RPGNow's 2004 Year in Review - not very helpful.

[Roudi]

The RPGNow 2004 Year in Review can be found here

After perusing the 7-page PDF titled "RPGNow 2004 Year in Review" from the front page of RPGNow.com, I'm left a little disappointed. Let me break down the content of the PDF and offer my commentary as we go:

The introduction of the PDF states that it "is designed to help you in making your product selections while at RPGNow," which seems a bit contrary to the PDF's title, "Year in Review." The three following sections, titled "What is a PDF?", "The benefits of PDFs to gamers include:", and "What is RPGNow?" are clearly directed at people unfamiliar with RPGNow and people unfamiliar with the concept of buying RPG material in PDF form. The "What is a PDF?" section is particularly quirky, as it describes the PDF file format as electronic book that can be bought or sold. Clearly this is the context in which PDFs are presented on RPGNow, but PDFs are not used exclusively in this manner, so the title "What is a PDF?" is a tad misleading.

What follows are three lists: "The Top 30 (bestselling) PDFs of 2004", "Platinum Vendors as of December 2004", and "Top 10 (bestselling) AD&D PDFs". These lists make up the bulk of the "Year in Review" portion, and this is the area I find this document the most wanting. Where is the review of the 2004 PDF publishing year? Where are the sales reports, the discussion of publishing trends, the movers and shakers, the up-and-comers? Where is the industry insight? I opened the Year in Review expecting to see some insight into the events of this year in the PDF publishing world and found only a hyperlinked compilation of the best sellers on RPGNow for 2004. I know for a fact this industry is affected by more than just the best-selling vendors and products.

To top it off, there are oodles of coupons and adverts throughout the PDF. As a customer, these coupons are enticing. From a publisher's perspective, they probably have no place in a Year in Review. What it comes down to is this: The RPGNow 2004 Year in Review is not an adequate Year in Review. However, it is a really good "Introduction to RPGNow." It is clearly targetted at new and existing customers, not the vendors and publishers who use RPGNow. The problem is, the current title and location of that document do not help it reach it's intended target. First of all, the Year in Review should be renamed to reflect it's target audience: something like "New to RPGNow?" or "RPGNow Primer" would be more appropriate. Secondly, it should be made available outside of RPGNow, and perhaps even outside of established gaming circles. The document does strive to introduce the RPG PDF market to those who are unfamiliar with it, so making it available in areas not typically frequented by RPG PDF consumers would be prudent.

That said, I eagerly await the real "Year in Review."

 

[GMSkarka]

It is clearly targetted at new and existing customers, not the vendors and publishers who use RPGNow.

Exactly...which is what it was intended to be from the beginning. Vendors and publishers have access to the trends and data that you're talking about via the private ePublishers forum at RPGHost.

Forgive me if it seems a bit odd that the crux of your complaint seems to be that the PDF wasn't what you thought it should be, when there's no indication anywhere that it would be what you were expecting.

Secondly, it should be made available outside of RPGNow, and perhaps even outside of established gaming circles.

It is...the PDF was designed in such a way as to be immediately downloadable, so that you don't have to be signed up to RPGNow to receive it, and when it went live, James suggested that publishers place direct links for it far and wide. There are are other distribution plans for it as well, but I'm not going to go into that here.

 

[Morrus]

I guess it works as a publicity machine for some select publishers, and it has a few coupons which are of benefit to some customers. I don't consider it useful enough to consider assisting in its distribution, though.

 

[Roudi]

Forgive me if it seems a bit odd that the crux of your complaint seems to be that the PDF wasn't what you thought it should be, when there's no indication anywhere that it would be what you were expecting.

I drew my indication of what it should be from the title "Year in Review." I expecting something more akin to a stockholder's report:something containing revenue data, articles from those in the company/industry about the events of the year, etc. In short, the title "Year in Review" connoted a business-like document, not an introduction to RPGNow.

Like I've stated, this document doesn't adequately sum up the 2004 year for RPGNow except to demostrate who sold more than who. As an introductory document to the site and to PDF commerce in general, it does quite well. The only problem is the title, which caused myself (and one other person I know) to develop an unreasonable expectation of it before it was read. It could well be only my fault of interpretation, but I still maintain the document requires a title more reflective of it's actual nature and purpose.

I think Morrus brings up a good point as well... only a few select publishers are actually motivated to distribute it because of the large amount of advertising it contains from a few select companies. Not to tell you how to do your job, but I don't think relying of publishers to distribute this document will be very effective.

I'll reiterate: this is a great document for introducing people to RPGNow and to the concept of buying RPG material in PDF form. However, it's title doesn't suit this purpose, and it needs further distribution OUTSIDE of RPGNow to be effective.

 

[rpghost]

All good points which I'll consider and see what I can do about. You're right, the title is probably a misnomer... sorry about that. A year in review would be nice, but we haven't had the time or help to produce one. THere are peices being posted to the forums, maybe I can get someone to assemble them all into what would be a true year-in-review for publishers.

Thanks for the input, it's appreciated.

James

 

[philreed]

I wanted to include coupons and info for several publishers but many that initially contacted me never sent me anything. It was a very frustrating process since I had several promises but nothing materialized (even after giving it an extra week).

This was put together primarily for new customers.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Title aside, I was a little disappointed that it did not include the top-10 rated products of 2004. And, yes, that's because Poisoncraft was in the top-10. Still, that seemed like a list people being introduced to RPG Now might have an interest in.

 

[TheLe]

For the Record

Although I was interested in participating in this product, as well as other publishers, we could not.

Only the Top 30 were invited to participate in this product.


"Sometimes, 'that's the way it is' is the best explanation." -- Quantum Leap

~Le

 

[philreed]

Title aside, I was a little disappointed that it did not include the top-10 rated products of 2004. And, yes, that's because Poisoncraft was in the top-10. Still, that seemed like a list people being introduced to RPG Now might have an interest in.

Damn. I wish I had thought of that.

 

[philreed]

Although I was interested in participating in this product, as well as other publishers, we could not.

Only the Top 30 were invited to participate in this product.

I did that in order to keep myself from being overwhelmed. If I do a similar site promotional piece I'll instead set a numerical limit on a "first come, first served" basis.