Free RPG Day - good idea, or bad?

[Olaf the Stout]

I think it's a good idea. The only reason I'm not totally ecstatic about it is because I'm in Australia and can't attend!

In all seriousness though, I think it is a great initiative and I hope it is really sucessful. The fact that some of the game companies will be making the products available after the fact as free PDF's makes me feel like I'm not totally missing out on all the fun. Plus I get to "try out a company before I buy" so to speak.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Ghostwind]

We're making FreeRPG Day into a real event at the store. Not only are we giving away the freebies, but we've got a clearance section of stuff and all other gaming items will be 25% off for the day. In addition, we're ordering pizza for our gamers. It's going to be a fun day at the store as far as I'm concerned. The gamers have been excited about it for weeks.

 

[Voadam]

From what I've seen, all of the companies participating are either selling the freebies after Free RPG Day, are giving a PDF away for free, or both.

I would assume the loyal fans would swing by the company sites and know this.

I've seen that Green Ronin and Paizo are doing this, I didn't see a similar proposal on Goodman. Anyone else putting up free pdfs?

 

[SavageRobby]

I think (but I'm not 100% positive) that Troll Lord Games has plans to do this as well.

 

[blargney the second]

We're making FreeRPG Day into a real event at the store.

Wow, nice. That'll generate some serious goodwill in your community!

 

[Mark CMG]

Trick question?

Games Plus in Mount Prospect, IL is participating and I will be helping by running the Paizo adventure, Hollow's Last Hope by Jason Bulmahn and F Wesley Schneider. For those who might not know, it is the first level run up to the Pathfinder series they have in the works. It looks like a real winner!

 

[RFisher]

And you also said you discovered a new store...you should let me know how it goes for them!

Actually, make that two stores I discovered through Free RPG Day!

The first, Ninja Pirate, seemed to be doing pretty well. There was a sizable crowd even at c. 11:00 when I was there. They were making an event out of Free RPG Day. They had a guy demoing GURPS, & Steve Jackson himself was going to be there that afternoon to demo Munchkin. I was blown away by their used RPG selection. (Something I don't expect to see much these days, & which is usually pretty small when you do see it.) I picked up the Imperial Power Pack for the new WizKids Star Wars game from them.

The second store, Wonko's, seems to deal mostly in collectible toys, though that includes the collectible mini games. A cool place even if there wasn't any RPG stuff beyond the freebies. My son picked up a Transformers toy he'd been wanted.

So, the day was clearly a win for the stores & me & my son. (Not to mention some good father/son time as we shared geeking out over Star Wars toys & such.)

 

[Relique du Madde]

After this years event, I have to say Free RPG Day is a bad idea...



What would be better idea is if there was a

FREE RPG WEEKEND!​

 

[thalmin]

Free RPG Day was a success for our store, especially for our sales in Goodman Games. We sold close to 30 Goodman modules, mostly DCC, but we sold through about half a dozen Wicked Fantasy Factories as well! There was nice activity in C&C, in fact it was an all around good saturday for us.
I am sorry we had to limit everyone to just one pick on the freebies, but at the end of the day there were only a few pieces remaining (several customers passed on these and went away empty handed).

 

[Mystaros]

Free RPG Day was a success for our store, especially for our sales in Goodman Games. We sold close to 30 Goodman modules, mostly DCC, but we sold through about half a dozen Wicked Fantasy Factories as well! There was nice activity in C&C, in fact it was an all around good saturday for us.

Thalmin,

How did the Tell Qa booklet go over? I haven't seen any commentary here on EN World, though I'd not expect much as it was for C&C and not d20...