Amerco-Centricism

[Dextra]

I've always known that a large portion of the English print RPG industry seemed to be dominated by US concerns, and it's brought up some questions for me, (especially since the majority of my products are electronic, hence truly international).

Is there justification for this? Certainly there are more companies represented in the US, but is the market that much larger?
If so, can we attribute part of this due to a lack of availability of product and marketting in other countries?

Spelling: here at Ambient (Canadian), we use the Queen's English. Does this bother our American friends? I never stopped to think about it, but do non-Commonwealth countries tend to use American or Queen's English?

Page size: this is a concern for us PDF publishers- I never knew that 21cm paper was easier to get for printers. When we assemble our printer-friendly version of our books, I think we'll consider a 21cm page width. What length should we be looking at?

Conventions: don't seem to be much in the way of conventions here in Canada, or certainly not at the scale of those in the US. Is there really that much lack of interest from fandom? Publishers?

Distributors: I'm pretty certain Osseum doesn't even look at Canuck booktrade (let alone, say Europpean). Why not?

Whoops, time to go- have to drive the kids to school, wake up Jake, and then publish a book, get ready for a wedding, and drive to the city. Have a good weekend all, I look forward to your comments.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I can't answer your question for sure, but the US does have, literally, 10 times the population of Canada, and I'm guessing at least twice the population of the UK.

 

[annadobritt]

Dextra raises some interesting questions, not just for publishers, but for freelancers as well.

When writing for a company based in Canada or the UK, which type of spelling should be used in the writing?

Another question, do those who buy the products really notice the difference in spelling?

Being in the United States, and when reading a sourcebook or adventure, when I come across a spelling using the Queen's English, I automatically accept it and move on. Not sure about the rest of the US gamers out there. As long as the spelling is correct, it doesn't matter which form is used.

Getting word out about your product is a chore. Just have to keep plugging away or find someone who is excellent at PR work.

Page size for pdfs, that's a tough one. Something that I'm going to have to deal with soon. Although there is an option in Acrobat Reader to select for Shrink Oversized Pages to Paper Size, so maybe it's not really an issue.

Can't answer the questions concerning conventions or distribution, sorry.

 

[Ranger REG]

Anyone who has read Tolkien or intelligent enough to know that there are two types of standard English (American and Queen's) can accept them both. I'm sure Warhammer fans in the US don't mind if UK-based Games Workshop is publishing the popular fantasy miniatures combat rules.

The same goes for Mongoose Publishing when their Quintessential, Slayer's Guide, Judge Dredd, and Slaine products line up on the US store shelves.

 

[thg jim]

I can't answer your question for sure, but the US does have, literally, 10 times the population of Canada, and I'm guessing at least twice the population of the UK.

I'm sure you mean all of Europe, not just the UK. And, yes, the US market is huge.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I'm sure you mean all of Europe, not just the UK. And, yes, the US market is huge.

No, I meant the UK, because I assumed he meant predominantly English-speaking areas. I have no idea what percentage of Europe is Englsih-speaking. I know it's a good percentage, but I don't know enough to make a decent guess.

Just from what I know, I'd guess the US market is at least equal to, if not greater than, the rest of the world market combined (and note I'm talking about RPGs specifically, nothing else). A further, bigger guess is that the US market dwarfs the rest of the world RPG market combined. I'd like to see the statistics, if anyone can provide them - I did a study of the scifi market (nothing fancy, really) and was surprised at how dominant the US was in it. So this stuff interests me.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I'm sure you mean all of Europe, not just the UK. And, yes, the US market is huge.

Oh, I think I see what you mean. The US has about 280 million people. I think Europe, combined, has much more than that. I don't have my almanac handy, though.

 

[thg jim]

Yeah, I was just taking a guess at the figures as well. The actual numbers are the US with approx. 281 million and all of Europe having 728 million. The UK has 60 million. My bad.

 

[Fiery James]

Another Canadian company

Speaking as another Canadian d20 publisher:

FDP decided early on to go with American-spelling and sizing (although it's mostly the same as Canadian rather than European). The reason was the immense size of the American market. Our stuff has done well outside the US -- we've heard from a number of fans in Germany (thanks to Selganor, I'm betting!) and Australia, not to mention Claudio's friends...

But the numbers we do in the US usually account for anywhere from 60% to 80% of our total. Now, this may be vastly different with PDF since it's a lot easier to get the product....

As far as Canada goes, as much as I want to support my own back yard, there just doesn't seem to be the infrastructure or demand that you can find in the US.

When we first started, we did a mailout for our third release to *Every* game or comic store in the country. We increased our Candian sales by 400%. Those numbers were still a fraction of what was done in the US with virtually no promotion. It's a population thing -- the US just has so many more people that you'll always sell 10 times as much there...

Well, that was me rambling, anyway...

- James

 

[jmucchiello]

Spelling: here at Ambient (Canadian), we use the Queen's English. Does this bother our American friends? I never stopped to think about it, but do non-Commonwealth countries tend to use American or Queen's English?

I don't think anyone from either side of the English language would care just as long as it was consistant. When working with freelancers you might have to be careful that you "translate" any American spellings into Brittish spelligs. But that shouldn't be too hard in fantasy games.

Now d20 Modern games raise a whole lot of other problems such as lift vs elevator, flat vs apartment, petrol vs gas, etc.

Page size: this is a concern for us PDF publishers- I never knew that 21cm paper was easier to get for printers. When we assemble our printer-friendly version of our books, I think we'll consider a 21cm page width. What length should we be looking at?

Um, no, 21cm (or A4) size paper is impossible (well difficult really) to find in the US. Letter size is 8.5 in (22+cm) x 11 in (28cm) whereas A4 paper is a little narrower and a little taller (8.27 in x 11.69 in). There is no good way to deal with this. Acrobat Reader has a stretch/shrink to fit option when it prints and I think you might as well rely on it.

Otherwise you A4 formatted page will have large right margins and run off the end of the standard letter page in America.

On the other hand, I had a far more sales all around the world than I expected and no one has written to me to complain about my pages being letter formatted. Hmm.

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com