View Single Post
Old 02-15-2018, 08:05 AM   #1166
Kromm
GURPS Line Editor
 
Kromm's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
Default Re: Report To The Stakeholders

Quote:
Originally Posted by afschell View Post

Would I, as a newcomer, spend $60 for a boxed set knowing that there are only a few adventures ready to run without a lot of effort?
I really, truly see your point, but this can be inverted: Would I, as a publisher, spend large amounts of money on the production of adventures without knowing that people will buy them? The lack of screaming, break-down-the-doors demand for the DFRPG doesn't tell us that adventures would be a safe bet. This is, of course, a chicken-and-egg matter.

Quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
If the product had come out on its original budget and matched original sales estimates, presumably it would have been a success [...] However, it seems to have come out worse in both categories.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom H. View Post
I can understand if there may not be unbridled market demand for the new Dungeon Fantasy RPG.

I'm not sure I fully understand the negative tone regarding its overruns.
Speaking to the matter of budget and overruns:

Ultimately, much of this comes down to "SJ Games hadn't released a bona fide boxed roleplaying (not board, card, or dice) game – with dice, figures, and everything – since GURPS Second Edition in 1987." Realities do change over 30 years. We knew things had changed and that we were taking a risk, whence our use of Kickstarter.

As the primary writer, I'm willing to take some responsibility for the excess time required. Yet in purely mathematical terms, writing on the DFRPG proceeded at a breakneck pace: The GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition was a very similar redesign and streamlining task. It had about 1.7× the word count of the DFRPG, but it also had 4× the development time and 2× as many hands-on designers, for 8× the person-hours, meaning it moved at between 1/5 and 1/4 the speed . . . That seemed entirely reasonable in 2002-2003, but it evidently wasn't as workable 15 years later. Which doesn't change the fact that had I spent even less time on the text, the rules wouldn't have been as good.

Also, many of the delays had nothing to do with text. Art was at least as big a deal – especially when you factor in cover art, figures, and poster maps. Changing all our production assumptions from the 8 1/2" × 11" format used for GURPS to an 8" × 10" one also slowed things down. Even taking breaks from product-creation to write up Kickstarter support and promotional pieces, and give interviews, took its toll. Yet had we not had good art*, a box-friendly format, and advance marketing, who's to say things wouldn't have been worse? Not us, because we hadn't actually done it in 30 years.

* Regardless of whether you like the aesthetics of the art, we took pride in avoiding things like making all the characters either white men or women in mail bikinis. We also tried to depict plausible weapons and armor, and match creature art to creature descriptions. All of which meant a lot of back-and-forth over art long after the text was a done deal.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com>
GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games
My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News]
Kromm is online now   Reply With Quote