The Altar of Attap, why chargen development has failed

[Zortag]

So I'm lowballing a little - Hey, it's my fantasy!

Back of the envelope calculation, i.e. a scientific wild-ass guess. Most clients want to know ballpark figures for a project even before the request for proposal phase. This is a kind of "order of magnitude" calculation, and could vary 100%-150%. What it does show is that the cost to produce the product could feasibly be recouped by product sales.

All of my numbers are based on what I know of my local (Chicago area) market. I figured on doing testing the Microsoft way: large betas which generates interest for the release version of the product and costs nearly nothing.

Realize too, that if I am off by 100% then the break even is still between 32K and 50K units.

-*Andy*-

 

[2WS-Steve]

Realize too, that if I am off by 100% then the break even is still between 32K and 50K units.

Just a note that a $30 retail price would likely result in roughly a $15 per unit margin of profit after taking into account packaging, distribution, and the retailer's cut.


****
One issue I'm sure that WotC has with a proper character generator is that the end user will definitely want to be able to use it as a rules reference too. A chargen utility does me little if any good if I have to dig through 18 hardcovers to check what each feat or spell does.

But if I have a proper chargen utility that includes the rules text for those feats, classes, and spells, then I don't need the book (though I might still buy them for reading purposes or if they've left out flavor text sections).

This fact is one reason I think WotC might eventually move to a more online-centric model for its support material. Sell the core books the old way because people always need them for reference, but then offer splatbooks as e-versions that are integrated into their character generator -- and, if I were WotC and realized this, that'd be a powerful reason to drop the CMP license and move the whole thing in-house.

 

[Ilium]

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