Quote from: John MorrowIt'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?

Um, the term "heartbreaker" comes from Ron Edward's 2002 essay, Fantasy Heartbreakers -- in which he describes them as indie role-playing games, and urges support of them.  As he writes in his conclusion:

QuotePart Five: What's it to Us? This is What
These are indie role-playing games. Their authors are part of the Forge community, in all the ways that matter. They designed their games through enjoyment of actual play, and they published them through hopes of reaching like-minded practitioners. It is not fair to dismiss the games as "sucky" - they deserve better than that, and no one is going to give them fair play and critical attention unless we do it.

So, yes, we are seeing indie heartbreakers.  We've seen them all along, and the term "heartbreaker" was coined for indie games.

Quote from: John MorrowHow 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?

There comes a point in sales per year where it is more cost-efficient to use more traditional print runs, and larger ones.

That is, when scaling up, an indie press can make more money per book if they pay close attention to, and accordingly alter, their print methods.  Many full-scale companies (including SLG) have employed "Print Buyers" specifically because this is a really damn complicated pile of numbers.  

Refusal to change methods won't lose them money, though.

Quote from: jhkimUm, the term "heartbreaker" comes from Ron Edward's 2002 essay, Fantasy Heartbreakers -- in which he describes them as indie role-playing games, and urges support of them.  As he writes in his conclusion:



So, yes, we are seeing indie heartbreakers.  We've seen them all along, and the term "heartbreaker" was coined for indie games.

Boy, has that intent ever been mislaid somewhere along the way.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstBoy, has that intent ever been mislaid somewhere along the way.

Really?

Because to me, it always meant:

An indie game that clones D&D, and which makes may go "Ouch", because I know that it's too similar to succeed, but still has a one or two wicked ideas I'd love to see in more common use.

Quote from: John MorrowThat'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.

Dude, quit quoting that Robin Laws article like I don't know about it.  That article is my mantra.  The problems he posits are soluble.  I've solved them in the case of my product.  Moving on.

Quote from: John MorrowHow 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 honestly don't know.  It will be interesting to see how it works out.  I suspect that they'll scale well as volume increases.  Certainly they seem to be doing pretty well so far, and they've gone through at least one order-of-magnitude increase in the past year or so.

Quote from: John MorrowAnd 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"?

The standard advice absolutely should be "Don't quit your day job until your business is already generating enough money to support you."  The idea that you'll just borrow a whole bunch of capital, print a whole bunch of books and gamble your security and that of other people on an untested business plan is ... well ... silly.

It made sense back when borrowing that bunch of capital and making those print runs gave you access to resources without which you couldn't do business.  But we don't live in that world any more.  Today, such action is just not necessary, and smacks of either ignorance or egotism.

In modern times, the "vanity press" or "hobby" creator (your terms) has direct access to most resources that the big boys have, and analogues to everything else.  If they don't have the money to make 10,000 book print-runs, they have small-run printing.  If they don't have distribution channels they have fulfillment houses and internet word of mouth.  Those things do the job for a starting scale.  You don't have to be a "real company" in order to make real product and conduct yourself in a sound and professional manner.  You can keep drawing the distinction between "vanity press" and "real publisher" if it makes you feel better, but I don't think it has anything to do with modern realities of who can achieve what.

Once upon a time, people gambled their finances and futures in order to vault over the barriers between them and their dreams.  I honor their valiant gambles.  But those barriers are gone.  Why on earth would you sink everything into an all-or-nothing gamble when you can make and market your book just as well with negligible investment?

Quote from: Levi KornelsenReally?

Because to me, it always meant:

An indie game that clones D&D, and which makes may go "Ouch", because I know that it's too similar to succeed, but still has a one or two wicked ideas I'd love to see in more common use.

If that were the sort of innocent intent it were used with all the time, that wouldn't bug me.  But I've seen it used more derisively or to dismiss a new game out of hand than I'd have liked (do a search for the nastiness regarding Ramlar, Epic RPG--jeez, even Rifts and Amber were thown in there at some point :confused:--or read Andy K's post on how it is misused from original intent, which I agree with).  It's too easily negative of a term to use to automatically deride a product as worthless--much like we now have the meaningless (but, hey, easier to use than worrying about nuances) "tax-and-spend liberal", "tree-hugging Green", or "jackbooted conservative".

The fucking things about this thread piss me the fuck off.

"Vanity Press"
"Stealing Customers"


I've heard these argued before, in a discussion after the STL was released, and it irritated me.

Vanity? What the fuck? How about "Love of the game" or how about "Here's some cool rules I developed, if you like them, buy them!"

Vanity my ass. Vanity is standing in front of the mirror and jerking off onto a book with your name on it. Vanity is doing it sheerly to see your name on the fucking cover.

Vanity is not spending 5-16 hours a day on something. They call that work.

What you call "Vanity Press" is freelance authors getting tired of the big boys not noticing them, and putting their shit out themselves. They do the marketing themselves, which is anything BUT vanity, read the reviews, even the ones that trash them, and learn what is good, what is not.

You learn marketing, advertising, dealing with PoD, dealing with paying artists, the whole nine goddamn yards.

Vanity my ass. Vanity is some bleach blonde with fake tits who masturbates while looking in the mirror because she's "so goddamn hot" in her mind.

Indie Publishing is fucking work.


Now... Stealing customers.

What am I, the fucking Hamburgler? I didn't show up outside the store with a ski-mask and a fucking gun. The people that buy from Indie publishers do so because an indie publisher is still willing to take risks, and maybe has put out something they want.

Indie publishers don't lure away or steal customers. Customers and consumers aren't some god given fucking right that a company gets once they hire a couple of guys on full time and they aren't using food stamps to keep from starving anymore. No "Publishing Fairy" comes down and jams a magic wand up your ass and screams "YOU GET 6% OF THE MARKET!" in your ear before breaking a whiskey bottle over your fucking head.

Indie publishers aren't stealing anyone's customers. They're fucking earning them.



The goddamn elitism and egotism I've seen is fucking mind boggling.

"How will this batch of Indie Publishers ever rise to the top?"

Oh, I don't know...

THE SAME FUCKING WAY THE OTHERS DID!

Hard fucking work, and stick and jab. That's how.



People sneer "Don't quit your day job...." like INDEPENDANT Publishers (Which means we aren't one of the big boys, we're doing this ourselves, not "sticking to the man", give us some goddamn credit) are the only ones that are forced to work at a job while starting a small business. "Don't quit your day job" is with any small business when it starts out, so that you don't rely on the businesses capital to do anything but drive the business, and have a secondary income to survive on.



So, to reiterate...

"Vanity Publishing" is a term that needs to be shoved back up people's asses from where they farted it out.

And "Stealing Customer base" sense of self-entitlement is just plain stupid and makes the whiner look like a jackass.

That would have been an 8, but that Hamburglar line jumps it up to a solid 9.

(Applauds)

Quote from: Luke§ Sorry Charlie, $80-90 to play DnD or $22 to play Dogs in the Vineyard with my friends. People don't think in the long term of "I'll be playing this game for the rest of my life." People think, "I want a cool game right now and I've got $20."

Thats ridiculous. You can get a PHB for $13 from Amazon. Thats all the buy-in required.  
The DM is the one who does the buy in, but the price of all three books combined is more like $60 (again, Amazon).

Or you could just do the PHB and the srd. I know a guy in my town that does that. He has it on laptop.

If you choose to play 3.0, you can just do the conversions yourself and get all three books for really, really cheap. Like $5 each.

Also PDF piracy is pretty much rampant with D&D, so there are plenty of people playing for free.

You can play D&D for as cheap or cheaper than you can play almost any Indie game, and get a much wider and more varied experience (ie, you won't always have to play mormons who shoot women in the head), with more players, and more support.

Now, lets get back to discussing why you guys are pretty much doomed.

Quote from: T-WillardWhat you call "Vanity Press" is freelance authors getting tired of the big boys not noticing them, and putting their shit out themselves.

Minor quibble:

A significant number of independent publishers never tried to get the 'big boys' to notice them.

If I had wanted to write for a game company, I would have done something to get there.  Probably, say, submitting all my whackball d20-style mojo in bite-sized format to Dragon, and seeing what they thought of it all.

I didn't because I just don't care.

Quote from: Abyssal MawNow, lets get back to discussing why you guys are pretty much doomed.

While D&D is the epitome of traditional gaming, there is more to this hobby than that, and I think that ensures they will be far from doomed. They may not drive around in Bentleys with platinum grills in their mouth, but maybe there will be a few indie publishers some money in their pockets and a group of fans who have fun with their games. Heck I'm fine with D&D, but my hobby experiences would have been poorer by far if it was the only game I played or ran.

I would like to note that in the post that follows, I am NOT bashing DnD or Wizards. I LIKE DnD and Wizards. I'm simply pointing out the buy-in costs for the game.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThats ridiculous.

Your delusions and marginal examples are magnificent, let's pop over to Wizards of the Coast and see what they have to say about it:

A DnD basic game for $25. Comparable price to most small press games. Cool.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/966470000
But it probably doesn't have the same depth and replayability that we're looking for in the brand name game.

If you click on the Current Rules Edition link, Wizards shows three big books. Go figure.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040801x

A Players' Handbook, $29.95
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndcore/175240000

Dungeon Master's Guide, $29.95
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndcore/177520000

Monster Manual, $29.95
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndcore/177550000

Cool books. And together, they make a complete game.* That game, as you can see costs roughly $90. You've pointed out some marginal alternate ways for folks to get these books. They do exist and folks do acquire them thusly. But I bet that Wizards wouldn't be in business if most folks didn't go to their friendly, favorite local game store and plunk down the $90 to get started playing DnD.

-Luke

*Artesia is a complete game ($39.95). Sorcerer is a complete game ($20). Hell, Call of Cthulhu is a complete game ($34.95). The Players' Handbook alone is not a complete game.

Quote from: Zachary The First:emot-rock:

...If that were the central sales point of WotC, they'd be a very different company.

That still does rock, though.

Quote from: Levi Kornelsen...If that were the central sales point of WotC, they'd be a very different company.

That still does rock, though.

Would that it were.