From the Ground Up - Building a Game Company
- Thread starter Eosin the Red
- Start date
Estlor
Explorer
I may just be a hobbyist with a business degree and no entrepreneurial experience, Eosin, but here's some small tidbits of advice I can pass on:
1. Consider the customer. And by that, of course, I mean keep in mind the kind of customer base you want to cultivate with your products. Are you looking for enthusiasts that will embrace 3P's setting en masse, discarding their old settings to use everything in your books and only what is in your books? Are you looking for creative types that like to skim off the top of various settings to make their own world and would pick up 3P's book to get new ideas? Do you want to sell primarily to DMs, players, or a mixture of both? The kind of product you release will largely be determined by who you believe your customer to be and what their demands are. Of course, who you think your customer is and who they actually are may be very different.
2. Consider the product mix. In the table top RPG industry, different types of products cater to different types of customers. If you boil it down to the basics, however, every book is a combination of crunch and fluff. Most campaign worlds are about 80% fluff and 20% crunch. The bulk of the rules you need are in the Core Rulebooks, you just spin new info around them. Of course, only fanatical gamers who love your setting will buy Fluff books. The more crunch you put into a product, the higher the likelihood that someone who doesn't play in 3P's setting will want the book anyway. This, of course, leads into advice #3.
3. Consider your competition. Investing in a campaign setting is expensive. Sure, you can drop $40 on the primary book, but if you really adopt a setting, you're going to need to buy supplements on monsters, races, magic, and nations. What can you provide in your world that all the other companies cannot? What have other companies done that worked and what have they done that did not? Take, for example, the Scarred Lands. That campaign setting is a crunch fest, with each new supplement being about 60% fluff and 40% crunch. However, all the crunch is isolated from the fluff so that you can entirely ignore the world-specific information and use it anywhere. On the other hand, a setting like Dragonstar weaves the fluff and crunch together so tightly that it becomes trickier to use one aspect of the setting without using another. Obviously, the looser the setting, the easier it is for people to "sample" your world. But then you get caught in an endless cycle of needing loose supplements to keep up sales.
4. Consider using psychology. Marketing a product is all about getting in the mind of your customer and making them crave the product. How you go about doing this really depends on what you're marketing. Of course, one universal tactic that always works is the idea of "vested interest." Once a customer has a vested interest in something, they have a feeling of attachment and personal ownership that makes them want to look out for the best interests of the item in question. Take American Idol. Here you have a competition that routinely makes one or two pop stars a year. And their albums sell like mad. Because the public determines who stays and goes in the show, they feel like they have some active control over the career of the person. There is an attachement that makes the general public want to help the person along. If you can build an attachment to your world and products in people, they will support it. Sword & Sorcery did this through lots of open call work. But, let's be honest - that's expensive. I think this thread goes a long way toward building attachement as people get to see you in every step of the process. Just keep the lines of communication as open as possible on all levels and I think you'll get people interested. Of course, don't give away too much - that's not good for business either
Anyway, take what you want and leave what you don't. Like I said, I'm not expert. Just am armchair businessman wishing you the best.
1. Consider the customer. And by that, of course, I mean keep in mind the kind of customer base you want to cultivate with your products. Are you looking for enthusiasts that will embrace 3P's setting en masse, discarding their old settings to use everything in your books and only what is in your books? Are you looking for creative types that like to skim off the top of various settings to make their own world and would pick up 3P's book to get new ideas? Do you want to sell primarily to DMs, players, or a mixture of both? The kind of product you release will largely be determined by who you believe your customer to be and what their demands are. Of course, who you think your customer is and who they actually are may be very different.
2. Consider the product mix. In the table top RPG industry, different types of products cater to different types of customers. If you boil it down to the basics, however, every book is a combination of crunch and fluff. Most campaign worlds are about 80% fluff and 20% crunch. The bulk of the rules you need are in the Core Rulebooks, you just spin new info around them. Of course, only fanatical gamers who love your setting will buy Fluff books. The more crunch you put into a product, the higher the likelihood that someone who doesn't play in 3P's setting will want the book anyway. This, of course, leads into advice #3.
3. Consider your competition. Investing in a campaign setting is expensive. Sure, you can drop $40 on the primary book, but if you really adopt a setting, you're going to need to buy supplements on monsters, races, magic, and nations. What can you provide in your world that all the other companies cannot? What have other companies done that worked and what have they done that did not? Take, for example, the Scarred Lands. That campaign setting is a crunch fest, with each new supplement being about 60% fluff and 40% crunch. However, all the crunch is isolated from the fluff so that you can entirely ignore the world-specific information and use it anywhere. On the other hand, a setting like Dragonstar weaves the fluff and crunch together so tightly that it becomes trickier to use one aspect of the setting without using another. Obviously, the looser the setting, the easier it is for people to "sample" your world. But then you get caught in an endless cycle of needing loose supplements to keep up sales.
4. Consider using psychology. Marketing a product is all about getting in the mind of your customer and making them crave the product. How you go about doing this really depends on what you're marketing. Of course, one universal tactic that always works is the idea of "vested interest." Once a customer has a vested interest in something, they have a feeling of attachment and personal ownership that makes them want to look out for the best interests of the item in question. Take American Idol. Here you have a competition that routinely makes one or two pop stars a year. And their albums sell like mad. Because the public determines who stays and goes in the show, they feel like they have some active control over the career of the person. There is an attachement that makes the general public want to help the person along. If you can build an attachment to your world and products in people, they will support it. Sword & Sorcery did this through lots of open call work. But, let's be honest - that's expensive. I think this thread goes a long way toward building attachement as people get to see you in every step of the process. Just keep the lines of communication as open as possible on all levels and I think you'll get people interested. Of course, don't give away too much - that's not good for business either
Anyway, take what you want and leave what you don't. Like I said, I'm not expert. Just am armchair businessman wishing you the best.
Eosin the Red
First Post
My 30 hour stay at the hospital is done andmy wife is doning fine but most likely will not get to come home until Thursday or Friday. I will get back to everyone tomorrow or tonight after I have a nap - my brain is too fogged to be of any use right now.
To those of you who called me last night -
I was not here but I will be tonight.
Thanks,
PS - Eosin the Red = Randy Madden.
Time for a nap.
To those of you who called me last night -
I was not here but I will be tonight. Thanks,
PS - Eosin the Red = Randy Madden.
Time for a nap.
Eosin the Red
First Post
tonym said:
Hello Tony,
I will reword it to be a little clearer. My goal is to establish and build a successful game company by producing a product line. Failure is failure and always a possibility in this business - so I established the meanings of the words "success" and "Failure" for me.
I can be successful if all that I do is produce one hiney kicking supplement and it totally bombs. I tried and it did not work but I held on my dream and can be one of the very few who say - "I tried darn hard." If I put out something that is substandard or a product that I was not proud of and it sold marginally well then I have still failed.
The chain of events:
Produce a great module ---> re-invest into second product ---> Put out second product ----> put first product out in paper back --- continue lots of stuff in here ----> Make jump to novels when line is established ----> cultivate licensable properties ----> multimedia deals.
As you can tell the "continue lots of stuff in here" is somewhat broad and ill defined but the early phase might take 3 books - like Privateer Press or it might take 10 books. It might involve rethinking our product lines etc...this section is the re-evaluate and re-implement stage.
Eosin the Red
First Post
Estlor said:
Those are some well-spoken words and good advice. In fact, thanks to everyone in this thread who has spoken up. I really do appreciate the input.
I got the chance to sit down with Hal from MEG tonight and he is a riot. We talked about the state of the market, print versus pdf, pricing, art, Cover-2-Cover, and Hal has a 2 year old and a 4 year old while I have a 2 year old and a 3 year old - you always have to talk about your kids.
One of the surprising things about Hal was that I saw allot of myself in him. We are about the same age, game about the same, have similar type of strait laced jobs where we really can't discuss gaming much, and really just want to put out something that we can be proud of and something to occasionally brag about (OK, maybe more than occasionally).
He gave me a seven-course meal to chew on (food for thought) and game me some really helpful pointers. Interestingly, many of the things that he gave the yeah or nay on were things that I was already aware of or at least had a suspicion.
The Last Dominion
The name of my setting. It took me forever to arrive at it but by goodness, I finally nailed the sucker down. I am also exceedingly proud of the name but that is a different story.
I have a name, a plan, an agenda, an outlet, and my crew is in motion. I think the ball is finally in play. If Steve (Quillion) thought that I was manic before then he ain't seen nothing yet.
Eosin the Red
First Post
Today is boring -
In between the kids and the inlaws, I managed to get a little writing done. My first column on two-fisted action is overdue and that is just a freebee.
I have 45% of the setting nailed down and functional.
[Note to crowd: Steve will probably scream when he notes that the DOC is a little shy of 70 pages and is mostly 2 column with 0.5 margins. It still has some flesh that needs work but I have most of the Key Points to the setting in it.]
I wish that I knew what format the setting contest winners had to write the 100 pager in? You can flesh stuff out and get your mind around many difficult things with 100 pages of overview.
I also read a few of the "what is good about X type adventure" threads that have been cropping up - mostly the DM aspects. It is like taking tele course for school.
Contracts are all settled - now I need to get $$$ flying through the air and crack down on that errant writer (me).
In between the kids and the inlaws, I managed to get a little writing done. My first column on two-fisted action is overdue and that is just a freebee.
I have 45% of the setting nailed down and functional.
[Note to crowd: Steve will probably scream when he notes that the DOC is a little shy of 70 pages and is mostly 2 column with 0.5 margins. It still has some flesh that needs work but I have most of the Key Points to the setting in it.]
I wish that I knew what format the setting contest winners had to write the 100 pager in? You can flesh stuff out and get your mind around many difficult things with 100 pages of overview.
I also read a few of the "what is good about X type adventure" threads that have been cropping up - mostly the DM aspects. It is like taking tele course for school.
Contracts are all settled - now I need to get $$$ flying through the air and crack down on that errant writer (me).
Qwillion
First Post
Silent partner
"Note to crowd: Steve will probably scream when he notes that the DOC is a little shy of 70 pages and is mostly 2 column with 0.5 margins. It still has some flesh that needs work but I have most of the Key Points to the setting in it."
Steve goes crazy because he is on a damn dial up connection (I want my cable modem back and msn kept loosing the download)
luckly I am build in the blank spaces within a setting. I have been thinking about the Fallen kingdoms of the Last Domain a lot, I have two pieces done for Freestyle campaigning but I am going farther with them, creating Npc's and going into a bit more detail about how a GM should use them and how they deal with specific issues within the gaming experiance.
The second piece is likely to be the first piece and I even have a friend doing the art for free,
Fear the Sky should be a very interesting piece.
I think I may do a bit of rewrite on its flavor text though.
(Waves to Nellsir, good to see you)
I actually get to send money to Eosin next week, still have some running issues with moving that have not resolved themselves as of yet.
"Note to crowd: Steve will probably scream when he notes that the DOC is a little shy of 70 pages and is mostly 2 column with 0.5 margins. It still has some flesh that needs work but I have most of the Key Points to the setting in it."
Steve goes crazy because he is on a damn dial up connection (I want my cable modem back and msn kept loosing the download)
luckly I am build in the blank spaces within a setting. I have been thinking about the Fallen kingdoms of the Last Domain a lot, I have two pieces done for Freestyle campaigning but I am going farther with them, creating Npc's and going into a bit more detail about how a GM should use them and how they deal with specific issues within the gaming experiance.
The second piece is likely to be the first piece and I even have a friend doing the art for free,
Fear the Sky should be a very interesting piece.
I think I may do a bit of rewrite on its flavor text though.
(Waves to Nellsir, good to see you)
I actually get to send money to Eosin next week, still have some running issues with moving that have not resolved themselves as of yet.
Last edited:
Qwillion
First Post
Well my best friend's fiance is working on some art for my Freestyle Campaign piece, The first is going to be called Fear the Sky.
I am working for Silven.com today on my Prestige Production series of articles. You may see some hint at what I have invisioned for some of the Last Dominion as I explore in this months article how to fit the baseline generic prestige classes into different campaign settings. The month of may will see a prestige production Last Dominion article.
The whole of my weekend is going to be spent working on Here there be monsters and plowing through Eosin's Last Dominion setting bible (EOSIN! how many pages did it have to be? I mean really)
I am working for Silven.com today on my Prestige Production series of articles. You may see some hint at what I have invisioned for some of the Last Dominion as I explore in this months article how to fit the baseline generic prestige classes into different campaign settings. The month of may will see a prestige production Last Dominion article.
The whole of my weekend is going to be spent working on Here there be monsters and plowing through Eosin's Last Dominion setting bible (EOSIN! how many pages did it have to be? I mean really)
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