Products that get your attention?

[Greg K]

For myself it is
1) Use: Is this something that I might use either directly in my game or simply as a source of information (or inspiration)? An example of the former would be GR Psychic's Handbook while the latter would be GURPs historical books.

2) Author and Publisher: I don't buy products blindly from any company, but I generally keep watch for products by authors and publishers whose products that I have enjoyed in the past.

3) Reviews and threads: Generally, reviews and threads alert me to products from companies with which I am not familiar. If a product sounds interesting, I will check it out in a store-- for example, ENWorld was how I learned of RPGObjects' Blood and Fist.

Regardless of the above, I never buy
1) shrink wrapped or pdf products unless I have already read through the product. Too many shrink wrapped products in the past have turned me off from buying products unseen.

2) published adventures: I already have several classic modules for reference (e.g., Keep on the Borderlands and Ravenloft). Primarily, I prefer to design my own adventures.

3) new settings unless the setting is one that I want to actually run as a campaign. As a general rule, I prefer creating my own campaign settings.

 

[Gorilla726]

Generally I will only pick something up and look at it if the title sounds like something I could use. And then I'll only buy it if I can use it to gets lots of ideas from, even if I don't use the book for it's new rules and stuff directly.

Gorilla

 

[Poster Bard]

Cover Art that Pops!

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Subject
Quality of Content
Publisher
Author
Layout/\Design/\Artwork/\Format ( including Print VS .pdf)
Reviews/\Messageboard noise
Availability
Price

and just about in that order

 

[Krug]

Cover art and stuff that's out of the ordinary. Such as Chaositech, Redline, Grimm, DragonMech.

 

[nicodaudel]

Author and content are tied for first with me. After that, cost is certainly an issue, but I wouldn't balk if it's something I consider key to my gaming. Previews and reviews do influence me on the margins, though I'm likely to wait longer with such products, if only to let the initial dust settle.

-Dion

 

[iblis]

I take these into account when purchasing RPG stuff :

(in this order of priority)

1. Views (usually @ FLGS or a friend's copy)
2. Previews (usually from the designers' website)
3. Reviews (usually here, sometimes elsewhere)

...more or less followed by particularly convincing threads (here) and particularly convincing sales pitches from people IRL.

 

[Psion]

Yes, having a website does not equate to having a customer know about you. Lots of people have websites.

I think ENworld (to include news, forums, ennies, and reviews) are an information cleringhouse for what's hot in D&D and D20.

 

[cybertalus]

So what is it about a product that grabs your attention? Cover art? Publisher? Author? Product use? Cost?

One of the common complaints I heard about the Ennies is that people didn't recognize the products in question and I thought... "Why?" Almost all of the companies have web sites, some of them had samples and other free downloads in addition to other support so what's the missing element?

Buzz.

Whether it's among the people I game with, or here at ENWorld, the more I notice other people talking about a product, the more likely I am to notice it.

However, buzz is not always a positive. Even if the comments are positive, if the buzz tells me a product is about something that doesn't interest me, I will almost always tune it out. Mutants and Masterminds is a perfect example of this. I've never heard a bad thing about it, but superheroes is a genre that doesn't appeal to me, so I won't be looking at it any further.

Aside from that there are a few authors whose name on the cover will always catch my attention, and a few publishers whose past products have made me more likely to notice their future ones, but no automatic sales in either category. As well there are authors and publishers whose name alone makes me wary of a product, but again, no one on my gaming product "ignore" list.

Luck is also a factor. Someone casually mentioned Goodman Games' 3.5 Warrior Strategy Guide a few days after I'd decided my next character was gonna be a front line tank type. I bought it and have loved it. If I'd seen that product mentioned a week earlier, I might have ignored it unless it was the topic of a lot of talk.

Cover art is usually only a factor when I'm shopping at a physical store. On the Net an evocative title grabs my attention more than cover art does. Any time the title of a work gets my creative juices flowing, I'm going to take a closer look. This can backfire though if the title sets higher or different expectations that the product doesn't match.

Cost usually only catches my attention if it's way out the normal price range. Two recent examples are the World's Largest Dungeon and Goodman's Games' "Two Dollar Adventure". Both of those caught my attention because the price was so out of line with the norm. (Though to be fair WLD also has a lot of buzz, possibly the most non-Net buzz I've ever seen for any non-WotC product. Still, the thing I remember from when I first heard about it is "company's putting out this huge dungeon that's gonna cost $100.")

As for this year's Ennies specifically, I believe there were only two products nominated that I recognized. I remember one off the top of my head, but without looking at the nominations list again, I couldn't tell you the other one. That shouldn't be taken as a complaint, just an observation.

 

[Neo]

Subject Matter: If its interesting or intriguing or covers something im into then this is frequently a deciding factor for me to buy something.

Need for info in game: If it is something that hasnt really been expanded upon in the game or that I would like some new content on then this is the next priority consideration for me in buying something.

Word of mouth/Reviews: there have been in the past many books I never even knew about or would have seen were it not for hearing someone say "did you check this out" or through reading an online Review. someone elses opinion doesnt really affect my decision "to" buy or not but it certainly makes me aware of "what" is available to buy.

And the curveball that can swing it for me irrelevant of the above three concerns and my prime weakness on the impulse buy front is Artwork and layout... if a book has a good cover and good art are really well put together layout then I can and have on numerous occasions bought a book then and there regardless of whether I normally would or not. Indeed some of my most favoured games of old almost got overlooked because of the god awful cover or interior art... Earthdawn (FASA) being a prime example that book never even got looked at twice by me, not just as a consumer but as someone who was once upon a time paid to sell it.. because the book just didnt stand out, were it not for word of mouth I would have missed the train completely on that game