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Folks on EN World have, imho, an overly optimistic view of the pdf market. Yes, lots of folks here, on EN World, like pdfs. However, I have seen no credible evidence that the bulk of RPG players make use of them. I think the market for them is much smaller than many might expect.
I have seen lots of credible evidence that suggests rather emphatically that the bulk of RPG players do _not_ make use of PDFs.
But I've also seen credible evidence that there are a lot more RPG players buying PDFs than there were three years ago.
And I think a huge percentage of PDF customers fall into one of these two categories:
1) Folks who ALSO own the print edition, but who want a portable, easily searchable reference copy.
2) Folks who do not want to risk paying full price on a book, and use the PDF as a way to "taste" the product to decide if it is worthwhile to purchase the print product.
I still feel very strongly that the bulk of the PDF market is SUPPLEMENTARY to the print market. I think the customer who "only" buys PDFs, or who even prefers PDFs, is in the minority of the PDF market.
As technology and e-readers get better and better, I suspect this to change, but if you want to make decent (or even "much of any") money in this business, you still need to print books. PDF sales is just the gravy on top.
Of course, if you can't afford to make a full meal, getting by just on gravy is a lot better than starving...
I think a PDF is more like a cup of coffee. Some people like a cup of coffee with the meal, other people just want a cup o' joe now and then and you can sell to them. But I think we can all visualize a coffee shop; apart from lunchtime at Starbuck's or Sunday brunch, coffee shops do slow, study business. If you start up a coffee shop, your expectations are very different than opening a steakhouse or a grocery store.
As far as the market goes... sometims, I think PDF writers are all just really selling to each other.
GURPS players probably buy more PDFs than most, and I think it's for a very simple reason. Sometimes the good stuff comes out first or only in PDF. Most people would rather have a print book, so when the good stuff goes to press, they wait for the hard copy. A highly anticipated product that went to PDF first might help reverse this trend.
Ultimately, I think the PDF market needs to be grown. If a good product could reliably sell 2000 copies, that would definitely change the game.
Aus Snow - I realize where I went wrong and it's totally my fault. As usual, I overstated my case and then got wrapped up in trying to defend the indefensible. My bad.
Allow me to restate my point, and please ignore my earlier stupidity.
What jim pinto calls Renaissance era games, are characterized by fairly low (and sometimes REALLY low) production values. Take even b&w softcovers. I've got my Moldvay Basic D&D book here.
It's stapled in the center.
That's how low the production values were back then. That's certainly not the only book you'll see that in. I know my Villains and Vigillantes book and I'm pretty sure my Star Frontiers books were also stapled. Compare to now where even fairly low rent soft covers are perfect bound. ((Is that the right term? I think it is, but, if I'm wrong, I mean that they are glued, not stapled.))
That's what I mean about the pretty large change in production values.
Battletech makes a perfect case in point. My original Battletech books are unfortunately lost to me, but, IIRC, the core books in the boxed set (not the tech manuals) were soft cover and stapled together. Totally black and white with almost no art.
Compare to the new Battletech books. Full color books, perfect bound. Catalyst is also doing the whole "beta release" thing for their newest books as well. Buy the pdf, critique the game and they'll edit from actual play. Something Pathfinder has also done to great effect.
The process of getting a game onto the shelves today is very different from pre-White Wolf days. I guess that was the basic point I was trying to get across (and doing it very badly).
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
I'm discounting the pdf market because it's so bloody small. A GOOD run of sales for pdf is a couple of thousand copies. That's it.
Can we get some numbers for this? I was under the impression that secondary WotC books generally only get a couple 10,000s printed. That for the other top tier companies the main books generally only sell in the 10-20,000 range. In the latter part of d20, a print run of 2000 was a GOOD run for a 3PP. The RPG market is so bloody small. Saying PDF doesn't matter because it is small is missing the garden for all the handful of flowers.
__________________ Joe Mucchiello, Head Honcho at Throwing Dice Games
Priority One: Fatherhood.
Priority Two: Sanity.
Down on the list: seemingly real close to releasing a notebook essential. It's in layout! Has been for months now. (Just nod politely so I won't cry about this.)
"I've never heard of the term Flavor lawyer..." -- Scribble
Well, you'd likely know better than me. How many pdf sales=a good pdf run?
I was under the impression that the best selling pdf's, barring a few exceptions like Pathfinder and a handfull of others, sold something in the neighbourhood of 2000 copies. And, that the average selling pdf's were measured in hundreds.
Am I totally wrong in this?
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
I was under the impression that the best selling pdf's, barring a few exceptions like Pathfinder and a handfull of others, sold something in the neighbourhood of 2000 copies. And, that the average selling pdf's were measured in hundreds.
(On a slight tangent).
Back in the day, was 2000 copies sold typical for non-TSR and non-White Wolf gamebooks?
Vampire the Masquerade certainly was a turning point in that it attracted a new audience and significantly expanded the demographics of the hobby. But a new game that managed to gain a lot of popularity was not unique at that time. FASA's Shadowrun had good market penetration, as did West End's Star Wars RPG. Vampire WAS unique in that it almost knocked AD&D off its pedestal as the #1 game, but that had a LOT to do with D&D being at the end of an edition cycle, and it didn't last all that long.
To nitpick, 2nd Edition D&D came out in 1989. Vampire the Masquerade 1st Edition came out in 1991. 2nd Edition Vampire the Masquerade came out in 1992. And the revised 2nd Edition Handbooks for D&D didn't come out until 1995, along with the Player's Option Handbooks. The "end of the edition cycle" happened after 1995 when TSR got into financial trouble which lead to the 1997 purchase by WoTC. VTM came out in the MIDDLE of the 2nd Edition D&D product cycle and printed well enough to have a second edition as well as a GURPs version while still in the middle of the 2nd Edition D&D cycle.
It was the fact that the game, despite its clunky system (which was far more elegant that 2nd Edition), emphasized story and storyline over hack and slash that brought in vampire fans who had never played a roleplaying game before. Not because of some perceived inadequacy of D&D. Though I will admit there may have been some factor involving 1st Edition players who wouldn't switch over.
Last edited by Achan hiArusa; 4th November 2009 at 05:43 PM..
Reason: Vampires need to stop using Obfuscate
Though I will admit there may have been some factor involving 1st Edition players who wouldn't switch over.
Of my friends who refused to switch over to 2E, some of them did continue to buy 2E stuff like modules, some box sets, and some splatbooks. This was the case for friends who were into settings like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc ...
A lot of 2E stuff was easily adaptable to the 1E AD&D ruleset.
Of my friends who refused to switch over to 2E, some of them did continue to buy 2E stuff like modules, some box sets, and some splatbooks. This was the case for friends who were into settings like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc ...
A lot of 2E stuff was easily adaptable to the 1E AD&D ruleset.
Honestly, I have to look pretty close to even tell the difference.
"Renaissance" is a tricky term because it, as many have said, alludes back to the historical Renaissance which has particular connotations, some of which have been spoken about. One that hasn't been mentioned is that as a cultural movement there were only a thousand or so participants that were actively involved. Everyone else was just continuing on with the high Middle Ages. So the term "Renaissance" implies that a small group within a larger mass is midwifing a new cultural development into form.
Which may be so now, namely through the fact of self-publishing. Take someone like Greg Stolze, for example, who seems to mainly work for himself, generate sales based upon his reputation, sell books through Lulu, etc. Or the fact that pretty much anyone and their grandma can say "I want to start a game company, write products, and publish PDFs, all from the comfort of my own home." It doesn't mean that there are hundreds or thousands of game designers making a living off publishing PDFs, but that there are hundreds or thousands publishing, even if it is "just PDFs." An analogue in another creative field, music, is how you can use software to write your own music and put it up on line, with your own website. This all seems technology based: the freedom that the internet and other info tech allows for. It also dovetails with a marked trait of Gen X and later generations: everyone is an artist, writer, musician, or creative in some way. Even if it is only 'wannabe status.'
I would put forth that rather than "Renaissance", there have been three (or four) main "Revolutions" within RPG history, each with a key year or years: The first being the founding and early growth years in the early to mid 70s (1974 with OD&D's publication); the second being the AD&D boom of the early 80s (1983ish, which represents the peak of AD&D and the publication of Dragonlance, and before AD&D "jumped the shark" with Unearthed Arcana); the third being the White Wolf/"narrativist" boom of the early to mid 90s (1992ish); and the fourth being 3ed and, in particular, the OGL (2000, with 3ed; or you could say 2003 with 3.5 and the highpoint of OGLism). If there is a fifth I would think it would have to do with an even greater capacity for self-publishing which the current PDF marketplace may just represent the early years of (Right after writing this I read Mark's great historical analogy that I think relates to this).
As for PDFs, I agree with Umbran that their market value is a bit over-rated; I see their significance being more for the "everyone and their grandma" effect. As far as I can tell I could polish up my homebrew notes and put it up on RPGNow with little difficulty. But how many copies would I sell? It depends, but probably anywhere from a handful to a couple hundred. If I was really professional and had terrific support (a website, advertising, etc), maybe a thousand, but even that is questionable.
Similar to what Erik Mona spoke of as the second group of PDF buyers, I personally think PDFs would work well if they were much cheaper--maybe 20% the cost of the equivalent print book--and acted like a kind of "electronic taster" of the print book so that the goal would be to get most customers to buy the hardcopy. For example, you could sell your PDF for $10 and your Lulu version for $40; at $10 more folks would be willing to buy the PDF and, if they liked what they saw, a good chunk would buy the hardcopy (maybe half or all of the PDF purchase would be redeemable).
Or you could go further and offer the PDF for free, as a lure to convince folks to buy the hardcopy (as with Eclipse Phase).
PDFs, as they are, are to books similar to how electronic synthesizers are to live instruments. For some things that is fine, but if you want to hear classical violin you want the real thing. If you want to hear improvised jazz a programmed improv just isn't the same thing as a rule human being. Maybe electronic media will develop to the point that they will be able to replace books--and I've never seen or used a Kindle so I don't know if they are as good as their advocates say they are--but I have a hard time believing it. A violin is a classic human creation; I would argue that a book is. Maybe violins and books will be less prevalent in the future, but I think their classic status will keep them alive for as long as humans are.
Maybe we can hope for the same with tabletop RPGs?
It was the fact that the game, despite its clunky system (which was far more elegant that 2nd Edition), emphasized story and storyline over hack and slash that brought in vampire fans who had never played a roleplaying game before. Not because of some perceived inadequacy of D&D.
*blink*
Please correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be saying, "It wasn't that D&D was seen to be inadequate in some areas, but the new game was seen to be more adequate in some areas."
Please correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to be saying, "It wasn't that D&D was seen to be inadequate in some areas, but the new game was seen to be more adequate in some areas."
I think he's saying that the WoD games were popular on their own merits with no relation to D&D. In other words, it wasn't disenfranchised D&D players that made Vampire et al so popular, but folks who were previously not into RPGs at all.
Of course the one catch is, how did those folks find out about Vampire? It may be that White Wolf's best advertisers were the few disenfranchised D&D players who brought in their non-gamer friends ("I know you think D&D is lame, but you've got to try Vampire/Mage/Werewolf").
One of the biggest challenges for RPG companies is, and always has been, how to market outside of the ghetto when the "extra-ghetto" reputation of RPGs is generally negative.
Not to thread-jack, but does anyone know or remember how White Wolf became so popular? And how quickly? How did they advertise? Etc.
IMHO, the gaming Renaissance is just begining, with the availability of OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, etc. The OGL, combined with the market splintering around 4e, has created a more fertile ground than what previously existed.
Again IMHO. YMMV.
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
That was 1999. I'm asking about the post-d20 bust. Today, what is a good print run for a 3PP?
__________________ Joe Mucchiello, Head Honcho at Throwing Dice Games
Priority One: Fatherhood.
Priority Two: Sanity.
Down on the list: seemingly real close to releasing a notebook essential. It's in layout! Has been for months now. (Just nod politely so I won't cry about this.)
"I've never heard of the term Flavor lawyer..." -- Scribble
I think he's saying that the WoD games were popular on their own merits with no relation to D&D.
My gaming group and I played the hell out of Vampire when it first came out. And like you state, not because we were upset about D&D, but because Vampire was just a cool concept, and a fun game.
The process of getting a game onto the shelves today is very different from pre-White Wolf days. I guess that was the basic point I was trying to get across (and doing it very badly).
I'm sure it is fairly different. The costs for various elements in the process are a lot different compared to 1980.
But I don't think you're really recognizing the changes in technology in some of your examples. V&V and the old D&D redbooks were stapled, sure. But what's the equivalent method of binding these days? And by equivalent, what's the method of binding that makes up a comparable portion of the expense? What method would use a comparable amount of effort?
That's the real standard for production values. If all production values are higher because of changes in technology, then pointing to production values earlier in gaming days and saying they'd get nowhere today isn't saying much. Technology has changed what the effort invested can produce. There may be plenty of products today, doing OK, using equivalent levels of production values as the D&D Redbooks or V&V.
__________________ Bill D
"There's a fine line between a superpower and a chronic medical condition."
- Doctor Impossible
HERO 6th ed. - pretty sure that'll be B&W (coming out very soon); correct me if I'm wrong though!
Full-color hardcover for the core books; supplements will be a mix of B&W softcover and full-color hardcover. However, HERO Games recently benefitted from selling the Champions Universe to Cryptic for the MMO, providing them with new art resources and, I believe, a substantial cash infusion. Therefore, they're not the norm. (HERO is never the norm; among other things, it's downright unkillable, given the fact that by the logic of the gaming industry, it should be dead several times over by now. )
I'm sure it is fairly different. The costs for various elements in the process are a lot different compared to 1980.
But I don't think you're really recognizing the changes in technology in some of your examples. V&V and the old D&D redbooks were stapled, sure. But what's the equivalent method of binding these days? And by equivalent, what's the method of binding that makes up a comparable portion of the expense? What method would use a comparable amount of effort?
That's the real standard for production values. If all production values are higher because of changes in technology, then pointing to production values earlier in gaming days and saying they'd get nowhere today isn't saying much. Technology has changed what the effort invested can produce. There may be plenty of products today, doing OK, using equivalent levels of production values as the D&D Redbooks or V&V.
I would agree except that stapled books are still quite common. I've got a stack of children's textbooks here that are stapled together. So, it's not that you couldn't do a stapled book, you certainly could.
But, the standard for RPG books is considerably higher than that.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
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