EN World GameStore Closing

[Mark CMG]

Good to hear from you, John Nephew.

OBS

Hmmm. What an unfortunate acronym.

 

[jgbrowning]

Over the past couple of years, a lot of publishers were persuaded by an argument like this: "Why not use DTRPG as well as RPGNow? Sure, we get less money from each sale," they said, "but it's extra money for no extra effort!"

-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games

John,

Thanks for the good post. The only reason I used DTRP and sites other than rpgnow.com was to ensure that I wouldn't be overly vulnerable to internet business risks.

For example, if rpgnow.com was hacked by a good hacker and James couldn't figure out how to fix it for a week or so, I wouldn't loose all my revenue stream. None of the other sites produced more than 20% of my total PDF revenue and I didn't care to much about that because they were my "back ups".

On a side note, you, and others including myself are being quoted here:
http://www.onebookshelf.com/aboutus.html

John Nephew, President of Atlas Games:
"OBS serves our needs in two key ways: First, by allowing us to keep key products available to fans of our games without investing in a reprint; and second, of course, by giving us cash flow from out of print titles."

I'm pretty damn certain you didn't say that about OBS and I'm pretty damn certain nobody else said anything about them either. I think it's indicitive of the larger picture in this merger.

joe b.

 

[djdurant]

Moving from 25% to 35% is an increase of 40%. I won't be losing 40% of my profits. I'll be losing around 9-10% of my profits, however the new site will gain 40% more profit from me simply by raising their fee.

I don't understand why a weighted fee wasn't used. Actually I do. A weighted fee wouldn't result in a 40% increase in the new site's income the day of launch compared to the older site's. It would result in maintaining the same income while also benefitting from the merger's economy of scale (one site down from two). And under that, any "new growth" this site is supposed to create above and beyond the growth experienced by DTRPG and rpgnow.com independantly would be immediatly passed on to the publishers and the site would make more as well from the increased traffic.

Using a weighted fee I would bepaying 27% across rpgnow.com and DTRPG. The 9% vrs. 7% descrepancy comes from notincluding ENGamestore in the math.

If they wanted to charge me 3% for the larger site access (and I'm not sure about that because I already am at all the sites, so I don't know what "additional" access I'm getting) and for the convience factor I wouldn't be too adverse to such a thing.

Let's be realistic. James and Steve are going to probably make at least 20% more from this site simply by taking the profits out of the publishers hands. I'm talking about $20,000 or more over a year's period.

The products I've already uploaded aren't going to save me any time, are probably not going to have more people look at them since I was on all three sites, but they're going to make me about 9-10% less per sale now.

joe b.

Simple solution to your problem...don't sell at rpgnow or dtrpg or OBS... then exactly how much would you be making in sales/profits?

You can complain and cry about how things have turned out, but this was a business decision made by a business for the...wait for it...benefit of that business.

As a customer this rocks! One store front, one point of purchase, and consolidated catalog.

I've operated in a fluid business environment where decisions outside my control had major impact in how I operated. What I did to stay profitable was to adapt, overcome, and realize sometimes I had to change how I operated to take advantage of new situations. Change happens. Complaining, whining, and coming off as less than professional in a public forum doesn't change the reality of the situation.

 

[jgbrowning]

As a customer this rocks! One store front, one point of purchase, and consolidated catalog.

I don't think customers are going to be pleased by increased prices on many of the products that are the direct result of James and Steve conducting the merger in the manner they are presenting. There are positive results of this merger for the customers, but there are also negative ones. Saying "shut up or get out" isn't productive nor polite and both James and Steve know that.

I've operated in a fluid business environment where decisions outside my control had major impact in how I operated. What I did to stay profitable was to adapt, overcome, and realize sometimes I had to change how I operated to take advantage of new situations. Change happens. Complaining, whining, and coming off as less than professional in a public forum doesn't change the reality of the situation.

If you think I'm coming off as less than professional, I'm sorry. I'm not behaving poorly. I personally know James, Steve, Gareth (we hit it of very well at GTS), Phil, and John and my points are germane to the situation. They are merely pointing out those who are fiscally gaining from the merger and those who are funding much of that gain at their loss.

I'm also providing a solution that would make the new site's relationship with their publishers less acrimonious and adversarial by suggesting a weighted royalty fee and postulating a slight increase in fees to cover the additional benefits of the site. This is constructive criticism and is considered professional.

I was professional when I railed into Steve concerning his use of exclusivity and DRM and pointing out it's flaws and hinderances both for the publishers and the customers and I'm being professional now by pointing out the flaws and hinderances with this merger to both his customers and his publisher customers. My actions concerning exclusivity and DRM, because they were professional, didn't damage my and Steve's relationship. I signed up with his company as soon as he didn't require esclusivity and DRM. I probably didn't have much to do with his decision, but perhaps something I said made sense to him and he changed his opinion.

And as Steve and James are businessmen looking out for their business, I'd like to think they are at least mulling over my ideas, because they may be better ones than the ones they thought of. They may not be, but to not say them at all would definitely serve no purpose.

joe b.

 

[Urizen]

No, he didn't. He said "we publishers", implying that he was speaking as a publisher. When in fact, he's an employee of RPGNow as well as a publisher.

This is important because you have him in direct conflict with another actual publisher, who doesn't seem nearly as happy.

Which one is more credible? I'm not saying that him working for RPGNow makes him a "shill", to use his word, but he should have identified himself as such before commenting on a thread like this, IMHO.

I'm not trying to put anyone in direct conflict with anyone else.

I think both publishers have credibility. The only real difference here is that one person doesn't have major issues, and another does.

Do both issues have merit? Of course they do. But you seemed to imply Gareth was playing the role of a Shill (to use your word) because he handles customer service for rpgnow.

Please. Gareth is a Publisher - a full time publisher mind you - So how does his situation differ from any other publisher on DTRPG or RPGNOW?

Why should Gareth identify himself? He's well known. It's not like Adamant is small potatoes. To the best of my knowledge he doesn't hide the fact that he does customer service for rpgnow.

Or maybe not. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I could speculate that this is simply a plot by White Wolf (the owners of DTRPG, or rather, the same person owns both) to drive out the competition by making it unprofitable for the little guys to compete...

Well I think that there is entirely too much conspiracy theory going on about this issue, but hey, I'm just a small publisher trying to get by and learn this business.

Maybe you're right about the whole thing.

 

[Khuxan]

Sorry, what are 'weighted' royalty fees?

It seems to me the people who are suffering most from this is Dreamscarred Press, who signed up for all three vendors and are now gaining access to only one. But few publishers seem very happy with the change. Even if a monopoly can provide short-term cuts in prices, greater market saturation, and so on, it is very easily abusable.

 

[jgbrowning]

Sorry, what are 'weighted' royalty fees?

It's something that I think would be a good idea. A weighted royalty would determine the amount of vendor fees I'm paying over all the sites currently. That number could remain constant during the merger—there's no need for an increase, nor a decrease.

I'm paying 25% at one site and 35% at other. However the higher fee site only accounts for roughly 22% of my total sales volume. If I add everyone together and to do some math I'm really paying a (roughly) 27% vendor's fee to the site that sells my product per sale, regardless of what site sold it.

I'd like to be charged a 27% vendor fee when the merger occurs. I'd be fine to pay a few points more (up to 2-3 or so) out of good faith that the new site is actually going to grow at a faster proprotional speed than the old sites did while independant.

If a weighted fee happened, I wouldn't raise my PDF prices, I'd ride it out, trust in Steve and James to deliver their promised increase in sales and move on.

I'm not given that option. I'm going to have to accept a 35% royalty rate on all my sales. I am not happy with that, and don't think it is beneficial to the publisher or the customers who buy PDF. It's only beneficial to the site owners. I'd like them to realize that we're business parters and that instead of it being an opportunity to move money from my pocket to theirs, they could view this as an opportunity to increase the money in all of our pockets by continuing the historical growth trends of both rpgnow.com and DTRPG and only increase my fees proportionate to the amount of additional benefits thay are bringing to the equation as opposed to the additional power they're bringing by owning 90% of the PDF market.

joe b.

 

[Roudi]

But few publishers seem very happy with the change.

You're seeing the result of a common ENWorld phenomenon, the "vocal minority."

Quite a few publishers are happy with the merger, some are even excited by the opportunities it provides. Many have voiced their approval on RPGNow's private publisher forum, which is where any debates on this matter really should have stayed.


As for Mr. Browning: some publisher's prices may increase. Some may not (they may chose simply to "eat the loss" of the increased rate). Explaining to people a "price increase" which may or may not happen on a per publisher basis is really bad form.

Also, when you joined RPGNow, you signed an agreement. I seem to recall (although I may possibly be mistaken) that certain terms of that agreement, including royalty rates, were subject to change with 30 days notice. Well, if that is a part of the agreement, then RPGNow and DTRPG has remained true to that agreement. You consented to this possibility when you became an RPGNow publisher.

On a personal note, I have a very hard time sympathizing with your "loss" when considering your overall annual profit (which is more than I have ever made annually, in any job). If the loss of $82 a month truly puts you in financial jeopardy, then I do sympathize, as this is a situation I know all too well. But if your only issue is a 9% loss of income, of a five-figure annual income, then I feel no pity.

Business changes. Markets change, trends rise and fall, obstacles emerge, and opportunities open. XRP has demonstrated its ability to adapt and succeed... just look at your recent entry into the OSRIC system. The new merged site is a change in the way you do business, nothing more.

I apologize if any unprofessional remarks above are found to be offensive. I regret the offence, but not the telling; they needed to be said.

 

[Baumi]

As a customer, I am very happy about merging the sites ... this means I don't have to look at different sites and therefore will check for new products more often, which also means that I will not miss an interesting product as easily as before.

By the way ... will the old exclusive products also be cross-listet and will the reviews also be merged (that would be fantastic)?

 

[Twin Rose]

Very few publishers, even those listed on more than one site, always did their links to one PDF site and not included one to each... Or even a link to the one which they paid the lowest royalty at. By the simple nature of them doing this, they essentially cast their vote of, "I want to make all my sales on one site, regardless of how much more I pay."

Obviously, it's not that simple, but it does basically boil down to that. This seemed to be what most publishers wanted, and they were given plenty of opportunities to try and make more money per sale, but really didn't capitalize on it. My products were selling for 0% comission on ENGS, obviously, and now I'm going to be paying 35% comission... Campaign Suite Extended sells for $34.95 a pop, and was in the top 10 products at ENGS. I'm definately going to be feeling this from that stand point.

But, this will give me lots of time to work on CS2, which is going to more than make up for it, I'm sure I certainly was spending a lot more time on ENGS that was a detriment to my business, so I think it'll be good in the long run. I'm also doing what I can to make sure the new site(s) are a success.