RPGNow.com ( http://www.rpgnow.com ) is an electronic delivery system for role-playing games: rule books, modules, fiction, paper miniatures, software, and more! Puchase products in the store and imedately download them for use on your home computer. Unique in that it is actually a Mall of many RPG vendors in one location and thus sharing clientele and being a one stop shop for the gamer. They will be going live by mid-September with several vendors on board and are seeking more right now. See the read more link below for a case study and more information about our promotional offers.

http://www.rpgnews.com/article.php?sid=553

James
RPGNow.com
RPG Host Networks

"MDC shall collect/receive 20 percent of the actual selling price of the Product for the electronic download service"

So what benefit does That offer me? I could seel my product from my own site for free

If it was 10 percent, or 5 percent I don't think it'd be a problem...

Seems like you'd (they'd) be making an awful load of money off our work...

Just my opinion...

Quite simply Marketing. If you don't see the value in that I don't know what else I could say.

- RPGNow can market to 250,000 users of RPG Host Network.
- They have 5000+ visitors a day (how many do you have?)
- We take credit cards, do you?
- We have ads paid for in Dragon Magazine and Dungeon.

What's your advertsing budget? Would you drop a couple grand on these? By spreading these costs over a group of vendors in a mall situation everyone wins.

Here's another good analogy. I'm sure you have made a great game. If you went out and sat on your front of your porch and tried to sell it to your friends and passers by, how many sales could you make?

Now, go rent a space in your local mall. Take out a full page ad in your local newspaper. Canvas the hobby stores in your area with marketing materials. Then take a convention full of gamers and run them past your shop.

Is that much to ask for for ONLY 20% considering the credit card alone eats up 5% of that?

James
RPG Host Networks

On 2001-09-02 18:08, rpghost wrote:
- RPGNow can market to 250,000 users of RPG Host Network.
- They have 5000+ visitors a day (how many do you have?)
- We take credit cards, do you?
- We have ads paid for in Dragon Magazine and Dungeon.

What's your advertsing budget? Would you drop a couple grand on these? By spreading these costs over a group of vendors in a mall situation everyone wins.

Just to add another query, do you have any demographic info on these registered users?

It's great you've got that many hits/users, but if they're from under 12s who only like D&D then it's not going to sell grim and gritty mature setting TM. Also how many are regularly active?

Not that I don't think it'll work, I'm just curious of who it'll work for.


_________________
http://www.realms.org.uk
Home of Lost Gods and Agency 13

[ This Message was edited by: Matt on 2001-09-03 07:47 ]

> How many of those users are 10-17 with no access to credit
> cards or other payment options?

Enough that we sold nearly $3000 of mapping software in our first month trial. Sure some people have issues, but we can work with them in other ways to do manual sales or send them to your own site to handle that... the concept of RPG NOW is to get immediate delivery.

> I'm being the devils advocate here, my appologies if you see it otherwise.

Not at all. I appreciate the input - REALLY. We want to create a good environment for Indie developers.

> Yes, I have the ability to take credit cards.

Well not many others do... and it's costly with long contracts when you do.

> (I hope this isn't some form of pissing contest...) Yes you have the
> bigger, badder site. However you also have the backing of UGO.

UGO has nothing to do with me or our sites or my company or RPG NOW. Simply put, UGO rents the ad space on 3 of our 20 sites. That's it. It's a form of income, sure, but they have no control and don't help promote us (unless I beg). I'm not trying to say we're bigger and better for the simple fact that we are bigger - my point is the same as the old marketing premise of no matter how great your widget is, if people don't see it or know about it - it's not going to sell. We want to USE our exposure (which even WOTC values as they pay us to run ads) to help you guys break into the market. I value a do-it-yourself type person, that's who I am... but you can't always do it all best. We're not asking you NOT to sell on your own or through standard distributors, we're only asking that you don't undercut or undermined the relationship by directing customers to your site instead of ours when we have promoted you. We'll never replace books, but we can help you get started at a low cost and then you can produce books.


> Regardless, This all assumes I want to take the Electronic delivery
> route. I have yet to make up my mind as to which direction I want to go.

Why do you see it as a one or the other? If you can get something in print and have the money to invest, that is THE way to go. But you'll find that Alliance Games won't carry you - so you're stuck working with Wizard's Attic. Why settle for one distribution point?

> Question.. The site mentions CD bundles. how would these be packaged?
> can I assume generic CD writing with no insert and such?

It is yet to be determined. Currently Nbos has their own CD and packaging. But there is a market for stuffing a disk full of games and modules and selling it as a PACK. Just haven't solidified that yet.

> Also this struck me as odd:

That struck me odd too :smile: Can't trust a lawyer eh? Anyway, I changed the second statement to say that we have the right to "REMOVE" such content - not edit. We don't want to edit anything :smile:

> So in the end if I wanted to market,
> ... game with Adult Concepts I couldn't use your service?

Keep in mind that you're reading legal papers... we have to reserve the right to remove such offensive materials. But we are no way prudes. Even the module I have written contains R rated content. So it's just a matter of reserving the right to refuse something if it goes overboard. Subjective, yes. But required.

> *I* am leary of Contracts and Obligations much like the
> Service Contract you display.

And at the same time other companies where "leary" of sending any content our way without such a contract in place. So we try to do the right thing. We're not some big company trying to abuse the masses. We're no WOTC. We really want to help and in the process make a couple
bucks.

> It would be interesting to see a game that had both Book and
> Electronic Delivery

We only have our case study with the Mapping software to reference, but we still sold a fair number of CD versions. This isn't for everyone and some players want something physical for their money... others are cheap and impulsive and will download a $10 on the spot just to give it a read. Just take GENCON as an example. You know how many games and things are sold there for about $10? No do you know how
many of them are ever actually played? For years I've known people to just buy something for a reasonable price cause it sounded cool or looked nifty. They are only at GENCON once a year so they make impulsive purchases. RPG NOW has the same potential - if your game book is $24.95 or even $19.95 and they have to wait for delivery and/or their local store to special order it, you loose the impulse sale. Besides, how many hobby stores do you think your game is going to take up shelf space on? RPG NOW allows people to buy the product for less (maybe half the price) and get it right away.

> do you have any demographic info on these registered users?

These figures are from last year, but:

Male 89% Female 11%

Under 13 2%
13-17 30%
18-24 26%
25-34 28%
35-44 9%
45-54 3%
55+ 2%

> Also how many are regularly active?

The 250,000 users I mention are current... they are from a 3rd party reporting service that is up to date. They are a count of number of unique IP's in a whole month time. So it can vary and can be somewhat inflated by dynamic IP's. But it's still a significant number. On top of that we have direct e-mailing lists of over 10,000 users.

> Not that I don't think it'll work, I'm just curious of who
> it'll work for.

On that note though, what does it cost you to try? No up front costs at all. Promotion included. We're not making you sign any term for the contract. You quit when you want. All it requires is for you to prepare a PDF document and give it a try.

Now, of course it depends on weather you have a good product and wether the descriptions and/or demos are going to "sell" the product.

James

Hello,

Here's a contrast. Our model is different, so you can choose.

ZAPdeliver.com offers free 'glueware'-- software so you can use existing credit card processors (like iBill.com or ClickBank.com, both of whom allow sales of virtual items, have zero minimums, and take around 10-15%).

This way, you offer the products from your own website, and get to capture the customer info yourself (for elists, followup, etc). Checks get made out to you by iBill/ClickBank.

For marketing, we're launching GameZMall.com, the ZAP mall we proposed around 4 months ago. It's free, and anyone selling (via our system, which has been around for months, or indy, like Monte Cook, or with James' setup).

(How do we get money? You can buy our site-building software, or pay for banners and ala carte promo in the mall, etc).

We're looking at a credit card partnering to lower that 10-15% bit, but that's a few months off.

So if you want to keep closer control over your own stuff but still don't want to form a business nor lose control just to have to publish, ours is a different model to offer.

It's a great time to self-publish-- so many choices!

Cheers,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net

Remember, we don't expect you to ONLY use us. So you can try multiple methods and see what works best for you. If you do sell of your own site, we simply do not link to your site. If you don't we'll promote your products and your site.

We're running ads in Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine so make sure you check them out. We'll be opening by the end of the month so make sure you get into the Grand Opening!

Sure we ask for more then some other solotions (like http://www.swreg.org )- but you get a lot more. We are not just a package for your product, we are a store front in a mall that promotes you. How many other solutions are offering you hundreds of visitors a day and ads in print magazines and banner rotation on a large network?

James
RPG Host Networks