I'm not sure BW is the greatest example here actually.  Much as I love it, and I do think it's very good, if I hadn't been told it was indie I don't think it would have occurred to me to classify it as such.

To me it's a great fantasy rpg in the tradition of DnD, Rolemaster, Runequest, Pendragon and others.  I'm not saying the mechanics are like those, but it has similar detail levels, similar levels of craftsmanship IMO and covers much the same territory.

I see it as an unusually good new fantasy rpg, the indie bit to be honest I don't really see so much.  It seems to me to have far more to do with say Pendragon than Dogs in the Vineyard.

Quote from: John MorrowAnd one other question is if an Indie game goes mainstream, will all that buzz disappear and will people turn on them for selling out, like a punk band releasing a Top 40 hit or opening for a pop singer?  One way to insulate that is to spend more time pushing quality and less time pushing the Indie mystique.

On the irony front, I spent much of my time this evening posting this very argument over at rpg.net and the story games site.  Tony and I even exchanged posts on it.

Sell on the quality, not the indie label.  Logically as Tony pointed out to me the indie label must act to sell to some folk, but really if it were my game I'd far rather someone bought because they liked it than because they thought it made them look cool.  And for every person that label attracts I think it puts off at least one other potential customer.

Sweet, I got a line by line break down! Awesome!

John, I agree that what's vital now -- if this particular generation of games is going to be more than a blip -- is to break out into the hearts and minds of the gamers who frequent ENWorld and the FLGS.

Personally, I bet my money (quite literally) that they do. I think those 20 year campaigns actively drive people* away from the hobby. I think that, beyond highschool and college, most people† want a game with a low buy-in cost that they can pick up and play in one evening and put away again. And next week? Same game or maybe a different game. You know, like people play board games or video games or card games.

-L

* That's people, not gamers.

† See note supra.

Quote from: John MorrowOne way to insulate that is to spend more time pushing quality and less time pushing the Indie mystique.

Another is to walk out of the conventions of both sides, and sell on yourself alone, building your own community.

Chad Underkoffler being an example, here.

Quote from: BalbinusI don't count page size.  Page size and play value have very little to do with each other.  Games like L5R and Seventh Sea soured me on page count for keeps pretty much and the trend to pages of to me entirely useless game fiction also add little IMO.

I'm not talking about games with fluffed page counts.  I'm talking about D&D, Hero, Pendragon, Runequest, GURPS, etc.

Quote from: BalbinusIncreasingly few in my experience.  Pendragon used to be, the new edition isn't.  WFRP used to be, the new edition isn't.  Runequest used to be, the new edition isn't.  Relatively few games now being published by mainstream companies are designed to be complete in one book and increasingly games that were when rereleased no longer are.

Well, I think Hero 5th Revised actually makes a good case for multiple books once your rules exceed a certain size.  A lot of those games have a lot of content, though I'll admit disappointment that WFRP2 wasn't quite the single book game WFRP1 was.

That said, I do think price is a bit of a red herring when I look at what kids spend on video games, not to mention all the brand new cars that kids are driving around at our local state college.  It's possible that publishers are making a calculated choice to ignore the segment of the RPG community that complains about price (and is shocked that the PHB doesn't still cost $12 like it did when they were a kid, inflation be damned).

Quote from: BalbinusIt used to be standard for games to be complete in one book, since the 1990s I think there has been a noticeable trend away from that.

Fair enough.

Quote from: lukeSweet, I got a line by line break down! Awesome!

John, I agree that what's vital now -- if this particular generation of games is going to be more than a blip -- is to break out into the hearts and minds of the gamers who frequent ENWorld and the FLGS.

Personally, I bet my money (quite literally) that they do. I think those 20 year campaigns actively drive people* away from the hobby. I think that, beyond highschool and college, most people† want a game with a low buy-in cost that they can pick up and play in one evening and put away again. And next week? Same game or maybe a different game. You know, like people play board games or video games or card games.

-L

* That's people, not gamers.

† See note supra.

And thus Squirrel Attack! was conceived with this theory in mind.

Quote from: BalbinusI see it as an unusually good new fantasy rpg, the indie bit to be honest I don't really see so much.  It seems to me to have far more to do with say Pendragon than Dogs in the Vineyard.

Well then I guess they should boot his mainstream ass to the curb lest he wreck their "indie" image then.  Frankly the indie label means squat to me to start with. It really does, because I've been conditioned by having the farce of so-called indie movies and music thrust upon me.

Quote from: John MorrowCorrect.  And as that happens, it becomes more like a business and less like a vanity publishing hobby.  Lots of game companies started out that way including, well, Wizards of the Coast and TSR.

Oh you big cheater!

You've just defined Indie as small-scale.  And since your argument is "Indie games can't break past the small scale" that makes your argument real freakin' easy.  "Naturally they can't break past the small scale!  Once they break past the small scale they become ipso facto non-Indie, because I said so.  Quod erat demonstrandum."  Cheap, man.

It seems to me that what happens as an indie company gets more and more success is that it becomes a more successful indie company, and that's all.  There's no ceiling.  There's just "How high have such companies gone so far?"

On the other hand, I enjoyed your breakdown on the balance of long print runs vs. print-on-demand (which I take you to be applying to the digital-press technology, and therefore including short print runs of a few hundred under the same banner).  

But, I think that the whole risk of printing "too many" is an artifact of a market that thrives on novelty.  It doesn't really factor in the long tail economy that the Indies tap into.  If I decided to take out a loan and print a few thousand copies of Capes today I would sell them all.  Not this year, and probably not before the turn of the decade, but I would sell them.

But man, in the meantime I'd have inventory maintenance, and the cost of the loan, and all that jazz.  And, of course, you just know I'd find a glaring typo the moment the crates were delivered.  What a freakin' hassle.  The reason I stay with smaller runs isn't to lower my risk, it's to lower my overhead and frustration.

Quote from: lukeJohn, I agree that what's vital now -- if this particular generation of games is going to be more than a blip -- is to break out into the hearts and minds of the gamers who frequent ENWorld and the FLGS.

Or into some other pool of customers.  Think beyond the niche, yes.

Quote from: lukePersonally, I bet my money (quite literally) that they do. I think those 20 year campaigns actively drive people* away from the hobby. I think that, beyond highschool and college, most people† want a game with a low buy-in cost that they can pick up and play in one evening and put away again. And next week? Same game or maybe a different game. You know, like people play board games or video games or card games.

Speaking entirely with anecdotal experience here, I think the ENWorld and FLGS crowd are largely gamers, so maybe that isn't the audience you are looking for (though you should certainly give it a try). You might be able to tap a larger untapped audience if you could figure out some way to reach the people who read science fiction and fantasy who are looking for a pick-up and put-away interactive storytelling experience rather than what traditional RPGs have to offer.  Perhaps spending some time at science fiction and fantasy conventions with a table and some demos could be an interesting test.  Pitch the fact that your games don't require a huge investment of time or a lot of work.  Reach out to non-gamers.  Something to think about.

Quote from: TonyLBOh you big cheater!

You've just defined Indie as small-scale.

Well, I define Indie as author-owner to the extent that the owner has direct hands-on control of what's going on.  if you don't, then Steve Jackson Games could be called Indie.  Or Steve Long pumping out Hero material could be called Indie.  You can define it however you want, but the practical distinction when it comes to growth is how far an author-owner can scale while maintaining direct control over what's being written, promoted, published, and so on.

Quote from: TonyLBAnd since your argument is "Indie games can't break past the small scale" that makes your argument real freakin' easy.  "Naturally they can't break past the small scale!  Once they break past the small scale they become ipso facto non-Indie, because I said so.  Quod erat demonstrandum."  Cheap, man.

Not because I said so.  Because almost every commercial role-playing company out there started Indie.  TSR started Indie.  Wizards started Indie.  And so on.  At some point, they grew to the point where the author-owners stopped being authors, stopped being so hands on, stopped greeting the fans on con floors and started to be treated like celebrities, etc.

Quote from: TonyLBIt seems to me that what happens as an indie company gets more and more success is that it becomes a more successful indie company, and that's all.  There's no ceiling.  There's just "How high have such companies gone so far?"

The limit is how much growth can an author-owner manage before they run out of (A) hours in the day to do what they need to do or (B) start spending  more time managing growth and less time giving fans, Internet forums, and so on "the personal touch".  At some point, the author-owner needs help, and that's the first step toward a company, management overhead, employees, and so on.  

Yes, to a certain degree, the Forge-base Indie community has bought themselves some time and efficiencies of scale by sharing resources.  But was I only imagining all of those blog posts about the last GenCon that talked about how overcrowded the Forge booth was as well as arguments for and against another booth, as well as plans to limit the products that are presented?  There are already people talking about overcrowding and limits to keep things under control, which will limit size and growth, are there not?  And despite all the talk of "Indie" growth, did I also imagine all the blog messages that made it sound like the sales sky was falling for Indie games at GenCon because some of the games were having trouble finding sales?  Please take a good look at what the Indies themselves are writing.

Quote from: TonyLBOn the other hand, I enjoyed your breakdown on the balance of long print runs vs. print-on-demand (which I take you to be applying to the digital-press technology, and therefore including short print runs of a few hundred under the same banner).

Yes.  Any time you print more than you've already sold (even short print runs), the publisher is taking the risk of eating unsold books.

Quote from: TonyLBBut, I think that the whole risk of printing "too many" is an artifact of a market that thrives on novelty.  It doesn't really factor in the long tail economy that the Indies tap into.  If I decided to take out a loan and print a few thousand copies of Capes today I would sell them all.  Not this year, and probably not before the turn of the decade, but I would sell them.

Storing books takes up space, whether it's in your garage or in a warehouse or storage unit, which also costs money.  Thats fine when you are selling one or two titles and you could probably manage it with a game or two.  It can be a very big problem if you have 50 boxes of unsold games that you have to find a place for for years.  That's why a lot of industries rely on just-in-time delivery, have deep sales to get rid of stock that doesn't move, and why book stores strip the front cover off of unsold paperbacks and throw them out, rather than keeping them on the shelf or sending them to the warehouse to be restocked (which also costs money).

I know some people are wondering why I'm making this all about money.  Time is money.  Storage is money.  All the time and space you spend selling your games has to be subsidized somehow.  Ideally, the sales will pay those costs.  If they don't, then you are sucking money from a day job, a spouse, an inheritance, or whatever to subsidize other people's role-playing below cost.  That's might generous of you, but how sustainable is it?

And ultimately, subsidized games sold below costs hurt everyone else who is trying to make a profit selling games because they set price expectations unreasonably low.  A company trying to make a profit can't match the prices of a company willing to bleed money on vanity projects that lose money.

Quote from: TonyLBBut man, in the meantime I'd have inventory maintenance, and the cost of the loan, and all that jazz.  And, of course, you just know I'd find a glaring typo the moment the crates were delivered.  What a freakin' hassle.  The reason I stay with smaller runs isn't to lower my risk, it's to lower my overhead and frustration.

Absolutely.  And print-on-demand is a wondeful thing for all of those reasons.  But if you start selling thousands of copies, the overhead and frustration are going to be unavoidable.  And that's a big part of what I'm talking about.  Scale requires time.  Scale requires management.  Scale complicates things.  That's why small mom-and-pop shops become slick corporations when they grow.  And, again, if you haven't already read it, I strongly urge you to read John Tynes' Death to the Minotaur.  It talks about how Wizards was dragged kicking and screaming into a corporate culture:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/03/23/wizards/index.html

Remember, Wizards started out as a bunch of guys self-publishing multi-sysstem supplements.  Talk to them about even the early days of Magic.  Scale changed them.

Quote from: Elliot WilenThis whole thread seems to have gone off on a tangent over profitability. Why does profitability matter as long as it's positive? That means the model is sustainable as long the creator-owners don't depend on it as their primary source of income and don't mind working for the love of it.

Some things to consider...

First, a lot of the benefits being attributed to Indie games involve a great deal of time on the part of the authors on the Internet to promote and support their games.  As scale increases, so can those demands on time, and all of that time is not compensated time.  That's how customer support kills small companies.

Second, if an Indie author is subsidizing his vanity publishing with a day job or a spouse's job, it's not really profitable.  And what that means is that if the Indie author's fortunes change and they or their spouse loses their day job, what was once affordable to subsidize may no longer be affordable to keep doing.

Third, selling games below cost and setting consumer price expectations at an unsustainable level hurts everyone else in the business who can't afford to lose money and spent uncompensated time subsidizing their Indie game.  That ultimately hurts everyone from Indie publishers looking to be profitable so people can quit their day job to the big guys, who for better or worse keep the hobby visiible in the mainstream and bring in new blood.

Finally, I'll leave you with a saying that illustrates the folly of losing money while trying to increase in size (and, yes, it's based on a stupid mistake that destroys a lot of companies).  That saying is, "Yes, we lose money on every sale but we'll make it up with volume!"  Think about it.

Quote from: Elliot WilenBoth those conditions hold, pretty self-evidently, for a large proportion of indie publishers. And even if a few of them drop out of the hobby or move on to jobs at Wizards or videogame companies, more will likely take their place.

Which essentially describes a meatgrinder, not a sustainable industry.  Of course that's pretty much exactly how a lot of professional RPG writers describe it.  You aren't going to move past being a meatgrinder that burns people out without profits.

Quote from: Elliot WilenGiven all that, the only limit to growth is the demand side: how much of an appetite is there for this stuff?

Not true.  There is also a limit to how fast an Indie publisher can supply the demand.  Companies can fail because of a failure to supply just as surely as they can fail from a failure of demand.  

Suppose an Indie game sells like hotcakes and all of author's fans say, "Great!  We'll buy whatever you write!  Give us another great game like that last one!"  And author says, "I've got nothing.  Sorry.  I'm a one trick pony."  Limit to growth.  Suppose insteat, the author says, "I'm so busy filling orders and supporting customers for my existing game, I don't have time to work on a new one!"  Same thing.  Suppose they lose their day job that helps them subsidize selling their game below cost and their spouse tells them to stop wasting time on the Forge and get a part-time job to pay the bills.  Same thing.  Problems with both supply and demand can limit growth.

Quote from: Elliot WilenPersonally, I think there are some warning signs. I'd be surprised if the model of "play a game a couple times and then move onto another" is sustainable over the long run.

It may be, if the Indie designers keep cranking out games like romance novelists.  And that's why scalability is an issue.  A guy can't be cranking out games and also be not making any money doing it (or even losing money) and spending tons of time patting backs on the Internet.  

Quote from: Elliot WilenEven less so with the existence of eBay, which effectively allows a number of "one-off games" to circulate. This also brings up the contradiction between two needs for such games. They have to be innovative, but they also have to be easy to learn.

Well, given that the original authors get no compensation from eBay, that could be a disaster for Indie games.

Quote from: Elliot WilenFWIW, I don't think these problems apply to Burning Wheel. The game might need a new edition at some point (personally, I think some of the rules are confusing, at least in presentation), but the paradigm is traditional open-ended campaigns. 'course, then you have the problem that if you have BW and like it, there's no reason to buy more indie games.

Correct.  And if Burning Wheel spawns spin offs like Burning Empires, how is that different from the traditional model?  That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.

Quote from: John MorrowSome things to consider...
First, a lot of the benefits being attributed to Indie games involve a great deal of time on the part of the authors on the Internet to promote and support their games.  As scale increases, so can those demands on time, and all of that time is not compensated time.  That's how customer support kills small companies.

So, the immediate assumption here is that Greater Sales = Greater Demands on Time = Company Dissolution?  There are many other options for a growing company, including hiring Beloved Friends (Flunkies) for not a lot of money to handle mundane, time-consuming tasks.

Quote from: John MorrowSecond, if an Indie author is subsidizing his vanity publishing with a day job or a spouse's job, it's not really profitable.  And what that means is that if the Indie author's fortunes change and they or their spouse loses their day job, what was once affordable to subsidize may no longer be affordable to keep doing.

Okay, so when most people start a small business (which is what we're talking about when we talk about an "Indie" publisher, right?), they plan for five years (at least) of loss.  And extra work on non-work days for their regular money gig.  The assumption here is that they're not going to be able to manage this initial, conscious commitment, eventually losing their job?  Along with the job of their spouse?

Quote from: John MorrowThird, selling games below cost and setting consumer price expectations at an unsustainable level hurts everyone else in the business who can't afford to lose money and spent uncompensated time subsidizing their Indie game.  That ultimately hurts everyone from Indie publishers looking to be profitable so people can quit their day job to the big guys, who for better or worse keep the hobby visiible in the mainstream and bring in new blood.

Absolutely.  Anyone selling their games below cost is working with a recipe for disaster.  I would think, without any data to support my claim, that Cumberland, P.I.G., BW and other relatively long-term players in the genre probably don't practice this particular tactic, or at least only for a very limited amount of time.

Quote from: John MorrowFinally, I'll leave you with a saying that illustrates the folly of losing money while trying to increase in size (and, yes, it's based on a stupid mistake that destroys a lot of companies).  That saying is, "Yes, we lose money on every sale but we'll make it up with volume!"  Think about it.

See above.

Quote from: John MorrowWhich essentially describes a meatgrinder, not a sustainable industry.

Most industries are meatgrinders.  Sustainable endeavors are created by savvy companies and individuals, not the ease of survival in any particular industry.  I would agree with you that there are a lot of pitfalls, which I think are solved by sustainable practices inside whatever industry at which you peer.

Quote from: ReimdallSo, the immediate assumption here is that Greater Sales = Greater Demands on Time = Company Dissolution?  There are many other options for a growing company, including hiring Beloved Friends (Flunkies) for not a lot of money to handle mundane, time-consuming tasks.

No, not necessarily company dissolution.  It could also lead to a stall in growth or a transformation into a real company.  What it doesn't mean is staying a small one-person operation through infinite growth, which is my point.  As for hiring "Beloved Friends", see this Robin Laws column:

http://www.dyingearth.com/pagexxoctober.htm

Quote from: ReimdallOkay, so when most people start a small business (which is what we're talking about when we talk about an "Indie" publisher, right?), they plan for five years (at least) of loss.  And extra work on non-work days for their regular money gig.  The assumption here is that they're not going to be able to manage this initial, conscious commitment, eventually losing their job?  Along with the job of their spouse?

If the small business doesn't plan to transition into a larger maintainable business that's profitable, yes, it will fail.  Large percentages of all small businesses do because the owners don't think about or know how to transition a hobby business that loses money into a maintainable business that makes money.   And even those that succeed and transition into real businesses don't always find it easy to weather problems:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=277824

Quote from: ReimdallAbsolutely.  Anyone selling their games below cost is working with a recipe for disaster.  I would think, without any data to support my claim, that Cumberland, P.I.G., BW and other relatively long-term players in the genre probably don't practice this particular tactic, or at least only for a very limited amount of time.

Never said that it had to be.  Clearly, some of the Indie games are priced sensibly.  But when they are, the huge price advantage that many people are talking about here doesn't look so huge.  Remember that I'm talking to specific things that people are citing as advantages of Indie publishing, in this case, price.  My point is that really low prices are not sustainable and those that are sustainable don't have prices that are really all that low.

Quote from: ReimdallMost industries are meatgrinders.  Sustainable endeavors are created by savvy companies and individuals, not the ease of survival in any particular industry.  I would agree with you that there are a lot of pitfalls, which I think are solved by sustainable practices inside whatever industry at which you peer.

The industries that undercompensate the people who work in them are the biggest meatgrinders.  The role-playing hobby has lost some of its best and brightest to fiction writing and video games because it pays more.  And if you've got a large enough pool of people passing through before they burn out, it can create an economic environment where they can undercut anyone trying to make a buck.  See the Dork Tower strip about the game store owner being asked why his store isn't like a lot of other stores that fail.  While they are around, unsustainable products undercut sustainable products, making it more difficult for them to be sustainable, at set customer expectations for things like price to unsustainable levels.

Quote from: John MorrowNo, not necessarily company dissolution.  It could also lead to a stall in growth or a transformation into a real company.

Or it could lead to continuing growth on the same model.

Y'know, I'm ... doing this and I don't get what these "growing demands on time" are supposed to be.  I spend significantly less time supporting my book now then I did in the early times when I was selling much less.

Y'know who helps people grok the rules and who answers questions on my game support forum?  Sure as hell ain't me.  It's a growing army of eager volunteers who know the system inside and out.

Y'know who handles order fulfillment?  Sure as hell ain't me.  It's IPR, a well-run fulfillment house that charges a commission to do a job (fulfillment) without yackin' at me about how I ought to be running any other section of my business.

As for writing more material:  I don't need to.  I mean, I'm gonna, because yes I would like even more money.  But I know plenty of authors who don't.  They make one good game.  They sell it.  End of story.  If you're not relying on the next Big New Thing you can turn out to pay the bills for having created the previous Big New Thing then you don't have to step onto that treadmill.  It's relaxing.

I'll tell you what my time inputs are:  I go to conventions that I wanted to go to anyway, only I don't have to pay for them, I get eager fans showing up to play any game I schedule, and I have a bunch of other excited folks to hang out with and talk shop.  Heaven forfend that I become so successful that I would have to do more of that :rolleyes:

And, to drag this back around to the topic ... that's why I think indie games are growing as a publishing phenomenon.  Setting aside the question of theory and game-style (which really isn't connected with how things are published, except by accident of history ... WotC could make a Forge-influenced game if they felt like it) the indie publishing method is such that there is zero incentive to turn out a book that is anything other than the book you are absolutely dying to write.  You're not writing for a pop of sales followed by a rapid decline.  You're writing for the long haul.  That financial change has creative implications.

Quote from: TonyLBOr it could lead to continuing growth on the same model.

It could, and I'd be happy to be proved wrong.  But it seems as if the Indie gamers think that they are doing something that's never been done before and they aren't.  Not only can I point to examples within role-playing hobby, but plenty of other hobbies, as well, from vanity authors of fiction to people who sell their crafts at craft shows.  All sorts of hobbies have their Indies, semi-pros, small companies, and big industries.  That pattern exists for a reason.

Quote from: TonyLBY'know, I'm ... doing this and I don't get what these "growing demands on time" are supposed to be.  I spend significantly less time supporting my book now then I did in the early times when I was selling much less.

Just because something works up until a certain volume doesn't mean it will scale to any size.  Yes, you are doing it.  Could you use the same model if your game were selling like D&D and, more importantly, could your game ever sell like D&D unless you started doing things that would require more management, like selling into chain bookstores?  If you don't care, that's fine.  If you are happy with what you are doing, don't let me stop you.

Quote from: TonyLBY'know who helps people grok the rules and who answers questions on my game support forum?  Sure as hell ain't me.  It's a growing army of eager volunteers who know the system inside and out.

That's not a reliable or necessary repeatable business model.  See the Robin Laws article I posted above about his experience at convention booths manned by volunteers.  Look at Fudge.

Quote from: TonyLBY'know who handles order fulfillment?  Sure as hell ain't me.  It's IPR, a well-run fulfillment house that charges a commission to do a job (fulfillment) without yackin' at me about how I ought to be running any other section of my business.

How large can they scale and how efficient would it be to sell 100,000 books through them instead of doing a 100,000 book print run and selling it the old fasioned way.  I'm not talking about selling 1,000 or even 5,000 copies of your game.  The Indie model can probably scale to at least 10,000 copies over a stretch of time.  But if the sky is the limit, can you really sell 25,000, 50,000, or 100,000 copies with your current model?  Is that really the best way do do it?

Quote from: TonyLBAs for writing more material:  I don't need to.  I mean, I'm gonna, because yes I would like even more money.  But I know plenty of authors who don't.  They make one good game.  They sell it.  End of story.  If you're not relying on the next Big New Thing you can turn out to pay the bills for having created the previous Big New Thing then you don't have to step onto that treadmill.  It's relaxing.

And that's fine when you don't rely on your game writing to pay your bills.  Is that how you ultimately see the Indie model carrying on, then?  Should the standard advice be, "Don't quit your day job"?

Quote from: TonyLBI'll tell you what my time inputs are:  I go to conventions that I wanted to go to anyway, only I don't have to pay for them, I get eager fans showing up to play any game I schedule, and I have a bunch of other excited folks to hang out with and talk shop.  Heaven forfend that I become so successful that I would have to do more of that :rolleyes:

So what pays your bills?

Quote from: TonyLBAnd, to drag this back around to the topic ... that's why I think indie games are growing as a publishing phenomenon.  Setting aside the question of theory and game-style (which really isn't connected with how things are published, except by accident of history ... WotC could make a Forge-influenced game if they felt like it) the indie publishing method is such that there is zero incentive to turn out a book that is anything other than the book you are absolutely dying to write.  You're not writing for a pop of sales followed by a rapid decline.  You're writing for the long haul.  That financial change has creative implications.

 Just because an author writes a book that they are dying to write is not a guarantee of quality or success.  It's easy to focus on the Indie success stories but I, again, point the the threads that I saw coming out of GenCon this year about sales at the Forge booth.  Was there good news?  Absolutely.  But it sounds like that good news was not entirely equally distributed.  And isn't Ron complaining that some of the new Indie games are failing to be fun?  Does that me we are starting to see Indie Heartbreakers?