[Tom H.]

I'm glad the stakeholder report was released and that SJ Games is forthright and communicative with its community.

However, I would have appreciated a more positive tone even in the midst of the challenges.

I have been getting really excited about the upcoming release of Dungeon Fantasy, the extra effort being given to it, and the opportunity to re-inspire the GURPS line.

In fact, I want to contact the company with some ideas about contributing to what I had anticipated as a hopeful DF product ecosystem in the wake of the release.

But it's troublesome that the current mood in the report seems to eschew the same enthusiasm before the product even has a chance to redeem itself.

There is a lot of stress and finger-pointing in our current culture at large. It seems to be an unfortunate paradigm of running a business today.

Even if there are mistakes with estimates and projections with Dungeon Fantasy and other non-Munchkin projects, it would be better to avoid suggesting those efforts are unworthy with comments like these:

[Dungeon Fantasy] is still clogging our pipeline and causing constant distractions.

...Dungeon Fantasy's ongoing "Destroy all deadlines" crawl to the finish line...

I'm not going to give up my enthusiasm for GURPS.

I'm sure a lot of talented people are working very hard. I applaud them for trying to bring a creative vision to market in spite of the difficulties. They have my support.

Of course, nobody wants to lose money.

Though I don't understand the business, it seems to me that there is a need to separate concerns here.

Maybe the SJ Games cash cows (Munchkin) can have their dedicated resources, and more risky creative endeavors can have their own separate dedicated resources.

That way, blame doesn't have to cross categories, and a department like GURPS will have to survive or die based on its own resources and profitability.

As far as I can tell, there is still a healthy market for role-playing games, wargames, and involved strategy games. Companies still sell these in stores.

I guess SJ must decide if there is still room in their company for their roots. (I've been following you since the early '80s.)

I'll still find a way to support those products that I'm passionate about even if SJ Games abandons them.

Now, I'm hoping that won't be the case.

But it's probably better to drop a project that won't be profitable than to be miserable creating it. (And of course you wouldn't be alone in this, misery appears to have overtaken many businesses in our culture.)

If SJ Games ever decides that it really can't support GURPS, I would hope they could sell the property or open it up before it would be ended all together.

In fact, I reference you to a post much earlier in this thread in case it comes to that.

Originally Posted by robertsconley

...
But now there is another way forward thanks to the example of Wizard's and the Dungeon Master's Guild. And unlike most companies in their position they own and maintain a robust storefront for digital sales. They could introduce a Powered by GURPS section and allow anybody who is a member of Warehouse 23 to publish a PDF in that section in return for some high percentage of the sales price. The DM's Guild sets it at 50% which seems fair to me considering you get to use all of the Fogotten Realms IP in exchange.

In doing this a couple of things could happen.
...

Anyway, I wish all you guys (not including core operations) could just take a week or two off for some downtime.

I know that sounds crazy with all the deadlines and commitments.

However, as a recovering software developer, I recall a story about a Microsoft manager called in to save a stressed-out, slipping Excel team who took a similar 'counterintuitive' approach.

It's from an old book from 1994 called Debugging the Development Process by Steve Maguire.

I hope you guys still have a good week.