Have the third-party d20 publishers failed?

[philreed]

5. Lastly, there is the prinicple of economics. If a make product X. I want $1000 to make product X. It will cost me $5000 dollars in production including printing, paying rent, distribution, advertising, etc. I sell enough product to recoup $6000, then that made the product worthwhile.

To bring in $6,000 off of a $10 adventure sold through distribution a publisher would need to sell at least 1,500 adventures (and this assumes the publisher is selling direct to the distributor). This is at a time when many publishers are having a hard time selling 1,000 copies of any product.

John Nephew once released a spreadsheet that broke down publishing costs but I don't know where it is. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

 

[Krug]

Besides the adventures in Dungeon, there's already a whole bunch of free adventures here that DMs can pick up, beginners or otherwise: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b&page=1

And that's besides other free d20 adventures such as The Wizard's Amulet and so on.

Yes, some companies are having some success with modules, but it's like manufacturing another pocket calculator to put on the market. A publisher might have the next great module, but seriously, will anyone notice?

 

[Sholari]

there's already a whole bunch of free adventures here that DMs can pick up, beginners or otherwise: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20030530b&page=1

And that's besides other free d20 adventures such as The Wizard's Amulet and so on.

Yeah, but there isn't a lot of added value to these things. Most DMs could product stuff like this pretty easily. It's the really quality modules that add value.

 

[jgbrowning]

To bring in $6,000 off of a $10 adventure sold through distribution a publisher would need to sell at least 1,500 adventures (and this assumes the publisher is selling direct to the distributor). This is at a time when many publishers are having a hard time selling 1,000 copies of any product.

I'd love to write and publish modules. Then I remember this.....

John Nephew once released a spreadsheet that broke down publishing costs but I don't know where it is. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

It's an attachment with the PDF publisher's guide at rpgnow.com. Good spreadsheet.

joe b.

 

[Sir Elton]

I like writing adventures. I hate writing crunch sourcebooks. Why? Simply because writing said sourcebooks is too bloody easy. First of all, I don't feel like I'm being challenged writing them.

Second of all, I'm challenged writing an adventure. Especially one that incorporates 3rd party material. I think all d20 Companies who write sourcebooks and not provide adventures are missing out on a rewarding opportunity to show how much they know the material.

Writing adventures shows how much I know the material (although DMing is truely the test of one's gaming knowledge!); and how I can put the material together in a useful plot.

Using WotC market research to defend your position just means that you've lost your heart and soul to WotC's Marketing Department, or to money, or to the Ennies.

Fellow writers, I beg of you to look deeply into your soul and ask yourselves why you got into d20 Publishing in the first place. Roleplaying Games is a niche market catering to the most creative and intelligent people who play games. You know, the sorts who doesn't have a lot of performance talent or artistic talent (or maybe they do but they won't develop them into more artistic ventures like Acting, or Writing, or Painting).

Money isn't everything in this business, it's only the material reward of work well done. The real reward is seeing your product used by thousands of GMs across the world.

You see, the original Question of this thread: has 3rd party companies failed? According to WotC, yes you did. WotC is providing adventures now, because they realize that their best hopes aren't fulfilled by you. All of you live and die by the Supreme Findings of the Almighty WotC Marketing Department. The WotC Marketing Department is God to the d20 Industry.

Adventures are an important part of the d20 Industry as a whole. WotC hoped that you all would ignore it's Market Research and write the adventures any way. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Listen, if you want to run a profitable business making a lot of money, you can start:
* A travel agency (tourism generates around $50 billion a year).
* A telecommunications firm ($500 billion a year for telecommunications).
* A law firm (As Tort lawyers, you can take companies to suit and get 3/4ths of the money you win).
* A bank (You can set up savings accounts and make usurious loans charging Compound Interest).
* A major Motion Picture studio (Hollywood, Tokywood, Hong Kongwood, and Ballywood produces hundreds of films per year).

 

[KnowTheToe]

I have not read all of the previous six pages, but read the first page.

I think that publishers could give away short .pdf adventures on their websites hgihglighting their campaign worlds, source books etc. They would not need to be elaborate, but similar to WotC Side Treks. They could even have fan published .pdfs on their websites by supporting contests and the like.

I know I have several Campaign settings and rarely use them because there is little support for them and I almost never buy support sourc material because it offers so little to me.

 

[Faraer]

Yes, some companies are having some success with modules, but it's like manufacturing another pocket calculator to put on the market. A publisher might have the next great module, but seriously, will anyone notice?

Huh? An adventure module is a creative work, not a piece of consumer electronics. No one says 'there are too many novels being published, I won't write mine' (though of course the authors of bad novels should).

 

[2WS-Steve]

I think it's important to remember that Necromancer games, one of the perhaps 2 companies to regularly publish adventures, does not rely on their book sales for a living. Companies and people that do game publishing for a living aren't doing splats and crunch heavy books because they really want to upgrade their Mercedes to the new model year--they do so because they want to eat this month.


I love published adventures too; two of my best campaigns were based around Masks of Nyarlathotep. But I don't think it's fair to come out and ask someone else to eat a loss or foot the bill to satisfy my desires.

The solution we'll likely be stuck with is having adventures published by independent hobbyists via PDF and distributed through online stores. Anyone can do that right now--all it takes is a word processor, just a little mapping skill, and imagination. Ideally, some companies will arrange free licensing agreements (like Green Ronin's M&M Superlink), or release enough setting elements as open content to make it viable to publish scenarios for use with them. No one's gonig ot make a bunch of money this way--and you better not expect Ed Bourelle cartography or Wayne Reynolds art in these things, but it'll get you some nice resources.

Actually, there's a fair number of adventures available on RPGNow already. I scope through them fairly often because I'm pretty sure there are more adventures there than at my LGS. Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to get a feel for them and some of my past purchases have been pretty variable in quality. I think ENWorld used to have a way to sort reviews just by adventures, but that doesn't seem to be present anymore. It'd make it a lot easier to find the quality adventures at the PDF shops if, perhaps, there could be a little change to the reviews section: perhaps a simple function that allowed one to bring up a list of all the modules and maybe sort by level or various other factors.

 

[jgbrowning]

Money isn't everything in this business, it's only the material reward of work well done. The real reward is seeing your product used by thousands of GMs across the world.

The real reward is seeing both.

This is why publishers generally don't publish adventures. Adventures don't allow both to happen as often as supplements do. Without money, nothing gets published. After seeing your work in other's hands several times, most people are not willing to loose money to see it again. Although it feels great, it doesn't feel that great.

Huh? An adventure module is a creative work, not a piece of consumer electronics. No one says 'there are too many novels being published, I won't write mine' (though of course the authors of bad novels should).

They're both widgets sold to make money. Creative professionals often make the decision to not be creative in a certain way because of fiscal reasons. I have several cool adventures I'd love to publish. I'd like to do an alternate magic book, but I'm not because there are too many of them already. I'd also love to do adventures, but I'm not, because working on my other stuff is more profitable.

I think it's important to remember that Necromancer games, one of the perhaps 2 companies to regularly publish adventures, does not rely on their book sales for a living. Companies and people that do game publishing for a living aren't doing splats and crunch heavy books because they really want to upgrade their Mercedes to the new model year--they do so because they want to eat this month.

I think a lot of people who aren't familiar with the business aspect (and let me say right now, I'm not a Nephew or a Pramas or a Cook, but I do know some things) don't really understand that many people are doing this as a hobby already. And they're doing it because it's really that non-profitable a business. A lot of people in the business are already here because they love doing it, not to make a wad of cash.

Just think about how many publishers aren't doing this full-time and then think about the even larger segment of authors who are doing it even less non-full-time. This is mostly a hobby industry, with only a few notable exceptions. And from me, those exceptions get mad props. It's a tough industry.

To have customers suggest we actually willingly loose money given the situation that most publishers are in? Man, this thread is weird on many different levels.

joe b.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Using WotC market research to defend your position just means that you've lost your heart and soul to WotC's Marketing Department, or to money, or to the Ennies.

Fellow writers, I beg of you to look deeply into your soul and ask yourselves why you got into d20 Publishing in the first place. Roleplaying Games is a niche market catering to the most creative and intelligent people who play games. You know, the sorts who doesn't have a lot of performance talent or artistic talent (or maybe they do but they won't develop them into more artistic ventures like Acting, or Writing, or Painting).

Money isn't everything in this business, it's only the material reward of work well done. The real reward is seeing your product used by thousands of GMs across the world.

I apologize in advance if this comes off snarky...

But this is the most unfounded (and somewhat offensive, though I'm sure it wasn't meant to be) statement I've read so far in this thread.

Of course most of us do this for love of creating, not for the money. For all practical purposes, there isn't any money in this industry.

But authors and artists have to eat. Publishers have to cover costs. And many "successful" publishers--you'd be amazed which ones--already do this mostly as a hobby, have some other outside source of funding, and are lucky if they break even.

Much as it may shatter your illusions to hear it, creative businesses are still businesses, and they're still bound by the laws of market economics if they're going to survive. There's simply no way around that unless a publisher is also independently wealthy and willing to take a loss on a regular basis.

Let me give you an example--myself. Freelance writing is all I do. I'm not yet a Monte Cook or even a Mike Mearls in terms of recognition or productivity, but I think I'm on the right path; I've got a lot of credits to my name, including some fairly big titles, and a decent number of people recognize my name when they hear it.

I do not make enough money doing this to support myself and my wife together; if she didn't also have an income, we'd be in trouble. I do not have the time in my schedule to write something that a publisher isn't going to want. And a publisher is certainly not going to publish a book that won't sell, just because I put a lot of creative effort into it and love it to death. They are bound by economics, and therefore, by extension, so am I.

I have several modules I'd like to write, one of which has been brewing for over a year now. But I simply cannot afford to take the time to write something that I will then have to pitch to companies in a depressed market (particularly when only one or two companies do modules) when I can get regular contracts--guaranteed, because they're signed in advance--to do other sorts of books.

Also, even though it's true that being published and having other people use your work is a major reward--nobody's going to use it if it's not published, and nobody can afford to publish it if it won't sell.

I'd love for modules to be viable, for the industry to support all manner of products. If it sounds like I'm trying to crush people's optimism or hopes, I'm not. I share those hopes, if not that optimism. But I also think people are failing to understand the realities involved--or even that there are realities involved.

(And again, I'm talking about "generic" modules, not licensed material. Just so we're clear. )