Small Publishers on RPGNow

[Warden]

I don't understand how the concept of a second site makes any sense.
If RPG Now wants to showcase different vendors in different ways that makes sense.
But wouldn't this be better all around by improving the searching and sorting of a single site?
A simple "What are you looking for?" link system on the site entrance could handle this without pissing off publishers, or adding the inevitable confusion a second URL will cause.
Wal Mart doesn't build a seperate store for their lower selling goods - they just change their shelf space to accent the goods they want to emphasize.

Questions like that can't be answered right now because things are still in development, but perhaps this analogy will help explain the intention better. NOTE: I'm not affiliated with RPGNow, just trying to help everyone understand some of the discussions as to WHY decisions have been made to make some changes for the better.

Wal Mart might not build a seperate store for their lower selling goods, but they will put different items in a different AISLE, rather than cram everything together in one location. RPGNow probably has 4000+ products from over 300+ vendors, some of whom include Green Ronin, EN Publishing, and others that make significant sales for PDF. The product is simply being rearranged into a second AISLE to make it easier to find items without searching, for those who simply walk to wander in a browse, like myself. I know that search functions are something else being looked into, but display time on the front page and everything else is a big concern for all publishers involved. If the system can be changed so that each product has more than a full week's exposure rather than a couple of days, it works out for the publisher trying to sell that product. Hence the decision to make some changes.

As to what those are, there are only suggestions and concerns being shared within the PDF community at this moment, so details will be announced shortly when they are set up. It's one thing to say an idea, it's another to make sure it will actually work. Either way, many ePublishers believe that this will work out in the long run without leaving anyone stranded in the dust.

 

[Sledge]

The Walmart analogy is flawed. It would be more accurate to say that if Walmart put a wall through half their store and you could only buy their "high-profit" items in one half of the store and had to go to the other half to get what you need. That is what has been proposed.
Remember the recent polls. The question that always comes up is if people would like the store to be better organized. This is their excuse. This decision is only a calculated idea by RPGNow to actually kill off their low end customers. The high-end will be charged less and the low-end charged more making it increasingly difficult to publish. Unfortunately the majority of these high-end products are only high-end because the company put out 20 (or several hundred in the case of 2 or so companies) pdfs. These companies only need to sell a bit of each pdf in order to make considerably more money as they swamp the marketplace. There is no innate quality in these pdfs, only prolificness.
Finally there is one other significant poll question I remember. The results were that most pdf purchasers at RPGNow shop only at RPGNow. If this is accurate (And I am sadly sure that RPGNow believes this) then the subtext to this is assumption that this will drastically hurt profits of the low-end publisher.
In the end consumers will have a choice of where to go and many will not wish to do both. Supporting either side seems to be a problem. The small publishers need the support, but will be unfairly charged. The big publishers will continue to release ever smaller and more frequent pdfs as they will be able to profit much more easily on the low end items. The end result will only benefit rpgnow. Worst of all is that once again there is no hint of an attempt to try and make the site navigatable. I believe this MAY be because it would counterract the attempt to cut off small publishers. If the site was redesigned the volume wouldn't be a problem.
These are however only my opinions. Not facts. Do not take them as such. Feel free to contradict me. I'm only expressing what seems to be the logical conclusions to me.

 

[Vigilance]

This decision is only a calculated idea by RPGNow to actually kill off their low end customers. The high-end will be charged less and the low-end charged more making it increasingly difficult to publish.

I assume when you say customers here you mean vendors.

Vendors are not RPGNow's customers, they are vendors.

Thus the proper analogy to RPGNow is not of Walmart or any other single store, but of the mall. RPGNow is a PDF mall.

And just like the mall, some vendors are going to be in the high profile end slots of the mall and some will be in small kiosks in the isle.

I think the portrayal of RPGNow as a big, EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL company attempting to kill off small PDF manufacturers is also high misplaced.

There are other PDF sites that won't take start-up PDF vendors AT ALL unless they have a considerable reputation in the print medium.

Were James and RPGNow really looking to kill off the little vendors they wouldnt provide them with a new space, where they can compete with one another and have a real shot at front page exposure.

What they would do would be to remove them from the site. Period.

As someone who has been on both sides of this equation, owning a PDF startup and working for one of the larger PDF vendors, I honestly believe this move will give small PDF vendors more of a chance not less.

If I were the owner of a small PDF company (and I am- though dormant for awhile now) I would much rather compete for front page space with my fellow small PDF vendors than I would Green Ronin, Ronin Arts, ENPublishing and RPGObjects.

The PDF industry is growing up. There are going to be growing pains. They call it pain because you don't like it when its happening.

But sometimes change is necessary.

It can either be embraced, or it can be resisted by logging onto a website and railing against the company that gave startup PDF manufacturers a place to express themsevles and make money in the first place.

Chuck (who would never have been published anywhere without the assistance of RPGNow)

 

[BryonD]

I think the portrayal of RPGNow as a big, EEEEEEEEEEEEVIL company attempting to kill off small PDF manufacturers is also high misplaced.

Yep. This is a good lesson in how easy it can be to paint someone else as evil just becase they want to do what they think is best with their own resources (for themselves and their customers).

But that is a standard fight you're never gonna win. The big guy is always evil in the minds of many.

 

[madelf]

I'm only expressing what seems to be the logical conclusions to me.

I think you mean you're jumping to conclusions.
There isn't enough information publicly available to form a logical conclusion about anything. And nothing resembling a logical discussion is going to be possible until the change is in place, or at least formally announced and explained in detail.

As a small publisher likely to be effected by this change, I really don't appreciate people making uninformed statements and running wild with speculation about how bad this is going to be. It may be entertaining for you, but it's rather counterproductive from my perspective. Plaease consider that your doomsaying may actually be harming the smaller publishers you seem to want to support, by potentially skewing peoples' view of the change to something bad, before you even know what the change will involve.

So, please, folks.... knock it off. If not for the sake of RPGnow, then for the sake of the little guys on whose behalf you're so outraged. We'll all know the real facts soon enough. If you don't like it then, fair enough. But at least you'll know what you're complaining about.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Worst of all is that once again there is no hint of an attempt to try and make the site navigatable. I believe this MAY be because it would counterract the attempt to cut off small publishers. If the site was redesigned the volume wouldn't be a problem.

How's this for a hint?

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=219870

 

[BlackAngus]

See, that's what I'm talking about. Here you are ready to get into an argument, making a very ugly accusation, about something that you don't know the details of....and not because you're ignorant or anything, but because those details don't exist yet.

I can tell you this: It's not a "popularity contest."

PLEASE--Wait until we've given the details before you start looking for a lynching tree. Is that too much to ask?

The thing that gets my goat (and probably that of other small publishers who are annoyed about the change), is that we keep being told that the plan is being worked out, yet if anyone asks what the reasons for the change are, they are told to "shut up and stop whining, cos the change is going to happen regardless." Asking us for input about what the new site is to be called just doesn't cut it for a discussion about the change. I have seen no in depth discussion of the reasons for the change. Also very frustrating is that the proposed change doesn't solve the issues that I have heard mentioned. How about spelling out what the problems are and how the change is going to address those problems? Also, how about addressing other suggestions that have been made for addressing the percieved issues. Most people are fairly reasonable and will accept a change once they see it is necessary and well reasoned. All we get currently is posts from the owners of RPGNow telling small publishers to be quiet and accept things, and posts from the larger vendors (who think they will benefit from the change) saying how great it is.

BlackAngus

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

The reasons for the change have been stated fully, just not on this forum but in the private one at RPGHost. That's where they belong at the moment, regardless of one's feelings about the event.

 

[BlackAngus]

The reasons for the change have been stated fully, just not on this forum but in the private one at RPGHost. That's where they belong at the moment, regardless of one's feelings about the event.

The following quote from the Hitchhker's Guide springs to mind:

PROSSER: Come off it, Mr. Dent. You can’t stand in front of the bulldozer indefinitely. This expressway has got to be built, and it’s going to be built!

ARTHUR: Why’s it got to be built?

PROSSER: What do you mean, "why"? It’s an expressway. You’ve got to build expressways! You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know.

ARTHUR: Appropriate time?! The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday and said he’d come to demolish the house!

PROSSER: But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months!

ARTHUR: Yes, well, as soon as I heard, I went straight round to see them. You hadn’t gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody.

PROSSER: The plans were on display—

ARTHUR: On display? I had to go down to the cellar to find them!

PROSSER: That’s the display department!

ARTHUR: With a flashlight.

PROSSER: The lights had probably gone out.

ARTHUR: So had the stairs.

PROSSER: But you found the notice, didn’t you?

ARTHUR: Yes, I did. It was "on display" in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, "Beware of the Leopard."

 

[GMSkarka]

The following quote from the Hitchhker's Guide springs to mind:

Bull.

The first discussion, with the data you request, is stickied at the top of the private ePublishers forum. There are also nearly a dozen other threads discussing various aspects of the situation...again, in the private forum.

If you don't have access to the forum, you should (as several emails sent to all vendors from RPGNow in the past week have repeatedly stated), register for the forum, contact custserv@rpgnow.com and you'll be given access once we've confirmed you are one of our vendors.