DM's Guild: What Do The Customers Think?

The DM's Guild has been around for a couple of months now. There have been lots of threads about it from the seller's point of view discussing all manner of aspects of the site (if you're thinking of selling there, there are tons of advice and discussion threads right here on EN World, covering things like price, art, folks sharing how much they've made, and so on). There haven't been quite so many from the customer's point of view, though. So what are your overall impressions of the DM's Guild, now you've had chance to get used to its offerings? What do you think of the products all these new publishers are offering? Are you using DM's Guild more or less than you were a month ago? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

people who download for free PWYW products should not be entitled to rate/review a product

Mind elaborating on why it is that you feel that to be the case?

 

[Storyteller Hero]

Mind elaborating on why it is that you feel that to be the case?

I think dracomilan probably had a bad review/rating experience. It seems to come with the territory.

There are a number of dangers to setting at PWYW that can frustrate designers (especially new ones that are just starting out) - a reason why PWYW should be considered by designers mainly for experimentation, fun, training, and building an audience. With anonymity of users and the lack of a paywall, it's much easier to get hit by negative reviews that don't actually have anything constructive to say, or get spammed by downvoters that just want to troll a product.

Personally, I think a reasonable compromise would be to force anyone who rates a 1 or 2 star rating to actually write and post a review of 30 words or more, if they want their rating to stick. This would help DMG staffers recognize a rating or review that is potentially a form of spam and remove it at the designer's request. It would also help purchasers recognize whether a review is a real one. An actual typed 1 or 2 star review would also help the designer understand what needs to be improved, assuming that the review is constructive.

In the short term, I think that moving the link that lets you see a chart of all the individual ratings (and lets you see how many actually wrote reviews) into a more visible location on the product page might help a little.

 

[dracomilan]

Personally, I think a reasonable compromise would be to force anyone who rates a 1 or 2 star rating to actually write and post a review of 30 words or more, if they want their rating to stick. This would help DMG staffers recognize a rating or review that is potentially a form of spam and remove it at the designer's request. It would also help purchasers recognize whether a review is a real one. An actual typed 1 or 2 star review would also help the designer understand what needs to be improved, assuming that the review is constructive.


Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...at-Do-The-Customers-Think/page6#ixzz42OIOJ8lm

I would love this kind of solution.

Yeah basically if you don't pay even a cent you are already stating something about the product, and the author is sure getting the message. A 1 star rating with no review is just... unfair.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

[MENTION=6813635]Storyteller Hero[/MENTION], [MENTION=6704093]dracomilan[/MENTION], thanks for providing some insight. I hadn't actually considered that potential effect of allowing free access, and I can understand why a person seeking to publish gaming material and maybe make a little cash from it would feel unfairly treated by a bad rating with no explanation of why that rating was given.

 

[ddaley]

From a buyer's perspective, this would be helpful too. I don't give much weight to ratings that have no textual review. I read some of the good and bad reviews to see what they liked and didn't like. Often, they may complain about things that don't bother me or they may like things that I would not like. So, just a star rating is not very helpful.

Personally, I think a reasonable compromise would be to force anyone who rates a 1 or 2 star rating to actually write and post a review of 30 words or more, if they want their rating to stick. This would help DMG staffers recognize a rating or review that is potentially a form of spam and remove it at the designer's request. It would also help purchasers recognize whether a review is a real one. An actual typed 1 or 2 star review would also help the designer understand what needs to be improved, assuming that the review is constructive.

 

[akr71]

My wishlist is starting to get rather long and I will probably purchase a few things soon. So far I have only downloaded a few free adventures in the very early days of the Guild being up & running. Except of 'Mines of Madness' which was co-written by Chris Perkins, they were all worth what I paid for them. Interesting adventures with some really creative ideas, but they were obviously rushed and contained typos and grammar issues which caused me some confusion as to the author's intent.

What I would really like would be for the items to be tagged to help searching. If I want to only search for adventures, I only get adventures. If I want character classes/backgrounds/new options, my search only gives those results. When I go to Amazon, I don't have to search through electronics to find science fiction books. There is the 'Product Type' filter, but it doesn't seem to do much...

 

[Quickleaf]

The biggest issue for me (so far) is storefront navigation and the way in which product lists are sorted.

For example, I haven't been able to see a way to just search for adventures. This seems pretty fundamental. (Is there a way to do this that I'm just missing somehow?)

It's built into the search function, so you need to start typing before you'll see the option to search for "adventures" as a product type. Definitely not how I would do it, especially given that they have a tab on the left for Product Types that doesn't includes adventures as an option.

 

[TonyP]

My wishlist is starting to get rather long and I will probably purchase a few things soon. So far I have only downloaded a few free adventures in the very early days of the Guild being up & running. Except of 'Mines of Madness' which was co-written by Chris Perkins, they were all worth what I paid for them. Interesting adventures with some really creative ideas, but they were obviously rushed and contained typos and grammar issues which caused me some confusion as to the author's intent.

What I would really like would be for the items to be tagged to help searching. If I want to only search for adventures, I only get adventures. If I want character classes/backgrounds/new options, my search only gives those results. When I go to Amazon, I don't have to search through electronics to find science fiction books. There is the 'Product Type' filter, but it doesn't seem to do much...

For adventures go to Product Type>Sourcebook>Adventures


I would like to see the menu and search function adjusted, but I understand such a move is in the works.

 

[TonyP]

I picked up Journey Through the Center of the Underdark for a buck and was very pleasantly surprised by how good it was.

THANKS!!!!

I'm quite happy at how well its sold but what thrills me even more is all the pleasant things folk have said on the product page reviews and elsewhere, like yours.

So, if ya'll have bought something you've enjoyed, let the author know. Accolades from strangers is surprisingly more satisfying than I ever woulda thought.

uhh.. err... pardon the threadjack

 

[oreofox]

I haven't bought much of anything on there, mostly just a few PWYW and free monsters and a couple races, as those are what I have been interested in most. Many have been of so-so quality. Seeing the "Best Sellers" part almost never change is annoying (though a couple new ones have popped up there with the ability of making Ravenloft stuff). Maybe something for a "best of this week" would be nice.