Dear lords and ladies of ENWorld:
Amongst the continually-spawning threads of RPG industry analysis, the sporadic Edition Warring, & the comparison of anecdotes in place of unobtainable sales data, a frequent claim is inevitably made. The claim, paraphrased, goes something along the lines of: “ENWorlders don’t represent the average gamer, therefore your opinion isn’t as important to Company XYZ as you think it is/should be”.
Respectfully, that’s an ogre-sized pile of steaming crap.
In the interests of full disclosure, let’s be up-front about it. The scenario above is typically talking about WotC, and of late, comparing/contrasting them to Paizo. Additionally, while I don’t play 4e, I don’t lose sleep that it bears the title of Dungeons & Dragons. I have, however, been quite critical of WotC’s marketing in the past & have continued to have cause to question business decisions they’ve made in recent years.
So, while I don’t subscribe to the notion that a company cares about every customer, there’s some basic business realities here:
1. The success & lifespan of a given RPG (or any business, really) is dependent upon an ongoing stream of incoming revenue. The heavy hitters in RPGs have traditionally produced content (sourcebooks, adventures, magazines, tie-ins, etc.) on an ongoing basis. Smaller RPGs have traditionally had a much smaller “library” of material and tend to release new editions with greater frequency. In either case, most of the RPG companies that are viewed as “successful” don't just publish a few books and then sit back for years and just watch the cash roll in.
2. By virtue of simple economics, a customer that purchases more of a company’s product is of greater value than a customer that makes a single purchase and stops. This is why, to use an example, you have contact/call centers that utilize Customer Relationship Management systems to segment customers into “value tiers”. Higher-valued customers are given higher priority over lower-value customers. Let’s stick with frpg money: gold, silver, copper. If you’re a “gold” customer, you jump to the front of the queue and have a shorter wait. If you’re a “copper” customer… well, your wait time might be measured in hours rather than minutes.
3. Another economic reality is that it is easier to keep an existing customer than it is to obtain a new one. Generally speaking, the cost of sales and the success, or conversion, factor of gaining that new customer is much higher. In sales-speak, it’s easier to farm than to hunt.
So, looking at our little corner of ENWorld, what do we have?
Players and GMs that, by a sizeable amount, have more than a cursory interest in the hobby. How do we know this? Reading the posts tells us this. The exchange of ideas in terms of adventures, plots, NPCs, game mechanics, story hours --- these are all things that indicate time spent. Much of these involve specific product discussions, another indicator of interest. But wait, there are Community Supporters – people that are paying money to fund the site.
If you’re Joe Blow and you bought a Player’s Handbook, some dice, and played D&D one time and then never opened the book again, chances are pretty darn good you’re not spending your free hours on ENWorld.
So why does this matter?
Because even if ENWorld represents 1% of the RPG customer base, the $/customer ratio is going to be much higher. Let’s say there are 100,000 customers (we’ll give video games a break and say collectible card players instead) who have never tried a table-top RPG that you think you can pull into RPGs and at least get to buy one $30 hardback. That’s $3M in sales (not profits) if you’re 100% successful.
Now, let’s say that there are 1000 ENWorlders that spend $300 a year on RPGs. If company X could earn all of their RPG spend, that’s $300,000.
So obviously, you want to go after the 100,000 and get their 1 book purchase, right?
WRONG. You go after BOTH customer segments.
Also, 1000 customers is 1% of the 100,000, but equal to 10% of the potential revenue. It also carries a MUCH higher chance of successfully getting more of that segment’s spend than recruiting the brand new customer.
The community base at sites like ENWorld is essentially FREE ADVERTISING as fans talk about recent purchases and upcoming releases. I’m not saying such a community is the most important customer segment – but it’s important. It’s not an anomaly and it’s not insignificant.
Some other trite-but-true axioms of business:
1. Perception is reality.
2. The customer is always right.
Of course, the customer isn’t always right. But you don’t go out of your way to tell the customer that they’re wrong unless you don’t want to keep that customer.
As for perception, the only perception that matters is the CUSTOMER’S perception. Because if they aren’t buying, the perception of Company XYZ doesn’t matter – you’re not selling. Get enough “perception” going against you, and you’re not delivering a return to a shareholder or, more importantly, making a payroll.
Which brings me to the ultimate sales-related question, “So what?”
We’re the die-hards, folks. For whatever reason, we’re spending our time and our money on a hobby that embraces customer participation like few others. We’re spending time on a website where probably 90+% have played in or are playing in a game that requires you to roll a d20. We’re the evangelists & the nay-sayers.
I’m not saying we can bang the table and expect to get what we want – far from it. We are NOT, however, a miniscule voice in the wilderness. Outside of a company’s own message boards, we’re the free conduit of feedback. I’m sure it’s an overwhelming volume of feedback at times, but I’d say it’s a lot more informative than a survey card or a poll.
That came out a lot longer than I intended. No salvos in the Edition Wars, no asking “can’t we all just get along?” – just asking that we not be so dismissive of our peers’ opinions or the collective weight that our voice carries. After one of the most frustrating work weeks in my life from working to prevent the "perception/reality" issue from killing a project, reading through some of the threads tonight struck a nerve, I suppose. Let's not forget that while we want our RPG products, the publishers need us to buy them.
See, the symbiotic nature of capitalism works for more than just mega-corps!
Amongst the continually-spawning threads of RPG industry analysis, the sporadic Edition Warring, & the comparison of anecdotes in place of unobtainable sales data, a frequent claim is inevitably made. The claim, paraphrased, goes something along the lines of: “ENWorlders don’t represent the average gamer, therefore your opinion isn’t as important to Company XYZ as you think it is/should be”.
Respectfully, that’s an ogre-sized pile of steaming crap.
In the interests of full disclosure, let’s be up-front about it. The scenario above is typically talking about WotC, and of late, comparing/contrasting them to Paizo. Additionally, while I don’t play 4e, I don’t lose sleep that it bears the title of Dungeons & Dragons. I have, however, been quite critical of WotC’s marketing in the past & have continued to have cause to question business decisions they’ve made in recent years.
So, while I don’t subscribe to the notion that a company cares about every customer, there’s some basic business realities here:
1. The success & lifespan of a given RPG (or any business, really) is dependent upon an ongoing stream of incoming revenue. The heavy hitters in RPGs have traditionally produced content (sourcebooks, adventures, magazines, tie-ins, etc.) on an ongoing basis. Smaller RPGs have traditionally had a much smaller “library” of material and tend to release new editions with greater frequency. In either case, most of the RPG companies that are viewed as “successful” don't just publish a few books and then sit back for years and just watch the cash roll in.
2. By virtue of simple economics, a customer that purchases more of a company’s product is of greater value than a customer that makes a single purchase and stops. This is why, to use an example, you have contact/call centers that utilize Customer Relationship Management systems to segment customers into “value tiers”. Higher-valued customers are given higher priority over lower-value customers. Let’s stick with frpg money: gold, silver, copper. If you’re a “gold” customer, you jump to the front of the queue and have a shorter wait. If you’re a “copper” customer… well, your wait time might be measured in hours rather than minutes.
3. Another economic reality is that it is easier to keep an existing customer than it is to obtain a new one. Generally speaking, the cost of sales and the success, or conversion, factor of gaining that new customer is much higher. In sales-speak, it’s easier to farm than to hunt.
So, looking at our little corner of ENWorld, what do we have?
Players and GMs that, by a sizeable amount, have more than a cursory interest in the hobby. How do we know this? Reading the posts tells us this. The exchange of ideas in terms of adventures, plots, NPCs, game mechanics, story hours --- these are all things that indicate time spent. Much of these involve specific product discussions, another indicator of interest. But wait, there are Community Supporters – people that are paying money to fund the site.
If you’re Joe Blow and you bought a Player’s Handbook, some dice, and played D&D one time and then never opened the book again, chances are pretty darn good you’re not spending your free hours on ENWorld.
So why does this matter?
Because even if ENWorld represents 1% of the RPG customer base, the $/customer ratio is going to be much higher. Let’s say there are 100,000 customers (we’ll give video games a break and say collectible card players instead) who have never tried a table-top RPG that you think you can pull into RPGs and at least get to buy one $30 hardback. That’s $3M in sales (not profits) if you’re 100% successful.
Now, let’s say that there are 1000 ENWorlders that spend $300 a year on RPGs. If company X could earn all of their RPG spend, that’s $300,000.
So obviously, you want to go after the 100,000 and get their 1 book purchase, right?
WRONG. You go after BOTH customer segments.
Also, 1000 customers is 1% of the 100,000, but equal to 10% of the potential revenue. It also carries a MUCH higher chance of successfully getting more of that segment’s spend than recruiting the brand new customer.
The community base at sites like ENWorld is essentially FREE ADVERTISING as fans talk about recent purchases and upcoming releases. I’m not saying such a community is the most important customer segment – but it’s important. It’s not an anomaly and it’s not insignificant.
Some other trite-but-true axioms of business:
1. Perception is reality.
2. The customer is always right.
Of course, the customer isn’t always right. But you don’t go out of your way to tell the customer that they’re wrong unless you don’t want to keep that customer.
As for perception, the only perception that matters is the CUSTOMER’S perception. Because if they aren’t buying, the perception of Company XYZ doesn’t matter – you’re not selling. Get enough “perception” going against you, and you’re not delivering a return to a shareholder or, more importantly, making a payroll.
Which brings me to the ultimate sales-related question, “So what?”
We’re the die-hards, folks. For whatever reason, we’re spending our time and our money on a hobby that embraces customer participation like few others. We’re spending time on a website where probably 90+% have played in or are playing in a game that requires you to roll a d20. We’re the evangelists & the nay-sayers.
I’m not saying we can bang the table and expect to get what we want – far from it. We are NOT, however, a miniscule voice in the wilderness. Outside of a company’s own message boards, we’re the free conduit of feedback. I’m sure it’s an overwhelming volume of feedback at times, but I’d say it’s a lot more informative than a survey card or a poll.
That came out a lot longer than I intended. No salvos in the Edition Wars, no asking “can’t we all just get along?” – just asking that we not be so dismissive of our peers’ opinions or the collective weight that our voice carries. After one of the most frustrating work weeks in my life from working to prevent the "perception/reality" issue from killing a project, reading through some of the threads tonight struck a nerve, I suppose. Let's not forget that while we want our RPG products, the publishers need us to buy them.
See, the symbiotic nature of capitalism works for more than just mega-corps!
