Why not SV Games?

[Morrus]

I was browsing SV Games' website today, and noticed that very few e-publishers chose to sell there. I was wondering why.

The only thing I can think of is the 50% commission rate, which is double that of RPGNow. However, surely it's better that an SV Games customer (and, by all accounts, there are a lot of them) buys a product at a worse commission rate for you rather than not buy anything at all?

Or are there other factors I haven't thought of? Someone said to me the other day that one of the barriers was that SV Games required ISBN numbers for e-products, but I have checked and that is not the case.

 

[Dextra]

I was browsing SV Games' website today, and noticed that very few e-publishers chose to sell there. I was wondering why.

I know that with Ambient Inc., we filled out all the paperwork, sent the contract, and never saw a product listed, nor a penny received.

 

[Morrus]

I know that with Ambient Inc., we filled out all the paperwork, sent the contract, and never saw a product listed, nor a penny received.

I don't know about receiving the money (yeah, that sounds bad - have you asked Sean V about it? I get the impression he's an honest guy), but there are certainly Ambient products listed. I noticed that Ambient was one of the very few e-publishers there: http://www.svgames.com/ambientinc.html

 

[HellHound]

That's interesting.

I think they put us up FINALLY in the last week (notice that we are also listed on NEW AT SVGAMES section on the front page... heck, we are newer than the D&D Minis line).

We submitted out material and contracts in January of this year. We went on-line in September... For all we know, there are another 20 some-odd publishers still waiting in that 9-month queue.

I had honestly given up. Several emails asking what the status was had gone unanswered so I never sent an update changing the product line from Ambient Inc. to E.N.Publishing as I had surrendered to the conclusion that we were not going to be listed there.

 

[pigames.net]

That's probably a good indication that doing business with them is not a good idea. RPG.net's electronic mall stopped answering emails too and look what happened to them.

 

[Morrus]

Well, as of now EN Publishing is listed at SV Games and our full inventory should be online there by the end of the day.

As I see it, getting your product in as many places as possible is to the publisher's advantage.

Sounds like your problems were unfortunate, Jason, but I've been talking to SV over the last week and he has proved very responsive and helpful. Let's hope that your case was a one-shot.

 

[V_Shane]

I went to the site and couldn't find any info on submitting a product, do you have a link or email?

Thanks, maybe I can get both Arcane and Heathen on there.

Shane

 

[Morrus]

Hellhound, I got a reply from SV when I asked him about your situation. Here's what he said:

I dropped the ball on Ambient earlier in the year and when we rushed to move into our new offices, a few items were buried in boxes until recently. I typically keep a project plan on all the items going on, but when I assigned this to one of my employees, I also shortly thereafter sent him back to college. As a result, it was assigned but he wasn't here to do it and I think his project plan didn't get updated during the transition to the other team members. Needless to say, we're a bit tighter on things like that now.

V_Shane - his email is seanv@svgames.com - however, he is away until Tuesday or so visiting family, so don't expect an immediate reply!

 

[Cergorach]

Morrus, if there was a webshop that took a 60% cut from your sales would you still want to sell there? How about 70%?

I find a 50% cut for a fully automated service that costs little to maintain a classic example of highway robbery!

By posting your products on such sites you just say "Look here, i'm bending over, please do what you want with me.".

 

[Morrus]

Not at all. It's not instead of RPGNow, it's as well as. If one of SVG's customers is browsing his site and sees my product, he might buy it and make me a little bit of money; if my product isn't there he definitely won't buy, and thus I'll make no money.

Getting product in as many places as possible is a good thing, as it exposes that product to people who have never seen or heard of you. There are a lot of people who visit SV Games who, believe it or not, have never heard of EN World or RPGNow - lots of them are those who used to use the old WotC store.