WotC: Re-issue older editions.

[Glade Riven]

@ Aberzanzorax: Two can play this game - y'know, maybe you should provide numbers of actual potential customers beyond the handful of posters in this thread. Then I might spend the time doing a thorough breakdown and write-up of what it would cost to pay me to do the work for processing a single book for POD.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Lol.

Two can play what game?


You said you'd done research (essentially asking us to believe you were an expert) and I asked to see it.


So either you haven't done the research and are lying, have done it and are unwilling to share it, or you actually share it.


Until you do, you're just an opinion, and asking us to look at you as an expert is pretty disingenuous.




I, however, make no claims to being an expert. I just think it would be a good idea. No, check that, a GREAT idea.

 

[Treebore]

It is a Great Idea! Plus I think a large part of todays economic issue is because business has become to grounded in numbers and have forgotten how effective intangibles like customer good will can have on the success of a business. Something Paizo is pretty clearly reaping the benefits of.

Ask Paizo if they thought they would be doing as well as they are if they only looked at numbers, and didn't put in the effort to make their customers know they matter.

Ask WOTC how well they are doing without the good will. Oh, wait. They can't tell you. That would be divulging critical business secrets.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Since we're discussing viability:

Since we're discussing viability:

Here is a link to the lulu PoD cost page. I only chose them because I'm most familiar with them. There are other PoD publishers out there.

https://support.lulu.com/View.jsp?procId=49bbc167ce33751cc301faf089b32b5f&locale=en_US

8 x 11 books are .025 cents per page in B&W and .15 cents in color. Add to that a $2 binding fee.

Some example costs:
Page Number --- B&W cost ---- Color Cost
16 --------------- $2.40 ---------- $4.40
32 --------------- $2.80 ---------- $6.80
64---------------- $3.60 ---------- $11.60
128--------------- $5.20 ---------- $21.20

Now that does not incorporate scans and such. But the printing costs are not very high, and an initial scan is a one time investment (as are any other setup costs).

Add to that customers could choose B&W or color depending on how tight money is (and many older products were B&W only anyway).


EDIT: I found a Book Scanning Service... http://www.blueleaf-book-scanning.com/book_scanning_service_order.html
Destructive costs (which I assume is what WotC would use) are: $12.95 for the first book and $5.00 each additional book. (Alternately $.06 per page with the first 50 pages free).



So, for example, and to pick an adventure that wotc likes to re-release on occasion, for Temple of Elemental Evil (128 pgs black and white)...it would cost $18.15 to WotC using these two providers. That's using the INITIAL EXPENSIVE INTRO COST. If ONE PERSON buys this product for $20, they have already made money.



But, enough about money. I'll also agree with Treebore. As a former accountant, I know that goodwill is considered an asset. I know that after the BP oil spill I'll drive past BP stations to go to another company. Currying good will among former and present customers might even be worth a dollar loss to increase their total assets as a company.

 

[shadzar]

I've looked into POD. I have education, experiance, and have done the research to do the work that would be have to be done. And I can honestly say that it is not cost effective to pay me to do this work for the potential return. And that's just the guy doing the gruntwork. That doesn't account for advertising costs, management paychecks, marketing research, and the potential for brand confusion.

OK now you have gone and ruffled my feathers.


1. POD can be done by the poor at home with just a single person without an editor. So I don't know what research you have done, but it is obviously wrong in your findings. I can put something on Lulu today and not cost that much since they do all the work and make most of the money...just like a real book and printing houses and publishers, except les hassle due to overstock.

I would love to hear some of this data you found that contradicts the fact that single person teams are putting thing POD all the time without all the hoopla associated with HASBRO as a backer both financially and industry contacts.

2. Advertising costs....as someone else said, "Old print editions of D&D material now on sale for print on demand at Lulu." All the gaming blogs grab it, industry blogs grab it, ICv2 grabs it...it wont take long until people know about it. You don't have to run a nationwide television campaign in order to get the information out there.

3. Management paychecks? What is this? You do the book and put it on Lulu, and they send you a check for what sells giving you your percentage. Their management gets paid from the sell of the book. The customer decides perfect bound, spiral bound, stapled, etc and pays for the quality of ink and paper they want and that is that... Lulu takes their cut and pays you. Self-publishers do this and it works for them. Again as someone said, "We get our check form Lulu yet this month?"

4. Marketing research is done already for D&D. You have to check you competition no matter what anyway, so these costs are already there no matter if older editions are released, or a new game company comes out with some game that storms the industry with tons of sells. 4th edition sells (including DDi) drop but you have more money coming in from D&D, then it already shows the market is buying the POD products.

5. Brand confusion...now you are of your medication. Lets just take a stab at the big things WotC has already done to create brand confusion. 3rd edition is built form AD&D, but they dropped the "Advanced"...so it would look like this game was compatible with and had thing in common with OD&D right? Not in the least. Here comes 4th edition....Red Box set using the same art, and the only noticeable thing to tell it isnt on the box at first glance is the WotC logo on the bootm that can easily be overlooked. So they reprinted the Red Box and people can again play D&D like they did when it came out alongside of 1st edition, but before 1st edition was fully released? No we lied and just trying to sucker old players into buying the new version of the game through brand and item confusion.

They pretty much dug their own graves with brand confusion, and now them and anyone else that takes up the mantle of the D&D copyrights will be stuck with it for life.

 

[Remathilis]

As much as I'd be game...

Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

PDF sales at this point have 0% overhead due to them being done already. They don't cut into "current" edition sales. There are even e-commerce sites that will do all the work for WotC.

Yet WotC won't re-release them.

I can't see WotC finding anything of value in investing in a dead-tree version of anything, except a small collector set like the Silver Box or the Mini-book reprints.

WotC put their eggs in the 4e basket, and like Edna "I never look back dahling!"

 

[Klaus]

Go ahead. Do it. Here's why:

People that want to play B/X D&D* are probably not people that want to play 4E, so you're not stealing from your own customer base. OTOH, people that want to play 4E may well be people that want to play -- or at least BUY -- B/X D&D. (*=or OD&D, AD&D1E, etc...)

Secondly, after your initial outlay to repackage those older edition core materials, you have an evergreen product. There never has to be another edition of 2nd Edition, for example. If it is sold as a PDF and/or as a POD product, you don't even have to fill a warehouse full of questionable content.

If you're worried about the ability to support these games with supplements and adventures, don't. The community will do it for you. Many of them already are. Sure, some of the hardcore OSR folks would balk at the 1E Reissue, refusing to change from only supporting OSRIC, but the majority of them would be glad to slap a "Compatible With Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 1st Edition" logo on their product cover.

There is also the fact that you can sell certain products -- map tiles, tokens and miniatures, etc... -- to everyone that plays any version of D&D.

Finally, it would buy you a whole lot of good will. Everyone knows that there are people that love and play every edition of the game. Everyone knows that, for the most part, each edition is different, providing a different play experience to a different audience. Therefore, everyone knows that acknowledging one game and its audience is not an attack against another. Moreover, if you were to acknowledge, through these reissues, that every D&D fan, from 65 to 15 years old, from whatever "school" and whatever flavor the game, was a beloved D&D fan and customer of WotC.

I could be wrong of course. Who am I? Just a guy on the internet who loves D&D in (almost) all its forms.

I like this idea. It's akin to DC Comics releasing Archive editions, like Superman Archives reprinting his Golden Age stories.

 

[TanisFrey]

I have heard estimates that within 50 years, that when you enter into a book store you would find just the front cover of the books that are for sale. There would be a bar code under the front cover. You would take the bard code place it in a POD printer swipe you credit card and select the quality of the paper, print, binding. Then wait as you book is printed for you.

If WOCT does not look into POD every few years they will be left behind. They should also look at the possible of Kindle or Nook sales of their books, both current and previous editions.

They lost me as a costumer with 4ed edition, it was just to different from what came before. I might come back for 5th ed when and if it looks more like something I would enjoy.

 

[Glade Riven]

*snip*

Some of that is a little cheaper than I last checked, but...

A quick check with the book cost calculator for an AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Handbook has a minimum printing cost of about $15 per book for a hardcover, black & white interior. Full color interior with that same calculator has it listed at $48 for a base color print. As I don't own any 2nd edition stuff, I have a tendency to forget that a lot of it was printed in black and white. So that's where I got the $50 figure. Presumibly WotC could negotiate a better deal (although that person has to be paid).

Now, assuming that WotC were serious about it (and we stick with black and white) and they were paying that particular company to scan something that was in perfect condition (which if they don't have, it could probably be picked up fairly cheap on Ebay), the costs aren't as bad. If they have to pay someone to go in and digitally clean up every page, that gets real expensive very quickly - and the final cost from that is hard to determine without knowing the damage. If you are just scanning to pick up the text only, someone has to be payed to fix errors from the automated process. Computers aren't perfect. Granted, the costs are front loaded - but is there enough demand to offset those costs? That is an unanswered question.

So it comes down to where you see it from a best case scenario vs. me seeing it from a worst case scenario. Without more detailed information on the actual quality of the works that WotC has in their vault, it is harder for us to get more accurate.

@shadzar
1. I've looked into POD pricing and have also talked with professional authors who have gotten published. POD is more expensive than traditional publishing, because of volume pricing. However, a chunk of the costs I was refering to was what it would cost to pay someone to do page clean-up. If the scans are bad (and even from a major company who's business is to scan things in bulk can have bad scans, if the original material is in poor condition) that can get expensive.

2, 3, & 4. Companies have marketing departments and management that has to okay things. Managers have to sign off on it, and to do so they have to be informed on the pros and cons of spending the time and money on something like this. Researching this information takes time and money, and people who are looking into other things now have to look into this. Not only do these wages have to be paid, but taxes, benefits, etc. - and if someone is working on this, then they aren't working on something else.

5. And you want them to make it worse? With WotC using early box art on new product, releasing old product with the same art will only add to it.

 

[Glade Riven]

Accidental double-post