GAMING FRONTIERS: A $20 magazine! Are they nuts?

[Vaxalon]

Where they're wrong

The problem here is that you've got a $20 product with a wide variety of things in it.

Generally speaking, I buy Dragon for one or two articles in it. Most of it, I'm not really interested in. If it doesn't have an article or two I'm interested in, I skip it.

At $20, I can buy a splatbook that is mostly stuff I'm interested in. Maybe it's not quite as big as this, and maybe it's not as flashy, but it's mostly stuff I'll use.

I can't see how this book could have as much value to me as a $20 splatbook, I really don't. Color glossy pages are nice, but they don't sell the book for me.

 

[drnuncheon]

OK, Lets look at this now:

GF 2:
MSRP: $17.95
160 some odd pages
Full color, high quality layout.
Content: New monsters, classes, adventures, etc.
A real chance to see what other products may have to offer ( The spycraft class for instance)


The d20 magic of Rokugan: A fine book BTW:
MSRP: $24.95
96 pages
B&W Interior, high quality layout
Content: Magic for a very specific setting. Great stuff but if you are not playing OA or Rokugan you will not likley use it all.

By the estimations here this should be a $5 dollar book and has little to no value (if you view it as you view GF)

I'm sorry...there are a lot of good arguments for GF but this is not one of them. Yeah, it might be worth only $5 to someone who doesn't play in OA or Rokugan...but they're not the target audience, and nobody expects them to buy the book at $25. (I didn't.) To someone who does play OA, it's worth a lot more.

Arms & Armor: Fantastic book IMHO:
MSRP: $24.95
96 Pages
Full color, high quality Interior
Contet: Tons of weapon and armor stuff. Will you use all of it. Probably not.

Therefore, this should be a 12 dollar book and has no value at its $24.95. The color added no value at all.(these are not my thoughts BTW I am using the assumptions folks established here.)It is also done on a high gloss interior stock like GF.

I'd have been happier with it if it had been $5 cheaper and in B&W. I wouldn't have changed Minions though - color pics of monsters are always nice.

The only differences between GF2 and these books is that it "looks" like a magazine and has a less focused set of material. Oh, and a lower price point for its production values.

Hope you don't mind me emphasizing the above, but it is the key to the problems a lot of people have, I think. It is a less focused set of material.

If I buy Magic of Rokugan, it's because I'm running a Rokugan game. That makes the entire book useful. I'm paying $25 for 96 pages.

If GF had a short article on Rokugan magic, and a bunch of articles on other stuff that I would never use in my Rokugan game, I am probably not going to pay $20 for it, because the amount of use I am getting out of it is much less - I'm effectively paying $20 for the 6 pages I will use.

That's the danger of having a wide variety of material in your $20 publication - at that price point, you are competing with focused sourcebooks for your customers' money, and those focused sourcebooks have the advantage of the whole thing being appealing to the person interested in them, instead of just some of the material. You have to measure whether the breadth of the material will add enough appeal to counteract the fact that many people aren't going to impulse buy a $20 product for one or two articles that interest them. You have to convince me that I'd rather buy the $20 'mixed bag' instead of the $20 focused sourcebook.

If it was a $10 mixed bag - and I'm sure there's no way they could put it out at that price, this is just an example - people would be more inclined to grab it. They're risking less on the chance that they will be able to use the other stuff.

I'll also note in passing that the inclusion of editorials, reviews, and columns does nothing to dispel the "this is a magazine" image.

J

 

[Ashtal]

if these boards are in any way a representation of the gaming community at large, then i'd say GF is in trouble. enough different people have come forward to say that the price is too high to lead me to believe that many gamers would share that opinion.

The arguments justifying the price and content, while noble, I think are doomed to fail. Whatever the reality, the perception is that: A) it is a magazine; B) it is an overpriced magazine with high production values but not enough “bang for the buck”. No amount of explaining, I think, will sway people too far from those views. It seems that everyone shared pretty much the same thoughts upon seeing GF.

It would appear that GF must find a way to either A) overcome that perception or B) find a way to lower the price of the magazine. I wish them luck.

That's just it - message boards are not representative of the gaming community at large. They are representative of a small portion of gamers who happen to have Internet access, and if they feel strongly about something, they tend to make a lot of noise about it, too. And different boards have different clusters of folks and you will find that opinion varies widely from gaming board to gaming board. This may or may not have a corelation with the majority of the buying gamer public. What does have a correlation is their sales, plain and simple, which we do not have access to (nor should we).

No 'bang for the buck' is your opinion, shared by a few others on this thread. That doesn't equal a world-wide proclaimation of it's relative worth or its reception. GF doesn't have to do anything to the magazine - we have no clue how the mag is selling or how it's being recieved as a whole. It's only issue #2. Please cut these guys a little slack.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Y'know, I'm the first to jump in and say that internet message board posters aren't representative of the gaming public as a whole. However, I also want to point out that they do represent at least a portion of that larger community. I mean, after all, most of us started out as gamers years before the internet was anything but a specialized communications devce for universities and research facilities. So we're not necessarily unrepresentative of gamers as a whole.

Look, I get the whole "it's not a magazine" thing. I really do. I want to like GF. Seriously. Like I said above, I almost bought it. It simply was too expensive for me at the cover price. I understand that it may be a great value and so on and so forth, but the simple fact is, as a consumer, it did not seem compelling enough to me to buy at that price. That is not a knock on the product or those who make it. It's just simple economics. I thought about what my money could buy, and it seemed better spent elsewhere. As KS says above, $12 would be about the price I'd be willing to pay.

Again, I know it's technically not a magazine. Well, it is to me, but that's not a bad thing. I subscribed to Scenario magazine, a quarterly mag that contains several screenplays each issue, and it's $20 - the value to me was equal to the price. Anyway, Campaign is/was a good example of what I was looking for, and which doesn't seem very different to what GF is trying to do. So Campaign is a magazine, and GF isn't; maybe it should be. I buy magazines of all types, so I am completely aware that ads are a huge portion of them. I still would rather have a monthly game supplement at $6 than a quarterly at $18-20.

 

[shouit]

I am one that has thought about picking it up a time or two and will most likely break down and try it. I have no gaming store where I live, save B&N and other big name book retailers. Therefore I order mine all from www.nobleknight.com. But, that is neither here or there, but it is to state that I have not, as of yet, been able to hold it in my big paws and see what is going on inside. But, I will tell you this. It looks like a nice idea. I subscribe to two mags, one is for gaming and the other is weight lifting. I have decided to not to renew either when they run out. This is because I am tired of all the ads. I mean seriously people, if I wanted to read advertisements, I would read all my junk mail I get on a daily basis. I am tired of all of them, I would like a magazine-like thing that I could see lots of different things and that is what GF is offering. Most of all the reviews that I have come across have said that GF scared them at first, ie the price, but when they started going through it, it was very very good. Also without exception, that I have found, they all say the the second issue is ten times better then the first. But that would be something I expected. Sure, I wont use all of it. There has been a book as of yet, that I have used all of the rules or all of the ideas in them. That goes for the PHB and DMG. I pick and choose for the taste of my players and myself. I just want to say, instead of bashing them, commend them for trying something different. Sure, not all of us agree, but they are trying to fill a nitch, just like other books out there. That is just my two cents.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

By the way, for those saying how GF has production values worth more than the cover price, pick up a copy of Scenario, which I mention above. The production values are as high if not higher - glossy, full color throughout, and only 3 ads - one on each inside front cover, and one on the back. $20 an issue.

EDIT: oops - make that 4 ads - one on the first facing page

 

[King_Stannis]

That's just it - message boards are not representative of the gaming community at large. They are representative of a small portion of gamers who happen to have Internet access, and if they feel strongly about something, they tend to make a lot of noise about it, too. And different boards have different clusters of folks and you will find that opinion varies widely from gaming board to gaming board. This may or may not have a corelation with the majority of the buying gamer public. What does have a correlation is their sales, plain and simple, which we do not have access to (nor should we).

No 'bang for the buck' is your opinion, shared by a few others on this thread. That doesn't equal a world-wide proclaimation of it's relative worth or its reception. GF doesn't have to do anything to the magazine - we have no clue how the mag is selling or how it's being recieved as a whole. It's only issue #2. Please cut these guys a little slack.

i will agree with you that nobody knows how it's being received as a whole. however, i think it would be foolish of GF to deny the fact that there is an identity crisis with their product. the mere fact that people have to come here and SAY that it's NOT a magazine is proof that there is a problem, would you not agree?

my final verdict as the all powerful consumer remains unchanged : i would have bought it with no color, no gloss and a few more ads at $12 - maybe $15 if there was specifically something useful to my campaign.

and, by the way, i agree with the colonel when he says that you can't automatically discount the opinions of gamers on the internet out-of-hand. if anything, i'd say that people who love their hobby enough to chat about it on the internet would be the target of GF magazine. it's more for the hard-core D20 gamer, not the casual player. again, the fact that just about every person on this thread thought price was a huge issue doesn't bode well, in my opinion.

i suppose we'll see if this is borne out by whether or not this discussion is going on a year or so down the road.

and as for me cutting them slack....i'm giving them constructive feedback. trust me, that's more than the person who looks at the price tag and immediately forgets the product ever existed will give them. it's a good product, but somewhat overproduced and seriously overpriced.

 

[Wolfen Priest]

I would just like to add this....

I have a friend from work, and we frequently go for coffee suring the day, and sometimes we head to Barnes & Noble where he looks for art magazines (he is into painting).

While I might shell out 6 bucks for an issue of EGM (which is basically a waste of money), he will actually dish out $20 for these special "art" magazines.

And I figure, if you are into a specific or unusual hobby (like painting, or roleplaying), it's really not that big of a deal to shell out that kind of money for a product catering to your needs.

Will it survive at that price level? Maybe, if it is good enough to warrant such a price. Only the market can say.

Just be aware that $20 for a "specialty magazine" is not unheard of.

 

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

Re: I would just like to add this....

Just be aware that $20 for a "specialty magazine" is not unheard of.

It is in this market! Seriously, I think GF is doomed. If I want samples of various d20 companies products, I go to their websites and grab free pdfs. If they don't have any, I don't buy their product until I can look it over at the store. If it doesn't get to my store, it never gets bought and is forgotten about.

Frex:
Spycraft Lite sold me on Spycraft.

When GF offers "exclusive" content I can't get anywhere else, I get upset that I should have to waste $20 on a magazine for material that the d20 company should have either included in the books I bought or given to me for free online. For example, the new Spycraft class in GF #2, one of the few items of interest for me in GF #2--I'm not paying $20 for one class and I'm not happy that AEG didn't give me this bonus material in the Spycraft book, an upcoming Spycraft book, or free online.

 

[JohnNephew]

For the record, here's some stuff that would increase the perceived value of GF for me. Since I have no illusions about being their sole target audience I will merely spout them off for reference and discussion.

1. Less fiction. [...]

2. Fewer reviews. [...]

3. I'm not sure how much control you have over this, but...more exclusive content rather than excerpts. [...]

FWIW, I agree with all three of these points. I hope that's reflected in the two items we've provided to GF (Fisher in the Lake of Souls and the Nyambe monsters, neither of which appears elsewhere, and both of which I hope can be used in a wide variety of games). I enjoy reading reviews of our products, but I'd agree that they are a good thing to cut -- they can't be timely, by the nature of quarterly publishing, and I think it's hard for them to be perceived as objective. I'm also not a huge fan of game fiction most of the time, and more particularly I suspect that people interested in fiction can get much better value elsewhere. (I may not be right about this, though. After all, it's a lot harder to find fiction about D20 settings in any old fantasy/SF magazine out on the newsstand.)