Mearls' Latest Thought on the Industry

[philreed]

But the difference hasn't made up the loss of print sales in terms of overall amount of product sold?

I care less about volume of sales than I do profit. Something many people have yet to realize is that, for all but the more established of publishers, the print distribution channel is not worth the effort.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Got any reference for that?
I'm pretty much certain you are incorrect.

The moment WotC releases a new rule it's closed. Of course you could take the essence of that rule, and change it's name - and the mechanics to some degree. But you're treating on thin ice if you do so. WotC could call it foul anytime they'd want to.

And even if you did, where's the benefit? Meaning "touchstones" and calling them "power locations" won't help philreed sell his "101 Power Locations", because people won't know what he's talking about. "Touchstones" are closed, "power locations" are without meaning.

Imagine the term "feat" wouldn't be OGC - would you buy a book named "101 tricks your character can learn every now and then"?

 

[JPL]

I don't understand the point of this post? Please clarify.

The point is "I hope EN Publishing sells plenty of PDFs of INFINITE: Epic Modern , because I wrote it, and money can be exchanged for goods and services."

And I hope people like it enough that I can justify writing the sequel, INFINITER.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I care less about volume of sales than I do profit. Something many people have yet to realize is that, for all but the more established of publishers, the print distribution channel is not worth the effort.

Kinda creates a cycle though where less and less material is sold through traditional channels no?

 

[Belen]

However, one's social and job standing does make a difference when considered in the backdrop of stances or policies made - otherwise, no one would have ever come up with the concept of "conflict of interest." You're absolutely right - why WOULD a publisher agree with something that hurts his business? Why wouldn't a publisher agree with something that helps his business? I may be wrong, but I don't remember Mike discussing these topics in this fashion prior to now - I'm not saying Mike's a schill, I'm saying it does concern me that the things he's espousing WOULD harm dozens of 3rd party publishers, while either helping or doing nothing harmful to WotC. I'm saying don't divorce the idea that Mike's suggestions are good for the line of business he's in, as opposed to just being for the betterment of the industry.

Yes, but maybe people should look at the sheer vitriol for WOTC whenever they say anything. They can say that D&D sales are great and people gangbang them.

Now, however, is it true that these same 3rd party publishers who handled topics WotC did not at first touch are somehow hurting the industry by doing so? Now WotC are touching ideas that were not considered profitable (adventure modules, environment settings, etc.) because of perceived industry gaps. Were these gaps not profitable in some way, or necessary, WotC's management team would not be persuaded to go towards these topics.

And how much more does WOTC need to release in order to create a viable OGC? For me, 3rd party publishers have nothing to preen about. We do not see them releasing their data in a way that makes it easy to reuse. Where is the SRD doc for them?

It seems to me that they have released plenty of OGC material. Enough that we have an entire industry based on it.

As for adventire modules...good luck finding them. Dozens of feats, classes, setting, etc, but god forbid the same level of adventure support.

 

[philreed]

Kinda creates a cycle though where less and less material is sold through traditional channels no?

Yes, it does. Several people are trying to figure out ways to break the cycle but so far I haven't seen anything that I expect to succeed.

 

[philreed]

They can say that D&D sales are great and people gangbang them.

It's hard to not question these claims when within a single month the brand manager is fired and I find out that a huge number of D&D books and minis have been liquidated.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Exactly my point. How am I, as a PDF publisher with almost always 100% OGC designations, harming innovation? I would think that those who lock up new rules, no matter how they're published, would harm innovation far more than I do.

Which is why I don't understand what he is trying to say. Is it because the PDF Market is releasing PDF products and not working the concept to death to make it more polished what is harming innovation in his opinion? I dunno. I certainly don't think any open product is harming innovation.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Kinda creates a cycle though where less and less material is sold through traditional channels no?

Yes it does.

GREAT.

Force the broken traditional channels to fix their-damn-selves.


As to Phil's point, let's run through the exercise for a moment.

Green Ronin publishes a 256-page hardcover of M&M2 for $39.95.

(We will exclude the writing and layout costs from consideration, as it is a one-time up front cost that is common to both print and PDF formats.)

Through traditional print distribution channels, they'll see $15.98 gross on each book sold (assuming the end buyer actually pays them... but let's not digress).

Subtract the actual cost of printing per book and you're probably in the $12 profit per book range. (I have never actually priced a full color print run... it's just an educated guesstimate.)

Now look at the exact same M&M2 content on RPGnow for $20.

RPGnow takes a 30% cut (assuming that GR has not negotiated a better-than-standard discount rate with RPGnow-- which personally I would find amazing, given their volume of sales.)

Green Ronin's profit per sale in PDF format, therefore, is at least $14.

I can almost guarantee that GR makes more profit per sale in PDF format than they do in print format, and at absolutely zero up-front risk.

It is a no-brainer.

 

[Crothian]

It is a no-brainer.

But doesn't it matter how many are sold? Its great if you are making more per unit sold, but if the print gives you twice as many sales isn't that better? Now, I have no idea how sales of PDFs compaire to print books.