Quote from: Cathode Ray on February 24, 2023, 08:43:11 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 23, 2023, 08:36:49 AM
So if want you to win, you need to throw sand in the damn gears every chance you get. The Allies didn't win by facing the Axis on the field of the Axis' choosing each day. They bombed the hell out of their infrastructure.

Use their own rules against them. If you want OBS to change its policies then you need to make those policies too "costly" to enforce by burying them in complaints about all the lefty products. If they're really the one-side censorious cunts you believe them to be the difference in outcomes will become more and more apparent to the normal folks visiting the site.

I tried that.  One game promoted REAL LIFE VIOLENCE, and cited at least one terrorist group of the past as inspiration, and suggested that people be active like them.  I provided sources/  They ignored me because he's a platinum seller (which = $$$ for them), plus the seller's politics align with OBS's left bias.

Exactly, which is why our only lawful path is to boycott, something that'll never happen because "Muh convenience!" and "My income!" The latter I understand and sympatize, buth...

If you don't stand up now because of fear for your income just wait a few years down the line and see where that lands you.

Like I've said before: "We'll get what we fucking deserve"

Quote

Quote

It takes a couple of seconds of Googling to bring up counter-evidence: https://twitter.com/EvilHatOfficial/status/1448774890266390533; then, a couple of minutes of figuring out Twitter search syntax to get more: https://twitter.com/EvilHatOfficial/status/1463599029212880901

According to the publisher, Thirsty Sword Lesbians sold over 13k copies in the first 3-6 months after the kickstarter, which is grossing 195k+; grossing over $500k in the first year including the second $100k Kickstarter.

Another $40k+ gross in first quarter 2022? https://twitter.com/EvilHatOfficial/status/1516871792140308480

That's not "virtual no money".

Some have accepted the mantra of "get woke go broke" so fervently that they're in complete denial when virtue signaling and pissing off the 'right' people makes bank, even when they profit from the same kind of outrage marketing. And anyone saying this isn't a lot of sales/money when it comes to RPGs is just straightlining copium.

It's not "no money", but it's also not nearly as much money as it sounds. Dude, I did a video about this. When you consider the KS cut, the production costs for fulfillment, and then the fact hat evil hat has what... anywhere from 12-30 people that will need to be paid? That money all evaporates really fast.

If you're a one-man operation, and you are cautious about what you promise in a KS, and you don't have to contract for too much in art costs, layout, etc, you could make a tidy profit. But if you're a bloated company full of useless leftists, the NET (rather than gross) income might not even be enough to satisfy your Kombucha expenses.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 21, 2023, 04:49:56 PM

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on February 21, 2023, 04:17:01 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 18, 2023, 05:45:45 PM
there is NO question in my mind that this game "Men" was written not as an RPG but as a POLITICAL MESSAGE. And that it's intent was to be offensive.
And that Red Room published it to try to court controversy. And that when DTRPG banned it, they did literally engage in "hostile marketing". 

Shit, when DTRPG came up with the term I felt it was something of an invention. And more, I criticized it as dangerous, because it suggests that publicly complaining in any way about your RPG being suspended counts as "hostile marketing".
But here, the Red Room did EXACTLY what they were saying 'hostile marketers' would do. Before the game was banned they were tweeting stuff along the lines of "we'll see how long it takes before DTRPG bans this one!", and once the game was banned they were using that to sell their other products and promote BGE.

Again, you can argue about how the policy could be abused or taken too far so that any criticism of DTRPG is cause for suspension, and you can argue that the general policy of suspending products is unfair because DTRPG allows all sorts of atrocious content from the left but suspends products for atrocious content from the right.

But you can't actually deny that the Red Room knew exactly what the fuck it was doing here, and was doing exactly what DTRPG had made the hostile marketing policy, and which I will now admit I was wrong to previously wave off as a fictitious boogeyman.

And this bugs me. Why? Because now the next time some product is suspended for bad reasons, DTRPG will be able to claim the "hostile marketing" defense and the fact that some people were engaging in hostile marketing will muddy the water.

Yeah, after looking into it I feel fucking played. It's just another event which proves the opposition's point, and if this keeps happening then maybe they were right all along.

Totally, it's not like Thirsty Sword Lesbians is the exact same but on the opposite way. AND it's allowed to exist and sell.

If only those evul right wingers would let us trample them nothing of the rules made to trample them would be neccessary...

You, Pundit, and everyone else taking this position are the sort that goes: "I'm for free speech but".

I'm not taking that position.

To small brains, they might fail to get that these are two completely separate arguments:

1. There is a clear double standard: where products designed to be nothing more than a propagandistic attack on ideological enemies and a call to virtue signalling from one's ideological allies, which is what BOTH Thirsty Sword Lesbians and "Men" are about, get treated DIFFERENTLY by the supposedly neutral service provider (DTRPG), where one is allowed to sell for years, and the other one suspended instantly.

2. There is a difference, between the would-be censors finding a product, declaring it "offensive" for some point of defiance of ideology (ie. "there's no black kingdoms in this setting book" or "this WHITEMAN put a Black Kingdom in his setting! Its cultural appropriation") and starting a pogrom against it on the one hand, and on the other there being a company that are essentially Outrage Grifters on the Right (or do you believe there's no such thing as right-wing grifting), who make a product that's only real purpose is to offend the left enough to be cancelled so that they can then get attention and sympathy sales from how their product was "cancelled by the libtards"?

Can you manage understanding both of those at a time?

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2023, 07:12:35 PM


Interestingly, it seems they have about as much income and employees as a creator like Pinnacle Entertainment Group, which also has about $5M yearly income and around 25 employees.

https://www.konaequity.com/company/pinnacle-entertainment-group-inc-4397994889/

How the hell is that even possible?! Pinnacle hasn't had a real hit since the 1990s. It's entirely running on Savage Worlds fandom. Which I guess goes to show that the "Palladium Model" of having a small cadre of absolute fanatics is a pretty good business model.

It'll probably work for the Red Room too.

Quote from: S'mon on February 24, 2023, 01:57:21 AM

Quote from: SHARK on February 23, 2023, 07:09:37 PM
Greetings!

In my own miniature collection, besides hundreds of normal miniatures such as heroes, adventures, humanoids, animals and monsters, I also have a grip of typically scantily-clad heroines or other near-naked strumpet characters. Most of them look pretty damned awesome, too!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Just been painting a brand new 'Greek village girl' I received yesterday I expect you'd like SHARK, and a 1985 slottabase Chaos Warrior it took nearly 40 years  to paint. Pics at http://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2023/02/recent-painting-efforts.html

OK, that's enough of this bullshit. You are intentionally posting off topic. Make another post like this and you'll be banned. Only warning.

Quote from: Cathode Ray on February 24, 2023, 08:43:11 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 23, 2023, 08:36:49 AM
So if want you to win, you need to throw sand in the damn gears every chance you get. The Allies didn't win by facing the Axis on the field of the Axis' choosing each day. They bombed the hell out of their infrastructure.

Use their own rules against them. If you want OBS to change its policies then you need to make those policies too "costly" to enforce by burying them in complaints about all the lefty products. If they're really the one-side censorious cunts you believe them to be the difference in outcomes will become more and more apparent to the normal folks visiting the site.

I tried that.  One game promoted REAL LIFE VIOLENCE, and cited at least one terrorist group of the past as inspiration, and suggested that people be active like them.  I provided sources/  They ignored me because he's a platinum seller (which = $$$ for them), plus the seller's politics align with OBS's left bias.

Yeah, this idea that "if you just reported them they'd be banned too" is nonsense. This is why the system is rigged, only stuff on one side will ever be consistently banned. On one side saying something like "women aren't able to level up in this game" will get you banned, while on the other calling for literal murder of real people might not.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 24, 2023, 11:42:26 AM

Quote from: Cathode Ray on February 24, 2023, 08:43:11 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 23, 2023, 08:36:49 AM
So if want you to win, you need to throw sand in the damn gears every chance you get. The Allies didn't win by facing the Axis on the field of the Axis' choosing each day. They bombed the hell out of their infrastructure.

Use their own rules against them. If you want OBS to change its policies then you need to make those policies too "costly" to enforce by burying them in complaints about all the lefty products. If they're really the one-side censorious cunts you believe them to be the difference in outcomes will become more and more apparent to the normal folks visiting the site.

I tried that.  One game promoted REAL LIFE VIOLENCE, and cited at least one terrorist group of the past as inspiration, and suggested that people be active like them.  I provided sources/  They ignored me because he's a platinum seller (which = $$$ for them), plus the seller's politics align with OBS's left bias.

Exactly, which is why our only lawful path is to boycott, something that'll never happen because "Muh convenience!" and "My income!" The latter I understand and sympatize, buth...

If you don't stand up now because of fear for your income just wait a few years down the line and see where that lands you.

Like I've said before: "We'll get what we fucking deserve"

Boycotting OBS is pointless if there's no viable alternative site to sell products from. You just kill the OSR, the only viable remaining movement with anti-woke activism, while OBS takes at most a minor hit.  You're stabbing yourself in the jugular, hoping that some of your blood might stain your enemy's pretty dress.

The answer is CREATE A FUCKING FREE-SPEECH RPG-SELLER WEBSITE THAT WORKS. BGE at this moment is not it.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 24, 2023, 11:42:26 AM
Exactly, which is why our only lawful path is to boycott, something that'll never happen because "Muh convenience!" and "My income!" The latter I understand and sympatize, buth...

It's not "muh convenience" to say "your website is broken and I literally can't use it", which was the case last time I tried to use BGE. It's also not "muh convenience" to say "you don't have anything I would want to buy", which has been the case every time I've tried to use BGE.

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 24, 2023, 03:18:40 PM
How the hell is that even possible?! Pinnacle hasn't had a real hit since the 1990s. It's entirely running on Savage Worlds fandom. Which I guess goes to show that the "Palladium Model" of having a small cadre of absolute fanatics is a pretty good business model.

It'll probably work for the Red Room too.

To be fair, while I absolutely don't get the love for it - I can barely stand the system - Savage Worlds does seem to be insanely popular these days. It seems like every other game these days - new or old - are now Savage. It reminds me of the D20 boom. I don't know if they charge a license for using the imprint or anything, but even just their own products probably bring in a fair amount if income.

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 24, 2023, 03:18:40 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 23, 2023, 07:12:35 PM
Interestingly, it seems they have about as much income and employees as a creator like Pinnacle Entertainment Group, which also has about $5M yearly income and around 25 employees.

https://www.konaequity.com/company/pinnacle-entertainment-group-inc-4397994889/

How the hell is that even possible?! Pinnacle hasn't had a real hit since the 1990s. It's entirely running on Savage Worlds fandom. Which I guess goes to show that the "Palladium Model" of having a small cadre of absolute fanatics is a pretty good business model.

It'll probably work for the Red Room too.

Yeah, it was surprising to me, too. From these company revenue reports, OneBookShelf is a little smaller than I suspected - but The Compleat Strategist and Pinnacle are bigger than I thought. I'd take the revenue numbers with a grain of salt. Also, remember that employees are probably mostly part-time rather than full-time.

For comparison, I checked out Steve Jackson Games. One site reported $6M revenue and 53 (!) employees. But their 2021 report to shareholders says $3.7M income.

https://rocketreach.co/steve-jackson-games-profile_b5c66cf4f42e0c8f

http://www.sjgames.com/general/stakeholders/

It could be that the Rocketreach revenue info is out of date. Wikipedia reports $6.6M revenue for 2015, but it has shrunk a lot since then. Their stated goal for 2021 was to "survive".

Quote from: jhkim on February 24, 2023, 04:15:19 PM
For comparison, I checked out Steve Jackson Games. One site reported $6M revenue and 53 (!) employees. But their 2021 report to shareholders says $3.7M income.

I balked at 3.7 million. I had to go check their website. I forgot they published Munchkin. I forgot how much stuff they published that just never was on my radar, actually. I suppose that probably brings in a fair few bucks. Apparently they are still putting out GURPS books! I thought it basically withered and died with 4th edition. I guess not.

SJG seems to have been struggling and shrinking since 2019-20. I guess Munchkin has plateaued, they haven't had any new hits, and (pure speculation) Car Wars 6e lost them a lot of money.

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 24, 2023, 03:23:04 PM


Boycotting OBS is pointless if there's no viable alternative site to sell products from. You just kill the OSR, the only viable remaining movement with anti-woke activism, while OBS takes at most a minor hit.  You're stabbing yourself in the jugular, hoping that some of your blood might stain your enemy's pretty dress.

The answer is CREATE A FUCKING FREE-SPEECH RPG-SELLER WEBSITE THAT WORKS. BGE at this moment is not it.

If the OSR depends upon OBS/DTRPG to survive... does it deserve to survive?

I will never buy anything from OBS/DTRPG again until they change their business practices. I am not holding my breath. If there is no effective substitute or solution to this, then so be it. I need air, water, food, etc. I don't need anything from them. And I don't need anything from you guys either.

If there are more people like me, perhaps not likely, then you guys better start doing something to make BGE and other sites work, or create something that does so to your delicate sensibilities and satisfaction. Since you guys will not support websites trying to do something positive, won't create something better... Good luck. Take care, and let me know when the revolution starts.

In the ongoing drama of DTRPG, I have had 8 new reviews left today. All negative. More reviews than I have received in the last 10 years. Positive reviews have disappeared. Ok.

Again, I am left the with the curious question: Am I really worth all this effort?

I guess I will just pull everything from DTRPG, shut everything down until July 21, 2023, when my 'exclusivity' terms expire, and see what happens after that. It seems pointless to continue with them.

Until that time my games will be available on my website: https://www.bozbat.com/.

I'd like to know the percentage of sales for RPG products from DTRPG vs. other sources (e.g. Itch, Gumroad, Amazon, etc).

I'm honestly surprised Amazon isn't the bigger issue here, since so many people are likely to have Kindle/Audible.