Kickstarter-Style Preorders: The Future of RPGs?

[Weregrognard]

So, Troll Lords Games (makers of Castles & Crusades) have used Kickstarter recently to finance one of their latest books, Classic Monsters to seemingly great success, and they're doing a similar thing for their next book: Winter Runes.

This makes me wonder whether, with the recent doom and gloom talk of D&D and RPGs becoming less "mainstream" and more "cottage industry", if this would be a good business model. It sure seems so. A publisher puts the word out on a planned product, and the fans "speak with their wallets" on whether they want such a product. Once enough fans finance the project, you can go forward with it, or not as the case may be, with what appears to be a smaller risk.

Not being a business-minded person myself I may have this all wrong, but it seemed interesting. Thoughts?

 

[Aeolius]

One could also simply self-publish. Apple has some rumored changes due to appear later this month: "Goodereader sources claim that Apple is planning to introduce a new self-publishing platform based on the EPUB format. This would allow Apple to compete with similar programs run by Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In particular, though, Apple is expected to follow in Amazon's footsteps, offering an incentive to authors willing to accept exclusive arrangements. Apple is also said to be interested in making it easy to convert material to comply with its formatting." LINK

 

[Ahnehnois]

A business model where your product is paid for by preorder before you make it does have a certain appeal to publishers.

That said, there are a lot of people (like me) who aren't inclined to put down money before seeing a complete product. I suspect there's a limited role for kickstarter-type books; they're probably competing for a small subset of very interested gamers. The market is likely to become saturated, if it hasn't already.

There's certainly a role for this strategy, but I don't think it will ever get much bigger than it is right now.

 

[Weregrognard]

A business model where your product is paid for by preorder before you make it does have a certain appeal to publishers.

That said, there are a lot of people (like me) who aren't inclined to put down money before seeing a complete product. I suspect there's a limited role for kickstarter-type books; they're probably competing for a small subset of very interested gamers. The market is likely to become saturated, if it hasn't already.

There's certainly a role for this strategy, but I don't think it will ever get much bigger than it is right now.

You have a point. This could probably be mitigated somewhat by having preview material (out of the manuscript) available for the "try before you buy" folk, but I imagine there's not much more you can do with that.

 

[delericho]

Something like Kickstarter, and to a lesser extent pre-orders, could certainly be one of the avenues companies explore. I strongly suspect, though, that they would only work for people who already have a track record for quality and for delivering as promised and on time. (I know of at least one horror story where it just didn't work out.)

For a lot of companies, I can see subscriptions becoming increasingly important. WotC (DDI), Paizo (all sorts of stuff) and ENWorld (WotBS, etc) already use this method to great success. Once again, though, you have to offer something pretty much every month for it to work.

And the thind plank will probably be electronic delivery, possibly skewing heavily towards small, low-cost products (PDFs, Apps, etc).

I suspect the days of the big, heavy rulebook (maybe except for Core Rules), and possibly of printed RPG material entirely, may are numbered. And it's probably not a very high number.

 

[gamerprinter]

Rite Publishing produces much of it's supplements in-house with a much tighter budget, but any projects that need a larger budget always goes into patronage or kickstarter financing - this is also how Wolfgang Baur's Open Design Project works. And it does work fine.

The problem is whether you as a small publisher can sell your product idea well enough to get enough patronage purchases to make your intended budget. Kickstarter program itself is problematic in that once you commit to your budget requirements, even if you find a way to finance the project more cheaply, once you commit with Kickstarter - it can't be changed.

Companies like Open Design Project and Rite Publishing has the reputation of putting out solid, top quality products so getting patrons to participate is easier than for a startup publisher with no exposure.

This is why I publish as an imprint under Rite Publishing and not my own company. Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting was completely financed and published as a patronage.

Another thing to consider, this isn't 'pre-order' products, because in most cases the patron's buy-in price is greater than the cover price. Patrons are participating in projects they want to see published and get the chance to submit their own ideas into a given publication. Some patrons are paying as much as $100 and in some cases $1000 each to support a project, though most patrons pay $20 - $25 entry price. And as we know, most products range for $4 - $40 depending on the content, page count, inclusion of color, for print, etc.

I think this business model will grow and grow, but for the startup company, you'll need to provide free or low priced releases to compel potential patrons that you will follow through and succeed in releasing any patronage project you get involved in.

GP

 

[gamerprinter]

I suspect the days of the big, heavy rulebook (maybe except for Core Rules), and possibly of printed RPG material entirely, may are numbered. And it's probably not a very high number.

Well Rite Publishing currently has a print publisher relationship with Cubicle 7 - as well as many other publishing partners of C7. The Kaidan printed books were done through C7 with no up front cost from me or Rite Publishing. The entire cost is carried by C7, who has a split in profits with the publisher to pay for it (they get paid first, though.)

I never thought my Kaidan project would go to printed versions, but I have the 3 adventures printed and in my hands at this time.

So I can imagine printed RPGs is not destined to end at all, lessened perhaps than past decades - but not on its deathknell as one might believe.

Once I get more PDF supplements out for Kaidan, my plan is sometime this year to release a hard cover book of the Kaidan setting, with this same kind of financing.

 

[Halivar]

There would need to be a "lite" version, a la GURPS, to really sell people on a rule-set they haven't seen or played. I certainly wouldn't give money for what might turn out to be a vanity project.

 

[MerricB]

The most successful modern wargaming company - GMT Games - has been using a preorder system (the P500) to fund its games for over a decade now. It's a very useful system for niche products - especially expensive ones, as wargames tend to be.

For the P500, you pledge to buy the game (at a reduced price). You pay no money until just before it is produced, and a couple of months later the game is mailed to you. It helps weed out the ideas that sound good but no-one actually wants to buy them.

Choosing which products to buy is made slightly easier by previews of the games as they're worked on, but more often you work by subject matter and game designers. (If I see a game by Chad Jensen, I'm likely to preorder it).

Could this be a model that smaller RPG companies use? I think it quite likely, especially when they're creating more risky products.

Have a look at GMT Games P500 page - it shows which products are in production, which ones have made the cut but aren't scheduled yet, and the ones that aren't there yet.

Most wargame publishers use a similar scheme in modern times. However, there's a particular problem when a company delays too long between a product hitting the mark and producing it - which is very true of Multi-Man Publishing, who produce good products but take way too long to do so.

Cheers!

 

[Reynard]

I suspect the days of the big, heavy rulebook (maybe except for Core Rules), and possibly of printed RPG material entirely, may are numbered. And it's probably not a very high number.

On the bolded part: I think just the opposite. Generally, gamers seem to like printed books, and the advent of cheap and fast Print on Demand means that a lot of books that would, at best, exist only as PDFs can now be found on gamers' shelves.

What is likely on its way out are specialty retailers, unless they can find a way to get in on that (I was in a bookstore in VT this holiday season that had a PoD machine right inside; I don't know how well or fast it worked or how long it took, but it is an interesting idea).