Great Mastiff Games
First Post
Well, the time has come when I might as well explain the situation with my game company and as the ladies and gentlemen of Enworld for a bit of advice. Any input will be greatly appreciated! 
(P.S. I had to sign up as a new user, because the system won't let me log in as Great Mastiff, and it won't send me a new password either ... strange 
)
But anyway, here is the situation, as brief as I can make it. Be warned, this is a bit complex, so please bear with me.
Earlier this year I started my own small d20 game company, Great Mastiff Corp. I had an idea for a great campaign setting, and I thought that it publishing it would be a good way to boost my income up enough so that I can afford to get married to my girlfriend and start a family. So, I spent the next 9 months writing it out, and rewriting it, checking the stats to perfection, etc. I do have a couple of artists who contributed (on the basis of getting paid when I get paid) and who did very fine work indeed. I also did some illustrations myself. I'm good with computers, so I set the whole book up as a PDF file for the printer, designed the cover, scanned in all the art at high resolution and placed it, etc. In short, I put every effort into making an original, exciting, and high-quality product.
The book is called the Acrohelion campaign setting, by the way, although I'm thinking of renaming it the "Steel Lions" campaign setting when I have it reprinted (with even more material) in a few weeks.
I believe that I've made what is at least a solid and intriguing game world, and perhaps a really good one. I've combined the classic heroic feel of the older RPGs with alot of totally new stuff (races, creatures, history, background of magic, nations, etc.) -- there is a lot of potential here, and I'm bursting with ideas for additional books, novels, etc.
I've sold some copies of the book, and all the people who've gotten them who I've talked to afterwards loved the book. Several of them started new campaigns in the game world immediately, and the rest have used a lot of the material in their own games. I haven't heard from all of the people who bought copies, of course, but everyone who has responded has liked it a lot. So clearly, I've gotten something good into those 200,000 words between the covers. Someone even wrote a review a while back on another game site (I believe it was rpg.net). The game professionals at GenCon said that it had a very solid basis and said that I (this is a direct quote) "have what it takes to run with the big boys."
The problem is, that although people who buy the campaign setting like and are really excited with its possibilities, it's VERY hard to get people to try something new. I've advertised for 3 months in Dragon magazine, with online banner ads, in Silven Trumpeter, and I've had my sales rep take the book to GenCon (where certain store owners liked it enough to buy copies and try to sell it also). But despite the high level of satisfaction among actual buyers, the number of people who will take the plunge and buy the book is pretty low. Too low to pay myself minimum wage, in fact, never mind paying the artists.
So my question is, how do I persuade people to try the book out? My promotional efforts, which really strained the budget, didn't seem to do much, despite the fact that my ads in Dragon, for example, must have been seen by tens of thousands of gamers. I have a good product and I've advertised it about as widely as I can afford to, but the response hasn't been what I'd hoped for.
How do you get gamers to buy stuff? They obviously don't respond to magazine or online ads, at least not in sufficient numbers to justify the expense of said ads. It's kind of frustrating having a good, finished product sitting there, but the results of promotion are pretty lackluster. Another crucial question is, will people buy products that don't have a huge name-brand on it, or is the game industry suffering from the "McDonalds syndrom?"
Any advice that you can give to a young chap trying to make his own start in the game industry will be gratefully accepted! Thanks in advance!
(P.S. I'm not looking to become some kind of Bill Gates of gaming, or the next Mongoose, or anything like that. I'm just looking to become a modestly-successful small press publisher.)
(P.S. I had to sign up as a new user, because the system won't let me log in as Great Mastiff, and it won't send me a new password either ... strange )But anyway, here is the situation, as brief as I can make it. Be warned, this is a bit complex, so please bear with me.
Earlier this year I started my own small d20 game company, Great Mastiff Corp. I had an idea for a great campaign setting, and I thought that it publishing it would be a good way to boost my income up enough so that I can afford to get married to my girlfriend and start a family. So, I spent the next 9 months writing it out, and rewriting it, checking the stats to perfection, etc. I do have a couple of artists who contributed (on the basis of getting paid when I get paid) and who did very fine work indeed. I also did some illustrations myself. I'm good with computers, so I set the whole book up as a PDF file for the printer, designed the cover, scanned in all the art at high resolution and placed it, etc. In short, I put every effort into making an original, exciting, and high-quality product.
The book is called the Acrohelion campaign setting, by the way, although I'm thinking of renaming it the "Steel Lions" campaign setting when I have it reprinted (with even more material) in a few weeks.
I believe that I've made what is at least a solid and intriguing game world, and perhaps a really good one. I've combined the classic heroic feel of the older RPGs with alot of totally new stuff (races, creatures, history, background of magic, nations, etc.) -- there is a lot of potential here, and I'm bursting with ideas for additional books, novels, etc.
I've sold some copies of the book, and all the people who've gotten them who I've talked to afterwards loved the book. Several of them started new campaigns in the game world immediately, and the rest have used a lot of the material in their own games. I haven't heard from all of the people who bought copies, of course, but everyone who has responded has liked it a lot. So clearly, I've gotten something good into those 200,000 words between the covers. Someone even wrote a review a while back on another game site (I believe it was rpg.net). The game professionals at GenCon said that it had a very solid basis and said that I (this is a direct quote) "have what it takes to run with the big boys."
The problem is, that although people who buy the campaign setting like and are really excited with its possibilities, it's VERY hard to get people to try something new. I've advertised for 3 months in Dragon magazine, with online banner ads, in Silven Trumpeter, and I've had my sales rep take the book to GenCon (where certain store owners liked it enough to buy copies and try to sell it also). But despite the high level of satisfaction among actual buyers, the number of people who will take the plunge and buy the book is pretty low. Too low to pay myself minimum wage, in fact, never mind paying the artists.
So my question is, how do I persuade people to try the book out? My promotional efforts, which really strained the budget, didn't seem to do much, despite the fact that my ads in Dragon, for example, must have been seen by tens of thousands of gamers. I have a good product and I've advertised it about as widely as I can afford to, but the response hasn't been what I'd hoped for.
How do you get gamers to buy stuff? They obviously don't respond to magazine or online ads, at least not in sufficient numbers to justify the expense of said ads. It's kind of frustrating having a good, finished product sitting there, but the results of promotion are pretty lackluster. Another crucial question is, will people buy products that don't have a huge name-brand on it, or is the game industry suffering from the "McDonalds syndrom?"
Any advice that you can give to a young chap trying to make his own start in the game industry will be gratefully accepted! Thanks in advance!
(P.S. I'm not looking to become some kind of Bill Gates of gaming, or the next Mongoose, or anything like that. I'm just looking to become a modestly-successful small press publisher.)
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