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<blockquote data-quote="eyebeams" data-source="post: 3529700" data-attributes="member: 9225">Direct sales have nothing to do with the supplement treadmill and the indie publishing model has the defining characteristics of the supplement treadmill, especially now that it is frankly promoted as a single brand. What you really have are a handful of core indie brand exemplars that sell consistently and their externalities*: games that don't make net profit but enhance the prestige of the brand by their numbers, which ends up mostly benefitting the leaders, while everybody else sells next to nothing for the privilege of being considered an indie designer. Plus, of course, a whole bunch of talented people let themselves get exploited, because somehow, getting slave wages from some guy you talk to online is better than getting them from a Faceless Corporation.The &quot;long tail&quot; claimed as an element of distinction compared to mainstream products also exists for mainstream products (see Palladium, RTal and WW's electronic back catalogue). Larger companies often &quot;cut off&quot; that tail when it becomes too marginal, but indie publishers are not necessarily rational economic actors and sometimes report gross profit despite net loss. Witness discussion at the Forge about merchants who need daily reciepts from their booth sales to attend Gen Con, which indicates attendance at a loss.In many ways, asking for an alternative to the supplement treadmill is like asking for a way to eat without using your mouth. It's possible, but rarely the first, best choice. WotC made a lot of noise about how it was just in the core book business, but of course it went back on that right away, using the now-popular dodge of throwing a hard cover around a supplement to make it look more core book-ey. No slouch itself, WW's gone with pretty much the same thing. What White Wolf excels at is dropping the axe the moment a line would probably reach a certain threshold in diminishing returns.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="eyebeams, post: 3529700, member: 9225"] Direct sales have nothing to do with the supplement treadmill and the indie publishing model has the defining characteristics of the supplement treadmill, especially now that it is frankly promoted as a single brand. What you really have are a handful of core indie brand exemplars that sell consistently and their externalities*: games that don't make net profit but enhance the prestige of the brand by their numbers, which ends up mostly benefitting the leaders, while everybody else sells next to nothing for the privilege of being considered an indie designer. Plus, of course, a whole bunch of talented people let themselves get exploited, because somehow, getting slave wages from some guy you talk to online is better than getting them from a Faceless Corporation. The "long tail" claimed as an element of distinction compared to mainstream products also exists for mainstream products (see Palladium, RTal and WW's electronic back catalogue). Larger companies often "cut off" that tail when it becomes too marginal, but indie publishers are not necessarily rational economic actors and sometimes report gross profit despite net loss. Witness discussion at the Forge about merchants who need daily reciepts from their booth sales to attend Gen Con, which indicates attendance at a loss. In many ways, asking for an alternative to the supplement treadmill is like asking for a way to eat without using your mouth. It's possible, but rarely the first, best choice. WotC made a lot of noise about how it was just in the core book business, but of course it went back on that right away, using the now-popular dodge of throwing a hard cover around a supplement to make it look more core book-ey. No slouch itself, WW's gone with pretty much the same thing. What White Wolf excels at is dropping the axe the moment a line would probably reach a certain threshold in diminishing returns. [/QUOTE]

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