EN World GameStore Closing

[HinterWelt]

It's nice to see a vigorous thread.

As I have mostly been focusing on the dedicated publisher forum that we have for OneBookShelf publishers and on private e-mails from some publsiher partners, I regret I'm a late-comer to this thread.

Steve Wieck
OneBookShelf

What?!?!? I have been signed up with your service for over a year. You have a publisher forum? Can I have in or is that moot now?

Bill

 

[JohnNephew]

Based on the post I seen from the owner of OBS, I would be incline to think that they are not going to change their policy so why debate it?

I agree that OBS is unlikely to change their policy. The sent out terms, not an offer inviting a counteroffer. However, there are several reasons that it's worth debating what is going on, whether it is a good thing, and how things could be done differently, and to do so in a public forum.

For one, as a publisher who has decided to decline the new terms of business at OBS, it is in my interests to encourage other publishers to keep their options open and to actively support other sites. Because of the value of competition for the future of this market, I think it is also in the interests of those publishers and consumers as well.

For another, some of the ideas that are proposed -- for example, suggestions I've made about the extra money being available to the publishers as a credit that they could devote to their own marketing through the PDF vendor (e.g., your extra 5% or 10% builds up in an "account" that can be spent on banner ads that would direct customers specifically to your products on the vendor's site -- generating profit for vendor and publisher); or the idea of switching a wholesale price rather than discount-off-MSRP structure -- may not be of interest to OBS right now, but may be seen and adopted by other market participants, as a competitive way to distinguish themselves from OBS.

After all, the fact that RPGNow offered PDFs *without* DRM quickly forced DTRPG to change their tune quickly from being all-DRM. (Heck, at the outset the high cost of DRM was one of the justifications for DTRPG taking a much bigger cut than RPGNow.) If RPGNow wasn't present as a thriving competitor and proof of success without implementing a DRM scheme, DTRPG might have been much slower to respond to consumer demand on this topic (if it ever did), which would have meant slower growth and less money for their own publishers. It's one thing to say, "We think you should change this policy, which you used a cornerstone of your business plan, on the theory that it will make your customers happier and not hurt you." It's far more persuasive to say, "Your competitor does things this way and the sky isn't falling and their customers love it, why can't you do it that way too?" It's a lot harder for a company to brush off feedback of the second variety.

 

[Morrus]

As an observer, I feel that a 1-day notice that a publisher's online store will be taking a bigger cut of the pie is extremely bad form. I don't get to see what happens behind the scenes, but it seems like the three largest PDF selling sites just said, "Take it or leave it" to their vendors, and their merger gives them the muscle to make most of them take it...

It's not one-day's notice. The royalty change doesn't take place for a month. That is the standard notice required for such changes as indicated in the contract, and is the level of notice wihch has been used in the past.

Objecting to the increase is fair enough; but be aware that full notice has been given.

 

[Morrus]

What?!?!? I have been signed up with your service for over a year. You have a publisher forum? Can I have in or is that moot now?

Bill

He's referrig to the RPGNow forum, which is now an OBS forum.

 

[Mark CMG]

Objecting to the increase is fair enough

Indeed, and doing so in a respectful and organized manner is a worthwhile way to voice protest over the rate hike.

 

[FraserRonald]

Sword's Edge Publishing will be raising its prices on all OneBookStore sites (RPG Now, DTRPG, ENGS, and RPGNet) to compensate for the increased commissions. This means products will be cheaper for purchase at Steve Jackson Games' e23. We really have no choice but to swallow the increase, but I want to help grow alternative sites to OBS in order to ensure that there are alternatives for SEP (and others) in the event of another increase. SEP will be surrendering a portion of our profits (we won't be exclusive with OBS) in order to try to drive sales to alternate sites.

SEP is very small tadpole in the pool, but if the big fish follow a similar approach, we might see some healthy competition in the PDF market, which will benefit the publishers (lower commissions) and the consumer (lower prices).

 

[Morrus]

I think I'm gonna hold off on any decisions regarding ENP pricing until I see how things shake out. I'm optimistic that extra sales will absorb the commission (although we have to make 30% extra sales, having gone from 0% to 30%). ENP's prices will reflect the percentage difference in overall royalties. If we increase by more than 30%, the prices may even drop!

So, uh, buy ENP stuff!

 

[Kesh]

If you'd like to register a formal complaint with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), you can do so here:

https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01

The name of the company would be "http://enworld.rpgnow.com/" - so that all complaints go in the same bucket.

The address is:
RPGNow.com
4631 S. 108th St.
Greenfield, WI 53228

company email address is: webmaster@rpgnow.com

Okay, that strikes me as way too extreme. What basis is there for reporting this to the FTC?

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm optimistic that extra sales will absorb the commission

My idea of industry growth doesn't include having any profit from extra sales absorbed by rate increases. That's a merger scenario that doesn't help me grow in the slightest. If my profits don't increase, I do not believe a refund will be forthcoming, either.

 

[jgbrowning]

With the RPG download market growing steadily year over year and with it only comprising 11% of the total RPG market, we believe that this is a situation where everyone will be best served with what is essentially a co-operative marketing program focused on expanding the market. If that proves to be wrong then we will have financially ill-served our publisher partners AND ourselves.

Steve Wieck
OneBookShelf

I know you're not one to respond to messageboard questions, but I know everyone would like to hear your response to the one below.

James and Steve: What is the sites reason for increasing publisher's fees by up to 40% when publishers are already directly responsible for over 50% of the site's sales at rpgnow.com? All of the site's publishers are already benefitting the site more than the site is benefiting all it's publishers. This shows that any marketing/advertising money spent would be more efficiently spent by the publishers, not the site, and that the money spent by the publishers would result in increasing the site's profits more than money spent by the site.

Any additional market growth caused by this merger already benefits the site disproportionately under the old vendor fee scale under similar direct sales response.

Joseph Browning
Expeditous Retreat Press