I find myself forced to defend Shadowdark after Venger left the hobby with a bang. Also, new videos by WotC reveal the absolute state of the business, its staff, & the VTT!

It says "Video Unavailable" on this platform.

Really? It seems to be working for me. Anyways, can you not open it in youtube?

Upon re-reading Venger's blog post, he's not even close to blaming Shadowdark or her creator for his woes, what he's saying is that you need to make slick promotion campaigns to make that kind of money.

Hope that helps.

Venger's Blog post

Now, TBF in his twatter thread he does say that if you do have such a campaign you're leaving less money for the rest, which I think it's false, but he's still NOT blaming Shadowdark's author for his woes. He's lamenting the need for such campaigns.

Niche products such non-mainstream rpg products really do need all the marketing that they can get. I don't know how many products I didn't even know existed until I saw some video or another where someone was describing it and how useful it was to them. More visibility= more sales, its that simple.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on August 30, 2024, 01:59:13 PMNiche products such non-mainstream rpg products really do need all the marketing that they can get. I don't know how many products I didn't even know existed until I saw some video or another where someone was describing it and how useful it was to them. More visibility= more sales, its that simple.

1.- Build an audience, in the case of the rippaverse he spent years growing an audience.

2.- Find out what your audience really likes.

3.- Develop such a thing.

4.- Promote the hell out of it.

5.- If at all possible OVER DELIVER on your promises.

6.- Profit.

7.- Rinse & Repeat but include some promotion of your past products.

It's hard but if you want to make a living...

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 30, 2024, 12:24:22 PMUpon re-reading Venger's blog post, he's not even close to blaming Shadowdark or her creator for his woes, what he's saying is that you need to make slick promotion campaigns to make that kind of money.

You certainly have to have something.

I occasionally have a few bucks to burn and go through Steam looking for a video game. I wind up spending hours going through the reccomended list and searching categories and find nothing to spend my money on. Theres
So
Much
Stuff
on there and all of it starts to look the same.

I think we have a similar situation with RPG material. ACKS, Fifth Frontier War, Star Trek Adventures, Knave, Fabula Ultima, Wierd Ancestries, Metro:Otherscape, Alien RPG, Dune RPG, Transformers RPG, The One Ring RPG, Cosmere RPG, Skyrm RPG, Curseborne, Diplomacy and Conflict, Entity, Solasta, Dwarrowdeep, DCC, MCC, Mork Borg,  etc, etc, etc, etc.

Somethings got to make a product stand out from the crowd for it to take off.

Black Lodge Game says it all:

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 30, 2024, 04:29:24 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 30, 2024, 12:24:22 PMUpon re-reading Venger's blog post, he's not even close to blaming Shadowdark or her creator for his woes, what he's saying is that you need to make slick promotion campaigns to make that kind of money.

You certainly have to have something.

I occasionally have a few bucks to burn and go through Steam looking for a video game. I wind up spending hours going through the reccomended list and searching categories and find nothing to spend my money on. Theres
So
Much
Stuff
on there and all of it starts to look the same.

I think we have a similar situation with RPG material. ACKS, Fifth Frontier War, Star Trek Adventures, Knave, Fabula Ultima, Wierd Ancestries, Metro:Otherscape, Alien RPG, Dune RPG, Transformers RPG, The One Ring RPG, Cosmere RPG, Skyrm RPG, Curseborne, Diplomacy and Conflict, Entity, Solasta, Dwarrowdeep, DCC, MCC, Mork Borg,  etc, etc, etc, etc.

Somethings got to make a product stand out from the crowd for it to take off.

As I clearly say right above your post.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 30, 2024, 04:29:24 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 30, 2024, 12:24:22 PMUpon re-reading Venger's blog post, he's not even close to blaming Shadowdark or her creator for his woes, what he's saying is that you need to make slick promotion campaigns to make that kind of money.

You certainly have to have something.

I occasionally have a few bucks to burn and go through Steam looking for a video game. I wind up spending hours going through the reccomended list and searching categories and find nothing to spend my money on. Theres
So
Much
Stuff
on there and all of it starts to look the same.

I think we have a similar situation with RPG material. ACKS, Fifth Frontier War, Star Trek Adventures, Knave, Fabula Ultima, Wierd Ancestries, Metro:Otherscape, Alien RPG, Dune RPG, Transformers RPG, The One Ring RPG, Cosmere RPG, Skyrm RPG, Curseborne, Diplomacy and Conflict, Entity, Solasta, Dwarrowdeep, DCC, MCC, Mork Borg,  etc, etc, etc, etc.

Somethings got to make a product stand out from the crowd for it to take off.

I think that there is an important distinction here though. A video game is more convenient to play than a tabletop RPG. Since most of us are adults who have to deal with Real Life, it takes a greater investment of time to get together with people for a RPG session (even if you are using a VTT online). It is because of this that many game consumers have to pick and choose which games they buy if they are going to ever play them. Yeah, you can buy a game to read it, but that is kind of missing the point (that games are meant to be played).

There are a lot of games out there on the market, many of them promoted by people on social media. How many of them are actually played? I'm betting that not as many RPG darlings are played that people think. Seriously, how many people do you think actually play Thirsty Sword Lesbians?

Quote from: Monero on August 30, 2024, 05:29:03 PMBlack Lodge Game says it all:

They sure do say it all, about how my name brings them so many extra views and hate-bucks from the typical gang of losers with Pundit Derangement that they are willing to pretend that I was the one attacking Shadowdark rather than openly defending it against the opinions of two of my friends (Venger and the Red Room).

I get it, they figured out that pundit haters will throw superchats at them if they lie about me. But I don't think they figured out that most of these guys are psychotics who are so unstable they managed to get banned from theRPGsite. It will only be a matter of time until their constant presence (because they will get obsessed with BLG now, just like once upon a time most of them started as obsessive fans rather than haters) will drive away or keep away what would have been greater numbers of other more normal fans, and then eventually turn on BLG themselves, over some tiny thing that they will see a profound betrayal of their fanboy obsession. Just like with the BroSR, pandering to fanatics for the sake of short term benefit tends to have long-term consequences.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 30, 2024, 12:24:22 PMwhat he's saying is that you need to make slick promotion campaigns to make that kind of money.

Thats been a known problem with Kickstarted for since at least 2010.

Oh, and speaking of obsessives, Monero is banned for sockpuppeting.

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 30, 2024, 05:55:03 PMOh, and speaking of obsessives, Monero is banned for sockpuppeting.

Was wondering how long that was going to take.....

Quote from: jeff37923 on August 30, 2024, 05:57:51 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 30, 2024, 05:55:03 PMOh, and speaking of obsessives, Monero is banned for sockpuppeting.

Was wondering how long that was going to take.....

So long Moronero, we hardly cared for you...