Which forum on the site would be the most-appropriate place to poll to determine if there's any interest in a CD archive of the old indie rpg magazine, Different Worlds? 

I didn't see a poll option in the general posting optoins list, and also wasn't sure if this or a different forum on the site would be the most appropriate place for this poll. Pointers/assistance would be appreciated.  Thanks!

Allan Grohe

Most likely there is no suitable place for that here. (I'll be corrected by the admins if I'm wrong, of course.) The sampling of hobbyists here is horribly skewed for your purposes, and polling is not encouraged because the site is about discussion related to design, publishing and actual play of indie rpgs, not an avenue for market research or contacting prospective fans so much. If you want to poll folks interestested in indie games, a forum like Story Games might be more up your alley, although I also recommend considering your reasons for wanting to poll people: are you really gaining valuable information by polling random forum-goers, and if so, how do you verify the applicability of the poll? Even if polling will not be possible, we can discuss your product here; if you don't mind answering questions, I'd like to know a couple of things:
- Tell us more about the magazine, I haven't heard of it. What kind of stuff does it include? When was it published, and where?
- Why sell a CD, when you could sell a web site subscription or pdf files?
- What kind of expenses would creating that archive entail for you?

I personally have pretty good experiences with productization of rpg history. We had this rpg magazine in Finland, Magus, that ran from -89 to 2001, which I've been selling as complete archives during the last couple of years. I got the backstock for an affordable price from the original publisher, and I have to say that this might just have been the best idea I've had in the hobby, folks have been that happy to get a cheap, yet complete collection of an important part of the Finnish rpg history. Selling the archive has allowed people a fresh new look into something difficult to find, which is rather gratifying, especially when the magazine ends up in the hands of youngsters too young to remember the original run of the mag. The materials published during the magazine's long run are still completely relevant for certain paradigms of play, too, so there's plenty of valuable stuff to be found between those pages.

So if Different Worlds is something like that, I could easily imagine that you'd find at least some interest for it from folks interested in rpg history and people who read the magazine when it was originally published.

Hello,

Different Worlds is a big deal! It was one of the most important magazines from the early RPG era. Dragon, White Wolf, Metagaming, Different Worlds, and The Sorcerer's Apprentice. I'm probably missing one or two others, but those were the heavy hitters I remember - and Dragon was certainly not first among them for content.

Allan, my advice is to fuck the poll in the ear abandon the poll idea. Clearly collecting the content of Different Worlds is something you want to do - so do it!

Now, just how to do it is another question. The CD notion is, well, so 90's ... Eero's right in that you should consider any number of options. Hell, you could bind it all together as a series of books, maybe with a few issues apiece, and sell it using Lulu.

Um, assuming that the content is yours to publish. Is it?

Best, Ron

That sounds like an interesting magazine! Out of academic interest, what kind of content did it have? I'm only familiar with Dragon, White Dwarf, that other British mag (Epic? Chronic? Something like that.) and various fanzines as far English language rpg magazines are concerned, so I have very little idea of what was typical for American magazines during the '80s (or any other time, for that matter).

Hi Ron---

The content's not mine, certainly---I just have the pleasure of working with Tadashi on a semi-irregular basis.  Tadashi still sells print copies of DW @ http://www.diffworlds.com/ but not all of the magazine back issues are still available, so we've been punting this idea of a DW archive around for a few years now, and I thought it would at least be interesting to see what level of interest may exist out there for the project. 

I posted polls to rpg.net, ENWorld, and Yog-Sothoth.com, so if anyone's inclined to vote, please do so.

To tackle Eero's Qs:

Tell us more about the magazine, I haven't heard of it. What kind of stuff does it include? When was it published, and where?

Why sell a CD, when you could sell a web site subscription or pdf files?

What kind of expenses would creating that archive entail for you?

Well, there's a problem now.

First, speaking as a consumer, I'd be delighted to see Different Worlds made available to gaming culture. The magazines from the late 1970s were the true wellspring of community and creativity at the time, and there's a sharp cultural demarcation between gamers who perused them (or as many as they could get) and the next wave in the early 1980s who did not. Restoring some of that institutional memory would be a huge service and source of inspiration.

Second, speaking as moderator, I have to say: you've abused the people, us, who frequent this site. This is not a place for polls. It is not a consumer survey service center. It is also not a place where you can do X, and say "gee I don't see where you can do X here" to legitimize it. The Forge exists for a specific purpose.

You've accomplished your goals about letting people know about your polls. You have, also, been decent and courteous in answering questions, which I appreciate.

But for this thread to continue, you must raise a topic for discussion. One has emerged: format. Do you want to discuss that seriously here? For instance, based on past discussions, many folks have tried CDs as a format, in the stores and otherwise, and found them to suck big donkey balls. We could also discuss why basing your marketing and production plans on pure imitation isn't a strong strategy.

If you want to discuss those things, and open up your and Tadashi's options, that'd be great. But I cannot let the thread go on as long as it is merely one of several "canvas the internet" pieces, which are essentially spam.

Everyone else shut up, please. Allan, it's your call.

Best, Ron

Hi again Ron---

Ron wrote:
First, speaking as a consumer, I'd be delighted to see Different Worlds made available to gaming culture. The magazines from the late 1970s were the true wellspring of community and creativity at the time, and there's a sharp cultural demarcation between gamers who perused them (or as many as they could get) and the next wave in the early 1980s who did not. Restoring some of that institutional memory would be a huge service and source of inspiration.

Ron wrote: Well, there's a problem now.  [snip] You've accomplished your goals about letting people know about your polls.

Second, speaking as moderator, I have to say: you've abused the people, us, who frequent this site. This is not a place for polls. It is not a consumer survey service center. It is also not a place where you can do X, and say "gee I don't see where you can do X here" to legitimize it.

Ron wrote: But for this thread to continue, you must raise a topic for discussion. One has emerged: format. Do you want to discuss that seriously here? For instance, based on past discussions, many folks have tried CDs as a format, in the stores and otherwise, and found them to suck big donkey balls. We could also discuss why basing your marketing and production plans on pure imitation isn't a strong strategy.

If you want to discuss those things, and open up your and Tadashi's options, that'd be great. But I cannot let the thread go on as long as it is merely one of several "canvas the internet" pieces, which are essentially spam.

grodog wrote:
On the CDs front, do you mean specifically that CDs (and not DVDs) suck, or that CD/DVD/floppy disk/memory stick/etc. media all suck?  I've seen a few CD-based rpg products in stores before, but in general those are for new products vs. known quantities (DW magazine back issues), so my hunch is that the format may not hinder a DW archive immensely.  I'm certainly open to more debate on it, though:  Tadashi's plans are far from set-in-stone at this point, and if we can improve the product offering by considering other media/channels/options/strategies, so much the better.

I hate to rain on any parade at all in this industry, but there is no reliable way to do market research on internet forums.  This goes double for opt-in polls. 

That data will be total garbage.

I just want to clarify that the above isn't "I tried it and in my opinion it's not going to work" it was "the data is unreliable in a mathematical sense.  You should talk to someone who has taken statistics within the last couple of years and ask them about defining a population and taking samples of that population."

Internet polling is certainly an interesting topic, especially as it is not necessary to interpret it as market research (which it hardly is), but as a stealthy kind of guerrilla marketing. I'd suspect that this is what polling means for most folks who do it, it's an easy way to initiate discussion about a product. People like giving their opinions, after all, and product awareness pretty much has to go up if you need to get to know the product before voting. Look at me, I hadn't heard about the whole magazine before this thread.

But let's not derail Allan's thread with the poll thing, unless he wants to discuss it and other methods of gathering data in some more depth. There's plenty of topic in the product itself, after all.

I completely agree that internet-based polls are not statistically valid market research polls (as conducted by a professional polling organization).  The attempt to poll here is basically to get a swag level of interest in the possible product, from among four different potentially-biased constituents:  indie rpgers (here), general rpgers (rpg.net), D&D players (ENW), and CoC players (yog-sothoth).  Ironically, this was the first place I thought of when thinking about doing the poll, since DW sitll stands out as the first generally-available indie rpg magazine in my mind.  My non-scientific intent with gathering this (statistically irrelevant) data is to see if that is sufficient to push Tadashi over the tipping point to green-light the project.  So, it's value as data is only to supplement Tadashi's insticts, and since neither are scientifically valid, we're kind of back to the beginning in the project:  it's an ethusiasm barometer and enabler, more for Tadashi than for the target audience.

The niche for a DW CD archive is probably pretty narrow from a general-market POV, but given that the costs to produce such an effort are relatively low (time-wise, and materials-wise---though certainly much higher if sold via distribution per Eero's points than making the .pdfs available via the web site), the level of risk for the project is equally low, with the main loss potential being in time and labor vs. capital outlay.  (One option that sprang to mind after reading Eero's comments about channel consideration is putting together CD bundles, for example, including at the top-level, a CD-bundle for all of the magazines, of course). 

That's all my brain's up to so far today, since I haven't had breakfast yet.  Thanks for the input, and do please keep it coming. 

Allan.

I think an archive of DW would be a good thing if nothing else from a historical persective. As for format, I'll take what I can get. Just be sure to scan it at a descent DPI (162+) so if I need to print out something for portability or analysis I can do it.

I remember Different Worlds with fondness.

Ron I think the other two you are trying to remember are: The Fantasy Gamer & The Space Gamer.

FWIW,
Keith