DriveThruRPG Exclusivity

[Kosala]

For some products, yes. But I think the prices depend on teh publisher. As I looked through, I found hte prices for print products from Sword and Sorcery and Sovereign Stone to be very reasonable--about half price in general. For example, Age of Mortals, the print version of which retails at $40, sells at $20.

I think the publishers themselves decide the prices. Hopefully, some of them will come down a bit.

You are right of course. My apolagies about that mis-statement, the pricing is indeed set by the publisher and therefore cannot be taken as a negative reflection upon DriveThruRPG. Quite right.

 

[Fiery James]

Hey! Did FDP become one of the "elite publishers" when I wasn't looking?

Wow, cool.

Let me just add that, in our dealings with RPGNow, we always found them to be professional and efficient. The text in the press release should not be taken as a shot against that crew, at least insofar as FDP is concerned.

- James

 

[Bloodstone Press]

Hey! Did FDP become one of the "elite publishers" when I wasn't looking?

I don't know. Have you not been looking?

Yeah, I think FDP is among the upper levels of the hierarchy. You were mentioned in the business plan I wrote back in 2001. Although I haven't bought any FDP products, I have heard plenty of good things about them. I would consider you to be in the same boat as Monte and Necromancer Games. Being part of the DTRPG brouhaha only adds to that perception.



Note, I'm not spiteful or bitter about any of this, as some people here seem to be. If this is a good move for you, than I'm happy for you. If not, then I'll be happy to see you and Monte and the others come back to RPGnow.

Really, what I'd like to see happen in the future is for DTRPG to come off the exclusivity clause in their contract so their vendors can still sell on other sites. They need to come up with some other sort of added value besides DRM to appeal to more vendors (if that is their plan).

Perhaps you can explain more about your decision to switch to them. (granted, I haven't read your press release on the subject yet, I'll do that right now)

Also, perhaps you can tell us more about the origin of the "unprofessional" comment in the press releases?

@ The Mad Kaiser: It's not that bad, man. And Monte's not a snake. He's doing what he thinks is right for one thing, and for another he has a business agreement with S&S already anyway. So there is probably a constellation of reasons why he made the decision to go with DTRPG.

 

[Fiery James]

I don't know. Have you not been looking?

Yeah, I think FDP is among the upper levels of the hierarchy. You were mentioned in the business plan I wrote back in 2001. Although I haven't bought any FDP products, I have heard plenty of good things about them. I would consider you to be in the same boat as Monte and Necromancer Games. Being part of the DTRPG brouhaha only adds to that perception.

Well, then, from a publicity stand point, this has really paid off for us! (Before the shouting starts, I said "publicity" as opposed to "PR"! )
Being compared to Necromancer and Malhavoc is a big accomplishment for us. There was a time when it was easier to lump us in that category -- back when we had our publishing deal with Sword & Sorcery -- but since we've been on our own, we've been pretty content to live a smaller-scale existence focusing on d20 Accessories, and now, mini-games. I feel honored to be mentioned in your business plan, though. We started as 3 dudes sitting around a kitchen table, and now we're 6 dudes e-mailin eachother every few days, but we're still a small company in any terms. (Of course, most RPG companies are).

In terms of PDF sales, if everyone who voted YES on this poll
bought a PDF, we'd triple or quadruple our sales. We were not one of the big revenue generators on RPGNow, by any means.

Note, I'm not spiteful or bitter about any of this, as some people here seem to be. If this is a good move for you, than I'm happy for you. If not, then I'll be happy to see you and Monte and the others come back to RPGnow.

Really, what I'd like to see happen in the future is for DTRPG to come off the exclusivity clause in their contract so their vendors can still sell on other sites. They need to come up with some other sort of added value besides DRM to appeal to more vendors (if that is their plan).

Perhaps you can explain more about your decision to switch to them. (granted, I haven't read your press release on the subject yet, I'll do that right now)

I think DTRPG will be watching and evaluating the numbers very closely over the next weeks and months, and decisions will be based on sales figures rather than message board posts. Don't get me wrong -- I think that this may be providing valuable feedback and letting people express their opinions, but if, at the end of the day, everyone's sales hold steady, then a lot of arguments against DTRPG lose a lot of weight. If the messageboard reaction does translate into lost sales, then you'll likely see some reevaluation of things.

As for why we're there -- well, first off, our business at RPGNow was pretty thin. Up until this point, we've always treated PDFs as an ancillary business, and haven't really focused on them at all. We tried to get something started earlier, but it didn't quite work out. So, now we're seriously thinking about doing some projects specifically for PDF or with print-and-pdf releases planned, and if you were trying to figure out which horse to hitch your wagon to, and one site had WW, FFG, Malhavoc, Necromancer -- isn't that a good indicator that something is going on?

We'll have to see what develops!

- James

 

[The Mad Kaiser]

The Mad Kaiser: It's not that bad, man. And Monte's not a snake. He's doing what he thinks is right for one thing, and for another he has a business agreement with S&S already anyway. So there is probably a constellation of reasons why he made the decision to go with DTRPG.

I know I sound really snarky and snotty, and I know that many geeks like to keep a European-style diplomacy-at-all-costs attitude (sometimes it's hard to make new friends). This is a good policy when debating the proper way to say wyvern. It is a bad policy when you are being stabbed in the face.

The truth is, the Malhavoc people have yet to give a satifactory reason why they would abandon RPGNow for DTRPG. Every statement made, for both them and other publishers, has disintegrated in the light of day, easily crushed by the most basic logic.

So they are basically lying by omission, unwilling to tell us the true reasons. And why would they do this? Why would anyone hide the truth? Because the truth is so ugly as to repulse customers. Is it the truth to say that Malhavoc was tired of being associated with 'lowly' indie presses? Were they desperate to attract 'real' publishers to pdf, making them feel less marginal? Do they really believe their lagging sales are the result of piracy, or that DRM will stop piracy? Or did they just use these lies to placate the cowardly print-publishers?

As the late, great Ron Reagan said: "Cures were developed for which there were no known diseases."

This garbage-heap will fail, because (at least American) role-players don't like being dictated to by organizations, and they don't like to rent when they can buy. The pdfs will continue to be traded on p2p, and the prodigal slime will come crawling back.

*whew*

Man, can my soapbox get any higher?

EDIT
A thought occurs to me; since DTRPG and Malhavoc fall under the WW umbrella, is DTRPG charging no commision for Malhavoc pdfs? That would be a GREAT (greedy) reason to switch...

 

[mearls]

Hey all,

I just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know that we're listening to all the feedback here. I think that a lot of people are a bit surprised by the backlash against DRM technology - it's all relatively new, and there's plenty of issues to consider about it.

Anyway, we're listening. I'm also reading the threads on the main forum and taking notes as appropriate.

 

[Piratecat]

Thanks for that, Mike. There's a lot of rhetoric, but underneath it are some very real concerns that will drive away sales. I'm glad you guys are considering them.

(Incidentally, check your email -- I sent you something.)

 

[Cergorach]

I just wanted to drop a quick note to let you know that we're listening to all the feedback here. I think that a lot of people are a bit surprised by the backlash against DRM technology - it's all relatively new, and there's plenty of issues to consider about it.

THUD!

*the sound of mr.c's jaw dropping on the floor*

Your kidding right, or being sarcastic or something.Please say yes! There are actually people that are suprised by the amount of negativity regarding DRM on rpg products? Please let me know who those people are, then i can make a new list "game designers that actually life in the fantasy world they design"...

Sorry, but if there was done any research beyond the corporate dribble DRM selling companies gave, then it should be obvious that most of the non-corporate computer literate consumers absolutely hate the idea of DRM.

 

[Steve Wieck]

Vendors and DriveThru
For vendors and publishers I am unclear on DriveThru's policies. I have been trying to get them to answer me on what policies and procedures need to be adhered to as a vendor selling PDFs there but no clear answer has been forthcoming. Its possible that they expect all vendors to sign exclusivity deals to agree to sell there, but I am as yet unsure of this. When I contacted them about it they asked me to send in sample pages of one of our upcoming PDFs for "approval"

Just to keep debunking misinformation here. Kosala and I have traded a couple e-mails about DriveThruRPG.com's publisher terms and no where in those e-mails did I use the word "approval" as Kosala would indicate in his quoted message above.

Just as I know James at RPGNow does, we would naturally want to review material for legal-pornogrpahy reasons as well as to make sure we're not loading up vaporware products. That's not the same thing in my mind as "approval".

DriveThruRPG.com did not approach pdf-only publishers prior to our launch for a couple reasons 1) Too busy to take on the additional publisher clients and provide any level of service and 2) We have no enimity for James and RPGNow and feel no compulsion to aggressively compete with his great business by aggressively pursruing his whole publisher base and redundantly offering them to the market. (If we had done so, we'd probably now be enjoying posts about "beating up on the little-guy pioneer" instead of posts about being "elitist").

When we are prepared to take on and properly service more publishers we will make the type of terms Kosala (and others here have discussed in posts) available for publishers to review. There's not much point in our taking on more publishers if we can't treat them properly. It's not being elitist it's being realistic.

Finally, while James did mention to me back in January that he used the OSCommerce for his site and would recommend it, we had already selected that software ourselves. James has been very helpful and we continue to explore ways that RPGNow and DriveThruRPG can raise awareness of the benefits of electronic rpgs so that all boats rise with the tide.

Steve

 

[Conaill]

So Steve... care to comment on that "first completely professional" claim in the press release? That sure seems to have ruffled a lot of feathers...

Also, are you planning to track the effectiveness of your DRM protection by, say, scanning Kazaa? Haven't looked, but I wouldn't be surprised if a cracked version of your free demos was already available!