Topic: Bad news from RPGNow
Started by: Michael Hopcroft
Started on: 9/27/2004
Board: Publishing
On 9/27/2004 at 5:26am, Michael Hopcroft wrote:
Bad news from RPGNow
It appears the entry level to the RPG market has closed for good.
http://www.RPGNow.com/NewRates.pdf
http://www.RPGNow.com/ProductsSTD.pdf
If these rules hadc been in effect when i got started I would never have been able to beginw tih RPGNow. As it is, how many of us are going to have our products booted from the system?
This could be the end of indie publishing as we know it.
On 9/27/2004 at 6:05am, Jonathan Walton wrote:
Re: Bad news from RPGNow
Michael Hopcroft wrote: This could be the end of indie publishing as we know it.
You're overexaggerating a bit here, Mike. Plenty of indie publishers here do just fine without having their products listed on RPGnow. There's the Forge Bookshelf and company websites and plenty of other places to sell stuff. Even if the situation at RPGnow is as dire as you say (which I doubt), there's plenty of other options out there.
On 9/27/2004 at 10:29am, Jack Aidley wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
You'll have to write some decent cover type, include a page count and do a decent thumbnail - all of which you should be doing anyway. And you'll have to pay a bit more, which means you'll have to charge more.
Not really seeing how this amounts to a collapse of indie publishing (although it will mean that Great Ork Gods will not be sold through RPGNow).
On 9/27/2004 at 1:18pm, Vaxalon wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
I think it will mean the end of crap indie publishing on RPGnow. I doubt it will be the end of crap indie publishing, or the end of indie publishing on RPGnow.
On 9/27/2004 at 1:30pm, Valamir wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Wow...Michael...dial down the melodrama buddy.
Thanks for the link...from the perspective of this indie publisher I 100% agree with every step James is taking on RPGNow. Many of those could have been implemented to good effect a year ago.
I mean really. Raising rates 5%. on a $4.00 product that's what...20 cents. So raise your price by a $1.00 an you'll come out ahead.
And the elimination of lower quality product...well, I always hate having to rely on someone elses opinion of lower quality, but I will say I've purchased alot of stuff from RPGNow that turned out to be utter drek. Can't say how successful this review policy will turn out to be, but anything that raises the bar on PDF publishing is a good thing.
Personally, I'm hoping that the increased profit margins from RPGNow will be used to ramp up RPGMall's presence and exposure...which IMHO is where the best of the PDF products from RPGNow should be migrating to anyway.
On 9/27/2004 at 1:32pm, Jack Aidley wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Valamir wrote: I mean really. Raising rates 5%. on a $4.00 product that's what...20 cents. So raise your price by a $1.00 an you'll come out ahead.
I think the $40 setup fee for new publishers is a more significant cost than the 5% increase.
On 9/27/2004 at 1:51pm, Valamir wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Thanks for reminding me. I meant to mention that one and forgot.
I think the $40 set up fee is a fantastic idea. I'm guessing it will do more to keep the drek down than any amount of review policy.
If a game publisher doesn't expect to generate enough revenue to cover a $40 fee than IMO they've got no business charging for the product in the first place and should just give it away...if you aren't planning on making well over $40 in revenue on it, charging is just wasting everyone's time.
I personally would like to see a per product fee of $20 or so as a tool to reduce the brain dump 57 PDFs worth of crap and clog up the New Releases page.
My conclusion is that no legitimate indie publisher who crafts quality product, and has built or will build a reputation for quality has anything to fear from these fees.
Again. Anything that raises the bar on PDF publishing is a good thing.
On 9/27/2004 at 2:13pm, daMoose_Neo wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Hmmm...interesting...
And here I am looking to produce a PDF title for notta, and with the artist working with me I could! Would have been nice, ah well~
$40 out of pocket isn't all that bad though~ Actually, what am I saying, its almost nothing! Yea, if you have a decent title, $40 might be one months sales, and it being PDF you don't have the investment of stock and, as long as you have a couple sales here or there, the system will keep it active~
Review is spiffy too! Quite nice I think, actually makes me a little more interested in doing business with them~ All in all, the 30% cut is *still* better than a regular distributor.
On 9/27/2004 at 2:17pm, Jack Aidley wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
From my point of view: I'm going to be selling Great Ork Gods from my website when it's finished. I had intended to sell it on RPGNow as well, but now there is a setup fee I will no longer do so. Not because I doubt the sales will cover the fee, but because I don't know whether RPGNow will generate additional sales sufficent to offset the costs.
As to stopping drek; I doubt it will do much of that. Most drek seems to be 'churned out' by small publishers who will thereby distribute the setup cost over many .pdfs. It also seems to me that much of this drek is distributed by folks without much though to the business side, so I doubt the cost would put them off there either. (And, of course, the current drek-peddlers will not face paying the setup cost anyway).
Those I think it will put off are those with alternate sales channels, those with a single niche product to offer and those who have simply written up their homemade system. It'll probably also impact the number of very short pdfs sold at "less than a pint of beer" type prices.
I don't believe high barriers significantly reduce drek - I do believe they reduce innovation.
On 9/27/2004 at 2:25pm, John Uckele wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
I have to agree with Valamir and Vaxxalon.
It seems like a good idea to require a decent cover, and decent product description. A $40 set-up fee isn't really something to balk at if your goal is to get your RPG out there (if you don't care about selling your RPG then why list it on RPGNow anyways?). 30% cut isn't too bad either, I could tolerate that.
I don't see the end to Indie publishing, I don't see the end to bad Indie publishing, I don't see the end of good Indie publishing. I see less casual "Wrote-this-game-up-yesterday" games on RPGNow though.
On 9/27/2004 at 2:58pm, Nathan wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
This is an interesting change. I haven't had a product up on RPGNow for a while, though I am working on a few to get up there at some point. However, I am also beginning to think of selling from my website too. I am going to have to find out how these new rules affect me.
Still, this may create the need for another DigitalRPG type website/organization. I know at one time, Brett (of PIGames) had the DigitalRPG group going -- I think it died out though. One of its goals was to provide a sort of "links" site where gamers could shop and find the myriad of independent/small press games that were out there. Has anyone else been doing this? Is this something people would be interested in?
The biggest benefit of RPGNow for me was just the extra traffic -- folks who were just browsing new releases, other rpgs, and so on then to find my product. I didn't usually get that from my own website.
A fairly decently supported links site might be able to generate some of that extra traffic -- but then again, it may not. Suggestions?
Thanks,
Nathan
On 9/27/2004 at 3:13pm, Andy Kitkowski wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
I'm all for the changes at RPGNow. If they are deemed too costly for the publisher, then another competitor may rear up and jump in. It's all good.
I'm not a publisher myself, but looking over the requirements (especially the tighter standards for product, and removing things that don't sell for 9+ months), the only thing that may affect me is the "Minimum order goes up to $6.45" thing. I'm not too clear on why this was chosen. And again, it's only an order of fries higher in price than the 'ol $5.00 minimum order, but still a lot of the products that I've bought were $5.00, $5.50, $6.00 etc. So if those prices stand (most likely they will go up a little, and that's cool), then my minimum order is effectively $11-12 to cover the $6.45.
Michael Hopcroft wrote: This could be the end of indie publishing as we know it.
Dude, I almost sprayed my monitor with coffee from laughing. No offense, but no.
-Andy
On 9/27/2004 at 3:43pm, TheLe wrote:
$40.00 is fine for new vendors
Personally, I see no problems with the $40.00 setup fee.
Howevever we RPGNow.com vendors/publishers have been in a debate about whether that setup fee should be applied to existing vendors. Most of us small vendors oppose it, but the bigger vendors WANT the fee to be applied to existing vendors.
They claim it will "weed out non-serious vendors", which I don't agree with. Although there is some truth in the statement, the fact is that it will hurt alot of serious small vendors.
Rpgnow.com has already stated that the setup fee will NOt apply to existing vendors, but those big publishers keep insisting that it should.
What a bunch of crap.
~Le, aka The Le Games
On 9/27/2004 at 4:27pm, greyorm wrote:
RE: Re: Bad news from RPGNow
Jonathan Walton wrote: You're overexaggerating a bit here, Mike.
You'll have to forgive Michael, he's a constant source of melodramatic doom and gloom around here. If the sky fell every time he predicted it would, we'd be minus a few atmospheres of pressure, so just ignore it.
In an attempt to provide an actual context for this thread, here's the question, given the information: what advice would you give a small publisher given this new (admitedly small) barrier to entry?
Here's my advice: If you really can't hack the $40 up-front fee, there's always the choice to sell direct from your own website until you've generated enough sales on your own to cover the cost.
If you don't plan on producing much in the way of products (and perhaps only one product) why worry about RPGNow at all?
"You don't need to", is one answer; "exposure" is another answer.
If you don't like the fee, what other options are there for small publishers to take ahold of right now? Rather than simply complaining, can you provide any?
I like the link list idea: a simple site of links to small/indie publisher sites is something anyone can set up. Who can set it up well, and what's the best way to set it up?
On 9/27/2004 at 4:30pm, greyorm wrote:
Re: $40.00 is fine for new vendors
TheLe wrote: Rpgnow.com has already stated that the setup fee will NOt apply to existing vendors, but those big publishers keep insisting that it should.
Just keep in mind that their stance isn't about "quality", it's about competition: in that they'd like to reduce it. That's called business (you'll have to forgive the greedy capitalist pigs). If it was really about quality, there would be no argument about the "necessity" of a fee to "weed out" inferior quality (which is something it can't do): quality sells itself, and quality becomes known. Any jerk with $40 to blow can still simply plunk it down and put up a load a crap on a whim.
So, the entry fee still isn't a barrier to quality. It also isn't a barrier to small publishers, as I noted above: what are the options if you don't want to pay that fee? What can you, small publisher person, specifically do for yourself?
On 9/27/2004 at 7:26pm, TheLe wrote:
RE: Re: $40.00 is fine for new vendors
greyorm wrote:
what are the options if you don't want to pay that fee? What can you, small publisher person, specifically do for yourself?
Here's a good option for you: Phil Reed's CREATIONCRASH.COM store.
With Unorthodox Bards, I have started to sell my books there as well as rpgnow.com
~Le
On 9/27/2004 at 8:05pm, andy wrote:
One man's drek....
I received a copy of the RPGNow changes and responded directly to James (which I think is the best way to handle any concerns--while bitching on the Forge has a certain therapeutic value, it is of questionable efficacy at best).
My response--
Two comments-
First, with respect to the pricing change, your business model has to work for you. I (and, I'm sure, all of your other Gold vendors) appreciate the grandfathering of the pricing.
Second, I think that your attempts at quality control, while well-intentioned, are a mistake. People surf and buy from RPGNow for the variety and for the offbeat--if they want homogenized D20 product, they buy it from their game stores or from Borders. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and you've got a lot of both. This is a good thing. I noticed (and purchased) a lot of the old, classic DnD products when they hit RPGNow--under the quality control standards contained in your PDF, they'd never clear the market.
Heck, under your standards, the original DnD never would have cleared the market.
Well, I'll end my pseudo-rant with a final observation. Don't depend on your reviews and/or customer complaints to tell you what is quality and what is not. Although I am a longtime customer, I am a first time vendor. My first product received an unfair (IMHO) review hours after release, which certainly impacted my sales (my RPGNow sales are 10% of my total and my Lulu/hardcopy retail sales are 90% of my total, exactly the opposite of what I expected).
Why not charge a $10.00 set up fee for each product and leave the quality control to the buyers? Less work for you, no specter of censorship, and no risk of missing the next DnD.
I'll shut up now.
Besides, if a couple of reviewers or a single dissatisfied customer gets to set the standard for "drek" and get a product booted, the diversity of our hobby will take a hit.
Andy
On 9/27/2004 at 8:19pm, greyorm wrote:
RE: Re: $40.00 is fine for new vendors
TheLe wrote: Here's a good option for you: Phil Reed's CREATIONCRASH.COM store.
Excellent start. I didn't even know Phil had a site like that. Anyone have any other similar input?
On 9/27/2004 at 8:25pm, timfire wrote:
Re: One man's drek....
andy wrote: Besides, if a couple of reviewers or a single dissatisfied customer gets to set the standard for "drek" and get a product booted, the diversity of our hobby will take a hit.
This was the one part of the changes I didn't agree with. I don't think it's fair that a product gets rejected just because a customer complaims about it. Hopefully the people in charge have guidelines for what's considered a serious complaint and what's just a regretful customer.
On 9/28/2004 at 9:54am, Lxndr wrote:
RE: Re: $40.00 is fine for new vendors
greyorm wrote:TheLe wrote: Here's a good option for you: Phil Reed's CREATIONCRASH.COM store.
Excellent start. I didn't even know Phil had a site like that. Anyone have any other similar input?
There's always lulu.com, which has been mentioned in other threads. I'm selling from both rpgnow.com and lulu.com currently, as is Clinton (Donjon) and a few other names I'm not recalling at 3:00 in the morning. Going to check on creationcrash.com as a potential third source for Fastlane sales.
On 9/28/2004 at 2:07pm, ChefKyle wrote:
RE: Re: Bad news from RPGNow
Michael Hopcroft wrote:
If these rules hadc been in effect when i got started I would never have been able to beginw tih RPGNow. As it is, how many of us are going to have our products booted from the system?
With the greatest of respect, Michael, a person whose company openly solicits donations - not payment, but donations - to help put its products come out is not one which is representative of the majority of vendors on RpgNow.
Examining your website, http://www.mphpress.com/, shows that requests for donations are present on six out of the eight product pages.
This could be the end of indie publishing as we know it.
No, it just means you need to get $40 worth of donations before you can sign up:)
I don't mean to shower scorn on your poverty. Certainly I'm no rich man myself, much to the disappointment of several artists I know. However, you must recognise that your situation is not universal. Most small-press companies rely on sales revenue, not donations, to continue their work.
On 9/28/2004 at 5:49pm, GMSkarka wrote:
RE: Re: $40.00 is fine for new vendors
TheLe wrote: Rpgnow.com has already stated that the setup fee will NOt apply to existing vendors, but those big publishers keep insisting that it should.
What a bunch of crap.
You might want to read those threads again...nobody is "insisting" anything.
The only comment that has been made (and it is one that I agree wholeheartedly with) is that if a $40 fee is a problem for someone, then they should seriously reconsider being in business, since they're obviously operating at the "hobby" level--hence charging that fee to everyone would weed out amateurs who are not serious.
On 9/28/2004 at 5:51pm, GMSkarka wrote:
RE: Re: One man's drek....
timfire wrote: This was the one part of the changes I didn't agree with. I don't think it's fair that a product gets rejected just because a customer complaims about it. Hopefully the people in charge have guidelines for what's considered a serious complaint and what's just a regretful customer.
We do.
We're not going to pull products on somebody else's word. A bad review will get us to take more than just the cursory look we initially give the product. That's all.
On 9/28/2004 at 5:57pm, GMSkarka wrote:
RE: Re: One man's drek....
If you'll forgive me, Andy, I'd like to respond to a couple of the things you send to James:
andy wrote: Heck, under your standards, the original DnD never would have cleared the market.
...and it shouldn't. The originial DnD is a THIRTY YEAR OLD product. It doesn't even approach todays standards of production. Would you expect a modern computer store to devote shelf space to first-generation PCs? No...the standards of production have moved on for three decades.
Hell, DnD barely approached the standards of production back then. :)
andy wrote: no specter of censorship
Just a pet peeve of mine-- unless you're talking about a governmental body preventing something from being published or distributed, you're not talking about censorship. It's one of those words that gets thrown around alot on the internet, and incorrectly at that.
On 9/28/2004 at 6:13pm, andy wrote:
follow up
andy wrote:
no specter of censorship
Just a pet peeve of mine-- unless you're talking about a governmental body preventing something from being published or distributed, you're not talking about censorship. It's one of those words that gets thrown around alot on the internet, and incorrectly at that.
I understand the pet peeve, and I agree that private entities normally cannot engage in "censorship" as such-- however, the reason that I used the phrase "specter of censorship" is that censorship was one of the issues raised on the RPGNow discussion boards before this change was implemented.
Finally, while average production values have greatly improved since the original DnD was released, Gygax, Arneson and their cohorts were working on a shoestring then-- a lot of indie publishers work on a shoestring now -- and production values do not define the quality of a game/supplement/adventure, etc.
Lest we judge a book by its cover.
Caveat emptor. I think that if RPGNow removes a lot of its fringe product and a lot of older product, it will be giving its current and future competitors a leg up in this developing market. I've already approached Drivethrurpg.com (which is also a great site).
Andy
On 9/28/2004 at 6:35pm, GMSkarka wrote:
Re: follow up
andy wrote: Lest we judge a book by its cover.
We will, actually. By it's cover, and the presentation of its content.
Why?
Because that's EXACTLY what customers do.
In one of our most recent market surveys, a disturbingly large percentage of respondents said that "amateurish product" was one of the problems they saw on RPGNow. Our competitors began branding themselves as the "first PROFESSIONAL ebook site", etc.
Bluntly, the appearance of sub-standard product IS a problem, and it is one that this new policy will directly address.
On 9/28/2004 at 7:01pm, andy wrote:
A book by its cover....
If the customers really judge product by its cover and purchase accordingly, why pre-screen for them?
At RPGNow (or any other site), you have to consciously choose to look at a product before being subjected to its thumbnail and/or description. Complaining about such a product's "amateurish" production is akin to complaining about a TV program that you surfed past on the dial (or have never even seen).
Variety and innovation, not conformity and appearance, are the spice of the indie scene. The idea that a game may not rock if its author couldn't afford a good artist and/or layout is simply wrong. As my example, I offer Wu Shu, a totally kick-ass game with great reviews and minimal art/layout. It's not pretty, but damn it's good.
I'll shut up now.
Andy
On 9/28/2004 at 7:12pm, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Why do I currently shop at RPGnow? Because I can go there and find games I've never heard of or seen before, unique games that sometimes are decidedly crap-fests, but sometimes incredible. That's why my games are currently there as well - I want to be associated with that sort of arena.
When Phil Reed gets off his tuckus and e-mails me back, you can be assured that this sort of action - removal based off subjective reviews of a product's worth - will move me off RPGnow in a flash. I'd not suggest anyone else do such a thing, but I would note that the reason I love independent publishing is that people think with their morals as much as their wallet.
If you're undecided as to whether RPGnow is doing this to help you or harm you, I suggest you do a search on the Forge to see how James, and the new Minion, Gareth, have treated independent publishers here in the past.
Side points:
* Andy's post is what I'd say if I were more tactful. Awesome post, Andy.
* Michael - calm down, man. It's like being in a room with a hummingbird.
On 9/28/2004 at 7:15pm, GMSkarka wrote:
Re: A book by its cover....
andy wrote: If the customers really judge product by its cover and purchase accordingly, why pre-screen for them?
Because products that add to the impression that the site caters to amateurs impact every single one of our vendors by association.
Because if someone's first purchase is something that's been slapped together by some amateur wanna-be, they're not likely to return as a customer.
There are many other reasons, most of which fall under basic marketing, but those two are the biggies.
On 9/28/2004 at 7:22pm, Clinton R. Nixon wrote:
RE: Re: A book by its cover....
GMSkarka wrote:
Because if someone's first purchase is something that's been slapped together by some amateur wanna-be, they're not likely to return as a customer.
I'm going to go ahead and get all moderator-like here. "Amateur wanna-be" is name-calling and flaming. (Etiquette at the Forge. III. D. "any expression of hostility". Considering that we're dedicated to helping self-publishers, well, publish, that's pretty hostile.)
Let's calm this down, Gareth, and hope that some sort of real discussion can take place.
Clinton R. Nixon
Webmaster, The Forge
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 1604
On 9/28/2004 at 7:28pm, andy wrote:
I'm trying to shut up, really.
OK, last post on this one.
What Clinton said.
I'm a decent, repeat customer of RPGNow (probably in excess of $200/year). I've picked up some great stuff, and I've picked up some real crap...and I dearly love it all. The idea that a customer/prospective customer would avoid future purchases because they bought something that they didn't like is an insult to brainy game geeks everywhere (this humble author included). Surely we alpha-geeks are capable of understanding that products from different producers could be of varying quality.
I may be wrong, but I don't think that your point about "basic marketing" (as you put it) is correct Gareth. Basic Marketing 101 is "know and understand your customer." RPGNow's ideal customer is not the occasional curiosity-surfer who buys a product every blue moon and who might be put off by a lemon.
RPGNow's ideal customer is me.
Think about it.
Rant concluded.
Andy
On 9/28/2004 at 7:29pm, GMSkarka wrote:
RE: Re: A book by its cover....
Clinton R. Nixon wrote: I'm going to go ahead and get all moderator-like here. "Amateur wanna-be" is name-calling and flaming.
I'm not referring to anybody other than the hypothetical publisher of a hypothetical product. Can one "name-call" an imaginary person?
Try putting down the grudge for a minute, OK?
On 9/28/2004 at 7:31pm, GMSkarka wrote:
Re: I'm trying to shut up, really.
andy wrote: I may be wrong, but I don't think that your point about "basic marketing" (as you put it) is correct Gareth. Basic Marketing 101 is "know and understand your customer." RPGNow's ideal customer is not the occasional curiosity-surfer who buys a product every blue moon and who might be put off by a lemon.
RPGNow's ideal customer is me.
Sorry, but that's just not what our data indicates.
On 9/28/2004 at 8:45pm, Valamir wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
I'm a little bit lost here.
RPGNow is a business.
It isn't a hobby website. It isn't a charity. And it isn't a community dedicated to the promotion of indie publishing.
Its a business. Dedicated to the proposition that the people running it want to turn a profit.
They've decided that their business will be in the arena of distribution of PDF games some from indie publishers and some from major publishers. They're required dedication to, support of, encouragement of, or interest in indie publishing is in direct proportion to how much profit indie publishers can bring them. My guess is: substantially less than distributing Pinnacle/Great White PDFs bring them.
Whatever judgement one is going to make on RPG Now's business decisions can only take 1 of 2 forms.
1) You disagree that their business decisions will actually accomplish their goal of greater profits. Which could be an interesting discussion in itself, and one I'd gladly participate in in order to get a better view behind the curtain of how their business model works, but unless they've hired you as a business consultant your opinion is just that.
2) Your own goals and personal mission statement conflicts with theres at which point you simply stop doing business with them. If enough of that occurs to effect their bottom line they'll have to reevaluate said business decisions. If not, they'll likely (and rightly from a business perspective) appreciate the culling.
So are posters here disagreeing with aspects of the new RPGNow policy on the grounds of #1 or #2?
I will note that hope that not too many critical business decisions are being based on "data". Marketing Data is notorious for being worth somewhere between jack and shit.
On 9/28/2004 at 8:57pm, GMSkarka wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Valamir wrote: They've decided that their business will be in the arena of distribution of PDF games some from indie publishers and some from major publishers. They're required dedication to, support of, encouragement of, or interest in indie publishing is in direct proportion to how much profit indie publishers can bring them. My guess is: substantially less than distributing Pinnacle/Great White PDFs bring them.
Allow me to interject here that we're not talking about culling "indie publishers." At all.
What we're specifically talking about are sub-standard products that fail to meet professional standards of presentation, editing, etc. Most of the "indie" product I've seen meets or exceeds the standards.
So this isn't about Major Publisher vs Indie Publisher. This is about Quality Product vs Sub-standard Product.
On 9/28/2004 at 9:14pm, greyorm wrote:
RE: Re: A book by its cover....
GMSkarka wrote: Because if someone's first purchase is something that's been slapped together by some amateur wanna-be, they're not likely to return as a customer.
As this started with a complaint about the fee, should I assume this is a response to that?
As already noted, the $40 fee does absolutely nothing to provide a solution to this problem in particular. I can scrape $40 bucks together to put up something I slapped together on a whim.
Don't think I (or other people) would? How many games (frex: computer titles) are put out by some guy(s) who had a little spare cash (or a rich backer) and decided they wanted in on the act, too? The non-electronic market is rife with high-production-cost crap, while some truly brilliant concepts and programmers are relegated to the backwaters because they aren't able to step-up with the funds necessary to enter the shark tank of modern business.
This is exactly ass-backwards if the goal is producing higher quality product.
The fee, in itself, is not a barrier to the types of folks you may think it is, and does nothing to solve the "slapped-together amateur publication" problem. The only person the fee is a barrier for is the guy on the shoestring budget who doesn't have the funds to spend producing his (possibly otherwise brilliant) product: spending $40 (or $40,000) does not prove whether or not one is, nor weed out one from the other, a professional or an amateur.
Or to put it simply: the ability to spend money (in actuality, the simple ownership of money to spend) does nothing to guarantee a superior or more professional product.
However, I'll also point out that my own or anyone else's bitching about a $40 entry fee is exactly like complaining that WotC won't license and print my product. Boo hoo.
As such, and if this is not a response to the issue of the fee, then all I can do is say a product review by the business owners, before deciding to distribute said product, is the better solution to the problem of amateur vs. professional, and a step I can agree with taking from the standpoint of a business-owner. I've no complaint there, in fact I'll echo what Ralph said at this point.
In fact, I've no real complaint anywhere with any of this -- it is James' business, he can do what he wishes. He can hire Latin-speaking Italian monks to run the whole damn business if he wishes. That is his business, not mine, and unless and until his business decisions seriously and irrevocably impact my own business, I don't need to say anything. Even then, I'd best be savvy enough not to tie my business so tightly to his, such that if his ship sinks, my own is not inarguably dragged down with it.
Thus, in the interests of (again) trying to salvage this thread from a "If I ran RPGNow..." bitchfest, and making something actually useful to the community out of this discussion, I point out the questions we should be asking and answering once more.
Quite simply, everyone can bitch about a problem they have with "X": what are you going to do about that problem specifically? Unless you have an answer to this, there is no reason to bother opening one's mouth.
What are your other options, folks? What other options can you make? (There are literally bucket loads of untapped resources out there for you just waiting for someone desperate -- and clever -- enough to grab ahold of and wring potential out of. I believe the vast majority of authors on this board qualify for the "clever" part at the very least. Now go do something with that.)
The answers to those questions is what the rest of this thread should be dedicated to the pursuit of.
On 9/28/2004 at 9:18pm, Valamir wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Granted, Gareth. I understand that point and that that's the angle you're promoting this as. But my point is 2 things.
a) at the end of the year, after you've removed or rejected 3 or 30 or 300, products for quality are the majority of those products likely to be from indie publishers or major publishers. I think its pretty much a given that more indie publishers are going to be effected. I doubt very much Shane Hensley's going to get an email indicating that his latest Savage Worlds PDF has been rejected. So targeted or not, it very much comes down to indie vs major lines. I'm quite open to you posting the list of companies you had quality issues with at the end of next year if you want to demonstrate that that's not the case.
b) but that's ok. Because any expectations that people have that you are there to cater specifically to the needs of indie publishers are wrong. Your only obligation to indie publishers is to the extent that indie publishers make up a significant portion of your revenue and you thus need to cater to them for business sense reasons. I don't have access to your numbers obviously, but it doesn't take a great genius to figure out that as more major publishers like Great White start distributing more product via PDF that major publishers will become an increasing fraction of your overall revenue stream.
On 9/28/2004 at 9:19pm, GMSkarka wrote:
RE: Re: A book by its cover....
greyorm wrote: As this started with a complaint about the fee, should I assume this is a response to that?.
No, this was specifically in reference to the Standards document, which was also part of Michael's complaint.
On 9/28/2004 at 9:28pm, GMSkarka wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Valamir wrote: Granted, Gareth. I understand that point and that that's the angle you're promoting this as. But my point is 2 things.
a) at the end of the year, after you've removed or rejected 3 or 30 or 300, products for quality are the majority of those products likely to be from indie publishers or major publishers. I think its pretty much a given that more indie publishers are going to be effected. I doubt very much Shane Hensley's going to get an email indicating that his latest Savage Worlds PDF has been rejected. So targeted or not, it very much comes down to indie vs major lines. I'm quite open to you posting the list of companies you had quality issues with at the end of next year if you want to demonstrate that that's not the case.
b) but that's ok. Because any expectations that people have that you are there to cater specifically to the needs of indie publishers are wrong. Your only obligation to indie publishers is to the extent that indie publishers make up a significant portion of your revenue and you thus need to cater to them for business sense reasons. I don't have access to your numbers obviously, but it doesn't take a great genius to figure out that as more major publishers like Great White start distributing more product via PDF that major publishers will become an increasing fraction of your overall revenue stream.
Self-fulfilling prophecy is fun, I guess.
Our problem is with amateurish product. Obviously, there are going to be more amateurs in "indie" publishing than in "major", but the two aren't mutually exclusive.
But then again, you keep using a sole proprietor, owned-and-operated publisher as an example of "Major", so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.
I'm done. I was just here to clear up some misconceptions, not to beat my head against the "indie" wall.
On 9/28/2004 at 9:40pm, greyorm wrote:
RE: Re: A book by its cover....
GMSkarka wrote: No, this was specifically in reference to the Standards document, which was also part of Michael's complaint.
That's cool with me, Gareth. As I said, it isn't the business of anyone here what RPGNow does or does not do regarding its business policies. If it affects anyone in some major way, well, they need to find an alternate method to achieve the same (or their previous) results (exposure, sales, etc).
On 9/28/2004 at 10:14pm, Asrogoth wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Gareth,
I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to respond on the boards to the concern raised about RPGNow. I've been contemplating getting some stuff up (God Lore, specifically), but have not had the time to do anything more with it.
I appreciate your candor and, although I agree that a steeper entry fee into RPGNow won't necessarily affect the overall quality, I can see where it might very well impact some of the would-be rpg creators who simply think "ooo, wow, what a neat idea I have, I'll post it for sale on RPGNow!".
So... I think there is nor reason to be upset about Gareth's decision so much as to evaluate our needs and appreciate the fact that he has an outlet we CAN use, if we CHOOSE.
Regards,
-Kenny
On 9/28/2004 at 10:15pm, andy wrote:
I come to praise RPGNow, not bury it.
Although it might have started that way, I don't think that this is a "bash RPGNow" thread. To the contrary, many of the Forgers (me included) are big fans.
I am a fan of the site because it's fun and interesting, and has unusual games and game-related materials that are not readily available elsewhere. Yesterday I bought a PDF for the old DnD adventure "Castle Amber," arguably an amateurish dungeon in the best of old school traditions. I didn't need it, will probably never run it again (I ran it once in the 1980's), but it was a hoot to read last night. Call me nostalgic, but I like old games.
I like new games, too. Even games that are "amateurish," games with ugly covers and games without pretty pictures. Sometimes I buy a game that I don't like. This doesn't make me mad at RPGNow--to leave RPGNow because I bought a lemon there would be analogous to leaving Borders because Anne Rice's last book was a lemon--I won't do that, and I suspect that I an not that unusual in this respect.
I may be wrong, but I think a lot of gamers who frequent RPGNow are like me. I don't object to "culling" games on moral grounds because no one has standing to raise such an objection--RPGNow is a business, and its owners can run it however they damn well please.
But I would hate to see it lose the lunatic fringe products, not because I think that such products have some sort of intellectual right to exist, but because if these "amateurish" products disappear, I won't be able to evaluate them, and perhaps buy them.
As for the validity of marketing data, the 80/20 rule is a cliche because it is true--20 percent of your customers provide 80% of your business.
RPGNow is a great site because it carries a multitude of innovative, fringe, amateurish products, not in spite of that fact.
Andy
On 9/29/2004 at 2:19am, rpghost wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
GMSkarka wrote: Allow me to interject here that we're not talking about culling "indie publishers." At all.
What we're specifically talking about are sub-standard products that fail to meet professional standards of presentation, editing, etc. Most of the "indie" product I've seen meets or exceeds the standards.
So this isn't about Major Publisher vs Indie Publisher. This is about Quality Product vs Sub-standard Product.
Coming a bit late to this... but I have to agree with the above statement. Too many people are being paranoid about this. The new standards will probably remove about 10-20 products from our 3000. Anyone taking publishing seriously isn't at risk by this.
Clinton, what do you mean by your comment of how we treate people? We've (as far as I know) always supported the indies far more then most in this industry and have contributed to this forum in the past when we thought we had something to add. I don't understand this induendo (sp)...
James
On 9/29/2004 at 2:30am, rpghost wrote:
RE: Re: A book by its cover....
greyorm wrote: As already noted, the $40 fee does absolutely nothing to provide a solution to this problem in particular. I can scrape $40 bucks together to put up something I slapped together on a whim.
Maybe not, but it will certainly cut down on the average of a new vendor per day that causes us work and agravation. Or the 10+ publishers I removed for not ever even releasing a product months after signing up.
Hopefully it'll make someone who wants to put their PDF up for others to see, think twice about wether it's worth the $40 investment or they should just post it for free on their website.
Maybe you don't feel that the ePublisher Guides are going to help anyone signing up? We have packed in over $48 worth of products (that are 2/3rds or 3/4th useful for the non-d20 publishers) into the $40 setup fee. All good business sense info. PDF generation and layout help. Contracts. Budgeting issues, etc. Is that not going to help things?
James
P.S. You guys keep bringing up Shane Hensley of Pinnicle. Let me tell you this, he was hit with a 5% increase in his rate. He has choosen to stay with us. I'm sure that 5% amounts to more then most will make on their products. In fact, many publishers had to take a hit, we have not lost one as we did it in a way that ads value to everyone. We do care you know...
On 9/29/2004 at 4:29am, greyorm wrote:
RE: Re: A book by its cover....
rpghost wrote: Maybe not, but it will certainly cut down on the average of a new vendor per day that causes us work and agravation. Or the 10+ publishers I removed for not ever even releasing a product months after signing up.
Heya James, no argument from me there that the fee may be helpful in curtailing certain problems (such as the above). My response was directed specifically at the idea that the ability to pay an entry fee is tied to the quality of a given product, as outlined above. And as I said, your business choices for your business are ultimately your own, and my main concern here (for this thread) is for those who have problems with such to simply suggest or develop their own or other venues rather than simply complain or engage in an ultimately useless argument about the benefits/drawbacks of the policy.
(For those wondering, I say "ultimately useless" because doomsaying, complaining, or criticisizing the policy are by their very nature gestures bereft of constructive results.)
Maybe you don't feel that the ePublisher Guides are going to help anyone signing up? We have packed in over $48 worth of products (that are 2/3rds or 3/4th useful for the non-d20 publishers) into the $40 setup fee. All good business sense info. PDF generation and layout help. Contracts. Budgeting issues, etc. Is that not going to help things?
Sounds like an excellent packet of business material, James. I note that I was unware of this added benefit for signing up with RPGNow, as I have not yet looked into the distribution of my product. That is mainly because I would like to have a finished product to worry about before I add any more work (or worry) for myself.
When ORX is finally finished (and, yes, I can hear people yelling at me right now about that), my plan is to do some of my sales business through RPGNow -- fee or no fee -- so expect me to be in touch before the end of the year.
On 9/29/2004 at 4:54pm, Andy Kitkowski wrote:
RE: Re: follow up
GMSkarka wrote: Bluntly, the appearance of sub-standard product IS a problem, and it is one that this new policy will directly address.
I wanted to jump in and comment here. One of my first purchases at RPGNow was This Total Piece of Shit:
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_7764.html
Timeline would never have passed any quality standards check. I felt totally burned by it. If I was Joe Average Customer, and that was my first purchase from RPGNow, it probably would have been my last.
Luckily, I'm not, and have bought a lot of great stuff from RPGNow (heck, because of that review, I had several published hop out and tell me, "We're not all like that! Here, have a copy of my X product").
So I see absolutely nothing here to indicate that this is about weeding out the small-beans producers and indie folks who don't produce or reel in as much as the bigger houses. Or folks that only sell 1-2 products every few (say, three) months.
This policy is to stop people like the Timeline crew from uploading a pile of unfinished, shameful shit, charging money for it and making RPGNow look bad when they get bad press for these products they help distribute. Who knows, over time maybe things will change to favor heavy-volume producers. But that's a guess for the fortune-tellers and diviners, because nothing indicated in the standards guide sets off any alarm bells here.
-Andy
ps- the folks who did Timeline? Their "next product" was a "d20 guide to Vacuum Elementals". They planned on making a 700 page PDF file... and here's the "gimmick"... It's all BLANK PAGES!!!! HA ha ha ha. What a classy joke. Too bad these standards weren't in place earlier so that they could have been shitcanned before seeing a single penny of profit, but oh well. Now they're in place, so I have less of a chance of getting totally burned. Sure, I may be disappointed with a purchase, but probably not burned
On 9/29/2004 at 8:18pm, TheLe wrote:
RE: Re: $40.00 is fine for new vendors
GMSkarka wrote:TheLe wrote: Rpgnow.com has already stated that the setup fee will NOt apply to existing vendors, but those big publishers keep insisting that it should.
What a bunch of crap.
You might want to read those threads again...nobody is "insisting" anything.
Allow me to rephrase. Rpgnow already said that they will not apply the $40 to existing vendors. However, there are a number of vendors who feel that the $40 SHOULD be applied to existing vendors, to see who is "serious" about publishing. Which I think is a bunch of malarky. Applying the setup fee to new vendors is one thing, but as someone who has been publishing books with them since February I would be a little insulted if they insisted on applying it to me and other Vendors.
~Le
On 9/29/2004 at 9:53pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Hello,
Folks, this forum is not the right venue for specific concerns of individual publishers with RPGnow. TheLe, whoever. You have one another's email, I'm sure, so take it there.
Overall, I suggest that a few posts so far merit starting their own threads, so anyone who wants, go ahead.
I also suggest that the only substantive point of the initial post was to bring RPGnow's new policies to public attention, and that is a pretty weeny substantive point, and it is clearly satisfied. I don't see any point for this thread to continue.
Best,
Ron
On 9/30/2004 at 1:34am, M Jason Parent wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
TheLe
but the bigger vendors WANT the fee to be applied to existing vendors.
As one of the so called 'bigger vendors', I would like to point out that this is NOT my position.
greyorm
Just keep in mind that their stance isn't about "quality", it's about competition: in that they'd like to reduce it.
Once again, someone giving me motives different from the ones I have. It isn't about reducing competition.
Here is where I'm coming from.
Yes, $40 would have slowed down my entry to market by at least a month or so for my first e-product.
And that would have been a good thing.
I released a very unprofessional-looking product when I entered the market back in the good old days of 2001. If I had been going in with a NEED to make at least $40 profit from the release, I would have held back for a month or two to get the product polished and REALLY ready for sale as a professional release instead of a glorified fan release.
This would have been a good thing, for myself AND for the PDF industry at the time, as I quickly became the best-selling PDF product on RPGnow, and the product in question was ugly and needed copy-editing. Thus, this became one of the most visible PDF d20 products on the market, and I feel it wasn't up to the job of beign a flagship product.
Fortunately, I've since learned from my ways and have upgraded the product, and my later products.
But I think I would have been better served if I had been put in a position to consider the investment the product was, instead of just releasing it untested into the market.
Thus, in my opinion, an entry fee to the market would have served ME better, and would have served the MARKET better.
That is why I stated what I did, which is support for the $40 fee, but not support for a retroactive fee.
On 9/30/2004 at 2:30am, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: Bad news from RPGNow
Hello,
Your comments are relevant, Jason, but this thread is now closed.
Everyone, no posting here please. Take relevant topics to threads of their own.
Best,
Ron