Quote from: StormBringer;248003Which boils down to:  How many of these companies really have designers that are going to help push sales?  Will people rush out and get GURPS Greece because  Jon F. Zeigler wrote it?  Or will they get it because it's GURPS?

I don't know of any designer who's name on a product will make me want to buy it. I do know of a number who's name there will cause me to pass on it.

Same with game companies proper.

Quote from: HinterWelt;248046To me, it is disingenuous. Monte Cooke did not make the book but he did promote it. It was a team effort. However, that is just my opinion and you will note I am nowhere near as popular as Monte Cooke.

All the Malhavoc products not written by Monte have the author name clearly presented on the cover.  

In the case of the BRP book, it would be somewhat intellectually dishonest to have the author's name on the cover as he didn't write much of it.  He largely edited past works; not saying that he didn't do a lot of work but, in some sense, he wasn't the author.

Quote from: jhkim;248040I don't feel that having your name attached to your own writing is an act of hubris or requires special merit.

John, since you quoted my post above your comments, I can't help thinking that you're responding to it; yet your post has very little to do with what I wrote. For example, I didn't say that getting credit is an act of hubris or requires special merit.

However, since you raise that point, I do think that, in any endeavor, it's very reasonable to limit top billing to cases of special merit. You may notice that in the Chaosium and Palladium examples, the author names appear on the covers, but they aren't splashed across the page. Aside form the Monte Cook example from Bill, I'm hard pressed to think of anything that would fit such a description. I gave one from video games. I've also noticed, in wargames, that Richard Berg seems to get more prominent billing in some of his GMT games than other designers for the same company. For example, this cover for Berg vs. this one for Richard Borg. This is an especially interesting case since Berg is very much a rock-star among wargame designers, whose flashy ideas often seem to come out half-baked on the page.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;248086John, since you quoted my post above your comments, I can't help thinking that you're responding to it; yet your post has very little to do with what I wrote. For example, I didn't say that getting credit is an act of hubris or requires special merit.

I was responding to your specific statement that "if you're a good enough designer to really deserve name recognition, then maybe you should expect billing".  That sounded to me like it requires special merit for billing, where I was interpreting billing to mean the standard display of names parallel to that is done for mediums like books and film.  

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;248086However, since you raise that point, I do think that, in any endeavor, it's very reasonable to limit top billing to cases of special merit. You may notice that in the Chaosium and Palladium examples, the author names appear on the covers, but they aren't splashed across the page. Aside form the Monte Cook example from Bill, I'm hard pressed to think of anything that would fit such a description. I gave one from video games.

Putting a creator's name in the title itself is the exception in nearly all fields.  For example, a film title like "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" is regarded by many as hubris.  That is different than standard billing.  In books the largest print is usually the title of the particular work.  The author's name appears smaller, and the publishing house is a small logo often in the corner.

Quote from: jhkim;248092I was responding to your specific statement that "if you're a good enough designer to really deserve name recognition, then maybe you should expect billing".  That sounded to me like it requires special merit for billing, where I was interpreting billing to mean the standard display of names parallel to that is done for mediums like books and film.

&^#(*#, John. Did you read the paragraph directly above the sentence you quoted?

The discussion was framed in terms of marketing strategy. The question is whether it's good for a company to use a designer's name for marketing: my answer is, "If they're good enough to make it worthwhile." If not, then I don't see any benefit to the publisher, and if a designer demands prominent billing, I'd take that as a warning sign of an overdeveloped ego.

I'll point people to this article by Greg Costikyan: Simple Justice. Now, Costikyan is someone whose designs I've liked quite a bit, though that was mainly in his SPI/Victory Games days; I never played any of his 80's RPGs even though they sounded fun, and his "Violence" is frankly a temper tantrum masked as a game. His article here is better, but he still goes way over the top in deprecating the value that publishers bring to market--from shaping talent and constructively editing works, to identifying demand and providing an information link between consumers and authors. It is very easy to imagine that quality always rises to the top, but in fact without publishers (and critics, I might add), the talented newcomer is more likely than not to be lost in an a cacophony of voices. I'm not sure if this has become more or less true since the time when the article was written--i.e., before DTP and electronic distribution had made it possible for literally any schmoe to create a superficially "professional" looking product.

Not only that, but publishers assume the risk of running a business; this doesn't necessary give them the moral "right" to place brand identity over creator recognition, but it does suggest that they believe in what they're selling. That's valuable information to the consumer, and value added to the whole process of disseminating a mass-product.

Maybe you can see where this is going: if designers want to control how their names are billed, if they want to become their own brands and reduce publishers to mere fulfillment houses, then they ought to take on the risks of running their business. Good for them! But if not, they should think twice about demanding billing beyond what's mutually beneficial to them and the publisher.

BTW, Books by Dean Koontz
Books by Stephen King

Books often do have authors' names larger than the title. I'm not sure how that relates to the discussion as a whole, except that that proven authors with many titles under their belt tend to get this treatment more than new writers.

SPI tried featuring a designer's name prominently on the cover once to see if it affected sales with Eric Goldberg's Kursk game.  It didn't really make a dent.

Now, this might be because Goldberg was an unknown designer at the time.  SPI were pretty sure putting a known quantity on the cover would boost sales; they wanted to see if the name-game association itself was enough to move units.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;248099Books often do have authors' names larger than the title.

This is what I call the Airport Novel Syndrome.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;248094&^#(*#, John. Did you read the paragraph directly above the sentence you quoted?

The discussion was framed in terms of marketing strategy. The question is whether it's good for a company to use a designer's name for marketing: my answer is, "If they're good enough to make it worthwhile." If not, then I don't see any benefit to the publisher, and if a designer demands prominent billing, I'd take that as a warning sign of an overdeveloped ego.

I'll point people to this article by Greg Costikyan: Simple Justice.

What do you mean by "prominent billing" here?  The problem I have is that you are associating wanting billing only with the exceptional case like having your name in the title or your name bigger than the game title -- which are the exception even among books and movies.  However, the standard in the RPG industry is for the creator to not have any billing at all -- whereas the standard in other industries is for the creator to have their name on the cover.  

I think it is not at all a sign of overdeveloped ego for a someone to want their name on the cover of something they wrote.  I consider it due credit.  

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;248094Maybe you can see where this is going: if designers want to control how their names are billed, if they want to become their own brands and reduce publishers to mere fulfillment houses, then they ought to take on the risks of running their business. Good for them! But if not, they should think twice about demanding billing beyond what's mutually beneficial to them and the publisher.

Since RPGs are a cottage industry, there are pretty much no controlled studies of sales.  It seems to me that standard billing shows no sign of hurting sales -- as evidenced by successful examples like AD&D1, D&D4, Amber, Call of Cthulhu, and many other games.  

I consider it quite reasonable for a creator to negotiate for billing, pushing for what is most beneficial to his own career.  One shouldn't be a jerk, obviously.  However, if you're negotiating a business deal, then you should try for what benefits you the most, and be willing to accept what others try for.  The creator should negotiate for what's best for their career, the publisher should negotiate for what's best for their business.  Neither of these are exactly the same as sales of the particular book.  I think no one should have to think twice to ask for standard billing -- i.e. name on the cover, smaller than the title, like in the RPGs I mentioned.

With this, I call BS and shenanigans, John. The question was, is using the designer's name good marketing? Not do they deserve it in a moral sense ("due credit"). Also, notwithstanding the first few examples I posted, I do not believe there is a "standard" of not giving the creator "any billing at all". Even if an RPG is shrinkwrapped, I think you can find the designer's name in most cases.

I've already said, if you care to read my earlier post, that giving designers some credit makes sense, my only concern was whether it made sense to use a designer's name as a selling point more than the publisher's brand.

With that in mind, I strongly suspect that if you look at the games that don't have the designer's name on the outside of the book, they'll tend, proportionately, to be games that are "properties"--new editions, extensions, and revisions of games whose "creators" have moved on to other work, or are now in a role of oversight as opposed to design.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;248490With this, I call BS and shenanigans, John. The question was, is using the designer's name good marketing? Not do they deserve it in a moral sense ("due credit"). Also, notwithstanding the first few examples I posted, I do not believe there is a "standard" of not giving the creator "any billing at all". Even if an RPG is shrinkwrapped, I think you can find the designer's name in most cases.

Briefly browsing my shelf, it seems to me that none of my White Wolf books have an author name on either cover -- such as Exalted, Vampire, and Mage.  Of TSR products, it seems mixed -- my AD&D1 books usually have credits on the cover, my AD&D2 books do not, and Star Frontiers doesn't even have names on the inside.  My Shadowrun book doesn't have a name on either cover (FASA), nor does my Warhammer Fantasy (Games Workshop), nor Conan (Mongoose), nor Deadlands (Pinnacle), nor Blue Rose (Green Ronin).  These aren't obscure names in the industry -- they are among the top companies.  I can't say for sure that it is a majority of games, but it seems at least very common.  So I suppose I should say "very common" rather than "standard".  Of those that do include the author's name, it seems to be only on the back cover pretty frequently.  

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;248490I've already said, if you care to read my earlier post, that giving designers some credit makes sense, my only concern was whether it made sense to use a designer's name as a selling point more than the publisher's brand.

And I have no problem with displaying the publisher's brand prominently, even more prominently than the author's name.  So it could be that we're just saying the same thing with different emphasis.

Okay, now we've moved onto something else, I think. It's interesting, at least, to note the games you're giving as examples, and to try to backtrack to the logic of putting the name on the cover (or not). Basically, I think it agrees with what's been suggested here.

Vampire: was created by one of the original owners of the company, who would certainly have been in a position to put his name on the game if he'd felt it was either "appropriate" or a "marketing draw". I don't know if Rein-Hagen did this with the first edition, but later editions and expansions are obviously part of the "brand identity" that WW created. As such it's not surprising or IMO inappropriate for them to strongly emphasize brand over individual "authorship". (I use quotes there because the authorship involved in being hired to write an expansion of someone else's idea isn't on the same level as developing the thing entirely on your own. If nothing else this is apparent in the fact that they have selected you to do the work.)

Exalted, based on the credits I can find at index.rpg.net and pen-paper.net, has so many authors and designers that it seems to be a "company product".

AD&D2 falls into the same category as spinoffs and editions of WoD. The "author" of the game worked at the pleasure of the company, which tasked him with rewriting someone else's system for the company's trademark.

Shadowrun 1e was by Hume, Charrette, and Dowd, who were not the owners of FASA. This case definitely looks like one where "original authors" aren't credited on the cover of a work published by a company they didn't own.

WFRP was based on IP from the miniatures game, although it seems to be largely an original creation as opposed to reworking of rules and concepts. The p&p database suggests a design-by-committee (six authors and designers) initiated by the company. Two of the creators had a hand in the parent IP, WFB, but none of them seem to have been in ownership positions. So another example, a bit indirectly, of what appear to be "genuine authors" who didn't get cover credit.

Conan is designed by Paul Tucker and Ian Sturrock. Tucker is a senior employee at Mongoose; Sturrock is a (now former) employee. It doesn't appear that either one of them is an owner of the company. Perhaps somewhat relevant to the decision not to include their names is the fact that the game is a licensed property, as are many of Mongoose's products. I suspect the concept and impetus for the game, as well as securing the rights, came from the top.

Deadlands of course is written by the publisher.

Blue Rose seems to match the same profile as Shadowrun.

So out of your examples, three of them either involve decisions by the creators themselves, or "authors" who were really just revising someone else's work. One of them is clearly a game whose impetus came from the publisher and was executed by a committee. Conan may also fall into this category; some of the others may also.

By contrast, GURPS books seems always to have the main contributors on the cover. Chaosium has generally followed the same practice. So has Palladium. So has Atlas. R. Talsorian, another well-known company, falls mainly into the same moot category as Deadlands, since Mike Pondsmith writes most (all?) of their games.

In short I'd say the issue of "missing cover credit" is less widespread than your sample suggests, and also in many cases, understandable given the publishing background of the game (created by the publisher? licensed? revised edition? commissioned by the publisher?). The ones that really stand out are BR, WFRP, and Shadowrun, and it would be interesting to find out more about the process (if any) that led to names being included or not included on the cover. Shadowrun is a surprise for a couple of reasons--I'd think Hume and Charrette at least would be names a publisher would want to display, but on the other hand, maybe not, since the overlap between FGU fans and the Shadowrun setting seems like it wouldn't be all that big.

I also came across an old Usenet posting, dated 2/24/1993, that indicates Hume only got a flat fee for his work on the game. To me this suggests that SR is yet another game where the "big idea" came from the publisher, who then sought out talent.