Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wild Gazebo" data-source="post: 6020690" data-attributes="member: 24413">Ryan,First off, I would like to disclaim my comments with the fact that I hope you are successful and I think it would be great if the hobby grew.I followed a banner ad to your Kickstarter.  As a 33 year veteran of tabletop role playing games, an active member of my community, and a successful business person I could not fathom spending $1 on your Kickstarter.  I had to stop and ask myself 'why is that?'  It seems to have all of the right ingredients for something I would normally support.  This is what I reflected on:It seems poorly planned and tersely put together.  I see no viable outlet for the sheer number of prints, I see no demand for the product, and I see no mechanism to promote the demand for the product.  Similarly, I think you have seriously misjudged the reason for the decline of product sales. There is no absence of availability in the RPG market.  There is a large amount of product with a large range of cost and quality.  There is a low amount of traditional promotion based on the niche market it represents...not a lack of effort.  A tabletop RPG represents a quality product:  not an impulse item.  Meaning it isn't disposable and it surely isn't a purchase that will happen simply because it is there.  It isn't salt, or water, or coffee...the supply doesn't dictate the revenue:  it is purely demand.  So, you want to create demand:  I don't see a 32pg d6 game that no one asked for increasing demand in the RPG market.$50-$100 is not too much for initiation.  Simply look at the video game market.  The fact is, people aren't playing as many board games, kids aren't playing with as many toys, and virtual environments are replacing more traditional social interactions.  While many would like to spend less, and it can be a stumbling block, 3-6 people can easily share the books--thereby curbing the cost.  What it can't do is compete with online and console games...it needs to be a separate market highlighting the significant differences, strengths and weaknesses, so that you can create demand through quality products...that people want.Kids read more today than they did in the 80s.  They just read differently and interact differently.  You need to tailor your marketing to the way kids think and react...not to how you think they should.  The influx of a pamphlet on role playing games will be received in the same way a pamphlet on colon health would be:  not very well.  What is it about your D6 game that appeals to contemporary kids...and it can't be the quick rules and ease of play because that is something only a current gamer would care about.  Don't you see?  That only means something if you have already played a game that was too long or complicated for you to begin with.  You don't think D&D lost some first time buyers in the 70s and 80s because it was too long and confusing right off the hop?  It was successful because it was new and relevant in its time...not because they printed a million copies.Yes, there is a current of immediacy in young consumers currently; but, the difference is between the immediate results of a video game versus the protracted result of a role playing game:  changing 300pgs to 32pgs won't change that.  That is why you should market them very differently.I think you quite possibly have a great product here; but, your pseudo-altruism is bound to fail in this capacity.  You would be far more successful developing a network of like-minded people who make concerted efforts at recruitment.  Carefully solicit the integration of product into readily available media sources...and then slowly work the idea of role playing games into a popular undercurrent of a chic underclass; thereby giving it a new flux of interest and visibility.  Then...then introduce a solid, accessible, product that speaks to the people you are trying to sell it to...making reference to the media that spawned its new interest.Lastly, focus...just plain focus.  What do you have, what are you selling, why do I want it, and how do I get it?  This Kickstarter is a rambling mess of hopes and dreams sprawled over a history lesson sprinkled with some hints of a product and some namedropping of future product.  Focus.  I have no ambition to even read the Kickstarter let along contribute to it.  I'm sure you want to cover your bases but you are soliciting people for $45 000!!! People need to know you can be trusted with that kind of money.  A rambling post on a casual idea of perhaps kickstarting a slumping retail industry (but with a vital online industry...just look at kickstarter) by flooding...I have no idea how and where you will distribute...with 32pg pamphlets doesn't inspire people.I think some regrouping is in order.  Again, I do wish you success, and pray that the RPG industry grows and remains strong; but, I just had to say something...and I couldn't do it on the Kickstarter unless I contributed.</blockquote>

Verification