Rappan Athuk Reloaded at DTRPG.COM

[alan]

Huh? The boxed set is of the highest production quality and was incredibly expensive to produce...I am not sure what you are trying to say...

My main point comes from Clark's comment:

I think it would cheapen the print product if there were cut rate pdfs available out there.

He then goes on to state that:

But I am not going to undercut the scarcity and the value and the reward for the fans who bellied up and got the print product.

This implies (to me) that Clark thinks that the main value of the product lies in it's scarcity, and that an inexpensive pdf would lower the perceived worth of the print product.

It is difficult enough to get retailers to carry boxed sets, let alone $75 boxed sets, without risking their anger by putting out the .pdf at a low price.

I can completely understand this. Perhaps offering it after the product has been out for 3 months may have been a better strategy? (Don't sales fall off precipitously after a month or two?) Or offer it at the current high price now, and discount it later.

Clark is one of the nicest people in the business, he is also one of the most honest. If you knew Clark, you would be highly unlikely to say this.

However, it is a fact of customer service that most of your customers DON'T know you. It may be the truth that the customer I am attempting to help is an idiot - yet I don't insult them. Sometime tact is a bit more important than honesty in business relationships.

I have no vested interest in RAR - yet in reading the post, I was compelled to respond as a (now former) NG customer who was stunned by the content, and the thinking behind it.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Okay, so I was wrong about the .pdf price, but it still went down didn't it?

The page count is very high, I couldn't give you an exact number, but you'll probably still not be happy with it.

Those that have the print product; if you ordered from WW I believe you are supposed to get a coupon to get it from DTRPG. Not really sure how that works. If you ordered from somewhere else, not sure what we can do for you (basically, hard for us to know for sure) but I am sure if you are willing to take the time to email Bill about it he'll check into working something out.

Patrick

D00d, at this point I'm just happy I have a copy coming to me in the mail. Like I said if it turns into something that I really want as a PDF i'll just shell out the cash. At this point however that seems unlikely though.

 

[JustKim]

And the threats to pirate RA: Reloaded PDFs because you don't like the price? What ingrates.

I think your anger is affecting your reading comprehension, because that is certainly not what I said and I'm the only one who mentioned piracy.

I said that making the PDF unfairly expensive will not retain its limited edition status, it will give added incentive for people to pirate it. It takes some imagination to read that like a threat. I have no interest in pirating RARe. I don't like PDFs, and I especially don't like Rappan Athuk. I don't like Necromancer adventures, period. My only motivation here is to remind Clark of a force of the internet that he's either overlooked or underestimated the scope of. More than 600 people have downloaded Game of Thrones from the first piracy result in Google alone. You can be sure that GoO did not sell 600 of the PDF at the $100 price they were asking, and the total number of pirated copies is easily in the thousands.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

You're correct...you didn't personally threaten to pirate the PDF. I inferred an implicit threat in what you wrote, and it sounds like I was wrong to do so. I'm sorry about that.


I don't think that the RA:reloaded PDF is overpriced, though. It has easily 3 times more content than any other adventure out there. It has more than 30 levels, each with backstory. It has a huge booklet of maps by the best cartographer out there. It deserves to be 3 or 4 times the price of other NG PDFs, because there's 3 or 4 times as much stuff in it.

Ken

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I don't think that the RA:reloaded PDF is overpriced, though. It has easily 3 times more content than any other adventure out there. It has more than 30 levels, each with backstory. It has a huge booklet of maps by the best cartographer out there. It deserves to be 3 or 4 times the price of other NG PDFs, because there's 3 or 4 times as much stuff in it.

Ken

The print version may well be worth the price* - it is the price of the PDF that has some people up in arms.

I will not go so far as to say 'I will never buy another NG product as long as I live!' but charging that amount for the PDF does indeed annoy me - I would like to see you either drop the price or not offer the PDF at all. (I am actually more annoyed with the idea of charging $45 for the PDF than I would be with just announcing 'In order to maintain the collector's value of the supplement Necromancer Games will not be releasing RAR as a PDF'. It may not make sense, but there it is....)

It will be one of the things I measure when considering purchases. 'How annoyed am I with Company X?' is one of the things that I consider, I could say that there is a complex mathematical formula that I use, but if so it is subconcious... In the main it is an excuse for being a cheapskate and avoiding purchases. (And is part of the reason I do not buy much WotC these days, a climbing annoyance threshold.)

The Auld Grump
*And indicators are that it is indeed worth it - if you like enormous, deadly, difficult dungeons.

**EDIT** And in the interest of fairness - as far as I know the PDFs for the original RA are still available, those who are unwilling to spend $45 on a PDF can still get much of the material for considerably less.

 

[Treebore]

I think your anger is affecting your reading comprehension, because that is certainly not what I said and I'm the only one who mentioned piracy.

I said that making the PDF unfairly expensive will not retain its limited edition status, it will give added incentive for people to pirate it. It takes some imagination to read that like a threat. I have no interest in pirating RARe. I don't like PDFs, and I especially don't like Rappan Athuk. I don't like Necromancer adventures, period. My only motivation here is to remind Clark of a force of the internet that he's either overlooked or underestimated the scope of. More than 600 people have downloaded Game of Thrones from the first piracy result in Google alone. You can be sure that GoO did not sell 600 of the PDF at the $100 price they were asking, and the total number of pirated copies is easily in the thousands.

Wow! Guess we know why GoO couldn't afford to pay their bills. Those 600 people/downloads definitely contributed to it if they would have otherwise been legitimate purchases.

 

[Orcus]

After discussion, we did lower the price of the pdf.

I'm sure there will still be many complaints. Its not as low as some people want.

But dont ever say your voices arent heard. And I dont mean the complainers and the people making veiled threats of piracy or implying we will somehow end up in the poorhouse or I'll never buy from Necro again. Those comments are basically meaningless as far as providing any incentive for me to reconsider a position. I am talking about the people who come in with good valid points and discuss them. We listen to you. We always have. And I appreciate them. I am not inflexible. But I do have a belief about being true to our fans particularly as it relates to this product. Particularly long time Necro people. You know we listen.

And this wasnt planned scarcity. That comment can only be believed by people who dont know what Bill and I are about. Heck, we've underpriced more products (Tome 1 and Abysthor both come to mind; not to mention our PDF strategy for Tome Revised) and given away more content than anyone else in d20, so I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to those sorts of claims. It just isnt true.

I may be wrong about the pdf issue. But right now I dont think I am. But I am willing to change my mind. God knows I've changed it before on other issues

The other point I wanted to make is that some have observed that "we are making 1000 people happy and everyone else mad." Well, I'm not sure how many is in that group of "everyone else". Right now, my responsibility (in my view) is to those 1000. I certainly dont think there are 1000 others who are unhappy. Or even 500. Or even 100. So if that is the case, then who should I be making happy? I think it is that 1000.

And no, the books arent all gone. They are all out to distributors. They will be in game stores. I certainly cant say that all 1000 are, as we speak, sitting in gamers' homes.

As for Necro weathering the storm, dig this: we were the first to release d20 content (Wizard's Amulet was the first ever d20 product, having been released at midnight of the first day of allowed release, though it was a free download; Atlas and GR beat us with the first for sale products with Freeport and Time to Kill) and we are one of two d20 companies left that do nothing but D&D (Goodman being the other one). Everyone else has dropped out. I think we are doing just fine Which, frankly, makes me trust my gut on some of our business choices. I think we have done the right thing and rolled with the changes of the market the right way.

I dont mean to be preachy. I'm not trying to be a dick. I have a thought process behind my decisions. I dont have any trouble sharing those thoughts. I may be wrong. I agree with that. And I dont have any trouble with people telling me I'm wrong. I am passionate about our products and about gaming and about Necro. I am a gamer first and a publisher second. And you can count on this--I will always come in and take the heat. If someone is upset, I will be here to talk about it. I have never ducked that kind of stuff. I listen. I may not change my mind. But this time I already have for instance. So here I am. Come with good issues and I may revise my position. I am here to listen. And to let you know what is on my mind.

I think RA is a killer product. And I am so grateful for the fan response. And it is those 1000 die hard fans that I want to make sure to keep happy. It doesnt make sense to me to make 200 more people happy at the risk of alienating our core fans. But maybe I am mis-percieving this. I dont know yet.

So thanks for the discussion

Clark

 

[Orcus]

Kim, I didnt take your comment as a threat. Frankly, I just ignore the piracy issue. To me, it is the only thing you can do. People are going to pirate stuff regardless of price. I cant control it. So I should make clear that the idea of piracy has 0% impact on my product strategy or pricing. There is, literally, no other way I can see to do it. I dont buy the added incentive to hack theory. The same people will steal it and download it. It is what it is.

Clark

 

[JustKim]

I don't expect to change your mind, but I was pretty curt before and must not have expressed myself very well if I came off as threatening. These are the factors as I see them:

Pirating a CD or a VHS tape is very easy. It requires almost no effort on the layman's part. Removing a watermark or scanning a book is a much more conscious effort and tantamount to an act of rebellion. With these kinds of piracy, consumers are usually sticking it to the man (that would be you in this case).

For piracy to spread, there has to be a market. Right now, people are unhappy about the price of the PDF. Even if none of the people in this thread would take a pirated copy (although statistically it's likely, and 11 people have downloaded Game of Thrones since I referenced it yesterday), people are perceiving that you're not letting supply meet demand.

Bringing it to a head is the lauded "limited edition" aspect. If owning a copy is an accomplishment, then people who would not ordinarily pirate a copy will do so.. and then, to boast their accomplishment, they will share their find with another circle of pirates, continuing the circulation.

It's at that point, I think, that you have pirated copies outnumbering all legitimate copies by 5:1. Maybe you can't do anything about it, but I think it's worth consideration.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Ptolus coupon...

For all of those who have Ptolus, there is a 25% off coupon on the Cd that comes packaged with it that can be used for all Sword & Sorcery, Malhavoc and NEcromancer Games items on DTRPG.com. It's valid until Sept 30th.