Steve Conan Trustrum
Explorer
Umm... no.
This is not what is happening. If you wake up one day and decide you like jeans so why not start making your own, do you expect that you'll be selling your product in the biggest retailer of jeans right from word go? Absolutely not. If you have worked for Levis for 10 years, starting in manufacturing, working in design and then moving on to management before deciding to start making your own jeans you'd be in a better position to bargain with. Why is it you think that neophyte publishers are any different? What does the industry owe them by default merely because they've decided to try publishing if they haven't had the good sense to do the leg work themselves?
I'm all for answering questions and helping where and when I can but I've hardly got the time or inclination to give someone a free business plan or train them on layout, graphic design, editing and whatever else they come into the industry lacking. Helping does not mean I have to devote myself to filling in the gaps in someone's business they should be responsible for.
I didn't get a "break" at squat. I thought I had the chops and I began sending stuff in for companies to look at. I talked to publishers. I did the leg work. Nobody took pity on me and decided to take me under their wing. A lot of people coming into the PDF industry don't even go that far--they jump right to publishing and then wonder why it is that they don't seem to have clue one as to how to go about doing it, so they ask other publishers and then a good many get pissed off because those publishers nice enough to answer their questions have agreed with them that their ideas are the best thing that the rpg industry will ever see.
Nor is having a good idea any indication of the necessary talent to produce it properly. Good ideas far outnumber ability to produce them, which is why so many people would be better off consolidating into talent pools, especially if they have absolutely no prior rpg experience.
And do you know what? Even if you have an idea AND talent it still doesn't mean anyone in the rpg industry owes you a single thing. You still have to prove you're willing to do the work and put your own money at risk to become a success. Do you know why so many of the small publishers have hand-drawn or clipart logos? Why they host on geocities or don't have sites at all? Because they don't even have enough confidence in their own company to put some money into it. Now, if such publishers aren't willing to illustrate a confidence in their own business, why should any other publisher or customer for that matter?
My question to you is who are you to say that it doesn't exist? Who are you to comment on the current state? Are you a publisher? Are you a publisher who is doing more than making a Geocities account? Are you a publisher who has spent money on getting good artists rather than putting together your product illos yourself with pencil crayons and a scanner? It's very easy to be an outsider looking in--someone with no actual investment in what you're discussing--and say "this is how it should be!" than it is to be someone with your own money invested in a start-up company and have a bunch of people tell you that you're not doing enough to help your competition when you can clearly see how much of your competition isn't even willing to first help themselves.
What the Edge will hopefully do (I'm not yet convinced of this, but it's not even in operation yet so I'll reserve judgement) is give such neophytes a place to test themselves and either come to terms with whether or not they're cracked up to be in the biz. It will be a lot easier to measure that if the divide between you and the competition isn't as wide--in other words, it's a lot easier to see how you're doing as a little guy if you're only measuring your business' progress against other guys rather than someone like Green Ronin or Ronin Arts. Because, whether you want to admit it or not, a mere desire to publish RPGs is nowhere remotely the same as expecting other companies to help keep you afloat because you can't do it yourself.
I think that showing people looking to get into the biz they can only expect so much if they're not willing to push their companies to the point where they will be considered serious businesses that they shouldn't expect special consideration is a good thing. It will hopefully drive them more or get them to quit early before they waste unnecessary amounts of money learning the same lesson later on. And yes, I also hope that such lessons will strengthen the industry by showing the customers that the PDF industry should be taken seriously and isn't all just a bunch of gamers who know how to save files as PDFs, which is, I'm afraid to say, a VERY common perception of the PDF industry.
The big publishers do not exist to subsidize my small press company. If I'd started Misfit Studios with that belief I'd definately be an idiot and poor businessman. As for the big publisher's "right" -- well, "right' isn't the correct term. The fact is that they are in a position to tell retailers that they either do something about enforcing quality control or they move somewhere else. Why and how? Because they bring a LOT more money to those retailers than the small press all do COMBINED. That's not just saying something about dollars and cents, that's saying something about how the businesses are being run--the big guys got where they are for a reason and if the smaller guys don't examine those reasons and see how they can best apply them to their own businesses, well, those small publishers are fools for letting their pride make their business decisions for them.
They do lead by example. Do you know what I did prior to starting up Misfit Studios? Called my contacts and asked questions. I went to messageboards and emailing lists and read what publishers had to say there. I contacted businessmen I knew and asked general questions about running a business. Now, not everyone has contacts to call but everyone can certainly join those messageboards and talk to businessmen for advice.
While it is wise to say that the big pulishers should lead by example, it is foolish to believe that the big publishers should wait for the rest of us to catch up to them.
, sorry couldn't resist it 
