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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Roudi" data-source="post: 2602824" data-attributes="member: 12423">Amen, Man-thing. RPGNow might find themselves in a pretty tight spot if they come up with a plan just among the publishers, then introduce it, only to lose a good base of their customers because they simply don't care for the changes.  I hope that once they formulate a more solid plan, they test the public reaction to the idea before going ahead with it.You also bring up a good point about quality factors.  If exceptions are being made for low-sales, high quality products, who is the one to determine what is of a high enough caliber to make it to the main site?  Other publishers?  The administrators of RPGNow?  The presence of several good reviews?  (On a side note, if review quality alone was the determinant for admittance into the "elite" site, many of the products from RPGNow's platinum vendors would be excluded simply from lack of reviews).  If it turns out that those making exceptions for high quality products are themselves publishers, that's going to open up a whole host of conflict-of-interest issues.I can see that the aim here is to remove the "clutter" from the main site and have it so that big boys compete against big boys and indies compete with indies.  Unfortunatly, that'll remove one of the drawing factors I (and some others I know) appreciated about RPGNow.  No matter who you were, your level of investment in the PDF RPG biz, your level of experience, the swankyness (or ugliness) of your cover art, or any other factor, your PDF went onto the size with an almost equal playing field against all others.  Sure, platinum vendors got all kinds of perks and extra promotions... but when you got to the actual product listings, small guys and big guys would be right next to each other.  Call me an idealist, but that was free market capitalism at it's finest, and I'm sure it inspired more than a few of us to try our own hands at PDF publishing.  With the upcoming segregation, that levelling factor will be gone.  No matter what, Indie RPGNow is going to be seen as the lesser group.  Properly marketed, that site could do well, but I don't respect RPGNow's current customer service rep and thus I don't have much faith that the indie site will receive the attention it deserves (it doesn't help that that customer service rep is himself a vendor whose products will remain on the main site).The real irony is that while new vendors will have to work their way up in the indie site, "big boys" like WotC would start out directly in the main site, even if they end up bringing in few sales.  This move makes me very reluctant to attempt to become an RPGNow vendor.</blockquote>

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