Relation Between Message Board Visitors and Product Purchasers

[Morrus]

The connection I think you are looking for is message board users are much more likely to be the PDF market - man, I gotta believe that is true.

That much is certainly true. EN World was in large part responsible for making EN Publishing one of the largest RPG PDF publishers out there.

Another thing I'm pretty sure of is that as we move deeper into the information age, the internet will become more and more important to all businesses. Especially as convergence of console/PC gaming, TV, music and so forth happens. Give it another few years, and I think things will be different.

 

[Yair]

I have 7 players in my group. To the best of my knowledge...

1 (me) - Frequents ENWorld, buys a lot pf pdf products, and quite a bit print products (mostly WotC and Atlas Games).
1 - lurks on ENWorld occasionally (I think), purchases lots of miniatures, and the the Raveloft and D&D core. No pdf purchases that I know of.
1 - does not frequent internet forums; purchases lots of print produts, mostly WotC.
1 - does not frequent internet forums; purchased XPH in two copies recently, but that's about it.
3 - do not frequent internet forums; do not purchase gaming products.
[I don't count the PH; every purchased the PH.]

So I'm the only one that purchases pdf in our group, and I also have the biggest presence in ENWorld or similar sites.

 

[Jim Butler]

Bastion Press seems to be on a roll after making some changes (Doomstriders was good and Into the Blue looks good), though they seem to be skimping on printing costs by using some kind of inkjet printing technology.

I guess I'll take that as a vote that you don't like the new Centaur font we've been using. We're still using the same printers we have been using (and I'm not aware of commercial inkjet technology that might save us money).

 

[francisca]

of the two groups (about 9 people total) I game in, I'm the only one who buys pdfs and who hangs about message boards. For me, I found out about the pdf industry from this very board.

Now, I don't think it really matters. The question should be: what percentage of pdf buyers frequent message boards where their purchasing habits may be influenced by posts on such board? We'll never know. At best, we'll have anecdotal evidence such as, "After a good review on ENWorld, I sold another 50 copies in the next 24 hours."

It's one of those, "Everyone not present, raise your hand.", kind of things.

 

[Samothdm]

Now, I don't think it really matters. The question should be: what percentage of pdf buyers frequent message boards where their purchasing habits may be influenced by posts on such board?

Actually, what I'm trying to get at is:

"If hundreds of people on ENWorld and RPG.net voice their opinion and say 'I will not buy these types of products' or 'I will not buy products from Company X until such-and-such happens', is that significant enough for companies to take notice, or can it safely be dismissed as pure fanboy flaming?"

 

[trancejeremy]

I guess I'll take that as a vote that you don't like the new Centaur font we've been using. We're still using the same printers we have been using (and I'm not aware of commercial inkjet technology that might save us money).

Hmmm. I also thought you had switched to an inkjet for some reason. Not just the typeface, but the pictures, too, look very dotty/inkjetty.

Maybe not inkjet (as that would be more expensive), but the same thing that print on demand uses (which I guess is some sort of laser printer).

 

[Ghostwind]

"If hundreds of people on ENWorld and RPG.net voice their opinion and say 'I will not buy these types of products' or 'I will not buy products from Company X until such-and-such happens', is that significant enough for companies to take notice, or can it safely be dismissed as pure fanboy flaming?"

It depends. If those 'hundreds' of people would have definitely bought products from company X, then it would likely be significant. However, if only 10% of the 'boycotters' would have normally bought the products, while the rest are just giving lip service, then it would fall under 'fanboy flaming' and promptly dismissed. Of the two scenarios, the second is more likely and more common in today's market. Most threats of boycotts are meaningless because a statistically significant number of those who are being vocal about the boycott would have never bought the product in the first place.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, there may be 1.5MM players, but how many of those are also purchasers of product? That's my point.

If we go by a reasonable assumption - that on average a gaming group as one GM and four players, then about 1 in 5 is a purchaser. The 300,000 GMs are purchasers of product. The 5000 people at EN World are still not 2% of that number.

So again, it depends on who you're really trying to sell to. WotC is not interested in small niches. They're too big to worry about filing all the cracks. They're interested in things that will sell to the majority 300,000. If we all boycotted, they likely wouldnt' see a big change in their overall sales.

Malhvoc Press, or EN Publishing, by comparison, are very, very dependant on the 5000. The majority of the 300,000 has never heard of them, and may never see one of their products.

It's kind of like politics. You don't write off an entire group of people who may "only" represent 10% of the voting population and say that they are "insignificant". That's just not good politics (or good business).

Actually, good politics and good business depend on taking calculated risks, and taking cost/benefit comparisons. If it takes 50% of your ad budget to effectively reach that 10% of the population, you generally don't bother. You can probably get better results spending your money elsewhere. You don't spend effort and time trying to satisfy a minority unless there's a payoff. If the payoff doesn't justify the cost, you don't do it.

For example, how many separate individuals are really griping about DRM? It sure isn't the majority of the EN World population. So, how much would these purveyors gain by pandering to those who are complaining? Compared to the losses incurred through broken contracts?

 

[Ed Cha]

EN World is great for smaller publishers like myself. There are folks, like Trancejeremy and Buttercup here, who are driving sales by simply recommending a book or just mentioning it. The people here are far more knowledgeable about third-party d20 products than the average gamer who generally focuses on WoTC releases or no purchases at all.

I'm always amazed at how many gamers out there just buy the PHB and have no interest in anything else at all. The vast majority of actual purchasers only buy WoTC books and the occasional third-party supplement. High-quality books with very general topics like "A Magical Medieval Society" and "Book of Fiends" seem to do well with these folks. It's really hard for other products, however, to reach the consumer not only because distributors and stores just don't order them as much, but also because the average d20 consumer just isn't interested.

That's why I think online exposure, especially at a place like EN World, is very important to smaller publishers.

 

[Mark]

If we go by a reasonable assumption - that on average a gaming group as one GM and four players, then about 1 in 5 is a purchaser. The 300,000 GMs are purchasers of product. The 5000 people at EN World are still not 2% of that number.

I don't agree that you are making a reasonable assumption, and we can both spin the theoretical numbers a multitude of ways, but you leave out factors that are very important.

To a point, I do agree that you are on the right track but when you consider that most of those 300,000 (by your figures) are WotC-only purchasers then the field of potential OGL-material customers thins considerably. If we figure one-in-six will venture beyond (or even hear about) non-WotC materials, then we're down to a more reasonable (IMO) OGL market of 50,000 potential consumers for any given OGL product.

As to the 5,000 users that you figure into your calculations, if we even assume that half of the estimated lurker base of 10,000 can be added to the actual user base from EN World as potential OGL-material customers, we're at 10,000 of that previously mentioned 50,000. Frankly, half feels a bit conservative to me as potential OGL-material customers, becuase for most of them gaining that information is exactly why they are here lurking at EN World, and ergo makes them potential OGL-material customers. And this only uses EN World's numbers, so it doesn't take into account other message board communities, but I'd have to guess that for potential OGL-material customers EN World is likely the primary watering hole.

As possible annecdotal evidence to support my theory, if a print release is managing to sell out a run of 2,000 units and a PDF release manages to sell 200 copies (even after the supposed monstrous hurdle of not being a print product) then are they not capturing about ten percent of the same market that was captured by the print publisher? We could get into the debate of how many of those 2,000 units wind up as gratis copies to contest winners, reviewers, other publishers (in trade for other products), and how many are still collecting dust on gamestore shelves and in discount bins (all of which do not afflict the PDF product), but let's leave that aside for now.

Furthermore, does a release from a publisher who produces both a print and PDF version of the same product manage to sell more than ten times as many of the print version (ignoring for a moment that the print version sales include a number of customers who buy both)?

Again, I'd be very surprised if EN World users, lurkers, and those they influence didn't make up somewhere in the vicinity of 10% to 20% of potential OGL-material customers, and leaning toward the latter. I think OGL-material print publishers who feel otherwise are vastly under-rating the potential OGL-material customer base as represented not only here at EN World but throughout the Internet community. Granted an OGL-material print publisher can probably do quite well for themself ignoring the theorized 20% if they can capture even 10% of the remaining 40,000 on a regular basis, but that's a different debate.

Although you say that it depends on who you are trying to sell to, I'd have to counter that except for a limited number of break-out and introductory products, the main focus of sales and marketing needs to be on the existing OGL customer base, not the overall RPG customer base or even the WotC customer base. That way lies madness because once you get beyond the existing potential OGL-material customer base, where do you reach a point of diminishing returns in your marketing? Do you go after every DM that ever bought a 3.0 DMG? Do you stop at every player who ever mentioned in passing that they might one day try out the DMing chair? Again, this is different for breakout and those geared as introductory products.

Your need to keep bringing everything back around to WotC numbers doesn't seem relevant other than as a basis for the initial potential numbers and I don't feel you cull those numbers down enough to properly bring them into perspective for the discussion at hand. I feel you need to look at what can reasonably be expected to be considered a current OGL-material customers not just anyone who ever bought a WotC core book, or even those who might buy more in the WotC product lines. Of course, I've been working from the assupmtion that the subject of the thread "Relation Between Message Board Visitors and Product Purchasers" was meant to reflect OGL-material customers since we're discussing this at EN World and the first post speaks to the scope inclusive of OGL-material publishers. Perhaps I've missed the full breadth of the discussion by keying on the aspect?