The End of the Gaming Renaissance

[Erik Mona]

Folks on EN World have, imho, an overly optimistic view of the pdf market. Yes, lots of folks here, on EN World, like pdfs. However, I have seen no credible evidence that the bulk of RPG players make use of them. I think the market for them is much smaller than many might expect.

I have seen lots of credible evidence that suggests rather emphatically that the bulk of RPG players do _not_ make use of PDFs.

But I've also seen credible evidence that there are a lot more RPG players buying PDFs than there were three years ago.

And I think a huge percentage of PDF customers fall into one of these two categories:

1) Folks who ALSO own the print edition, but who want a portable, easily searchable reference copy.

2) Folks who do not want to risk paying full price on a book, and use the PDF as a way to "taste" the product to decide if it is worthwhile to purchase the print product.

I still feel very strongly that the bulk of the PDF market is SUPPLEMENTARY to the print market. I think the customer who "only" buys PDFs, or who even prefers PDFs, is in the minority of the PDF market.

As technology and e-readers get better and better, I suspect this to change, but if you want to make decent (or even "much of any") money in this business, you still need to print books. PDF sales is just the gravy on top.

Of course, if you can't afford to make a full meal, getting by just on gravy is a lot better than starving...

--Erik

 

[pawsplay]

I think a PDF is more like a cup of coffee. Some people like a cup of coffee with the meal, other people just want a cup o' joe now and then and you can sell to them. But I think we can all visualize a coffee shop; apart from lunchtime at Starbuck's or Sunday brunch, coffee shops do slow, study business. If you start up a coffee shop, your expectations are very different than opening a steakhouse or a grocery store.

As far as the market goes... sometims, I think PDF writers are all just really selling to each other.

GURPS players probably buy more PDFs than most, and I think it's for a very simple reason. Sometimes the good stuff comes out first or only in PDF. Most people would rather have a print book, so when the good stuff goes to press, they wait for the hard copy. A highly anticipated product that went to PDF first might help reverse this trend.

Ultimately, I think the PDF market needs to be grown. If a good product could reliably sell 2000 copies, that would definitely change the game.

 

[Mark]

As technology and e-readers get better and better, I suspect this to change (. . .)

Indeed. And just wait until the trees wake up and knock down all of the towers.

 

[Hussar]

Aus Snow - I realize where I went wrong and it's totally my fault. As usual, I overstated my case and then got wrapped up in trying to defend the indefensible. My bad.

Allow me to restate my point, and please ignore my earlier stupidity.

What jim pinto calls Renaissance era games, are characterized by fairly low (and sometimes REALLY low) production values. Take even b&w softcovers. I've got my Moldvay Basic D&D book here.

It's stapled in the center.

That's how low the production values were back then. That's certainly not the only book you'll see that in. I know my Villains and Vigillantes book and I'm pretty sure my Star Frontiers books were also stapled. Compare to now where even fairly low rent soft covers are perfect bound. ((Is that the right term? I think it is, but, if I'm wrong, I mean that they are glued, not stapled.))

That's what I mean about the pretty large change in production values.

Battletech makes a perfect case in point. My original Battletech books are unfortunately lost to me, but, IIRC, the core books in the boxed set (not the tech manuals) were soft cover and stapled together. Totally black and white with almost no art.

Compare to the new Battletech books. Full color books, perfect bound. Catalyst is also doing the whole "beta release" thing for their newest books as well. Buy the pdf, critique the game and they'll edit from actual play. Something Pathfinder has also done to great effect.

The process of getting a game onto the shelves today is very different from pre-White Wolf days. I guess that was the basic point I was trying to get across (and doing it very badly).

 

[jmucchiello]

I'm discounting the pdf market because it's so bloody small. A GOOD run of sales for pdf is a couple of thousand copies. That's it.

Can we get some numbers for this? I was under the impression that secondary WotC books generally only get a couple 10,000s printed. That for the other top tier companies the main books generally only sell in the 10-20,000 range. In the latter part of d20, a print run of 2000 was a GOOD run for a 3PP. The RPG market is so bloody small. Saying PDF doesn't matter because it is small is missing the garden for all the handful of flowers.

 

[Hussar]

Well, you'd likely know better than me. How many pdf sales=a good pdf run?

I was under the impression that the best selling pdf's, barring a few exceptions like Pathfinder and a handfull of others, sold something in the neighbourhood of 2000 copies. And, that the average selling pdf's were measured in hundreds.

Am I totally wrong in this?

 

[ggroy]

I was under the impression that the best selling pdf's, barring a few exceptions like Pathfinder and a handfull of others, sold something in the neighbourhood of 2000 copies. And, that the average selling pdf's were measured in hundreds.

(On a slight tangent).

Back in the day, was 2000 copies sold typical for non-TSR and non-White Wolf gamebooks?

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Vampire the Masquerade certainly was a turning point in that it attracted a new audience and significantly expanded the demographics of the hobby. But a new game that managed to gain a lot of popularity was not unique at that time. FASA's Shadowrun had good market penetration, as did West End's Star Wars RPG. Vampire WAS unique in that it almost knocked AD&D off its pedestal as the #1 game, but that had a LOT to do with D&D being at the end of an edition cycle, and it didn't last all that long.

To nitpick, 2nd Edition D&D came out in 1989. Vampire the Masquerade 1st Edition came out in 1991. 2nd Edition Vampire the Masquerade came out in 1992. And the revised 2nd Edition Handbooks for D&D didn't come out until 1995, along with the Player's Option Handbooks. The "end of the edition cycle" happened after 1995 when TSR got into financial trouble which lead to the 1997 purchase by WoTC. VTM came out in the MIDDLE of the 2nd Edition D&D product cycle and printed well enough to have a second edition as well as a GURPs version while still in the middle of the 2nd Edition D&D cycle.

It was the fact that the game, despite its clunky system (which was far more elegant that 2nd Edition), emphasized story and storyline over hack and slash that brought in vampire fans who had never played a roleplaying game before. Not because of some perceived inadequacy of D&D. Though I will admit there may have been some factor involving 1st Edition players who wouldn't switch over.

 

[ggroy]

Though I will admit there may have been some factor involving 1st Edition players who wouldn't switch over.

Of my friends who refused to switch over to 2E, some of them did continue to buy 2E stuff like modules, some box sets, and some splatbooks. This was the case for friends who were into settings like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc ...

A lot of 2E stuff was easily adaptable to the 1E AD&D ruleset.

 

[pawsplay]

Of my friends who refused to switch over to 2E, some of them did continue to buy 2E stuff like modules, some box sets, and some splatbooks. This was the case for friends who were into settings like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, etc ...

A lot of 2E stuff was easily adaptable to the 1E AD&D ruleset.

Honestly, I have to look pretty close to even tell the difference.