Comparing products

[Man-thing]

What will the complete item cards cover?

 

[Cergorach]

1.) Your product was far from original, people have been using cards to write gaming material on for many, many years. Be they spells, monsters/npcs, items, initiative, actions, etc. TSR did it many years ago, people talked about it on these forums before you made yours available. Not to mention the use of OGC.
2.) Your products are both Monster Cards in pdf, but both look quite differently, your cards are smaller, but their cards look clearer (i don't actually know if that's true, but that's my first impression). These might be similar products, but they could fill different gaps in the market. Some people might not like your cards, others might not like theirs. It's like cars, some like a ford station car, others an audi sation car, it's all about taste.
3.) Don't be suprised when someone else learns from both of you and produces another similar product, maybe at a better price (free is always a possibility)...

 

[ronpurvis]

1.) Your product was far from original, people have been using cards to write gaming material on for many, many years. Be they spells, monsters/npcs, items, initiative, actions, etc. TSR did it many years ago, people talked about it on these forums before you made yours available. Not to mention the use of OGC.
2.) Your products are both Monster Cards in pdf, but both look quite differently, your cards are smaller, but their cards look clearer (i don't actually know if that's true, but that's my first impression). These might be similar products, but they could fill different gaps in the market. Some people might not like your cards, others might not like theirs. It's like cars, some like a ford station car, others an audi sation car, it's all about taste.
3.) Don't be suprised when someone else learns from both of you and produces another similar product, maybe at a better price (free is always a possibility)...

That seems to me to be the real answer. I personally love the idea that is behind the cards but don't really like the way either of them is implemented. That is just my personal desire that the product be handled differently based on the way that my campaigns run. Someday someone might offer a version that does what I want and then I would be willing to pay for it.

Until then I would like to make a suggestion or two. Point out to the customer your biggest advantage: price. If I have to go print them myself for both companies, the only real differnces are style and price. Since you can't control style at this point, make sure the potential customers know the difference in price.

Second, one of the biggest problems with the cards from your company that I see is size. For those of us that don't see as well as we would like, the size is an issue. I don't know if you would consider a larger size card that would be easier to read, but I would certainly like the product better. I have also discussed it with the guys in my main campaign last month and they all agreed that the cards were too small for their taste.

 

[Flyspeck23]

1.) Your product was far from original, people have been using cards to write gaming material on for many, many years. Be they spells, monsters/npcs, items, initiative, actions, etc. TSR did it many years ago, people talked about it on these forums before you made yours available. Not to mention the use of OGC.
2.) Your products are both Monster Cards in pdf, but both look quite differently, your cards are smaller, but their cards look clearer (i don't actually know if that's true, but that's my first impression). These might be similar products, but they could fill different gaps in the market. Some people might not like your cards, others might not like theirs. It's like cars, some like a ford station car, others an audi sation car, it's all about taste.
3.) Don't be suprised when someone else learns from both of you and produces another similar product, maybe at a better price (free is always a possibility)...

1.) I know.
2.) Right.
3.) I won't be. (Although I know the kind of work involved (unless the process could be made automatic in some way - but that'd come with it's own problems), so free is a little low. You could as well ask for all PDFs to be free.)

But all that is beside the point. Again, I'm not mad at tGM or anything. Heck, their (blank) initiative cards are older than the CMC.
So what are you trying to tell me?

Point out to the customer your biggest advantage: price.

And the fact that you need to print less than half the number of pages to have cards for all basic creatures. Not as big an advantage, but an advantage no less. So the size of our cards are not just a problem - IMHO at least.

But should or even could I do that - compare the products directly? Basically, that's all I'm asking.

 

[ronpurvis]

3.) I won't be. (Although I know the kind of work involved (unless the process could be made automatic in some way - but that'd come with it's own problems), so free is a little low. You could as well ask for all PDFs to be free.)

Linux is free and it took more work than probally all the comercial D20 pdfs combined. How much work is involved is not a quarantee of whther it will be free or not. THere are a lot of SRD related tools that are free. Others are not free. You can't stop producing, improving, or marketing a product just because something that competes with it might or might not be free.

And the fact that you need to print less than half the number of pages to have cards for all basic creatures. Not as big an advantage, but an advantage no less. So the size of our cards are not just a problem - IMHO at least.

To me it is a disadvantage and not an advantage. Others may see it differently but I find the small size to be more difficult to read and more of a problem to line up when you flip the page. THere is no real savings on ink because your cards have a greater percentage of ink coverage of each page. The only real savings is number of pages that you have to flip over. That savings is only realized if the printed sheet comes out ok. From my experience and those of people who wrote other reviews that is a problem with your sheets. THat removes the advantage entirely in my view. Of course this problem depends a lot on the the printer that the customer has. A printer that is older and doesn't feed as reliably is going to have the biggest problem. After switching to a newer printer, I didn't have as much of a problem.

But should or even could I do that - compare the products directly? Basically, that's all I'm asking.

Of course you should compare them in my opinion. If you don't show the consumer why they should buy your product, they will continue to get alot of the sales from people who know their company better, instead of you getting the sale.

 

[Cergorach]

3.) I won't be. (Although I know the kind of work involved (unless the process could be made automatic in some way - but that'd come with it's own problems), so free is a little low. You could as well ask for all PDFs to be free.)

It can be made automatic, the easiest/neatest way would be in Indesign, but i prefer a more dynamic aproach. Namely a webapplication that generates a pdf from userinput (the user decides what and how the pages are generated), using php and mysql (FPDF is a very kewl php library). I'm not asking for anything, i'm saying that while your cheaper then tGM, others can be cheaper then you, having this whole discussion all over again....

But all that is beside the point. Again, I'm not mad at tGM or anything. Heck, their (blank) initiative cards are older than the CMC.
So what are you trying to tell me?

Stop bitching and continue reading. ;-) Whoops wrong thread! *grins*
Seriously, i'm trying to point out that your not the only fish in the ocean, and that while you might all be fish, your all different fish with your own distinct personalities. And that while you say that you don't have a problem with tGM, your posts radiate a different reality, understandable, but unrealistic.

And the fact that you need to print less than half the number of pages to have cards for all basic creatures. Not as big an advantage, but an advantage no less. So the size of our cards are not just a problem - IMHO at least.

While i partially agree, i think that many folk will only print what they need at time, so that means if they need x amount of monsters they will most likely print x amount of pages and in your case wind up with less clear info on a card then with the tGM cards for the same amount of prints, wasting a lot of ink on cards they'll not use.

I also prefer the poker sized cards for most monsters, but i can see the advantages of using larger cards for more complex monsters...

But should or even could I do that - compare the products directly? Basically, that's all I'm asking.

I think that kind of depends in which country you live, in america you can pull that off in a commercial, here in the netherlands you cannot (otherwise you'll have the commercial code commision breathing down your neck and that usually means hefty fines). You comparing the products would be nothing short of it being a commercial. Now, if you could confince one of the staff reviewers to make the review/comparison... I personally wouldn't put much stock in a comparison between the two products (not from you, nor from the tGM), to much personal infolvement.