Interesting...

Both Ars Magica 4th ed and Deadlands are available in their complete forms as downloads from www.rpgnow.com.

Jake

I love to see it. I think its good we're seeing major publishers start to experiment with non traditional delivery methods and business models. Good idea, bad idea...whose to say yet, but at the very least we get some new data points rather than rely on pure speculation.

My ONLY worry about this is that the Big Companies will see the web as dumping grounds for promotional material and cut out the indpendent publishers who rely on RPGNow and similar web-based PDF retailers for their survival. Otherwise it's great -- I've downloaded both books and read parts of them.

I hope RPGNow isn;t going to give up on companies like Seraphim Guard because companies liek Pinnacle have discovered them.

Michael,

As the guy in charge of such a company I can understand your concern, but really what motivation would rpgnow have to dump you. It's not as if you are taking up "shelf-space." As an internet company, it would be in rpgnow's best interest to provide as many products as possible. After all, look at Amazon.com. Why do a lot of people purchase cds from them? Because they have a huge collection avalible. That isn't always possible with places like Best Buy and the like.

That's your ONLY worry, Mike? C'mon now, we know you better than that.

Tim, I think what Mike's worried about is that his sales will be undercut by the glut of people running out to play Deadlands instead of Heartquest.

Now, if that last sentence didn't come off as ironic, it should have. You have nothing to worry about here, Mike.

Mike

If anything, the increased visibility of RPGNow will be a good thing for small-press publishers.

Well said, sir.

Mike

Michael Hopcroft wrote: I hope RPGNow isn;t going to give up on companies like Seraphim Guard because companies liek Pinnacle have discovered them.

The extra customers will be a positive thing if the big companies don't get all the exposure!!

Don't get me wrong here! I think that RPGNow do a very good job and it's a really good thing for the rpg industry (for the indie side anyway). But just keep it as it is even if the big ones are coming playing with the small ones!! lolll ;o)

Patrick

Although they won't be free, the presence of the TSR back catalog should help RPGnow quite a bit. Some people still want copies of Alternity or Gamma World, even if only "virtual" copies. Heck, I'm sure there are Mythus fans out there who want to replace or get electronic copies of their game.

What we will all want to know as publishers, howevere, is how all that extra traffic at RPGNow will translate as sales for other electronic and print products from their site. In other words, will all these new visitors a.) stick around, b.) keep shopping and c.) come back later and regularly?

The RPGNow people want those answers as much as the rest of us do. That, no doubt, is why they are attempting this bold experiment.

Personally, I want to see Atlas make Over the Edge available on RPGNow. I'd even pay for it. They seem to have been ignoring Al-Amarja recently, and this truly innovative and imaginative RPG deserves much better than it's getting right now. (Then again, I'd also like to see OTE become open-source because its system fits one of my upcoming projects like a glove, but that's another topic....)

Patrick Boutin wrote: The extra customers will be a positive thing if the big companies don't get all the exposure!!

It's great news that John has enough faith in Ars Magica that he;s working on a fifth edition.

It's a pity there's no "upgrade strategy" for role-playing games. When you buy a new edition of a game, you pretty much have to buy the entire book again, unlike software which often discounts upgrades.

Patrick Boutin wrote: The extra customers will be a positive thing if the big companies don't get all the exposure!!

Don't get me wrong here! I think that RPGNow do a very good job and it's a really good thing for the rpg industry (for the indie side anyway). But just keep it as it is even if the big ones are coming playing with the small ones!! lolll ;o)

Patrick

Pramas wrote: I don't see the old TSR backlist as having much of an effect. The ESD program started at WotC several years ago. Wizards made a bunch of money from that program when the files first went up, but they've been available for quite some time now. I doubt there's going to be a mad stampede to rpgnow for that material or that its availability at rpgnow will detract from the sales of other PDF products.

rpghost wrote:

Pramas wrote: I don't see the old TSR backlist as having much of an effect. {quote]

I hope you are wrong on the first part, but you're definatly wrong on the second part. We have sold a TON of TSR products in the first day of them being online. There are a lot of people out there that want to use paypal, or use a MAC, or don't know about SVGames. This is a BIG world using the interent and that never stops amazing me. I too am surprised by the amout of customers/sales this has generated in only one day from products that have been around for over a year.

I will eventually run some stats on these free products and TSR products and how they effect sales of other products. So far I've seen some residual sales increasing, but it's too early to tell. I'll try to share some general statements with everyone here. At the very least it's making a lot of people more comfirtable with PDF publishing/purchasing.

I just hope more users do get more comfortable with buying PDFs. I haven't sold very many myself, but I've certainly purchased more than a few. I want to sell a lot more and the stronger RPGNow remains as a retailer the better chance I have. Thus the increased sales of the TSR backlist may indeed help Seraphim Guard, though to what degree will be difficult to determine.

There are, let me be perfectly honest, a lot of products I want on that backlist. Products that inspired me when I was just starting out as a roleplayer. I don't know whether there are still 2nd Edition AD&D players out there that aren't playing D20 ot HackMaster, but I have always wanted the books in a more convenient format.

In fact, I'm beginning to wish that even more of my RPG collection were in PDF format. Right now the floor of my new apartment is knee-deep in books that fell over in a huge heap when I tried to locate one that I thought was in the middle of a five-foot stack. Not having bookshelves makes it hard to keep books, but if I could somehow convert these books to PDF then I wouldn't have storing them to worry about. Sadly it doesn't work that way. And happy as I am to see some PDF books go to print and do well, I wish they wouldn't abandon the PDF format when they do so. The format is almost uniquely suited to my needs -- to keep and be able to refer to as many different game systems as possible with very limited storage space.