good website presence, get layout, editing, and other production work done with helpful volunteers. Get a great cover and plan for hard-cover. Do not use print-on-demand; use a traditional printer. Pay all expenses out of money you can afford to lose (i.e. don't print on margin). Bid for printers and pick toward the low end, but always with the nicest and most promptly-responding people. Work out the right breakpoint for the number to print based on cost-per-copy and expectations to ship 500 or so at first orders (usually came out to 1200-1800 print runs). Get a fulfilment house involved (this advice included some specifics on the various options; deleted here for space considerations). Visit GAMA armed with your fulfilment house pal and have a pointed sit-down with ACD, Alliance, Centurion, and Elsevier, among others. Don't gas about your system and how many characters can do this or do that; these people don't know how to role-play and aren't interested. Don't take shit from anyone and emphasize, over and over, that you have secondary publications in the can and are not doing anything on margin. Show off your art and describe your target consumer base in detail. Meet retailers who seem to have their shit together and take their names; maintain contact with them as you get ready to ship. Also, sell direct and market aggressively on-line in the right places and ways (details omitted for space). Advertise in Games Quarterly and make damn sure you're in the distributors' catalogues just prior to the print run's appearance. Models: Obsidian, Sorcerer, The Riddle of Steel.

In your terms, here's what I said, back then:

"What do you tell a distributor to make them pick up Sorcerer?"

That it was already grossly profitable to me and would continue to be so. If they want a piece of that, then pick it up; if not, then don't. (I was pretty blunt with distributors, even the ones I like a lot as people.)

"Who do they sell it to?"

The stores I described to them were those hip college stores with a wide variety of titles, anime DVDs in the front, and Sandman statues on the counter. Also, stores in more isolated areas with clusters of older gamers.

"What existing, defined, customer bases that patronize game stores would it sell to?"

1. Comics and movie buffs who also role-play, especially the intellectual sorts who are looking for something meaty (name a few titles that correspond nicely). 2. The bitter, burned-out role-player who is just about to cease being your customer because the Champions-to-GURPS-to-Rolemaster-to-Vampire thing has run its course for them. [response: guffaws of recognition and then close attention when I describe the reaction of such role-players to Sorcerer]

"Why should they carry it (from their perspective, not yours) when the same amount of money in d20 products has a much more stable rate of return to the retailer?"

Actually, most retailers began these conversations with the question, "It's not d20, is it?" and upon receiving the answer, "Oh thank God." Only distributors asked such a question as you pose. For them, I laughed at their use of the word "stable," right in their faces. Rate of return for one month per title, sure. That's "stable" like Marvel Comics are "stable" - which means nothing at all in terms of three months at a time. Sorcerer reliably continues to sell for the retailer, month after month, year after year. I ask them which d20 products can hack that, and point out that Sorcerer and the ones they name (always the same ones) have a great deal in common. To the retailers who brought up these issues, I made it very clear that Sorcerer will not by itself bring in hordes of customers with their hands waving over their heads. I stated, "It carries its own weight without sweating; don't expect it to carry the weight of whatever you chose to deep-order last month."

But all of that is irrelevant, you see. Times have changed. Now? All different.

I'd say, don't do it at all. I have no confidence whatsoever that the retail game stores as we know them will even exist a year from now. Don't go into the stores at all, except on direct one-on-one deals with the actual retailers. Forget traditional distribution altogether. Instead, use print-on-demand (details omitted on how to find one and work out the right deal) and plan for 100-copy short runs at a time. Fulfill it yourself or by cooperating with a similar publisher. Again, begin with a solid PDF base and work to print from there. Maintain one hell of a website presence with a strong focus on recognizing and praising actual play.

My Life with Master does this; so does Universalis. So do a number of other games. Return on these games, so far, is stunningly high. I strongly suggest that the "quality" you are (rightly) saying is irrelevant to the middle tiers is top A#1 gold using this model instead.

Best,
Ron

[RaconteurX]

Speaking as someone with extensive hobby retail experience, game stores tend to sell those products with which their employees are familiar. Exceptions are limited to brand-name products such as Warhammer, D&D and Yu-Gi-Oh (sorry, Magic is old news). AdAstra pointed out, quite correctly, that most game store employees are themselves players of games. My experience, however, contradicts his.

Demoing your spanking-new game to game store employees pays off in sales, as people can only consistently sell that which is familiar to them. You as author and publisher may only see a handful of customers at any single demo, but store employees will see all their regular clientele in a given period of time. Game evangelization is often most effective when aimed at the employee rather than the customer.

Games Workshop used this method for years, and the results seem fairly obvious. A game store employee is often the first person a customer will go to for opinions about a game. Online reviewers are not always granted the same degree of confidence that a customer reserves for employees of his or her friendly local game store (some people do not have such an establishment, I know, let alone an employee on whom they can rely).

Simply put, store employees make more contact with the game-playing public in an area than any publisher can reasonbly hope to garner. Word of mouth is still a very effective tool, if you lack an advertising budget of sufficient size to saturate the marketplace. Dedicated store owners and employees are fewer and farther between these days, sadly, but nothing ventured is nothing gamed... pun very much intentional. :)

[Adam]

Don't take this as a snarky challenge.  But name them.

Better communication and coordination on multiple fronts, especially when working with multiple product lines and multiple products in the same stages of production at one time. Increased ability to move projects from person to person as need dictates. Easier handling of large amounts of large files [Some of the books I work on have 500+ 5MB images culled from over 1000, which is in turn culled from 50+ GB of movie footage] Easier training. Easier hardware/software upgrades. More comradery. Easier to get feedback on ideas, get proofing done, etc. Shared resources [printers, paper, etc.]

I know that most of this won't sway you; we work for vastly different companies doing different things. I know that I've worked remotely [and still do freelance stuff remotely] and I've worked in the office at a couple different companies, and I vastly prefer the in-office experience and work style. Cool people, more productivity, better results, more fun. Your mileage may vary.

Best,
Adam

[Valamir]

Better communication and coordination on multiple fronts, especially when working with multiple product lines and multiple products in the same stages of production at one time. Increased ability to move projects from person to person as need dictates. Easier handling of large amounts of large files [Some of the books I work on have 500+ 5MB images culled from over 1000, which is in turn culled from 50+ GB of movie footage] Easier training. Easier hardware/software upgrades. More comradery. Easier to get feedback on ideas, get proofing done, etc. Shared resources [printers, paper, etc.]

Sure, I'm familiar with all of these.  But here's the real question.

Can you translate "Increased ability to move projects from person to person" into an actual $ amount?  How much revenue does "More Comradery" generate?  How much cost does "Easier handling of large files" save?

Then how much are you paying in rent, utilities, insurance, company owned hardware instead of freelancers supplying their own, office furniture, office supplies, any "lets to go lunch on the company" events you may throw.

Only you can really judge whether the advantages you list...which are absolutely real, are actually worth the expense.  But to do so accurately, you really have to objective about the real value added.   What does all of those advantages really translate to...easier communication, easier file transfer...what does it actually come down to...3 months faster turnaround time from concept to printer?  6 months?  How much longer really would it take to do the job in a decentralized fashion.  

I certainly can't answer these questions about you because I don't have the details of your operation.  But I suspect that for the majority of game publishing houses who have formal office space, that the actual cost far exceeds the value added and the real reason boils down to some percieved prestige of having an office rather than working out of the basement.

Note: this is not to cast aspusions of any sort; I just believe that the current gaming "industry" is fundamentally flawed top to bottom, and therefor every assumption about "best practices" needs to be challenged and reevaluated.  Soup to nuts...from the best way to distribute a game, to the best way to organize and run a publishing house.

I'm also a big fan of collecting data points on how different folks do things which is the reason behind the third degree.

[Adam]

As I don't hold the pursestrings at GOO, I can't provide that information.

[Side note: BESM d20 Stingy Gamer Edition proofs came in today - should be in stores sometime early January, depending on the wackiness of holiday-season shipping.]

Best,
Adam