NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnNephew" data-source="post: 3144451" data-attributes="member: 2171">For exactly this reason, publishers should consider whether they should aim that direct-link marketing at a PDF vendor who gives them a bigger cut -- either a web store of their own, or another alternative like e23, where you get 23% more revenue for each copy sold.  For some publishers it may make sense to drop OBS entirely -- even losing some sales may be more than made up for if all of the remaining sales go through a higher-margin channel.  (I'm idly curious whether some of the top-volume RPGNow vendors would keep most of their volume if they didn't sell through OBS -- is it their brand recognition and reputation for quality that gets them sales, or primarily just the venue they are sold through?)Also, publishers should think about whether an exclusive benefits them in the long run, or keeps them entirely at the mercy of the goodwill of the new company.  Without a viable competitor, publishers can expect "ya may as well, ya got no choice" to become a familiar phrase.I am sure it is their good faith intention right now.  But the reality is that they are taking control of the promotional use of those funds, and they are taking it away from manufacturers, who could have spent it on market expansion if they so wished, for their own benefit rather than the benefit of other companies.  OBS gets to decide where and how to spend those funds, and which products and lines to spend them on. I didn't see anything in the fine print about how the extra money would be dedicated to the specific manufacturers who generated it -- they could have structured it so that the difference between RPGNow and DTRPG rates was specifically dedicated to marketing efforts on behalf of the publisher whose products generated it, like a co-op credit allowance.  There's a vague promise to grow the market, but nothing concrete -- again, the arrangement could have been made on the basis of specific performance benchmarks to earn the higher rates (e.g., give publishers the current rate on the sales next year equal to this year's sales, and charge the higher rate on the increased sales, by way of proving the value of the merger).These things would have taken more effort to plan and implement, but they would have changed their basic approach from a dictation of terms to an offer of mutual benefit.  Right now the only definite benefit is to OBS, which will make a lot more money than the two companies did separately, even if sales are stagnant.OBS is now a bigger corporation, with more shareholders.  James doesn't have a controlling interest any longer (nor does Steve), and there's nothing to prevent them from selling some or all shares to someone else in the future, who may decide that the most profitable course is just to pocket the extra money rather than risk it on advertising and marketing schemes.  Agreements and business plans should not be built on personal trust for someone today, but a structure that will still work when parties with different motivations and personalities succeed to the respective roles in the future.</blockquote>

Verification