Why not SV Games?

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Why not deal with SV Games?

1.) They don't care.
Long before I started selling through RPGnow, I tried contacting them a number of times. This was over a year ago, with last april being the last time I made an attempt. I still have received no response.

2.) Inappropriate Delivery Method
A file broken up into segments that you need to rejoin before you can decompress the product and enjoy it? I don't imagine many customers were very happy about that, either.

3.) Lack of information
SV Games doesn't provide any information that even allows publishers to take them into consideration. Through this thread, I see further lack of information, which to any publisher, should raise red flags about the trustworthiness of the company. After all, it is run by a former corporate finance lawyer, the same type of person that gave the okay for the enron and worldcom scandals.

4.) 50% discount
No publisher should be giving ANY retailer the same discount a low-volume distributor should get. You should never give any retailer a discount better than what they would get by using a distributor. 35% should be your cutoff point, as that it the worst discount offered by any distributor. And with the lack of information, I never would have known this if not for this thread.

5.) Loss of control
There's no control over price discounts on SV Games? With PDFs, that's unacceptible. I hope they don't screw publishers over by adjusting the 50% you get based on the price they decide to sell at...

On a side note, what other non-publisher sites sell PDFs? As far as I knew, RPG.net, RPGNow, and SV Games were the only ones, and as it stands now, RPG.net doesn't do PDFs anymore and SV Games demands an unacceptible dicount rate.

 

[tensen]

Why not deal with SV Games?
2.) Inappropriate Delivery Method
A file broken up into segments that you need to rejoin before you can decompress the product and enjoy it? I don't imagine many customers were very happy about that, either.

As far as I can tell, that is only on large products... and I think only if you chose it. Since I personally haven't run into that instance.

 

[jmucchiello]

As far as I can tell, that is only on large products... and I think only if you chose it. Since I personally haven't run into that instance.

I haven't bought anything there but when you click on the shopping cart it goes to Yahoo!. Does Yahoo! also perform the file split and host the downloading?

 

[rpghost]

I haven't bought anything there but when you click on the shopping cart it goes to Yahoo!. Does Yahoo! also perform the file split and host the downloading?

It's the large TSR product files that had the joins (some are 80mb) and worse the join program only worked with IBM PC's running Windows (not macs or linux)... They maybe using it less often these days or even now giving an option since RPGNow also has the TSR products and got a lot of sales just for NOT doing that... but who knows. Again, no clear line of communication or direction from there...

James

 

[Monte At Home]

If we were talking about real world stores, I'd agree with you that getting your product into as many of them as possible, no matter what, is probably a good deal. But the web isn't the real world.

We sell our pdfs through our own site (the White Wolf site), RPGNow, and Amazon.com. I don't hardly ever tell people that we sell through Amazon, because while it was a coup getting in there, we get less money if a customer buys from Amazon. If our website also sent you to Amazon, like it sends you to RPGNow, we'd lose money. (We make almost as much selling a single product at RPGNow as we do through White Wolf. It appears that while most of our customers that shop RPGNow start at our site and follow the link there, that's not true of all, so being at RPGNow does get us a net benefit.)

If RPGNow charged 50%, the way that SVGames (and other places that have approached me) do, they would have to have an enormously huge amount of unique traffic that wouldn't come to our site normally in order to justify getting the smaller amount AND I'd still run the risk that customers for future products that would have purchased at our regular site would buy there instead next time. It's not worth it.

We made the decision to do it with Amazon, because we figured that they DO have "an enormously huge amount of unique traffic that wouldn't come to our site." And even that's beginning to look like a questionable decision.

 

[dungeondweller]

Several reasons...

Why do I not use SV Games? Let me count the ways:

1. I have no control over pricing
2. I don't like the general presentation of their website - hard to use for a 'site newbie'
3. Using their service is, in effect, condoning their outrageous commission requirements
4. From what I can tell, they don't have half the tools of RPGNOW to let me monitor my sales, build my own database of customers, etc

I don't know about anybody else, but DDG Games is far from a "fire and forget" publisher. As founder, I'm on RPGNOW 7-10 times a day, checking and documenting sales volume and keeping a close eye on what practices maximize sales and customer satisfaction. Without control over my own prices and comprehensive sales tools, I'm flying blind and paying 50% to do it.

That's not enough for me. I won't support a vendor with such poor habits and policies whether or not DDG Games would ultimately benefit from doing so. It is not, over all, good for my publisher or the industry.

John
DDG Games

 

[Jraynack]

After reading Morris and his comments on another thread about spreading his wings and listing his products with SV Games, I began looking at other e-book distributors starting with SV. I must say, I was rather disappointed. Other than an order e-mail address, I found no other venue to contact them. I looked and looked. I may have missed it, but there lies the problem: If it is not simple for me to list my product with them, will it be simple for a customer to purchase my product, simple for me to receive payments?

I do see Morris' point and I agree, something is better than nothing, however we will not list with them until it becomes more convient and customer friendly.

However, SV Games and RPGNow(though they are the best we have seen) are not the only alternatives. There are other e-book distributors (though not specifically RPG) that do not require you to have IBSN numbers (though we at Alea are heading). We recently signed up at ebookad. They are not RPG but they do sell e-books (.pdf, palm, etc.) and charge a 35% commission without a lot of the customer service RPGNow provides (but similar). Will we sell any? Who knows. But we will get exposure and if there are enough RPG products listed, they will proberly add an RPG category among their many categories.

It also will let us expand beyond d20 or RPG products, which we also hope to head.

As for James raising his percentage to match other distributors? He may and that is his right. We certainly do not wish that for, in our short time with him, we, at Alea Publishing Group, are thoroughly pleased. However, with a sea distributors taking 50% commission, there leaves a lot of room for a new distributor to emerge that is satifisfied with only 35%, or even 20%. That is the progress of capitalism and competition. So I am not worried about possible commission inflation.

Josh
Alea Publishing Group

 

[annadobritt]

Selling my pdfs through RPGNow is the best thing I've done. And with all the options you get as a gold vendor, the 25% you give up is well worth it.

When I shop, I always go to RPGNow for pdfs and RPGShop for books. RPGShop has excellent service and delivery time. If there's a book I need, they usually have it and I can get it within a week. If I have to special order it from a bookstore, it will be 2-3 weeks before I can go pick it up.

 

[Brian K. Moseley]

What should publishers not support or sell via SVGames? Because you don’t want the industry commission rate to become 50%, that’s why.
-chris

I agree, which is why Darkfuries PDFs aren't sold through SVGames. 50% is higher than most distributor rates for printed products, but these are electronic products with no inherent inventory overhead.

My greater concern, however, is if SVGames reserves the right to set price. I have not personally researched this, so I am relying upon what others have already posted in this thread. Hopefully I'm not going to chew shoe leather again If SVGames can offer additional services to compensate for their high percentage, that would be a different matter.

With PDFs being a sliver of an already niche market, in my opinion it is better for the e-publisher to set their own price. Sales competition is healthy, but the PDF industry won't support a great deal of it. Supporting a storefront that pays a smaller percentage to the e-publsher so that it can afford to undercut its competitors may provide a few extra sales, but it isn't worth losing the larger commission percentage. Selling through one venue isn't sound business practice either, and I have no qualms with selling through other PDF storefronts that offer competitive rates.

I doubt that it is a realistic expectation to make a living by writing e-books. PDFs can provide supplemental income or help increase a small publishers' short-term cash flow, but they aren't something to hinge your financial future on. Add to this the fact that many retailers hesitate to carry a printed book that is also released as an e-book.

If an e-publisher receives only 50% gross on a product, I can't justify the effort to create the book as sales over the life of the product are unlikely to exceed few hundred copies . Based upon the number of extremey low-priced PDFs at RPGNow, however, I'm sure there are many e-publishers who would disagree with me.

Lastly, regarding PDF storefronts, the first Darkfuries e-book was released through RPGNow in December 2001. I've never had a problem with James. I listed several products through the RPGNet Mall, but it was disappointing. Over the course of a year I emailed several times requesting payment. Allan Sugarbaker forwarded my emails to the appropriate folks. Nobody else ever responded, and I was never paid so I removed the products.

 

[GMSkarka]

That is the progress of capitalism and competition. So I am not worried about possible commission inflation.

Then, respectfully, you're not too familiar with how that sort of competition actually works.

Commission inflation is a very real issue in this sort of venue, simply because the volume is so small.

Think about it like this: Every dollar of business done with SV Games (or any other online retailer) is a dollar LOST by RPG Now. If the publishers have shown that they're willing to offer a higher comission, then it makes ZERO sense for RPG Now to offer the lower commission, because they're ALREADY *LOSING* SALES, even though they offer a lower commission. Better to raise the commission rate, and make up at least a bit of the lost revenue, right? After all, the publishers have alread communicated that they're willing to pay out 50%....

Disclosure: I work with James, so I'm definitely biased.

Another disclosure: I've also been working in this industry professionally since 1988, as a retailer, a distributor, a publisher, a designer and a consultant. I've seen some pretty short-sighted decisions made by folks over the past 15 years, and this definitely seems to fall into the "didn't really think it through" camp.

GMS