Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
another rpg industry doomsday article (merged: all 3 "Mishler Rant" threads)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Erik Mona" data-source="post: 4866019" data-attributes="member: 2174"><p>Might as well crosspost my blog comment here...</p><p></p><p>----</p><p></p><p>There's a lot of good stuff here, but also a lot of bold assertions and back of the envelope nonsense, in my opinion.</p><p></p><p>Part of the problem, here, is that you're assuming that anyone can make any kind of money at all selling 1000 units of just about anything. I'm not sure that's ever been true at any time in the history of the tabletop gaming industry, and it's certainly not true now.</p><p></p><p>You've got to find a way to develop and audience for your product that is larger than 1000 potential sales. Every product Paizo produces, for example, must endure a rigorous cost/profit analysis before it gets the green light. Everything we do has realistic break-evens in the sub-2000 units category, and only extremely rarely does a product in our lineup not sell significantly more copies than that.</p><p></p><p>If your potential audience is fewer than 1000, you probably are better off either throwing in the towel and finding more lucrative business opportunities, or going for some sort of "deluxe" high-end approach that more reasonably charges gamers for the time, effort, and resources put into your product.</p><p></p><p>Ptolus is a good example of this. Yes, it was outrageously expensive both to produce and to buy, but Monte Cook (who, despite the drawing power of his name, is really just a guy working with his wife to create cool games) found a way to build the book affordably (mostly by writing it himself and offloading production costs on a better-capitalized print partner with strong distribution). As you say, there are only a limited number of gamers willing to fork out $100+ for a book like Ptolus, but Monte had them lining up at its release, and the book is now completely sold out and almost impossible to find. Oh, and I'm confident Monte made a ton of money on it.</p><p></p><p>No one in this business, from the smallest one-man publishing operation to the biggest wholly owned subsidiary of a multinational corporation, is entitled to a successful career in gaming. </p><p></p><p>People producing niche products for a niche market (which is what producing material for Judge's Guild is) are never going to make much money at it, and success is going to come (if it comes at all) from spending more time building the audience than writing the products. Or from realizing that the older market you serve is probably willing to pay more for a product (PDF or otherwise) that caters directly to their interests. The good news is that fans who are familiar with Judge's Guild and want to see it continue probably have a lot more disposable income than fans interested in, say, an anime game or something, so the potential for a supporting cadre of essentially patrons is much more likely in your case than in most.</p><p></p><p>And as far as the "Pathfinder Effect," I find your statement on PDF pricing regressive and myopic. If Paizo is not worried about the effect our subsidized Core Rules PDF pricing will have on even our other non-deep-discounted PDFs, why is it that other publishers are so convinced it will affect their business?</p><p></p><p>Lastly, if you're in the business of selling core rules, getting those rules as widely distributed as possible and then making money off of the support products sold to that audience is, I think (and hope!) a very viable business strategy. </p><p></p><p>You've got to have an audience if you want to make any money, in this business or anywhere. </p><p></p><p>--Erik Mona</p><p>Publisher</p><p>Paizo Publishing</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Erik Mona, post: 4866019, member: 2174"] Might as well crosspost my blog comment here... ---- There's a lot of good stuff here, but also a lot of bold assertions and back of the envelope nonsense, in my opinion. Part of the problem, here, is that you're assuming that anyone can make any kind of money at all selling 1000 units of just about anything. I'm not sure that's ever been true at any time in the history of the tabletop gaming industry, and it's certainly not true now. You've got to find a way to develop and audience for your product that is larger than 1000 potential sales. Every product Paizo produces, for example, must endure a rigorous cost/profit analysis before it gets the green light. Everything we do has realistic break-evens in the sub-2000 units category, and only extremely rarely does a product in our lineup not sell significantly more copies than that. If your potential audience is fewer than 1000, you probably are better off either throwing in the towel and finding more lucrative business opportunities, or going for some sort of "deluxe" high-end approach that more reasonably charges gamers for the time, effort, and resources put into your product. Ptolus is a good example of this. Yes, it was outrageously expensive both to produce and to buy, but Monte Cook (who, despite the drawing power of his name, is really just a guy working with his wife to create cool games) found a way to build the book affordably (mostly by writing it himself and offloading production costs on a better-capitalized print partner with strong distribution). As you say, there are only a limited number of gamers willing to fork out $100+ for a book like Ptolus, but Monte had them lining up at its release, and the book is now completely sold out and almost impossible to find. Oh, and I'm confident Monte made a ton of money on it. No one in this business, from the smallest one-man publishing operation to the biggest wholly owned subsidiary of a multinational corporation, is entitled to a successful career in gaming. People producing niche products for a niche market (which is what producing material for Judge's Guild is) are never going to make much money at it, and success is going to come (if it comes at all) from spending more time building the audience than writing the products. Or from realizing that the older market you serve is probably willing to pay more for a product (PDF or otherwise) that caters directly to their interests. The good news is that fans who are familiar with Judge's Guild and want to see it continue probably have a lot more disposable income than fans interested in, say, an anime game or something, so the potential for a supporting cadre of essentially patrons is much more likely in your case than in most. And as far as the "Pathfinder Effect," I find your statement on PDF pricing regressive and myopic. If Paizo is not worried about the effect our subsidized Core Rules PDF pricing will have on even our other non-deep-discounted PDFs, why is it that other publishers are so convinced it will affect their business? Lastly, if you're in the business of selling core rules, getting those rules as widely distributed as possible and then making money off of the support products sold to that audience is, I think (and hope!) a very viable business strategy. You've got to have an audience if you want to make any money, in this business or anywhere. --Erik Mona Publisher Paizo Publishing [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
another rpg industry doomsday article (merged: all 3 "Mishler Rant" threads)
Top